Govindam Adi-purusham

I found the Govindam adi-purusham mantra when it felt like my life was falling apart. My anxiety was at an all-time high, leaving me burnt out and in a constant state of distress. At the same time, my partner was in constant pain from a dental emergency, and our own apartment had become partially uninhabitable, forcing us to spend our nights on a wrap-around couch. My inner and outer worlds were spiraling out of control, and I felt helpless, bordering on despair.

One night, while scrolling through my YouTube feed, I stumbled upon a livestream from the Bhakti Marga movement’s Shree Peetha Nilaya temple. They were performing their morning worship, singing a song in Sanskrit I had never heard before but found immediately enchanting. The melody was infectious, and one line in particular, "Govindam adi-purusham tam aham bhajami," stuck in my mind as it was repeated over and over.

A little research revealed this wasn't just a song, but a sacred prayer from Lord Brahma himself—the creator of the universe—to the Supreme Lord Krishna. It was an expression of pure adoration for Govinda, the Primeval Being.

I learned that "Govinda" is one of Krishna's most personal names, imbued with affection and gratitude from his time as a cowherd boy in Vrindavan. The name was given to him by Lord Indra after Krishna lifted Govardhan Hill to shield the villagers from Indra’s destructive wrath.

Feeling a deep connection, I decided to use the mantra in my japa practice. I recited the words "Govindam adi-purusham tam aham bhajami" repeatedly, reflecting on my place as a single soul in relation to Krishna—the primeval source whose very nature is eternal, conscious bliss (Sat-Chit-Ananda).

This mantra soothed my nerves and dissolved the noise in my mind, leaving a clear, bright sensation of Truth in my heart. It felt like the perfect embodiment of my relationship with Krishna, both defining and affirming it.

It felt like a home I had forgotten was mine.

Here is a lovely rendition of the mantra by George Harrison:

Govindam Adi-purusham Tam Aham Bhajami

Here is the English translation of the fifth chapter of the Brahma Samhita, which contains the prayers of Lord Brahma to Lord Govinda (Krishna). This is the portion of the text that is most widely known and celebrated.

Brahma Samhita: Chapter 5

Verse 1 Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin, and He is the prime cause of all causes.

Verse 2 [The spiritual place of Govinda is described.] That supreme abode of His is called Goloka, where the primeval Goddess of Fortune, who is the spiritual potency, divides Herself into hundreds of thousands of consorts and ever enjoys the ecstatic raptures of divine love with Him, the primeval Lord.

Verse 3 His transcendental form is a compact mass of truth, bliss and spiritual substance, being enthused with the glory of His own majestic transcendental dancing, which is pregnant with the grandly variegated movement of His limbs and body, and His smiling, graceful lotus face.

Verse 4 That Goloka is permeated by the spiritual potency. Its texture is all spiritual. The casual ocean of the material world is a most insignificant corner of that Goloka which is located in the supreme spiritual sky.

Verse 5 The presiding deities of the mundane worlds, appointed to their respective posts by Govinda, are shining in their glories being embellished with the effulgence of His person.

Verse 6 The threefold material world, viz., the heavenly worlds, the earthly world and the nether worlds, is manifest in him (Mahavishnu). This universe, which is the reflected image of the spiritual world, is the manifestation of the mundane quality of darkness.

Verse 7 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, who is the absolute, subtle, beginningless, supreme, eternal, unborn, endless Person.

Verse 8 He is the one indivisible, primeval Lord. He is one without a second. He is not different from His own expansions and is not different from His own potencies.

Verse 9 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, who is the original person, absolute, infallible, without beginning, although expanded into unlimited forms, still the same original, the oldest, and the person always appearing as a fresh youth.

Verse 10 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The various incarnations of Godhead, such as Rama, etc., are His plenary portions and portions of His plenary portions.

Verse 11 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, whose effulgence is the source of the nondifferentiated Brahman mentioned in the Upanishads, being differentiated from the infinity of glories of the mundane universe appears as the indivisible, infinite, limitless, truth.

Verse 12 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, who is the supreme cause of all causes. The material nature, which is the mundane quality of darkness, is His separated energy.

Verse 13 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, who is the creator, maintainer and destroyer of the three worlds.

Verse 14 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The whole material universe, with its fourteen worlds, is created by His will.

Verse 15 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The sun, who is the king of all the planets, full of infinite effulgence, the image of the good soul, is like the eye of this world.

Verse 16 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. All the planets, with their millions of suns, are established in their respective orbits by His supreme will.

Verse 17 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The fundamental principle of the material world, viz., the five great elements, is created by Him.

Verse 18 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The ten senses, viz., the five senses of perception and the five senses of action, are created by Him.

Verse 19 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The mind, the eleventh sense, is also created by Him.

Verse 20 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The subtle body, consisting of the mind, intelligence and false ego, is created by Him.

Verse 21 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The five gross elements, viz., earth, water, fire, air and ether, are created by Him.

Verse 22 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The five objects of the senses, viz., sound, touch, form, taste and smell, are created by Him.

Verse 23 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The five senses of perception, viz., the ear, the skin, the eye, the tongue and the nose, are created by Him.

Verse 24 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The five senses of action, viz., the voice, the hands, the feet, the anus and the genitals, are created by Him.

Verse 25 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The three qualities of material nature, viz., goodness, passion and ignorance, are created by Him.

Verse 26 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The whole material universe, consisting of the fourteen worlds, is created by His will.

Verse 27 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, who is the original cause of all causes. The material nature, which is the mundane quality of darkness, is His separated energy.

Verse 28 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, whose lotus feet are always held by Ganesha upon the pair of tumuli protruding from his elephant head in order to obtain power for his function of destroying all obstacles on the path of progress of the three worlds.

Verse 29 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the first progenitor, who is tending the cows, yielding all desire, in abodes built with spiritual gems, surrounded by millions of purpose trees, always served with great reverence and affection by hundreds of thousands of Laksmis or gopis.

Verse 30 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is adept in playing on His flute, with blooming eyes like lotus petals, with head bedecked with peacock's feather, with the figure of beauty tinged with the hue of blue clouds, and His unique loveliness charming millions of Cupids.

Verse 31 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, round whose neck is swinging a garland of flowers beautified with the moon-locket, whose two hands are adorned with the flute and jeweled ornaments, who always revels in pastimes of love, whose graceful threefold-bending form of Syamasundara is eternally manifest.

Verse 32 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose transcendental form is full of bliss, truth, substantiality and is thus full of the most dazzling splendor. Each of the limbs of that transcendental figure possesses in Himself, the full-fledged functions of all the organs, and eternally sees, maintains and manifests the infinite universes, both spiritual and mundane.

Verse 33 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is inaccessible to the Vedas, but obtainable by pure unalloyed devotion of the soul, who is without a second, who is not subject to decay, is without a beginning, whose form is endless, who is the beginning, and the eternal purusa; yet He is a person possessing the beauty of blooming youth.

Verse 34 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, only the tip of the toe of whose lotus feet is approached by the yogis who aspire after the transcendental and betake themselves to pranayama by drilling the respiration; or by the jnanis who try to find out the non-differentiated Brahman by the process of elimination of the mundane, extending over thousands of millions of years.

Verse 35 He is an undifferentiated entity as there is no distinction between potency and the possessor thereof. In His work of creation of the mundane world, which is the product of His own material energy, He is the creator, the created and the creation.

Verse 36 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is the absolute, subtle, beginningless, supreme, eternal, unborn, endless Person.

Verse 37 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who manifested Himself personally as Krishna and the different avataras in the world in the forms of Rama, Nrsimha, Vamana, etc., as His subjective portions.

Verse 38 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose effulgence is the source of the nondifferentiated Brahman mentioned in the Upanishads, being differentiated from the infinity of glories of the mundane universe appears as the indivisible, infinite, limitless, truth.

Verse 39 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is the absolute, subtle, beginningless, supreme, eternal, unborn, endless Person.

Verse 40 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is the original person, absolute, infallible, without beginning, although expanded into unlimited forms, still the same original, the oldest, and the person always appearing as a fresh youth.

Verse 41 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord. All the planets, with their millions of suns, are established in their respective orbits by His supreme will.

Verse 42 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is the supreme cause of all causes. The material nature, which is the mundane quality of darkness, is His separated energy.

Verse 43 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is the creator, maintainer and destroyer of the three worlds.

Verse 44 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord. The threefold material world, viz., the heavenly worlds, the earthly world and the nether worlds, is manifest in him (Mahavishnu).

Verse 45 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord. The whole material universe, with its fourteen worlds, is created by His will.

Verse 46 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord. The ten senses, viz., the five senses of perception and the five senses of action, are created by Him.

Verse 47 I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord. The mind, the eleventh sense, is also created by Him.

Verse 48 The Brahmas and other lords of the mundane worlds, appearing from the pores of the skin of Mahavishnu, remain alive for the duration of one exhalation of the latter. I adore the primeval Lord, Govinda, of whom Mahavishnu is a portion of a plenary portion.

Verse 49 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, whose lotus feet are always held by Ganesha upon the pair of tumuli protruding from his elephant head in order to obtain power for his function of destroying all obstacles on the path of progress of the three worlds.

Verse 50 The three worlds are composed of the nine elements, viz., fire, earth, ether, water, air, direction, time, soul and mind. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda from whom they originate, in whom they exist and into whom they enter at the time of the universal cataclysm.

Verse 51 The sun who is the king of all the planets, full of infinite effulgence, the image of the good soul, is like the eye of this world. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda in pursuance of whose order the sun performs his journey mounting the wheel of time.

Verse 52 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, the meditators of whom, by meditating upon Him under the sway of wrath, affection or lust, attain to dispositions of similar natures.

Verse 53 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, whose real form is divine, whose attributes are divine, whose pastimes are divine, who is the primeval Lord of the spiritual world, who is the Supreme Lord of all lords, who is the supreme knower, the supreme object of worship.

Verse 54 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The living entities, who are emanation from Him, are divided into two classes, viz., the eternally liberated and the eternally conditioned.

Verse 55 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The eternally conditioned souls, being enchained by the bondage of karma, ever wander in the path of the mundane world, receiving the fruits of their own actions.

Verse 56 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. The eternally liberated souls, being free from the bondage of karma, ever enjoy the eternal beatitude of the spiritual world, being absorbed in the divine service of the Lord.

Verse 57 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. All the truths of the Vedas are revealed to those who have firm faith in the lotus feet of the Lord.

Verse 58 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, the son of Nanda, who is the treasured jewel of the gopis, who is the ocean of divine love, who is the source of all the rasas.

Verse 59 I adore the primeval Lord Govinda. All the truths of the Vedas are revealed to those who have firm faith in the lotus feet of the Lord.

Verse 60 Brahma, being desirous of satisfying Govinda, the son of Nanda, the Lord of the gopis, sung this hymn of praise.

Verse 61 The Lord of the gopis, being pleased with the hymn of Brahma, appeared before him and said, "Brahma, what boon do you ask of Me?"

Verse 62 Brahma, being overjoyed, fell down at the lotus feet of the Lord and said, "My Lord, I have been favored by You. My desires have been fulfilled. I have nothing more to ask."