Nava Gopis - hmmmm

In Ujjal Nilmani we can read:

Nava Gopis
After a relatively short time spent in devotional practice the
Nava Gopis take birth in the wombs of human, demigoddes
or other mother, and after that birth they are able to take
birth as gopis in the land of Vraja.

any further reference on this in the sastras?

comments maybe?

I'm not sure the translation is altogether accurate, in that it says things that aren't explicit in the original. The entire passage on ayauthikI-gopIs reads as follows (3.49-51):

atha ayauthikyaH—
tad-bhAva-baddha-rAgA ye janAs te sAdhane ratAH |
tad-yogyam anurAgaughaM prApyotkaNThAnusArataH ||
tA ekazo'thavA dvi-trAH kAle kAle vraje'bhavan |
prAcInAz ca navAz ca syur ayauthikyas tato dvidhA ||
nitya-priyAbhiH sAlokyaM prAcInAz ciram AgatAH |
vraje jAtA navAs tv etA martyAmartyAdi-yonitaH ||

Then those without a group:
"Those people, who are engaged in raga-sadhana, enrapt in emotion, will attain their befitting destination with the flow of their anuraga as the outcome of their eagerness.
"They take birth in Vraja alone, or as two or three together. The two kinds of ayauthikas are the old (prachina) and the new (nava).
"The prachina, who have sought for it since ages, take birth in the proximity of the nitya-priyas, and the nava attain a birth in Vraja from both mortal and immortal wombs.*"

*) I believe this means that they may take birth from both the wombs of ordinary mothers as well as from the wombs of the nitya-parshadas.

Visvanath Chakravarti has a lengthy commentary on the above passage, but he doesn't comment on the division of nava and prachina unless I missed something going over it. Jiva Goswami doesn't comment, Vishnudas is very brief, only clarifying the meaning of a certain word.

QUOTE(Madhava @ Aug 11 2005, 03:35 PM)

I'm not sure the translation is altogether accurate, in that it says things that aren't explicit in the original.

Namaste Madhava

what edition do you have, please?

I have this copy
it looks like it is not original.

QUOTE(Madhava @ Aug 11 2005, 03:35 PM)

Visvanath Chakravarti has a lengthy commentary on the above passage, but he doesn't comment on the division of nava and prachina unless I missed something going over it. Jiva Goswami doesn't comment, Vishnudas is very brief, only clarifying the meaning of a certain word.

thank you for your time, Madhava

QUOTE(Nitya @ Aug 11 2005, 02:12 PM)

what edition do you have, please?

I have this copy
it looks like it is not original.

As far as I know, that is the only available English edition at the moment, and while certainly helpful, sadly often lacking in accuracy. I'm looking at the GGM Sanskrit edition with three tikas.

QUOTE(Madhava @ Aug 11 2005, 04:48 PM)

As far as I know, that is the only available English edition at the moment, and while certainly helpful, sadly often lacking in accuracy. I'm looking at the GGM Sanskrit edition with three tikas.

Thank you.

Sanskrit is way beyond my knowledge, so...