Vrindavan

"In my past there is Krishna. In my dreams I dream of recreating a huge college of flutists, a veritable Vrindaban in which students will arrive to learn and study with satchels full of flutes, live in mud huts, eat at a common langar. A modern Vrindaban from which a thousand flutes will ring out each day. For what else is there? When my breath is gone and I can not play anymore what do I leave behind? Some dedicated students! When you leave nothing behind, you cry at the point of death, but I still dream, I dare to dream that through my students my flute will be left behind as the memory of Krishna."

"The results of travelling to all the pilgrimages in the three worlds is achieved simply by touching the holy land of Vrindavana."

"If a person who has not seen Vrindavana has a keen desire to see Vrindavana, he will be reborn in Vrindavana no matter where he dies."

"O friend, Vrindavana is spreading the glories of the earth, having obtained the treasure of the lotus feet of Krishna, the son of Devaki. The peacocks dance madly when they hear Govinda's flute, and when other creatures see them from the hilltops, they all become stunned."

"The Hindu Bethlehem now lay utterly prostrate before the invaders. Early at dawn on 1st March the AfghAn cavalry burst into the unwalled and unsuspecting city of MathurA, and neither by their master's orders nor from the severe handling they received in yesterday's fight, were they in a mood to show mercy. For four hours there was an indiscriminate massacre and rape of the unresisting Hindu population - all of them non-combatants and many of them priests' 'Idols were broken and kicked about like polo-balls by the Islamic heroes.... Issuing from the ruins of MathurA, JahAn Khan roamed the country round, and plundering everywhere as directed. VrindAvan, seven miles north of MathurA could not escape, as its wealth was indicated by its many temples. Here another general massacre was practised upon the inoffensive monks of the most pacific order of Vishnu's worshippers (c. 6th March). As the same Muhammadan diarist records after a visit to VrindAvan: 'Wherever you gazed you beheld heaps of the slain; you could only pick your way with difficulty, owing to the quantity of bodies lying about and the amount of blood spilt. At one place that we reached we saw about two hundred dead children lying in a heap. Not one of the dead bodies had a head' The stench and effluvium in the air were such that it was painful to open your mouth or even to draw breath.'..."

"Prof. R Nath introduces the subject of the Gobind Dev temple by quoting Aurangzeb's decree of April, 1669. It said, ... eager to establish Islam, (Aurangzeb) issued orders to the governors of all the provinces to demolish the schools and temples of the infidels and with the utmost urgency put down the teaching and the public practice of the religion of these disbelievers. The great temple of Go bind Dev fell a victim to iconoclastic vandalism within a year of the decree . Its inner sanctum and its superstructure were almost entirely destroyed. The main hall was also damaged. Sculpted figures on the dvarasakha were literally defaced."

"The temple has yet another unique feature. According to an article in the Calcutta Review quoted by Growse: Aurangzeb had often remarked about a very bright light shining in the far distant south east horizon and in reply to his enquiries regarding it, was told that it was a light burning in a temple of great wealth and magnificence at Vrindavan. He accordingly resolved that it should be put out and soon after sent some troops to the place who plundered and threw down as much of the temple as they could and then erected on the top of the ruins a mosque wall where, in order to complete the desecration, the emperor is said to have offered up his prayers."

"Henry Hardy Cole has written: I am not sure that the restoration of the uppermost parapet is correct and think that it would have been better to leave the superstructure, as it appeared when I first saw it, with all the evidence of Aurangzeb 's destructive hand."