Two boys of the same age who live a few houses apart on the bank of the Ganges will naturally spend a lot of time together, whether they suit each other or not. Gadai and Nimai were together from the very beginning. The Vaishnava biographies describe them as inseparable in childhood. People in Bengal still lovingly call them by the joint name Gadai-Gauranga, and this name goes back to that early period, not to anything later.
Asked to Define Liberation #
What the friendship looked like in the school years is best shown by an incident that Vrindavana Dasa Thakura records. Nimai was studying at the tol of Gangadasa Pandit. By His mid-teens His fame as a logician had made Him a trouble to many in the town. He would stop scholars in the road and challenge them to debate. He especially enjoyed challenging those who were inclined to devotion. They thought all this arguing was a waste of life, and they would take a longer route home to avoid Him. Mukunda Datta and Srivasa Pandit were among those who avoided Him. But Gadadhara was His neighbour and friend, so he could not avoid Him. One day Nimai asked Gadadhara to define liberation. Gadadhara gave the standard Nyaya answer, that liberation is the final end of all misery. Nimai then tore his answer apart in front of everyone. The devotees who were present are said to have thought privately what a great devotee this boy would become if He ever turned to devotion.
The Change After the Journey to Gaya #
Nimai's great change came in 1508 or thereabouts, on the journey to Gaya. Bhaktivinoda Thakura's summary of what happened next is helpful here, because it describes Him as the men who had known Him before saw Him. On His return to Nadia He was no longer a contending logician, a wrangling ritualist or a critical rhetorician. He fainted at the name of Krishna and behaved like a man under the power of something. Advaita Acharya, Srivasa and the others who had been Vaishnavas for years were astonished at the change. Most people in Nabadwip were not astonished but embarrassed, and they thought He had lost His mind.
Fainting at Shuklambara Brahmachari's House #
Gadadhara's place among the devotees was clear almost at once. The Chaitanya-bhagavata describes the first time Mahaprabhu revealed His identity to the devotees, at the house of Shuklambara Brahmachari. Gadadhara came and stayed quietly out of the way. When he saw the Lord overcome by the holy names, he fainted. The tradition still remembers what Mahaprabhu said to him then. He said that Gadadhara was fortunate, because from earliest childhood his mind had been fixed on Krishna's feet, while He Himself had wasted a human birth on useless learning. Mahaprabhu had just been revealed as the Supreme Lord, so these words were not modesty. The tradition understands them as the shaktiman acknowledging the shakti.
Nights of Kirtana in Srivasa's Courtyard #
In those first years the heart of the movement was the courtyard of Srivasa Thakura's house, a couple of hundred yards up the bank from where Nimai and Gadadhara lived. For the whole year that the kirtana was held there behind closed doors, Gadadhara was present every night. He saw the great revelations of that period. One night Srivasa formally bathed and worshipped Mahaprabhu as one installs a Deity. On another night Nityananda Prabhu arrived and was shown first the six-armed form and then the two-armed cowherd of Vrindavana. There were also the twenty-one unbroken hours of ecstasy that Krishnadasa Kaviraja records without trying to describe. In none of these scenes was Gadadhara just an onlooker who happened to be let in. The devotees around him understood that his presence was part of what made these scenes possible.
This is because, in the house of Srivasa Thakura, Gadadhara had a special and practical duty. He was the one who could bring the Lord back to outward awareness. Mahaprabhu's ecstatic states in that period were violent as well as beautiful, and dangerous to Himself. One night, when He was crying out to know where Krishna was, Gadadhara told Him that Krishna was hidden in His own heart. At this the Lord began to tear at His own chest to reach Krishna. Gadadhara had to seize His hands and hold Him, saying that Krishna would come shortly and that He must be patient. Sachi Devi, watching, asked Gadadhara to stay always at her son's side. In practice Gadadhara did so for the next twenty-six years.
Making Garlands and Sandalwood Paste #
Besides this, his services in the Nabadwip period were household and personal ones. He made garlands of forest flowers for the Lord, prepared sandalwood paste for His body, and looked after His room and His bed. The biographers make this comparison on purpose. As Radharani dressed and decorated Krishna in Vrindavana, so Gadadhara dressed and decorated Gauranga in Nadia. The accounts say he was present at everything. He was at the water sports on the Ganges after the deliverance of Jagai and Madhai, at the great revelations in Srivasa's courtyard, at the night procession to the house of the Kazi, and at Katwa when the Lord took sannyasa.
The Play at Chandrasekhara Acharya's House #
One episode from those years is remembered with special affection. Chandrasekhara Acharya's house was the place of a dramatic performance of Krishna's pastimes. In it Mahaprabhu Himself took the part of Rukmini, Srivasa played Narada Muni and Haridasa Thakura played the village constable. In the second act Gadadhara also appeared dressed as a woman. Mahaprabhu then remarked that Gadadhara belonged to His own family in the spiritual world. It was a light remark in the middle of a village play, but the tradition has never treated it as light.
Worshipping Gaura and Gadadhara Together #
It is also from this period that the biographers date the practice, still followed across Bengal, of worshipping the two together. The tradition understands that Radha and Krishna came to Nabadwip as Gaura and Gadadhara. It sees the groves along the Ganges, where the young men sat and sang, as that same pastime continuing under other names. Whether one reads this as theology or as the way a community remembers an extraordinary friendship, it explains a fact about Gaudiya pictures and temple images that could otherwise seem strange. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is very often not shown alone.
After the Sannyasa at Katwa #
Then, in January 1510, the Lord took sannyasa at Katwa at the age of twenty-four, and the household life of Nabadwip ended for everyone. Nityananda Prabhu was later sent back to Bengal to preach. Advaita Acharya stayed on at his home in Shantipura. Srivasa moved to Kumarahatta and came south once a year. Gadadhara went to Jagannatha Puri behind Mahaprabhu and stayed there for the rest of his life, which is the subject of another page.
Gaudiya theology sees this friendship as a necessity, not a happy accident. In this understanding, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna who has taken the complexion and the inner feelings of Radharani, so that He can taste His own sweetness from the devotee's side. If that is so, then the potency by which He tastes it cannot be left behind in Vrindavana. She must be present, and present in a form that does not compete with Him or draw attention. Gadadhara Pandit is that presence. This is the reason Bengali temples so often worship the pair and not the single figure. It is also the reason one of Mahaprabhu's names is simply Gadadhara-prananatha, the life and soul of Gadadhara. How Gadadhara came to take formal initiation, and from whom, is told here.
