When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took sannyasa at Katwa in January 1510 and went to Jagannatha Puri, He left behind Him a town that had been organised around His presence for two years. Nabadwip was, for those who had been part of it, unbearable afterwards. Vrindavana Dasa Thakura's account, summarised by Srila Prabhupada, is that Srivasa Thakura left Nabadwip after the Lord's sannyasa, in all likelihood because of the feelings of separation, and settled at Kumarahatta — the town on the Ganges now called Halisahar, which was also the birthplace of Isvara Puri, Mahaprabhu's own spiritual master. He took his brothers with him. He continued to visit Sachi Devi at Nabadwip and to stay with her for a few days at a time; when Mahaprabhu came up from Puri to see His mother and the Ganges, He stopped at Kumarahatta to see Srivasa.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Left Nabadwip | After the Lord's sannyasa at Katwa in January 1510 |
| Later home | Kumarahatta on the Ganges, the town now called Halisahar |
| Also the birthplace of | Isvara Puri, Mahaprabhu's own spiritual master |
| Yearly practice | Travelled to Jagannatha Puri and stayed the four months of the rains |
| Deities | A temple of Nitai-Gauranga at Chuchura, across the Ganges from Halisahar |
| Samadhi | More than one place is claimed for it |
The Yearly Journey to Jagannatha Puri #
The pattern of the remaining twenty-four years was set almost at once. Every year, in the season of the chariot festival, the Bengali devotees travelled in a body to Jagannatha Puri, spent the four months of the rainy season there, and went home. Krishnadasa Kaviraja names the party over and over — Acharyaratna, Vidyanidhi, Srivasa, Ramai, Vasudeva, Murari, Govinda and his brothers, Raghava Pandit with his bags of prepared food, the men of Kulina-grama with their silk ropes — and Srivasa's name is never missing from it. When Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya was being introduced to the Bengali devotees, the Lord pointed them out to him one by one; Srivasa Pandit is named in that list beside Vakresvara Pandit, Vidyanidhi Acharya and Gadadhara Pandit.
Purchased by the Four Brothers #
There is a small exchange from one of those arrivals that says as much about the relationship as anything longer would. Mahaprabhu addressed Srivasa and his brothers with great affection and told them He was under such obligation that He had been purchased by the four of them. Srivasa answered that He was speaking backwards: it was the four brothers who had been purchased by His mercy.
Leading a Kirtana Party at the Ratha-yatra #
At the Ratha-yatra itself Srivasa had a defined office. The Lord divided the singers into groups around the chariot, and Krishnadasa Kaviraja names the two chief performers of the sankirtana as Svarupa Damodara Goswami and Srivasa Thakura. Advaita Acharya was told to dance in the first party; the second was formed with Srivasa Thakura at its head, with Gangadasa, Haridasa, Sriman, Shubhananda and Srirama Pandit responding to his singing, and Nityananda Prabhu appointed as its dancer. That is not an honorary place. It means that for many of the pilgrims crowding the road from the Jagannatha temple to the Gundicha, the voice they were following was his.
Haricandana and Maharaja Prataparudra #
One incident from a chariot festival deserves telling in full, because it shows the position these Bengali householders had come to occupy. Maharaja Prataparudra, the king of Orissa, was watching Mahaprabhu dance, and Srivasa Thakura had come to a stop directly in front of him, entirely absorbed. One of the king's officers, Haricandana, touched him and asked him to move aside. Srivasa, who had not noticed being touched, was pushed again and again and finally became angry and slapped him. The officer turned to speak, and Prataparudra Maharaja stopped him — telling him that he was a fortunate man to have been touched by Srivasa Thakura, that the king himself was not so fortunate, and that he ought to feel obliged. A Bengali brahmana had struck a court officer in front of the ruler of the province, and the ruler took the brahmana's side. It is a fair index of what the movement had become in twenty years, and of who Srivasa was understood to be.
The Last Years at Kumarahatta #
Of the end of his life the sources are, by contrast, thin. This is worth saying rather than filling in. The Chaitanya-charitamrita devotes an entire chapter to the passing of Haridasa Thakura, with the day, the manner, the procession and the tomb by the sea; it gives Srivasa Thakura nothing of the kind. What the tradition has kept instead is the location. His later years were spent at Kumarahatta, where Mahaprabhu is said to have given him the blessing that his house would never know poverty, and that whatever he needed for his worship would come to his door if he never went out to look for it. Across the Ganges from Halisahar, at Chuchura, there is a temple of Nitai-Gauranga whose Deities local tradition identifies as the ones Srivasa Pandit himself worshipped; the temple was formerly named for him. His samadhi is shown among the sites associated with the Chaitanya movement, and readers will find more than one place claimed for it.
The Fifth Place as Bhakta #
What he stands for in the Panca-tattva is stated with some care in the Gaudiya analysis, and the care is the point. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Lord in the form of a devotee; Nityananda Prabhu is His expansion in that form; Advaita Acharya is an incarnation of the Lord who takes the devotee's part; Gadadhara Pandit is the Lord's internal potency. Srivasa Thakura is none of these. He is the bhakta — the pure devotee, standing for the innumerable unalloyed devotees who are said to be headed by him. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura's Anubhasya notes that all unalloyed devotees are in a broad sense potencies of the Lord, so the categories are not sealed off from one another; but the distinction the formula is making is real and deliberate. Four of the five are the Absolute in one aspect or another. The fifth is a man.
That is the reason his place in the mantra is not an afterthought. Gaudiya Vaishnavas chant the names of the Panca-tattva before the maha-mantra, and the fifth item is not simply Srivasa but Srivasa together with all the devotees — the phrase deliberately left open at the end so that anyone who chants it is included in it. The movement's own account of itself is that the Lord descends with His expansion, His incarnation and His potency, and then requires one more thing, which is somebody willing to have Him in the house.
What He Gave the Movement #
Srivasa Thakura provided that, and what it cost him is on the record. He gave the movement his courtyard for a year of nightly chanting; he gave it his standing in a town where a whispered charge of tantric worship could have ended him, and stood in front of his neighbours and let the charge be laughed out of existence; he gave it the night his son died, and did not stop the kirtana to grieve; and after 1510 he gave it a quarter of a century of long journeys made by an increasingly old man to spend four months a year near somebody he could not live with and would not live without. He founded no school and wrote no book. His nephew's son wrote the first biography; his house is a place of pilgrimage; and his name is chanted, every day, by people who have never heard any of this.
