Our founder acharya, Srila Prabhupada, also a native Bengali, does not chant this Hare Krishno, Hare Ramo Bengali style in any of his kirtans. Nor will we find any examples of this type of chanting in the multitude of his recordings. Neither in any of those same recordings do we hear his early followers respond back with anything other than Hare Krishna and Hare Rama. And on that extremely rare occasion where a disciple dared to deviate, Prabhupada quickly put an end to it.
In this connection, there is a not so publicized pastime which took place between Srila Prabhupada and his leading kirtan man, Vishnujana Swami, which now should be told.
Vishnujana Swami was singing the Hare Krsna mantra where he had deliberately changed Hare Rama to Hare Ramo because he had heard it being sung that way in India. When Srila Prabhupada noticed this change, he immediately stopped him by asking “Who is this Ramo?”.
Vishnujana Swami looked up and said nothing as Srila Prabhupada rebuked his disciple with these exact words, “YOU ARE RUINING OUR MOVEMENT”. With that, Srila Prabhupada continued to correct Vishnujana Swami by saying, “It’s Rama” and then went on his way. (told by Vishnujana Swami to Mahamuni das)
I had heard this pastime told before, but I could not honestly write about it until I was certain I had traced it back as close to the original source as possible. After much research, I was lead to my old friend, Mahamuni das prabhu. When we finaly talked, it turned out Mahamuni prabhu personally heard this “Ramo” pastime directly from Vishnujana Swami himself. One day Vishnujana Swami was glorifying the Holy Name and revealing some of his realizations when he decided to shared this as well as other valuable instruction Srila Prabhupada personally gave him on chanting Hare Krishna.
For the record, Mahamuni prabhu was one of the bus drivers for Radha Damodara Traveling Sankirtana Party and had a close friendship with Vishnujana Swami. Those who knew Mahamuni prabhu will also know how he is very outspoken about changing Rama to Ramo especially when he hears it happening. Having been personally told this Ramo instruction by Vishnujana Swami, Mahamuni prabhu was one of the few devotees to speak out against it when it first was being introduced in ISKCON kirtans back in the 80’s. Thirty years later, we see it has reaching epidemic status primarily because most devotees just never heard what Srila Prabhupada had to say.
When we chant on our japa beads, we never chant Hare Krishno or Hare Ramo so why should we be chanting this way in kirtan, especially now since we know what Srila Prabhupada told his leading kirtan man, Vishnujana Swami?
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