Basudeva Vipra

Who Was Basudeva Vipra #

Basudeva Vipra (also written Basudev Bipra, or in its Sanskrit form Vasudeva Vipra) was a brahmana of South India. His entire recorded life fits into one of the most retold episodes in the whole Chaitanya-charitamrita. In that episode, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had already gone far down the road on His tour of South India. Then He stopped, turned around, and walked back to embrace a man dying of leprosy. Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami gives the story fifteen closely packed verses in Madhya-lila, chapter seven. He closes it by noting that Mahaprabhu Himself came away from the meeting with a new name. Nothing is recorded about Basudeva Vipra before this day, and nothing after it. But the single scene that the Chaitanya-charitamrita does preserve is one of the tradition's clearest statements of what a devotee's faith is worth, whatever the condition of the body that carries it.

A Body Given Over to Disease, a Mind Never Given Over to Despair #

Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami introduces him plainly: a brahmana of real spiritual stature, suffering from a leprosy so advanced that his open sores were full of living worms. The verses do not dwell on the disease. They dwell on his response to it. If a worm fell from one of his wounds, Basudeva Vipra would pick it up himself and set it back in place, unwilling to let even a worm go hungry from his own body. The smell of his wounds kept ordinary people away, but he does not seem to have thought of this as a hardship worth mentioning. The text makes it clear that his attention was entirely on bhakti. There was none left over to spend on his own condition.

Turned Back at Kurmakshetra #

Mahaprabhu came to Kurmakshetra. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura identifies it as the pilgrimage town now called Srikurmam, near Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh. There Mahaprabhu stayed at the house of a brahmana named Kurma. He drew Kurma into sankirtana, as He did with nearly every host on this tour, and then moved on the next morning. Kurma followed Him a long way, but the Lord finally sent him back home. Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami says that he has told Kurma's story in detail so that readers can understand how Mahaprabhu dealt with people all through South India. But this visit was not over yet. Basudeva Vipra heard of the Lord's visit only after He had already left. Weak and disfigured as he was, he still made his way to Kurma's house, hoping for even a distant glimpse. When he arrived, he learned that he was too late. He fell to the ground in grief. The rest of the Chaitanya-charitamrita's account, and The Embrace at Kurmakshetra, are built around what happened in the next few minutes.

The Name Vasudevamrita-prada #

Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami closes the episode by recording that, from this incident alone, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu became known as Vasudevamrita-prada, the giver of nectar to Vasudeva. Srila Prabhupada's purport notes that the name is preserved in verses composed by Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. He was the Puri pandit whom Mahaprabhu had converted from Mayavada philosophy shortly before this tour began. The name was earned by curing one little-known, dying brahmana. Yet one of the greatest scholars of Jagannatha Puri sang it. This says something about how the Chaitanya-charitamrita ranks its devotees. It ranks them not by learning or birth, but by how intense their surrender is.

The principle behind the cure is that a Vaishnava's body is never actually material, however diseased it may be or however low his birth. Mahaprabhu stated this directly on a separate occasion, to Haridasa Thakura and Sanatana Gosvami at Jagannatha Puri. Basudeva Vipra's story comes from years earlier, on the road to Kurmakshetra. It shows that same teaching acted out, not spoken.

One Name, Several Devotees #

Readers researching Gaudiya Vaishnava history should be careful with this brahmana's name. "Vasudeva" was a common name among Mahaprabhu's associates. The tradition also remembers Vasudeva Ghosh, one of the three kirtaniya brothers of Mahaprabhu's Navadwip sankirtana party. It also remembers Vasudeva Datta Thakura, the devotee who begged to take on the sins of the entire universe himself. Basudeva Vipra shares only the name with them. No connection between him and either man is recorded anywhere. In fact, the Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika's own listing under "Vasudeva" (text 188) is about Vasudeva Ghosh, one of the three singing Ghosh brothers, not about this brahmana. No previous identity in Krishna-lila has been found for Basudeva Vipra himself. No guru, birthplace or date of disappearance survives for him either. This is unlike the Sanoriya Vipra, whose link to Madhavendra Puri is at least on record. What survives for Basudeva Vipra is exactly the fifteen verses of Madhya-lila chapter seven. It is a thin record, but an unusually vivid one.