Srila Narottama Dasa Thakura

Srila Narottama Dasa Thakura was one of three preachers — together with Srinivasa Acharya and Shyamananda Prabhu — who carried the teachings of the Six Goswamis of Vrindavana back into Bengal a generation after the disappearance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Born into a princely landholding family of Gopalpur-Kheturi in what is now Rajshahi district, Bangladesh, he gave up a kingdom to seek Vrindavana, became the cherished disciple of Lokanatha Gosvami, and is remembered above all for organizing the Kheturi festival and for writing the devotional songs of Prarthana and Prema-bhakti-candrika that Gaudiya Vaishnavas still sing today.

A Prince Drawn to Vrindavana #

Narottama was the son of a raja who governed the Gopalpur pargana from his seat at Kheturi on the Padma River. Traditional accounts describe him as showing the bodily marks of a mahapurusha from birth — long arms, a deep navel, a golden luster to his skin — and say the family's astrologers predicted he would become either a great king or a wandering renunciant. He mastered Sanskrit grammar and scripture as a boy, but lost his taste for it on hearing wandering devotees describe the mercy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu. Sources differ on exactly what tipped him from longing into action: several retellings describe a dream in which Nityananda Prabhu directed him to bathe in the Padma and there receive prema; others simply describe a longing that built for years as pilgrims passed through his father's territory. Both agree that his family, alarmed at his growing indifference to the throne, set a guard to keep him from leaving.

Discipleship and the Return to Bengal #

His chance came when his father and uncle traveled away to meet the ruler of Bengal. Narottama slipped out of Kheturi on the full-moon night of Kartika and made his way toward Vrindavana as an ordinary pilgrim. There Jiva Goswami received him with warmth but, since he was not in the habit of formally initiating disciples, directed Narottama to seek shelter of Lokanatha Gosvami instead. Lokanatha at first refused outright — by most accounts he did not wish to accept a disciple at all — and it was only after Narottama spent roughly a year secretly cleaning the forest place where his would-be guru passed stool each night that Lokanatha, moved by this hidden service, agreed to initiate him. Narottama remained in Vrindavana afterward, sustaining himself by madhukari begging and studying rasa-shastra under Jiva Goswami alongside his close companions Srinivasa Acharya and, later, Shyamananda Prabhu. When Jiva Goswami eventually instructed the three to carry the Goswamis' writings to Bengal and preach there, they left Vrindavana together — a mission that brought Narottama face to face with brahmana opposition to a non-brahmana leading vaishnava worship, an obstacle he answered less with argument than with the quiet weight of his own conduct and disciples.

The Kheturi Festival #

Narottama eventually returned to his childhood home at Kheturi, where his cousin Santosh Datta had inherited the family's wealth and position. Santosh built a substantial temple complex there, and its dedication — timed to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's appearance day — grew into the Kheturi Mahotsava, one of the most important single gatherings in early Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Six Deities were installed, Srinivasa Acharya performed the installation rites, and Jahnava Devi, the consort of Nityananda Prabhu, presided over the proceedings. Vaishnavas converged on Kheturi from across Bengal and Odisha, and it was here, under one roof and one kirtana, that the scattered followers of the Six Goswamis — until then divided by distance and by differing devotional emphases — were drawn together as a single Gaudiya Vaishnava community.

Poet of Prarthana #

Narottama's lasting influence on Gaudiya Vaishnava practice owes as much to his pen as to his preaching. His Prarthana, a collection of humble prayer-songs, and his Prema-bhakti-candrika, a meditation on the path of raga-bhakti taught by Rupa and Sanatana Goswami, remain part of the daily singing repertoire of Gaudiya Vaishnava and ISKCON temples. Srila Prabhupada quoted Narottama's verses often in his own Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam classes, and in one 1975 lecture recalled that Srinivasa Acharya himself had praised these simple Bengali songs as carrying the authority of shruti.

Disappearance and Legacy #

Accounts of Narottama's final days differ. One tradition, drawn from the Bhakti-ratnakara, describes him overcome with grief after the deaths of his disciple Ramachandra Kaviraja and of Srinivasa Acharya, entering the river near Kheturi during sankirtana and disappearing from view. Another, reflected in some modern retellings, ties his final period instead to the caste controversy over his brahmana disciples, adding an episode in which he is said to have returned briefly from apparent death at his disciples' request before finally departing. Neither the year of his birth nor of his disappearance is established with any confidence; what is certain is the scale of what he left behind — a samadhi in the courtyard of Vrindavana's Radha-Gokulananda temple beside that of his own guru, disciples who carried his teaching forward, and songs that Gaudiya Vaishnavas, ISKCON devotees among them, continue to sing every day.

Songs in the Vaishnava Song Book #

This site's own Vaishnava Song Book carries 67 songs attributed to Srila Narottama Dasa Thakura — see the full author page here.