Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's manifest pastimes ended at Jagannatha Puri in 1534, in His forty-eighth year. The tradition says unusually little about how. Krishnadasa Kaviraja had every reason to describe it, and he could speak with those who were there. Yet he closes the Chaitanya-charitamrita without describing the departure at all. Among the accounts that do circulate there is more than one version. Some place it in the sea, some in the Gundicha temple, and some speak of Mahaprabhu being absorbed into Lord Jagannatha. The version that has become standard in the Gaudiya line is also the one Bhaktivinoda Thakura gives. After eighteen years lived mostly at Kashi Mishra's house, He disappeared during sankirtana in the temple of Tota Gopinatha. That is, He disappeared in the garden where Gadadhara Pandit had served the Deity for twenty-four years, in front of the Deity Mahaprabhu had given him.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Date of disappearance | Dark moon day of Jyestha, Saka 1456, which is 1535 |
| Place | Jagannatha Puri |
| Age | About forty-nine (he was about the Lord's own age, and left eleven months after Him) |
| Time after Mahaprabhu | About eleven months |
| Relic | A tooth enshrined in a samadhi at Vrindavana, near the Vamsi Gopala temple |
The Months of Separation #
However the Lord's departure took place, Gadadhara Pandit was the one left behind. All that the sources say about the months that followed comes to the same thing. He did not recover, and he did not try to. Narahari Chakravarti, writing later in the Bhakti-ratnakara, describes him as an old man sitting with his eyes closed, repeating the name of Gaurasundara. His breath came hot as flame, and his body barely moved. Narahari gives only one reason why he was still alive at all. He was waiting to give his mercy to Srinivasa Acharya, the young Vaishnava who would carry the Gaudiya literature back into Bengal. The Bhakti-ratnakara's judgement is that no one but the Lord could know what Gadadhara Pandit suffered in that separation.
Why Tota Gopinatha Is a Seated Deity #
He had been about the Lord's own age, so he was roughly forty-eight when Mahaprabhu departed. The accounts say he grew old very quickly in the time that remained. From this period there is a tradition about the Deity that is dear to pilgrims. It should be reported for what it is: a local temple tradition, and a disputed one. It is said that Gadadhara had become too weak to lift his arms high enough to place a garland around Gopinatha's neck. So the Deity sat down, to make His servant's service possible. Tota Gopinatha is in fact a seated form of Krishna, which is rare enough that visitors notice it, and this is the explanation the temple gives.
His Disappearance at Puri #
Gadadhara Pandit survived Mahaprabhu by about eleven months. He disappeared at Puri on the dark moon day of the month of Jyestha in the Saka year 1456, which is 1535. Some accounts say that he entered his Deity, as the Lord is held to have done before him. A tooth relic of his is enshrined in a samadhi at Vrindavana, near the Vamsi Gopala temple.
Waiting to Give Mercy to Srinivasa Acharya #
Srinivasa Acharya needs a few words here, because he links two eras. Srinivasa was a young man from Bengal who had set out to meet the associates of Mahaprabhu, but every time he arrived too late. The Bhakti-ratnakara is largely the record of those missed meetings. He reached Puri to find Mahaprabhu gone and Haridasa Thakura's tomb already standing by the sea. Gadadhara Pandit is said to have held on to life especially to receive him. This is the tradition's way of saying that the passing down of the teaching did not break. The last of the Nabadwip circle deliberately handed something on to the next generation, who would collect the Vrindavana literature and carry it back into Bengal.
The Gadadhara Parivara and Its Disputed Claims #
He left behind him a line. The Gadadhara parivara is one of the traditional Chaitanya lineages, alongside the Advaita parivara and the others, that has continued unbroken to the present day. His disciple Bhugarbha Goswami is its best-recorded source. Some within that line hold that Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami themselves took initiation from Gadadhara Pandit. As evidence they point to a verse of the Sadhana-dipika and to the authorship given for the Gadadharashtaka. Others, including scholars who favour the claim, admit that the evidence is not conclusive. They also admit that the more common view places the initiation of Rupa and Sanatana elsewhere. It is honest to leave that question open. What is not disputed is that a great many Bengali temples worship on their central altar not Gauranga alone but Gaura-Gadadhara. It is also said that the first Deity of Srimati Radharani installed in Vrindavana was sent there by him.
Viraha and the Meaning of Those Months #
The eleven months themselves have a place in Gaudiya thought that is easy to miss. In this tradition separation, viraha, is not treated as the failure of devotion. It is treated as devotion in its most intense condition. The literature of the movement is largely a literature of separation. Mahaprabhu's own last years at the Gambhira are described in exactly these terms, and so are the songs of the Goswamis at Vrindavana. So when Narahari Chakravarti describes Gadadhara Pandit in 1534 and 1535, the tradition does not see a broken old man who could not bear his loss. It sees the same relationship continuing in the only way still left to it. That reading may be accepted or not, but it is the reason the tradition records the eleven months at all, instead of passing over them as a sad ending.
What the Tradition Honours in Him #
What the tradition honours in him is not the usual thing, so it should be stated plainly. Gadadhara Pandit founded no institution. He wrote nothing that has come down under his name. He preached to no one and travelled nowhere after 1510. By the ordinary measures of a religious career, he had nothing to show. He was Mahaprabhu's exact contemporary and neighbour. He went where He went, held His hands when He tore at Himself, read to Him, cooked for Him, and stayed. Once there was a chance to break that pattern and follow the Lord to Vrindavana. Gadadhara took it at once, and was sent back. Afterwards the Lord said publicly that Gadadhara's unhappiness was the reason the journey never happened.
Gaudiya theology explains the pattern by saying that this is what the pleasure potency does. The three predominators of the Panca-tattva are worshipped; the fourth worships. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came into the world to taste a certain love, and that love had to be tasted through someone. It is tasted not through a doctrine but through a person. That person stands to one side, quietly and without show, doing small things well for a very long time. Gaudiya Vaishnavas everywhere chant the Panca-tattva mantra before the maha-mantra. Every time it is chanted, Gadadhara's name is the fourth of the five. It is in the same position he held all his life: after the Lord, before the devotees, at neither end.
