Very little is reliably recorded about the early life of Srila Gaura Kishora Dasa Babaji. What does survive comes from a few short life-sketches written by others. He left no autobiography, and no record from his own time in his own hand. He was born Vamsi Dasa on 17 November 1838 in the village of Vagyana, near Tepakhola, in the Faridpur district of Bengal, in what is now Bangladesh.
| Birth name | Vamsi Dasa (also rendered Vamsidasa, Vansidasa) |
| Born | 17 November 1838, Vagyana, near Tepakhola, Faridpur district, Bengal (now Bangladesh) |
| Family background | A mercantile family; sources vary on whether "simple" or "well-to-do," and on the exact trade |
| Renounced home | After the death of his wife, in his late twenties |
| Who gave him babaji vows | Disputed between sources (see below) |
A Householder's Life, Barely Recorded #
Sources describe his family as engaged in trade. Wikipedia calls it a "simple mercantile family." The gosai.com website belongs to the Sri Narasingha Chaitanya Ashram, and Wikipedia's own article on him cites it as a source. The biography on that website calls the family "well-to-do." A biographical account at gaudiyahistory.iskcondesiretree.com places the family in the Vaishya community. It describes Vamsi Dasa as engaged in agricultural trade, from which he supported his wife and household. Another devotional account gives an even more specific detail. It describes him as working as a broker in the grain business. It also states that his parents arranged his marriage when he was a boy, and that he remained a householder for more than twenty years. None of these accounts agrees fully with the others about how well off the family was. None gives the names of his parents, brothers and sisters, wife, or children, or any description of his village life. Every available biography of Gaura Kishora Dasa Babaji really begins with his renunciation. Each one treats his decades as a householder as almost unrecorded.
Death of His Wife, and a Turn Toward Renunciation #
The one point on which the sources agree is the event that ended his householder life. That event was the death of his wife. Wikipedia gives his age at the time as 29. The gosai.com account gives it as 30. Afterward he left his home and his trade and went to Vrindavan, the holy place in northern India connected with Krishna's own pastimes. There he took up the life of a Vaishnava babaji, a renounced devotee who gives his life to bhajan, the chanting and remembrance of the names of Radha and Krishna.
Whose Disciple Was He? Sources at Odds #
The record really does not agree on who received him into this renounced life. This difference is reported here, not resolved. The infobox (the summary box at the top) of Wikipedia's own article states that he "got initiated by Nimaichand Goswami (Uthali, Bangladesh)." The main text of that same article tells a different story. It says that he "accepted the life of a Babaji ... under the tutelage of Jagannatha Dasa Babaji, after meeting the latter's disciple, Bhagavat Dasa Babaji." This means that Bhagavat Dasa Babaji actually gave him his vows, within the spiritual line of Jagannatha Dasa Babaji.
Other sources were checked to see whether either version had outside support. Both the gaudiyahistory.iskcondesiretree.com biography and the gosai.com biography describe the same event as Wikipedia's main text, not its infobox. He was "initiated into Vairagi Vesha by Bhagavata dasa babaji, one of the foremost disciples of Jagannatha dasa babaji" (gaudiyahistory), and he "accepted Babaji-vesa from Bhagavata Dasa Babaji, a disciple of Srila Jagannatha Dasa Babaji Maharaja" (gosai.com). Neither mentions Nimaichand Goswami at all. That does not prove the infobox wrong. It could describe an earlier or different event in his life, or it could simply be a mistake that entered the article at some point in its editing. But no other source checked here supports the claim, so it is given as an open question, not a settled fact.
A fourth source agrees with the majority. Srila Jagannatha Dasa Babaji's own biography lists Bhagavata Dasa Babaji among his main disciples. It states plainly that "Bhagavata dasa in turn gave the dress of a babaji to Gaura Kishora dasa Babaji." Another devotional account gives a fifth. It says that in Vrindavan, after his wife's death, he approached "Bhagavata dasa Babaji, one of the foremost disciples of Jagannatha dasa Babaji Maharaja," and received from him "the traditional Paramahamsa Vaishnava Babaji dress." That makes five sources to one. But again, this does not by itself prove the infobox wrong.
We can say with more confidence that he came out of this period as a mendicant devoted to Vrindavan and, later, Nabadwip. That part of his life is the subject of Life as a Wandering Mendicant.
