A Brother's Learning #
This episode belongs to the same later years at Jagannatha Puri as Bhagavan Acharya's own arrival to live permanently near the Lord, the period that Chaitanya-charitamrita's Antya-lila covers. Gopala Bhattacharya, Bhagavan Acharya's younger brother, had gone to Kashi (Varanasi) to study Vedanta. He returned to Puri newly trained in Shankara's Sariraka-bhashya. This is the influential Mayavada commentary on the Vedanta-sutra that understands the Absolute Truth as formless and the individual soul as ultimately identical with it. He came first to see his older brother, who was overjoyed to learn how learned Gopala had become. Mahaprabhu, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, knows the heart of everyone. Chaitanya-charitamrita notes that He recognized at once that Gopala Bhattacharya held Mayavadi views. He greeted him with no more than formal courtesy, even as Bhagavan Acharya beamed with brotherly pride at the meeting.
Svarupa Damodara's Rebuke #
Bhagavan Acharya was eager to share what he saw as his brother's accomplishment with the whole community of devotees. So he went to Svarupa Damodara Goswami and asked him to come and hear Gopala recite his Vedanta commentary. Svarupa Damodara was Mahaprabhu's closest secretary and constant companion. He was also the devotee generally entrusted with guarding what teachings and literature reached the Lord. His answer came from his affection for Bhagavan Acharya, not from anger at him, but it was blunt: "You have lost your intelligence in the association of Gopala, and therefore you are eager to hear the Mayavada philosophy" (Antya-lila 2.94). Svarupa Damodara went on to explain exactly why even a single sitting with such a commentary was dangerous. A Vaishnava who hears the Sariraka-bhashya risks losing the understanding that the living being is the Lord's eternal servant, and replacing it with the idea that he himself is the Supreme (Antya-lila 2.95).
Bhagavan Acharya pushed back gently. He argued that devotees whose hearts were already fixed on Krishna's lotus feet in full surrender had nothing to fear from merely listening to an opposing philosophy. Svarupa Damodara did not give way. He said that even hearing such teachings, without accepting them, was enough to injure the heart and soul of a sincere devotee. The teachings in question are that the living entity is ultimately illusory and that the Lord Himself is only a product of ignorance (Antya-lila 2.98-99). The danger he was warning against was the hearing itself, not only whether the listener consciously agreed with what he heard.
Sent Back to Bengal #
The force of the rebuke was enough to quiet Bhagavan Acharya completely. By the next day he had asked his brother to return to his own district in Bengal. The episode ended as simply as it began, without any drama (Antya-lila 2.100). Chaitanya-charitamrita does not suggest any lasting quarrel between the two brothers. Nor does it suggest that Bhagavan Acharya felt any bitterness toward Svarupa Damodara. It suggests only that his plain-hearted enthusiasm had, for a moment, carried him further than his own better judgment should have allowed.
The episode says as much about Svarupa Damodara Goswami's role at Puri as it does about Bhagavan Acharya himself. Svarupa Damodara guarded which teachings reached Mahaprabhu. The same instinct to protect the purity of what reached the Lord's ears would appear again a little later. At that time a poet from East Bengal brought a new play to Puri, hoping it would be read before Mahaprabhu. Once again Svarupa Damodara stood between an eager, well-meaning devotee and the Lord.
Mayavada philosophy comes up again and again in Chaitanya-charitamrita. It is the one teaching that Mahaprabhu treated with real severity, far more than any other opposing view of His time. His severity was toward the teaching, not toward the people who held it. He welcomed brahmanas, kings such as Maharaja Prataparudra, logicians and ordinary householders of every background into His movement. He even turned great Mayavadi scholars to devotion. At Puri He changed the heart of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, as told on The Conversion of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. At Varanasi He did the same with Prakashananda Sarasvati, as told on The Debate with Prakashananda Sarasvati at Varanasi. But He always drew a firm line at Shankara's impersonal reading of Vedanta. In Chaitanya-charitamrita He says: "Srila Vyasadeva presented the Vedanta philosophy for the deliverance of conditioned souls, but if one hears the commentary of Sankaracarya, everything is spoiled" (Madhya-lila 6.169). He knew this teaching could quietly undo years of real devotion, even in an advanced devotee. Bhagavan Acharya's short, well-meaning mistake with his own brother is a small, family example of this same concern. It shows that the danger Svarupa Damodara warned about was never only a theory. It could appear even inside the home of one of the Lord's dearest devotees.
