Gaura-chandrika

प्रभा लीला - prathā līlā 

गौर जंद्रिका - Gaura-chandrika

Before beginning Radha Govinda's morning pastimes, let us first enter Sriman Mahaprabhu's Nabadwip pratah lila:

pasyantīṁ sva-sutaṁ śaci bhagavatī saṅkīrtane vikṣataṁ
prātar hā katham eva te vapur idam sūno babhūva kṣatam
itthaṁ lālanataḥ sva-putra-vapuṣi vyagrā spṛśantī muhus
talpāj jāga rayāṇ cakāra yam ahaṁ tam gauracandraṁ bhaje

bhaktaiḥ sāradham upāgatair bhuvi nataiḥ śrīvāsa-guptādibhiḥ
pṛcchadbhiḥ kuśalaṁ prage parimilan prakṣalya vaktraṁ jalaiḥ
puṣpādi-prativāsitaiḥ sukatha yan svapnānubhūtaṁ kathāṁ
snātvādyād dhariśeṣam odana-varaṁ yas tam hi garuṁ bhaje

Upon her son's awakening, Mother Sachi notices the bruises on his body that were incurred from his rolling on the ground in ecstatic prema sankirtan. Thus she exclaims, "What's this? O Nimai! What has happened to you?" In anxiousness, she affectionately caresses the Lord's body again and again. Then Srivasa, Murari Gupta and many other bhaktas arrive and offer dandavats to Sri Gaursundar. And when exchanging greetings, the Lord describes his astonishing dreams. 

Then he washes his mouth with rose-water and walks to the Ganga for a morning bath. Upon returning, he enjoys prasad with the devotees. Let us thus worship Sri Gaurachandra's Nabadwip morning lilas. (Śri Bhavana-sara-sangraha 2.1-2 by siddha kṛṣṇa dāsa bābāji)

Rasa-tarangini Tika:
Sriman Gaurasundar's madhurya-maya nara lilas (human-like pastimes) almost appear like commonplace events to the general observer, yet hidden within them is an undercurrent of maha-bhava prema. Sriman Mahaprabhu is a pracchanna (concealed) avatara, so his exalted lilas are also pracchanna. For example, Mother Sachi concludes that her son's bruisemarks have been incurred by falling on the ground during ecstatic sankirtan-but is that the real reason?

Because these pastimes are born from Sri Krishna's most intimate, yet unfulfilled desires with Srimati Radharani, a spectacular purport is to be discovered therein. Indeed, the desire to expand the taste, these mellows prompted rasika shekhara Sri Krishna to transfer his entire Vraja staff to the sarasa bhumi (tropical land) of Sri Gaura Mandala, where Radha became Gadhadar, and Her Sakhis and Manjaris got male bodies too. It is here that Sri Krishna's Vraja lilas split into hundreds of tributaries, expanding in every one of the ten directions.

As Sri Krishna's desire to taste Vraja prema begins in Vrindavan and culminates in Nabadwip, Govinda-lilamrita serves as an ideal introduction for understanding Sri Gaurahari's madhura pastimes. More on this topic will be found in the midday pastimes and towards the end of this volume. As for Nabadwip's pratah lila scene, it beings with Jagannath Mishra pura, where Mother Sachi and Advaita Acharya's shakti Sita Thakurani, who is Paurnamasi in Gaura lila, enter Gaurasundar's bedroom chamber to awaken him.

The Gutika describes that Jagannath Mishra's house is a marvelous gold and jeweled palace having thirty rooms, Gauranga's bedroom is centrally located near a garden and the yogapith mandir. As the verse next mentions, Gaurasundar relates his astonishing dreams, which means his rasodgāra (remembering the ecstasy of a previous lila) in Radha bhava of her midnight milan with Shyamasundar. The Gaudiya Mahajanas have also written about other, even more intimate versions of rasodgāra.

 At this time, Sri Svarup Damodar sings kirtan padas appropriate to the Lord's mood. Then when Sachi-nandan gets up to go to the Ganga, he proceeds with the devotees through the eastern singha dvara and walks down a jeweled path that is lined on both sides with bakula desire trees. Underneath the trees are jeweled vedis for sitting upon.T he ghat is also made of various types of gems, and when Gaurasundar arrives there, he offers pranams to Ganga Devi and sits down under a jeweled pavilion.

His servants rub oil into his hair and onto his body and put on his bathing cloth (snāna-vastra). Then Gaura enters the Ganga to begin jala keli with his bhaktas. Although it is described that Gaurasundar fixes his attention on sporting with Gadadhar, he surely frolicks with his other madhura ashrita bhaktas like Shivananda, Vasu Ghosh and Narahari by splashinug them too!

Srila Vishwanath Chakravarti mentions that the jala keli is followed by Ganga puja.
When Gaurasundar returns home, he is nicely dressed and decorated and then he sits down to enjoy morning prasad with his devotees. After he eats and takes a brief nap, the pratah period concludes with Gaurasundar's spectacular yogapith pastimes within a jeweled mandir. This synopsis has been taken from Sri Dhyanachandra's Arcana-paddhati and the Gutika.