When Rupa Goswami resigned his post as Dabir Khas and set out to find Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Anupama Mallika went with him. This was not simply two brothers traveling together for company: Sanatana Goswami later explained to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that Rupa and Anupama had gone toward Vrindavana specifically on the Lord's own instruction.
Their route took them first to Prayaga (Allahabad). There they were overjoyed to learn that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself was in the town, and they met Him there directly (CC Madhya 19.37). At this meeting, in a private room of a Deccan brahmana's house, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave Rupa Goswami a long teaching on rasa and devotional service. Gaudiya Vaishnavas remember it as among His most important instructions of all. Anupama Mallika was present beside his brother throughout (CC Madhya 19.45). Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu later summed up the Prayaga meeting for Sanatana directly, in a single line: "I met your two brothers, Rupa and Anupama, at Prayaga. They have now gone to Vrindavana" (CC Madhya 20.66).
From Prayaga the two brothers went on to Mathura. There they met a poor but deeply devoted brahmana named Subuddhi Raya, who supported himself by selling dry firewood. Subuddhi Raya was overjoyed to meet the two brothers. He knew the district as few others did, and he personally showed them the twelve forests of Vrindavana. These are the same forests that Rupa and Sanatana would spend the rest of their own lives uncovering and restoring as places of pilgrimage. Anupama and Rupa stayed in the area for about a month. Then they left to search for Sanatana. He had set out separately, by a different road, and had not yet arrived (CC Madhya 25.208). They took the road along the Ganges, while Sanatana came to Vrindavana by the public road, so the brothers missed each other on the way. When Sanatana later reached Mathura himself, Subuddhi Raya told him everything about Rupa and Anupama's travels (CC Madhya 25.211-212).
Rupa and Anupama did not stay long. They went on toward Bengal to settle their remaining affairs with the state. They intended, on the Lord's own order, to go on afterward and see Him again at Jagannatha Puri. Anupama never completed that second journey. Chaitanya-charitamrita tells what happened in one short, plain verse: "In this way the two brothers Rupa and Anupama reached Bengal, but when they arrived there Anupama died" (CC Antya 1.37). The Bengali original does not use the ordinary word for death. It says he "attained the shelter of Mother Ganges." Srila Prabhupada's purport explains that in that era this phrase was used for anyone's death, whether or not the person literally died on the riverbank. Tradition dates the loss to Sakabda 1436, or A.D. 1514, not long after the brothers had left Vrindavana.
Sanatana Goswami learned of his youngest brother's death only later still, at Jagannatha Puri, from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. The news, and Sanatana's own remembrance of Anupama's steady devotion that followed it, are told in full on Tested Between Two Devotions. Beyond that one conversation, the loss left the family with a fatherless child in Bengal: Anupama's young son, Srila Jiva Goswami. Jiva would grow up under his uncles' care and later travel to Vrindavana himself to join them. Chaitanya-charitamrita records the connection directly: "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 himself never saw Vrindavana again after that one short month with Subuddhi Raya, and never saw his son grow into the scholar he became.
