Long before He became known to the world as Sri Nityananda Prabhu, the man Gaudiya Vaishnavas would come to see as Krishna's own elder brother Balarama had already spent years as a wandering avadhuta, visiting one holy place after another with no fixed home. Tradition holds that His travels eventually brought Him to Vrindavana itself, where He heard the news that would end His wandering: Krishna had already appeared in this age, as Gaurahari, the son of Sachi, in Navadvipa-Mayapur. Nityananda Prabhu hurried back toward Bengal at once.
A Dream the Night Before #
What happened next is preserved chiefly in Srila Vrindavana Dasa Thakura's Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, and it begins, fittingly, with a dream. The night before Nityananda Prabhu's arrival, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu dreamed of a majestic stranger arriving by chariot at His door — a figure in a blue dhoti and turban, a kamandalu in one hand, His gait swaying with a strange ecstasy, asking after the house of "Nimai Pandita." When Mahaprabhu asked who He was, the stranger only laughed and said the two of them would meet the next day.
On waking, Mahaprabhu told the assembled devotees that Nityananda Prabhu had in fact arrived in Navadvipa, and sent Srivasa Thakura and Haridasa Thakura out to find Him. Rather than announce Himself, however, Nityananda Prabhu had gone into hiding — dressed still as an avadhuta, chanting the holy names, His body radiant enough, later tellings say, to outshine millions of moons — in the house of Nandana Acharya. This was, by some accounts, not the very first time: the tradition remembers Nityananda Prabhu as someone who stayed at Nandana Acharya's house whenever He was in Navadvipa, so that the household was already accustomed to sheltering Him quietly before this particular dream and search ever took place. Srivasa and Haridasa searched the homes of Vaishnavas, sannyasis, householders, and even nonbelievers across the whole town, by some accounts for nine hours, and found no trace of Him. Nandana Acharya's own door, it seems, was simply never suspected.
Found at Last #
When the two returned empty-handed, Mahaprabhu, smiling in His own omniscience, understood exactly where His brother was hiding and led the devotees Himself, directly, to Nandana Acharya's house. There He found Nityananda Prabhu and clutched Him to His chest, glorifying Him before the whole assembly, while the devotees stood astonished at a beauty they could only compare to a million rising suns.
To reveal Nityananda Prabhu's true identity to everyone present, Mahaprabhu had Srivasa Thakura sing a verse from the Srimad-Bhagavatam describing Krishna entering the forest of Vrindavana, a peacock feather in His hair, a garland of forest flowers at His neck, filling the holes of His flute with the nectar of His own lips as the cowherd boys sang His glories (Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.21.5). As soon as He heard it, Nityananda Prabhu cried out "Ha Krishna!" and collapsed, the eight ecstatic symptoms of transcendental love — the ashta-sattvika-bhava classical to bhakti literature — manifesting on His body one after another. Mahaprabhu, taking His brother into His arms, could not stop glorifying Him to the devotees gathered around them in Nandana Acharya's own courtyard.
A House Long Remembered #
For Nandana Acharya himself, the sources agree on very little beyond one plain fact: he felt his life fulfilled simply by having sheltered Nityananda Prabhu under his own roof and having had the chance to serve Him, however briefly, before the world at large knew who He was. Narahari Chakravarti Thakura's later chronicle Bhakti-ratnakara records that Nandana Acharya's house was still being pointed out to the next generation of pilgrims — among them Shrinivasa Acharya — as the very place where the two brothers had first stood face to face.
The site itself is remembered to this day. Centuries later, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaja, founder of the Gaudiya Sangha, built a temple on the spot in Ishodyan, Mayapur, housing Deities of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu together. Known locally as Nandan Acharya Bhaban, it remains a stop on the Navadvipa-Mayapur pilgrim circuit — a modest brahmana's house, still marked out for the single afternoon it briefly held two brothers the tradition calls inseparable. The rest of what Nandana Acharya's house witnessed — Advaita Acharya's own test of the Lord, and Mahaprabhu's own retreat there in a moment of despair — is told on Advaita Acharya's Test and the Lord's Own Hiding.