Last week one of our scholarly youth asked me who composed Srila Prabhupada’s second pranama mantra (“namas te sarasvate deve…”). So I sent off a few emails to people who might know.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami replied: “I remember that we were given the second panama-mantra about a year after the first panama-mantra was written. I believe both mantras were composed by Srila Prabhupada himself.”
Jayadvaita Swami adds: “Yes, for sure it was composed by Srila Prabhupada himself.”
And Pradyumna Prabhu, Srila Prabhupada’s Sanskrit editor, just confirmed “He did.”
Srila Prabhupada composed the second mantra in collaboration with Pradyumna, there is correspondence about it. They formulated it together as a team project. One letter Prabhupada wrote to Pradyumna has Srila Prabhupada expressing his preference for the word “deve” instead of the word “devau.” He mentions the technical terms for the Sanskrit cases.
Pradyumna was just now being humble when he stated, “He did.” They worked on it together and the written record is proof.
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