Sri Krishna Jaya (Romanized Sanskrit)

This book, "Sri Krishna Jaya" is a rare and special book. It contains Kannada language Bhajans composed by Jayalakshmi Mata half a century ago. Pujya Swamiji remembered the Bhajans his divine mother, Jayalakshmi Mata, sang for Him when He was a child. It is our good fortune that Sri Swamiji recollected them and wrote them for the devotees.

The Bhajans in this book allows us to gain an insight in to the literary prowess and the simple language Jayalakshmi Mata used in her compositions.

The Bhajans are on Lord Krishna and Jayalakshmi Mata must have seen Pujya Swamiji as the toddler Krishna and sang for him.

SRI KRISHNA JAYA is an extraordinarily remarkable work; it is a garland of devotional songs. A little over half-a-century ago the revered Swamiji's saintly mother Sri Mata Jayalakshmi wove this garland with the fresh and fragrant flowers which blossomed ·in the depth of her heart. It is His Holiness Sri Ganapati . Sachchidananda Swamiji who has enabled us to savor the fragrance of those flowers.

. During his boyhood days Sri Swamiji's mother lovingly brought him up and fed him on the tasty diet of Shruti, Smruti and Puranas and introduced him to Srividya and Raja Yoga. The household itself was a home for the daily recital of great work like Sri mad Bhagavata. And to add to these, Jayalakshmi Mata herself composed beautiful and simple devotional songs and sang these to the child while fondly playing with it. The saintly mother obviously saw in her beloved child an image of the young Krishna, the god who incarnated himself to save and bless all human beings. She sang His divine playful pranks.

Sri Swamiji has recalled to his mind these devotional songs he had heard some five decades ago and he has made these now available to us all. And that is our good fortune. Normally men forget the past. But this does not apply to yogic men like Sri Swamiji to whom our sense of time, our way of thinking of time in blocks of decades, makes no sense; they live in eternity.

Sri Swamiji has collected the flowers which blossomed a long time ago and out of these has made a garland and offered it to the world. His noble aim is to see that it spreads all through the world the fragrance of devotion.

Although these devotional songs appear to be simple, they are full of wonderful ideas and ennobling feelings. From a literary point of view, they have an extremely complete and rare kind of structure. If the first letter of the first line and the first letters of the following lines are read together, they form the initial line of the song. This is known as "Adi Tora Bandha". And there are compositions where if the first letters of the first line and the last letter of each line are read together they constitute a meaningful line by themselves. Similarly we have "Vajra Bandha" compositions where the words arranged in the form of a diamond present a whole poem. Sri Mata Jayalakshmi has been influenced by the great Dasa poets, composers like Sri Tyagaraja and others and by Vidwan Venkatamakhi, the proponent of Melakartha system. And, to all devotional songs, Sri Swamiji Himself has supplied the notation, tune & rhythm and this helps musicians and music lovers to sing the songs.

Sri mad Bhagavata was a text dear to Mata Jayalakshmi. Recently a manuscript containing the Bhagavata shlokas and their narrative content in Kannada has been discovered. In these compositions are evident the Mataji's skill in writing and deep understanding of the text. Prof. T.R. Krishnappa and Smt.

His holiness Jagadguru Sri Ganapati Sachchidananda Swamiji, the pontiff of Avadhoota Datta Peetha, who shines bright in the firmament of Adhyatma and His Mother Mata Jayalakshmi who was Sri Swamiji's Yogavidya Guru and to us our great teacher (Parama Guru).

Mata Jayalakshmi was born into a poor family, led the life a middle-class young woman but she lived throughout her life, one almost incognito, a yogic life. Which is what made her a great lady. By the time Sri Linganna and Savitramma, her parents, chose to live in Mekedaatu which is at the confluence of three rivers, she was about fifteen years old. The place was part of Kanakapura district. Although an adhyatmic life, a life given to meditation, had taken hold of the young girl, it had not come to the notice of her parents. To see it in actuality, they needed more time. During those days, on the banks of the Kaveri, Arkavati and the invisible other river, there used to be a saint moving about in the form of an effulgent light. The villagers living around these rivers were in a way scared of this unusual person. But for the young girl ayalakshmi, this was an excitingly divine experience. And this attitude of her surprised the village folk. And the events connected with this experience make a long story.

The main, pivotal characters of this long story are two yogic men who were moving in their individually different ways and these were Karapatra Yati and Fakir baba. What a strange coincidence!

The people around the place of course knew that yogis from different parts of India used to come here for the darshan of the self-effulgent saint. They also knew that the young Jayalakshmi used to 'talk with these yogis without any fear. But after the arrival of these two yogis not only was she meeting them almost every day, but also she began to perform acts which looked miraculous. These in turn puzzled the men of the place. One of her teachers was an old muslim and the other a Yati who hold the sacred danda (staff) in his hand. What an amazing combination.

This does not mean that her mother, Savitramma, had no inkling of the yogic attainments of her daughter. But nothing was quite clear to her and this made her anxious and anxiety led to inquiry! She came to know that both Karapatra Yatindra and Fakir Baba together were initiating her into Shaktipatha Deeksha (energy transmission) and were directing her on how she was to live in her future life. , Savitramma saw this all right but could not clearly understand anything.

Then the daughter herself explained! She said that she had had the darshan of Lord Dattatreya and that the man who was to be her husband would be in their home before day break and that Adiguru Dattatreya would be born as her son!