The Birth of Kirtan―The Life & Teachings of Chaitanya

The Birth of Kirtan: The Life and Teachings of Chaitanya is the biography of a mystic saint who pioneered devotional yoga (Bhakti) in sixteenth-century India and started the practice of sacred chanting (kirtan) that has now spread around the world.

While Chaitanya’s practice has become a global movement over the last five hundred years, little is generally known about this spiritual reformer, as the two principal texts recounting his life were written in Bengali in the sixteenth century. In The Birth of Kirtan, Bhakti scholar and teacher Ranchor Prime adapts these two narratives into a moving and emotionally charged English-language biography for a modern audience. His poetic retelling is complemented by full-color reproductions of never-before-published nineteenth-century paintings of Chaitanya’s life.

Ranchor Prime is the author of several books on the culture and spirituality of India. Among his many accomplishments is a series of projects to protect sacred forests in India. He lives in London.

Shiva Rea, M.A., is a leading teacher of prana vinyasa flow? yoga and yoga trance dance? worldwide. She began exploring yoga at the age of fourteen as a way to understand her name, given to her by her father, a surfer and artist. Her studies in the Krishnamacharya lineage, tantra, ayurveda, bhakti, kalaripayattu, world dance, yogic art and somatic movement infuse her approach to living yoga and embodying the flow. She is known for bringing the roots of yoga alive for modern practitioners in creative, dynamic and life-transforming ways and for offering the synthesis form of vinyasa flow out in the world. Rea resides in Venice, California.

Radhanath Swami is a Vaishnava sanyassin (a monk in a Krishna-bhakti lineage) and teacher of the devotional path of bhakti-yoga. He is author of The Journey Home, a memoir of his search for spiritual truth. Today Radhanath Swami travels regularly throughout India, Europe, and North America, sharing the teachings of Bhakti-yoga. He resides much of the year at the Radha Gopinath Ashram in Chowpatty, Mumbai.

For years, Jai Uttal has occupied a special place in the vanguard of the world music movement, delighting an international audience by embracing an extraordinary variety of cultures and musical traditions ranging from Appalachia, to the rock of the ’60s, to the Kirtan chants of ancient India. With MONDO RAMA, he continues to break new ground, pushing the boundaries of contemporary world fusion, yet offering his most accessible music to date, producing an infectious blend that aims Uttal right at a pop mainstream audience. Jai Uttal resides in San Anselmo, California.