Sri Anupama Mallika

Sri Anupama Mallika is remembered today mainly for two facts. He was the youngest of the three brothers who gave Gaudiya Vaishnavism its most important theologians, and he was the father of Srila Jiva Goswami. He left no books and founded no institution. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita itself gives almost everything that is reliably known about him. His birth name was Sri Vallabha. Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami records that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu met him at Ramakeli and gave him a completely new name, Anupama Mallika. Here "Mallika" is not a newly invented name, and it is not a woman's name attached to him by mistake. It was the family title that his elder brothers also carried for their service in the government of the Bengal Sultanate. It is the very title behind Sanatana Goswami's own court name, Sakara Mallika. Beyond this renaming, Chaitanya-charitamrita records something unusually specific about Anupama, for a man who wrote nothing. He had a real disagreement with his brothers over whose Lord he should worship, and the text keeps his own answer to it.

At a Glance

• Born Sri Vallabha, the youngest of the three sons of Kumaradeva who entered government service in Bengal. All three received the family title Mallika (Mullik).
• Renamed Anupama Mallika by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at their meeting in the village of Ramakeli.
• Worshiped Lord Ramachandra from childhood and never shifted his devotion to Radha-Govinda, even when his own brothers urged him to.
• Traveled with Rupa Goswami toward Vrindavana, meeting the devotee Subuddhi Raya at Mathura and touring its twelve forests with him.
• Died in Bengal soon after that journey, before his infant son Jiva Goswami could grow up knowing him.

Three Brothers, One Family Title #

Chaitanya-charitamrita traces Anupama's family back several generations to a Karnataka-brahmana line that later settled in Bengal. But the part that matters for his own life begins with his father, Kumaradeva. Kumaradeva lived in Bakla-Chandradvipa, near present-day Fateyabad in the Jessore district of Bangladesh. Of Kumaradeva's several sons, three took up Vaishnava life: Sanatana, the eldest; Rupa, the middle brother; and Vallabha, the youngest. All three entered the service of Nawab Hussain Shah's government at Gauda. Sanatana rose to a senior minister's post remembered as Sakara Mallika. Rupa became Dabir Khas, or chief secretary. By tradition, Vallabha was placed in charge of the royal mint. Because all three brothers served the Sultanate in this way, the whole family received the title Mullik. This is an Indo-Persian title roughly equal to "lord," given to families of wealth and standing, whatever their caste or religion. Srila Prabhupada explains this in his purport to this history. The title did not belong to any one brother only. It became fixed to Vallabha's own name because Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu later made the title part of the new name He gave him.

Renamed at Ramakeli #

According to Srila Prabhupada's own purport to this history, the renaming happened at Ramakeli. This was the village in the Maldah district where the family had by then settled, and where Jiva Goswami would later be born. When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu passed through on His way toward Vrindavana, He met Vallabha there directly. Chaitanya-charitamrita's main narrative gives the new name a little later, when Rupa and his brother set out to find the Lord again at Prayaga: "Rupa Gosvami's younger brother was a great devotee whose actual name was Sri Vallabha, but he was given the name Anupama Mallika" (CC Madhya 19.36). From that point the text calls him only by this new name. Chaitanya-charitamrita chose to use Anupama Mallika, not his birth name Sri Vallabha, and that is the name that has come down through Gaudiya Vaishnava memory. The text never directly explains why the name "Anupama" ("incomparable" or "without equal") was chosen. But the meaning fits a devotee whose firm determination Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself would later specially praise. This Ramakeli meeting is the one clearly recorded meeting that shaped his spiritual life. For this reason Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition counts Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself as his guru here, much as it does for Sanatana Goswami. But unlike in Sanatana's case, Chaitanya-charitamrita does not describe a separate, long teaching given to Anupama alone.

Loyal to One Lord #

Living among brothers absorbed in Krishna-bhakti did not change what Anupama Mallika himself worshiped. According to what Sanatana Goswami later told Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Anupama had been devoted to Lord Ramachandra "from the very beginning of his childhood... with great determination" (CC Antya 4.30). Rupa and Sanatana would soon become the most celebrated Krishna-bhaktas of the age. Yet even their repeated, heartfelt appeals could not move him. The full story of that test, including his own words on the matter, is told on Tested Between Two Devotions.

The Journey to Vrindavana and a Sudden End #

When Rupa Gosvami resigned his post and set out to find Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Anupama went with him instead of staying behind. Their travels took them first to a meeting with Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at Prayaga, then through Mathura and into Vrindavana itself under Subuddhi Raya's guidance. After that, the two brothers turned back toward Bengal to settle their affairs. They intended to meet the Lord a second time at Jagannatha Puri. Anupama never completed that second journey. He died in Bengal not long after returning, and word reached his brother Sanatana only later, from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. The complete account, including how Sanatana Goswami responded to the news, is told on The Journey to Vrindavana and a Sudden End.

A Father His Son Never Knew #

Anupama Mallika is not counted among the Six Goswamis whom his brothers and nephew helped establish in Vrindavana. He left behind no commentary, no compiled work, nothing that carried his own name into later Gaudiya Vaishnava literature. Instead, he left a son, Jiva Goswami. Jiva was still a child in Bengal when his father died. He would grow up under his uncles' care in Vrindavana. In the judgment of Srila Prabhupada and of generations of Gaudiya scholars since, Jiva became the most systematic philosopher among the Six Goswamis. Chaitanya-charitamrita states the connection very plainly: "The son of Sri Vallabha, or Anupama, Srila Rupa Gosvami's younger brother, was the great learned scholar named Srila Jiva Gosvami" (CC Antya 4.227). Anupama Mallika's own place in this history is small compared with that of his brothers or his son, and Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition has never claimed otherwise. Across five centuries it has carefully kept the name Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave him at Ramakeli and one verse recording his death. It has also kept his own brother's statement that, whatever else changed around him, his devotion to Lord Ramachandra never did.