॥ वन्देऽहं रासकेलीरतमतिसुभगं वश्यगोपालकृष्णम् ॥
Hare Krishna!
I heard Sri. Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar in the sixties sing a beautiful shloka, "सायङ्काले वनान्ते..." describing the divine beauty and sport of Bhagavān Śrīkṛṣṇa. I was told this was from Śrīkṛṣṇakarṇāmṛtam of Līlāśuka.
After sixty years, on realising the wonder and beauty of this text, I started listening to recitations from this text on Youtube. There are regular uploads by Sri.Kannan- Meera, and there is this wondrous chant from a site called Rasik Padavali. The time has to come for everything. Yesterday, in a frenzy, I downloaded PDFs of this work and went and bought the three volumes of an excellent work, shown in the photo above, by Sri. K. V. Varadaraja Iyengar in Kannada.
By His grace, I hope to cover one shloka of this work every day like I have done before of Varadarajastava, Mukundamala and LakshmiNirsimha Karavalambam.
Śrīkṛṣṇakarṇāmṛtam of Līlāśuka
From what I have read, Līlāśuka is the pen name of a great Sanskrit scholar Sri. Bilvamangala, who was perhaps from Thrissur, Kerala, who lived in the 11th century CE, perhaps. He was a prolific scholar but his greatest work is Śrīkṛṣṇakarṇāmṛtam. This is recited in many homes in south India.
Sri. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came across this work during his travels when he heard this recited by Vaishnava devotee-scholars, on the bank of the river Krishna, perhaps in Andhra Pradesh. He was entranced and secured a copy of this manuscript and taught it to his disciples. There is a very exhaustive commentary on this among ISKCON scholars. There is an authentic Sanskrit commentary published by the famous Vani Vilas Press, Srirangam, in the 20th century:
I shall write one shloka daily and give my analysis, starting tomorrow. There are more than 300 verses.
॥ हरिः ॐ तत् सत् ॥
