Some time during the Nabadwip years, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was heard weeping and calling out for a man whom none of the devotees present had met. He said that Pundarika was His father, and asked when He would see him again. The devotees asked who this was. They were told that a great Vaishnava named Pundarika Vidyanidhi would soon be coming to Nabadwip.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Native place | Mekhala, near Hathazari in the Chittagong district |
| Father | Banesvara, or by another account Shuklambara Brahmachari |
| Mother | Gangadevi |
| Community | Varendra brahmanas |
| Identity in Krishna's pastimes | Vrishabhanu, the father of Srimati Radharani |
| Title from Mahaprabhu | Premanidhi |
Who Pundarika Vidyanidhi Was #
Like so many of Mahaprabhu's associates, Pundarika Vidyanidhi came from eastern Bengal, from Mekhala, near Hathazari in the Chittagong district. His father is named as Banesvara, or by another account Shuklambara Brahmachari, and his mother as Gangadevi. The family belonged to the Varendra brahmanas. At some point they had been put out of caste in one of the quarrels that broke out from time to time between the Varendra and Radhiya groups. So the family's social standing was lower than its learning deserved. Kavi Karnapura identifies him as Vrishabhanu, the father of Srimati Radharani, in Krishna's Vrindavana pastimes. This is why Mahaprabhu addressed him as father and gave him the title Premanidhi. Krishnadasa Kaviraja names him the third great branch of the Chaitanya tree and records that in his absence the Lord would sometimes weep.
None of this was visible when he arrived. Pundarika Vidyanidhi came to Nabadwip in the character of a wealthy man of the world and made no attempt to look like anything else. Mukunda Datta, who had lived in Chittagong and knew him, told Gadadhara one day that he was going to introduce him to a most exceptional Vaishnava, and took him along.
Gadadhara's Disappointment at the Opulence #
Gadadhara found a man reclining on an expensive bed under a three-tiered canopy. The sheets, the accounts say, were as white as the foam of milk. Scented pan lay in a jewelled box within reach, there were brass spittoons on either side, and two servants were fanning him. Pundarika received them warmly and talked. Gadadhara was twenty years old and a brahmachari. Since childhood he had not cared for comfort, and by nature he was inclined to take outward appearances seriously. So he could not match any of this with what he had been told. Srila Prabhupada, summarising the episode, states the young man's mistake bluntly: Gadadhara Pandit at first took Pundarika Vidyanidhi for an ordinary pounds-and-shillings man.
The Verse About Putana and Its Effect #
Mukunda saw the doubt on his face and did the one thing that would settle it. He recited aloud the verse from the Third Canto of the Bhagavatam in which Uddhava marvels that Krishna gave the position of a nurse to the witch Putana. She had come with poison on her breast to murder Him. Uddhava asks where a more merciful shelter than that is to be found. The verse affected Pundarika Vidyanidhi at once and completely. He cried out and fell to the ground. All the ecstatic symptoms listed in the Vaishnava books appeared on his body. He tore the fine bedding to pieces, wailing that the Lord was infinitely merciful and yet had held back His mercy from him. Several men together could not hold him down. When the storm finally passed, he was unconscious for some hours.
Mahaprabhu's Correction and the Initiation #
Gadadhara understood at once what he had done. It was not just a private misjudgement. In Vaishnava terms it was an offence at the feet of a devotee, the kind of fault the tradition treats as most serious of all. The remedy came from Mahaprabhu. Here the sources give the order of events slightly differently. In Srila Prabhupada's note, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu corrects Gadadhara, and as a result Gadadhara becomes Pundarika Vidyanidhi's disciple. In the fuller Chaitanya-bhagavata account, the recited verse itself shows Gadadhara his mistake. Afterwards Mahaprabhu advises Gadadhara that the way to be free of the offence is to take initiation from the man he had misjudged. The two accounts agree on everything that matters. Pundarika Vidyanidhi came back to outward consciousness calm again, giving no sign of what had just happened. He then initiated Gadadhara Pandit, and remained his spiritual master for life.
The Second Initiation at Jagannatha Puri #
The story has a final part at Jagannatha Puri. Krishnadasa Kaviraja records that in a later year Pundarika Vidyanidhi stayed on in Puri when the other Bengali devotees went home. He records that Pundarika was a close friend of Svarupa Damodara Goswami, and that he initiated Gadadhara Pandit a second time. In the same passage Krishnadasa Kaviraja also records another incident. On the day of Odana-shashthi, Pundarika Vidyanidhi saw a starched cloth put on Lord Jagannatha and thought critically of the temple servants for it. That night Jagannatha and Balarama visited him and, smiling, slapped his cheeks until they swelled. Pundarika was privately delighted. So the tradition does not present him as flawless. It presents him as someone whose devotion was real, and whose outward appearance could mislead people either way.
Why External Renunciation Is Not the Measure #
The tradition draws a specific lesson from this episode, and it is easy to understand only half of it. The lesson is not that wealth is a qualification, or that renunciation does not matter. Gadadhara Pandit himself lived austerely to the end of his life and took a vow to live at Puri that he never broke. The lesson is that outward renunciation is not the way to measure a Vaishnava, because it measures the wrong thing. Mukunda's verse did not reveal a simple man hiding beneath the silk. The silk was real enough. What the verse revealed was a condition of the heart that had nothing to do with the silk. The fault that goes with this, judging a devotee by his circumstances, is called an offence in the Vaishnava literature, not just an error. This incident is the story most often told to show it.
Gadadhara also appears to have learned this lesson about himself. Late in his life at Puri, the learned Vallabha Bhatta pressed him for initiation. Gadadhara refused, saying that the work of acting as a spiritual master was not possible for him. He accepted the disciple only afterwards, when Mahaprabhu gave permission. The man who had once been too quick to judge another Vaishnava had become very slow to judge himself. His long service at Puri is described here.
