Srila Bhugarbha Goswami

Srila Bhugarbha Goswami is remembered not so much for himself as for being one half of an inseparable pair. Alongside his lifelong companion Lokanatha Gosvami, he was among the very first Gaudiya Vaishnavas to settle in Vrindavana. They arrived years before Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami came to live there. Bhugarbha Goswami was a disciple of Gadadhara Pandit. He is named directly, though briefly, in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita itself. He is one of the few Vrindavana Goswamis whom Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami mentions by name in his own account of events he personally witnessed.

A Disciple of Gadadhara Pandit #

Every source agrees that Bhugarbha Goswami took initiation from Gadadhara Pandit, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own intimate associate and, in the sampradaya's understanding, the shelter of Srimati Radharani's mood. That single fact places Bhugarbha only one step away from Mahaprabhu's own household of associates. Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami also counts him among Gadadhara Pandit's own line of disciples in the genealogical chapters of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita (see below). His very name is said to describe his practice, not his birth. Bhu means earth, and garbha means womb or hidden cave. Tradition holds that he looked for underground or enclosed places for his bhajana, so that nothing outside could distract him from remembering Krishna. A later verse of praise in the Shakha-nirnayamrita, a genealogical text of the sampradaya, calls him a devotee "born from the earth's own womb," compassionate, simple, always joyful. The verse says he delighted specifically in service connected to Sri Govindadeva. This detail matches what little else is known of his disciples' own lives (see below).

Bound to Lokanatha Gosvami #

The sources disagree about exactly how Bhugarbha Goswami was related to Lokanatha Gosvami. This is one of the few real points of disagreement about his life. The Sadhana-dipika calls him Lokanatha's paternal uncle. Other accounts, including the oldest surviving biographical note on him, simply call the two "dear friends" without claiming any blood tie. But no source disputes how close they were. The Bhakti-ratnakara of Narahari Chakravarti Thakura says plainly that "Lokanatha's affection for Bhugarbha was well known everywhere. They only had different bodies; in spirit they were one." Lokanatha Gosvami received Mahaprabhu's own instruction, at Nabadwipa, to go and settle in Vrindavana. Bhugarbha then chose to walk that same road at his side, instead of letting him go alone (see Walking to Vraja with Lokanatha Gosvami for the journey itself). The two of them reached Vraja and began their bhajana there years before Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami arrived to join them. For this reason, later tradition remembers Bhugarbha and Lokanatha as senior in age and experience to several Goswamis who later became far better known than either of them.

Named in the Chaitanya-charitamrita #

In the tenth and twelfth chapters of Adi-lila, Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami gives an account of the lines of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's associates. He traces the further disciples of each main devotee as a "branch" of the Lord's tree of devotees. There Bhugarbha appears directly: "The eleventh branch of Gadadhara Gosvami was Bhugarbha Gosani, and the twelfth was Bhagavata dasa. Both of them went to Vrindavana and resided there for life" (Adi-lila 12.82). He appears again later in the text (Madhya-lila 18.50). He is among the party that went with an aging Rupa Goswami to see the Gopala Deity. The Deity came to stay for a month at Mathura, so that Rupa Goswami would not have to walk the distance to Govardhan. This was a particular event in Vraja's devotional life that can be dated, and it is told in full at Named at Gopala's Darshan in Mathura. Jiva Goswami is named in the very same verse. Bhugarbha Goswami is not counted among the formal group later called the Six Goswamis. But Narottama Dasa Thakura, in one of his best-known prayers of self-reproach, lists him together with Sanatana Goswami, Raghunatha Bhatta Goswami, Raghunatha Dasa Goswami, Gopala Bhatta Goswami, Jiva Goswami and Lokanatha Gosvami. He names them as great souls of Vraja whose feet he regrets never having served.

Disciples and the Service of Govindadeva #

Little is recorded of Bhugarbha Goswami's own disciples beyond their names, but one detail stands out. Among them was Chaitanya Dasa, who served as pujari of Sri Govindadeva, the famous Deity of Vrindavana whose original temple was built in the following generation. Two more disciples, Mukundananda Chakravarti and Premi Krishnadasa, are named alongside him, but nothing else is recorded about them. The Shakha-nirnayamrita describes Bhugarbha himself taking pleasure in Govindadeva's service. There is also the tradition that he and Lokanatha Gosvami spent their early years in Vraja trying to recover the lost and overgrown sites connected to Radha-Govindaji, before Rupa and Sanatana Goswami's more organised work began (see Calling Out the Names of the Twelve Forests for that early work). Read together, these give a consistent picture. They show a devotee whose own attachment to that particular Deity's service carried forward into the generation he initiated.

Legacy at Radha-Damodara #

The Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika of Kavi Karnapura identifies Bhugarbha Goswami's eternal identity, in Krishna's ever-existing pastimes, as the gopi Prema-manjari. He passed from this world in Vrindavana on the Chaturdashi, the fourteenth day, of the Kartika full-moon fortnight. No source records the year. His samadhi stands today in the courtyard of the Radha-Damodara temple, close to Rupa Goswami's own, alongside those of Jiva Goswami and Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami. ISKCON and Gaudiya Math sources repeat this detail consistently. Wikipedia's own short list of that courtyard's samadhis does not name him individually. But this says more about how little of his life is recorded in independent sources than about any real dispute over where he is buried. This should be said plainly. Almost everything known about Bhugarbha Goswami comes down to a few verses naming him alongside Lokanatha Gosvami, a note on his lineage in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, and the fact of a courtyard samadhi. It is the record of a life lived, by every account, with no wish to be remembered separately.

The verse is number 187 of the Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika, and it names him together with his lifelong friend Lokanatha Gosvami:

bhūgarbha ṭhakkurasyāsīt pūrvākhyā prema mañjarī
lokanāthākhya gosvāmī śrī līlā mañjarī purā

"Bhugarbha Thakura was the incarnation of Prema-manjari. Lokanatha Gosvami was the incarnation of Lila-manjari." (Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika 187)

Srila Prabhupada repeats this in his purport to Chaitanya-charitamrita Adi 12.82: "Bhūgarbha Gosāñi, formerly known as Prema-mañjarī, was a great friend of Lokanātha Gosvāmī..."