An Innocent Request #
Bhagavan Acharya wanted to prepare something especially fine for Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's meal. So he turned to a young devotee named Chota Haridasa (Junior Haridasa), who sang regularly in Mahaprabhu's kirtana assembly and was well known and liked among the devotees at Puri. He asked Chota Haridasa to go to Madhavidevi, the elder sister of Shikhi Mahiti, and beg a measure of good white rice from her in Bhagavan Acharya's own name (Antya-lila 2.101-103). At first sight it was an entirely ordinary request between devotees who saw each other daily.
Madhavidevi, however, was no ordinary figure in this community. She was an elderly woman devoted to strict austerity. Chaitanya-charitamrita counts her among the only "three and a half" people in the entire world whom Mahaprabhu considered qualified to discuss Krishna's most confidential conjugal pastimes with Him. The other three were Svarupa Damodara Goswami, Ramananda Raya and her own brother Shikhi Mahiti (Antya-lila 2.105-106). Madhavidevi herself was counted as the "half," because she was a woman sharing a mood of service otherwise reserved for the three men named with her. However innocent the intention was, sending an unmarried, renounced young man to her door to beg alms placed him in exactly the kind of situation Mahaprabhu watched most carefully among His renunciate followers.
Fine Rice and a Harsh Order #
Chota Haridasa carried out the errand without trouble and brought the rice back to Bhagavan Acharya. Bhagavan Acharya cooked it with clear pleasure into a meal for the Lord, along with a variety of vegetable preparations Mahaprabhu was known to like (Antya-lila 2.107-108). When Mahaprabhu sat to eat, He noticed the unusual fineness of the rice at once and asked where it had come from. When He was told that Chota Haridasa had begged it from Madhavidevi, His mood changed instantly (Antya-lila 2.109-111). Without further explanation to Bhagavan Acharya, He gave a lasting order on the spot: Chota Haridasa was never to be allowed to come near Him again (Antya-lila 2.113).
The Cost of an Errand #
Chota Haridasa fasted for three continuous days in grief at being cut off from the Lord's presence. At last Svarupa Damodara Goswami and the Lord's other confidential devotees approached Mahaprabhu to ask what offense had actually been committed. His answer left no room for argument or appeal. He said He could no longer bear even to look upon a sannyasi who exchanges words with a woman, however innocently the conversation began (Antya-lila 2.117). Every later account of this episode treats it as one of the strictest judgments Mahaprabhu is recorded to have passed on any renunciate in His company.
This is really far more Chota Haridasa's story than Bhagavan Acharya's own. This Chota Haridasa, "Junior Haridasa," should not be confused with Srila Haridasa Thakura, the namacharya. Haridasa Thakura was an entirely different and far more senior devotee who shares only a name with him. Bhagavan Acharya set the whole chain of events in motion with no ill intention at all, wanting only to feed the Lord well. Chaitanya-charitamrita records nothing further of what he personally felt at having unknowingly caused so severe a judgment against a fellow devotee. That silence should be noted, not filled in with guesswork. The text is concerned with the lesson for renunciates about association with women, not with Bhagavan Acharya's own reaction to the result of his simple household errand.
Chota Haridasa's fate did not end with exile from the Lord's presence. Later sources record that roughly a year after this incident, still unable to bear separation from Mahaprabhu, he traveled to the place where the Ganges and Yamuna meet and ended his own life there. Chaitanya-charitamrita's own commentators do not read this sad ending as cruelty on the Lord's part. They read it as a lesson set at the strictest possible standard for anyone who has taken the vows of renunciation. Bhagavan Acharya's rice was cooked with nothing but affection for his Lord. Yet it set in motion consequences far beyond anything a simple household errand should reasonably carry. This is exactly why, of everything told of him, this is the episode Gaudiya Vaishnava writers return to most often. They return to it when they want to show just how seriously Mahaprabhu enforced the discipline of sannyasa among those closest to Him.
