CC Madhya 19.118-154

https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/19/advanced-view/

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I had long conversations with Rādhikā Ramaṇa Prabhu when we stayed with him the year Sādhu Saṅga was in Utah. Rādhikā was saying it's the glory of a person, and it makes them more glorified when those after them first of all choose to write about the materials following that luminary. He gave the example of Shakespeare. How many thesis papers have there been in the humanities department about any of Shakespeare's works or his life in general? Millions. And did that eclipse Shakespeare's writings? No. On the contrary, it's a light shining on them saying, "Wow, so many people were writing about him and, you know, taking points from his writings that he must be like the super guy," and he is in literary history.

So his point was, after every ācārya, there are always thousands of commentaries. We only see a few of them, but there are thousands of writings about any luminary, any of the mahātmās who have written, and so forth, and it glorifies them, because, of course, that person made a stir, they hit a nerve. They actually had something potent to say, and therefore there's a lot more to say about it and a lot more to churn within what they said.

Therefore his opinion was and is, that it's the glory of Prabhupāda that more people write about what he said and what he brought to bear—the whole canon of Vedic literatures—and how we can bring it into the modern light so that people can take advantage of it. That shows Prabhupāda's potency.

And case in point was the Bṛhad Bhāgavatāmṛta, because Joseph T. O'Connell, who at the time was the preeminent expert on Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism in the academic world, if you read his foreword to the book, he says that very thing: that nobody in the world up to this point, after hundreds of years, has been able to do what Gopīparāṇadhana Prabhu has done, which is to effectively translate what Sanātana Gosvāmī wrote as prose, as commentary, he wrote in Sanskrit, and nobody had been able to take it and put it into a natural flow of language that people could read and understand.

And He said it's perfectly done. He said, "This points to the greatness of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda, that he could attract and then train disciples who could do that." What to speak of how the devotees headed by Hṛdayānanda Mahārāja were able to finish the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Cantos of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, which sometimes people say, "Oh, you don't read those. They're not Prabhupāda's books." But my opinion is, they're as much Prabhupāda's books as before that, because who trained them to talk like that and have a perfect grasp of the siddhānta and to be able to present it in the same mood that comes through the disciplic succession? It shines a light on the greatness of Prabhupāda that somebody was able to be there and continue that, as Prabhupāda asked them to do.

(excerpt from the discussion)

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