The Instructions to Rupa and Sanatana Goswami

When they first began writing to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the two men who would become Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami were among the most powerful Hindus in Bengal. They were also among the most despised. Their family were Yajur-vedi brahmanas of the Bharadvaja gotra, whose ancestors had come north from Karnataka and settled in Bengal. Their father was Kumaradeva. There were three brothers: Sanatana the eldest, Rupa in the middle, and Vallabha, later known as Anupama. All three had been pulled, more or less against their will, into the government of Alauddin Hussain Shah, the Sultan of Bengal. The Sultan wanted their learning and would not accept a refusal. Sanatana became revenue minister, holding the title Sakara Mallik. Rupa became the Sultan's private secretary, holding the title Dabir Khas. They lived at Ramakeli, near the capital, in what is now Maldah district. Because they served a Muslim court, they had been formally cast out of brahmana society, and they seem to have fully accepted that judgment of themselves.

The Letters Before They Met #

They had begun writing to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu before they ever saw Him. He later told them that He had written back once. He had sent them a single verse about a woman who is attached to a man other than her husband. She appears fully absorbed in her household work, but her heart is elsewhere. It was an instruction about how to live in a position one cannot leave.

Sankirtana at Ramakeli #

Then, in about 1514, on His way toward Vrindavana through Bengal, He came to Ramakeli itself and performed sankirtana there. Countless people came out. When the Sultan heard of it, he concluded that a man who attracts such numbers without giving out charity must be a genuine prophet. He ordered his officers not to stop Him. The Sultan also asked Rupa privately what he thought of the visitor. Rupa answered that the Supreme Person, whom the Sultan accepted as a prophet, had taken birth in the Sultan's kingdom. Rupa said that the King should consult his own mind, because whatever came to his mind could be taken as evidence.

The Brothers Come at Night in Disguise #

The brothers came at night, in disguise, with straw between their teeth and cloth bound round their necks, and fell flat before Him like rods. Their prayer is one of the strongest expressions of humility in Vaishnava literature. They said that the deliverance of Jagai and Madhai had cost Him nothing. Those two were brahmanas of Nabadwip who were only addicted to sin. But the brothers themselves were servants of meat-eaters, and their whole work was harmful to cows and brahmanas. So they were millions of times more fallen. If the Lord would deliver them, they said, the name Patita-pavana, saviour of the fallen, would be truly earned.

The Names Rupa and Sanatana Given #

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu answered that they were His eternal servants birth after birth, and that from that day their names were Rupa and Sanatana. He asked them to stop humbling themselves, because it was breaking His heart. He also told them that He had no business in Bengal at all and had come only to see the two of them. No one else in Ramakeli understood this. Before they left, the brothers gave Him some advice. A crowd of thousands following Him to Vrindavana would make the pilgrimage impossible. He acted on their advice and turned back to Puri to plan a quieter journey.

Leaving the Service of Hussain Shah #

Getting out of Hussain Shah's service was the harder half. Rupa resigned, went home and divided his property carefully: half in charity to brahmanas and Vaishnavas, a quarter to relatives, a quarter kept aside in case of legal trouble, and ten thousand coins left with a Bengali grocer for emergencies.

Sanatana's Imprisonment and Escape #

Sanatana was more senior and could not be released so easily. He said he was ill and stayed at home, studying Srimad-Bhagavatam with brahmana scholars. The Nawab sent his own physician, who found nothing wrong. Then the Nawab came in person, understood that his minister meant to resign, and had him arrested and imprisoned. Sanatana bought his way out. He persuaded the Muslim jailer that releasing a prisoner is itself a pious act, and fled across the Ganges with a servant named Ishana, who was carrying eight gold coins. An innkeeper in the hills learned of the coins and prepared to murder them for the money. Sanatana simply handed seven of the coins over to him. The innkeeper gave up his plan and guided them safely across the hill tract instead. Meanwhile, Rupa had left with Anupama to find the Lord, and caught up with Him at Prayag.

Ten Days With Rupa at Prayag #

Those ten days at Prayag, at the Dasasvamedha-ghata where the Ganges and the Yamuna meet, are the origin of the theological literature of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Krishnadasa Kaviraja says clearly that the Lord taught Rupa Goswami everything He had heard from Ramananda Raya, and empowered him to understand it. The Lord entered Rupa's heart, so that Rupa's conclusions would agree with the disciplic succession and not with his own opinion. In its main points, what the Lord gave him is the outline of the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu.

How Rare a Pure Devotee Is #

The teaching begins with a kind of counting that shows the listener where he stands. There are countless living beings in 8,400,000 species, wandering up and down through the universe according to their acts. Only a small part of them are human. Of humans, only some follow any revealed principle at all, and half of those only claim to follow it. Of the sincere ones, most are weighing good and bad work for their own advantage. Out of many such people, one becomes truly wise. Out of many millions of the wise, one attains liberation. And out of many millions of the liberated, a pure devotee of Krishna is very difficult to find. The purpose of this counting is not to make one lose hope. It shows what is rare and therefore valuable. And this rare thing is not earned by merit. It is passed on through contact. Wandering through the universe, one fortunate soul obtains by Krishna's grace the association of a genuine spiritual master. From the mercy of Krishna and the guru together, he receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.

The Seed and the Creeper of Devotion #

Everything else in the Prayag teaching is built on that picture. The seed, the bhakti-lata-bija, is planted in the heart, and the devotee becomes a gardener. He waters it with hearing and chanting, and it sprouts and grows. The Lord describes the path of its growth in a striking way. It climbs past the walls of the universe, crosses the Viraja river and passes through the impersonal Brahman effulgence. Then it reaches Goloka Vrindavana. There it takes shelter at the wish-fulfilling tree of Krishna's lotus feet and produces its fruit, which is love of God. The gardener remains here, sprinkling water. The fruit ripens there, and when it falls he tastes it.

The Mad Elephant and the Weeds #

Two dangers are named. The first is offence at the feet of a Vaishnava. The Lord compares it to a mad elephant that gets inside the garden and uproots the creeper, so that its leaves dry up. The gardener must put up a fence to protect the creeper from it. The second danger is weeds. These are unwanted creepers that grow beside the bhakti creeper and drink the same water. The Lord names them one by one: desire for material enjoyment, desire for liberation, deceitful behaviour, violence toward animals, desire for profit, and the craving for worldly praise and importance. If the gardener cannot tell one creeper from another, his watering feeds the weeds and starves the devotion. So an intelligent devotee cuts them out the moment he sees them.

What Pure Devotional Service Is #

From there Mahaprabhu explained what pure devotional service really is. It is service offered favourably to Krishna, in the way Krishna wants it. It is free of any other desire, and it is not covered by either speculative knowledge or fruitive action. He called desire for enjoyment and desire for liberation two witches that haunt the heart. While they remain, the bliss of devotion cannot be tasted. He explained how attachment ripens into love through the example of sugar: cane seed, cane, juice, liquid molasses, solid molasses, sugar, candy, rock candy. He also set out the five relationships in which love is tasted, from neutrality through servitude, friendship and parental affection to conjugal love.

Majesty at Mathura, Sweetness in Vrindavana #

And He explained a difference on which the whole Gaudiya teaching about rasa rests. Where awareness of Krishna's majesty is strong, as at Mathura, Dvaraka and Vaikuntha, love is somewhat held back by reverence. Where that awareness is absent, as in Vrindavana, Yasoda can bind the Absolute Truth to a mortar with a rope, and the cowherd boys can climb on His shoulders. Then, as was His way, He stopped. I have given only a general survey, He said, and you may consider how to adjust and expand it. Rupa Goswami spent the rest of his life doing exactly that.

Rupa Sent On to Vrindavana #

When the Lord left for Varanasi, Rupa begged to come with Him, but the Lord refused. He told Rupa: your duty is to carry out My order, and you are close to Vrindavana now, so go there. Rupa fainted on the riverbank as the boat pulled away.

Sanatana and the Woollen Blanket #

Sanatana reached Varanasi soon after and stood at the door of Chandrasekhara's house. The instruction began with clothes. Sanatana was still dressed as a nobleman. He was told to change, and he tore up an old cloth of Tapana Mishra's to make himself a dhoti and underwear. When a Maharashtrian brahmana offered him regular meals, he refused. He said he would beg a little from several houses instead. But he was still carrying an expensive woollen blanket from his days as a minister, and the Lord looked at it again and again without saying anything. Sanatana understood. He went down to the Ganges, found a Bengali beggar drying a torn quilt, and traded the blanket for the quilt, though the man was astonished and objected. When Sanatana came back, Mahaprabhu made one of His most quoted comments: a good physician who has cured a disease does not leave a little of it behind.

Who Am I and Why Do I Suffer #

Then, for two months, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu taught him. Sanatana opened by asking the questions the tradition treats as the beginning of all enquiry: not what should I do, but who am I, and why do the threefold miseries of material life trouble me. He added that he did not even know how to ask properly.

The Living Entity as Marginal Energy #

The Lord's answer began with the constitutional position of the living being. The living entity is eternally a servant of Krishna, because he is the marginal energy of Krishna. He is one with Krishna and at the same time different from Him, as a spark is one with fire and yet is not fire. Krishna's energies are three: the spiritual, the living beings, and the illusory. Because the soul is marginal, he may live in either world. He has forgotten Krishna since time without beginning, and so he has been captured by the external energy. By turns he is raised to comfort and plunged into suffering, like a criminal whom a king repeatedly pushes under water and lifts out again. He cannot recover by his own effort. So Krishna educates him from three directions at once: through the revealed scriptures, through a realised spiritual master, and from within, as the Supersoul.

Sambandha, Abhidheya and Prayojana #

On that foundation the Lord laid out the three-part structure that organises all Gaudiya theology. The scriptures inform the living being of his eternal relationship with Krishna: that is sambandha. Acting on that relationship through devotional service is abhidheya. And the awakening of love of God, which is life's ultimate goal, is prayojana.

The Astrologer and the Buried Treasure #

He illustrated it with a story. An astrologer visited a poor man and told him that his father had died elsewhere, leaving a great treasure buried in that very place. In this way the astrologer showed the poor man his connection to a wealth he did not know he had. But knowing about it did not put it in his hands. So the astrologer told him where to dig. If he dug on the south, wasps would drive him off. On the west, a ghost would stop him from touching it. On the north, a black snake would devour him. But on the east, a little digging would bring his hand to the pot. The three wrong directions are fruitive work, mental speculation and mystic yoga. The east is devotional service.

The Syllabus Taught at Varanasi #

What followed over those weeks was an extraordinary course of teaching. The Lord explained the Absolute Truth as Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagavan. He described the Lord's expansions and the classes of incarnation, the opulence and the sweetness of Krishna, and the relation between them. He taught the sixty-four items of regulative devotional service and the difference between regulated practice and spontaneous love. He described the symptoms of emotion and love, and the stages by which they grow stronger until they reach mahabhava. And He described Goloka Vrindavana.

The Atmarama Verse in Sixty-One Ways #

At Sanatana's request the Lord also explained the atmarama verse of the Srimad-Bhagavatam in sixty-one different ways, examining every word of it. Sanatana had heard that the Lord once gave eighteen explanations of it at Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's house in Puri, and he wanted to hear it for himself. The Lord also gave Sanatana a summary of what would become the Hari-bhakti-vilasa, the manual of Vaishnava practice. At the end Sanatana said his mind could not hold even a drop of the ocean he had been given. He asked the Lord to put His hand on his head and declare that everything He had taught would be revealed to him. Mahaprabhu did exactly that.

The Twin Mission for Vrindavana #

Then He gave the two brothers their mission, and it had two halves. He told them: Broadcast the revealed scriptures on devotional service, and excavate the lost places of pilgrimage in the district of Mathura; establish the worship of Radha and Krishna in Vrindavana, and preach from there. In 1515 this was a very difficult task. Vrindavana was then mostly forest and farmland, and the sites of Krishna's pastimes were known only in pieces, from local memory and hints in the scriptures.

The Six Goswamis and Their Books #

Both halves were carried out. Rupa and Sanatana were later joined by Gopala Bhatta, Raghunatha Bhatta, Raghunatha Dasa and Jiva, and together they became the Six Goswamis of Vrindavana. They found and restored the holy places, and established the temples of Govindaji and Madana-mohana. They also wrote the main books of the tradition: Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, Ujjvala-nilamani, Hari-bhakti-vilasa, Brihad-bhagavatamrita and much else. Every later Gaudiya acharya has depended on these books. Devotees returning from Vrindavana were asked how the brothers lived. They answered that the brothers had no fixed home and slept under a different tree each night. The brothers begged a little dry bread and fried chickpeas, and owned a waterpot and a torn quilt. They chanted and wrote almost day and night, and slept an hour and a half.

Why This Episode Matters #

Gaudiya Vaishnavas take two things from this episode above all. The first is that the movement's philosophy is not simple popular religion. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu deliberately had it written. He wrote almost nothing Himself. Instead, He trained two men over ten days and two months and sent them to write it down. This is why the tradition regards Rupa Goswami's books as carrying His own authority. The second is who those two men were. The men who laid the theological foundations of Gaudiya Vaishnavism were officials in the court of a Muslim sultan. The brahmanas of their own province had cast them out. When they came to the Lord, they called themselves lower than the worst criminals of Nabadwip. The tradition has never forgotten that, and knows them by the names He gave them that night at Ramakeli.