Arrival at Vishrama Ghat #
When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu entered Mathura, He went first to Vishrama Ghat on the Yamuna and bathed there. From the ghat He went to see Krishna's birthplace and the Deity known as Keshavaji, or Adi Keshava. Standing before the Deity, Mahaprabhu began to chant and dance, overwhelmed with ecstatic love, and the sound He raised drew a crowd. People who had never seen anything like it stood watching, amazed.
One brahmana in that crowd did more than watch. He fell at Mahaprabhu's feet and then rose and began dancing beside Him. The two danced together, embracing, calling out the names Hari and Krishna, until the whole temple courtyard was in an uproar of chanting. The priest serving Lord Keshava came out and garlanded Mahaprabhu. Onlookers told each other that no ordinary person could inspire love like this - that Mahaprabhu must be Krishna Himself, come to deliver Mathura.
A Private Question #
After the dancing settled, Mahaprabhu took the brahmana aside to a quiet spot and questioned him directly: an elderly, sincere, spiritually advanced man - where had this transcendental ecstasy for Krishna come from? The brahmana's answer was simple. Years earlier, His Holiness Srila Madhavendra Puri had come touring through Mathura. He had visited this brahmana's own home, taken him as a disciple, and even accepted a meal cooked by his hand. Madhavendra Puri had gone on, the brahmana said, to install the Gopala Deity - the same Deity still being served at Govardhana Hill.
The moment he heard Madhavendra Puri's name, Mahaprabhu immediately fell at the brahmana's feet. Startled, even frightened, the brahmana fell back at Mahaprabhu's feet in turn, protesting that this was not right - Mahaprabhu was a sannyasi, and he only an ordinary brahmana. He guessed, correctly, that such extraordinary love for Krishna in a stranger could only mean some connection to Madhavendra Puri himself.
"You Are My Guru" #
Mahaprabhu's reply is one of the clearest statements anywhere in the Chaitanya-charitamrita on how a spiritual master's godbrothers are to be regarded. He told the brahmana plainly: "You are on the platform of My spiritual master, and I am your disciple. Since you are My spiritual master, it is not befitting that you offer Me obeisances." Ishvara Puri, Mahaprabhu's own diksha-guru, and Madhavendra Puri were godbrothers, disciples of the same guru - which meant, in Mahaprabhu's own reckoning, that this village brahmana stood in the position of a guru to Him.
Balabhadra Bhattacharya, who had been traveling with Mahaprabhu, explained the relationship in full, and the brahmana - pleased beyond measure - began to dance again. He took Mahaprabhu home and, entirely on his own initiative, began serving Him however he could.
Cooking Despite Caste, and a Verse from the Gita #
When the brahmana asked Balabhadra Bhattacharya to cook Mahaprabhu's lunch, Mahaprabhu stopped him with a smile: "Madhavendra Puri has already taken lunch at your place. Therefore you may cook and give Me the food. That is My instruction." He then quoted a verse everyone would have recognized, from the Bhagavad-gita: whatever a great man does, other men follow; whatever standard he sets, the world takes up.
The text does not soften what was at stake. This brahmana belonged to the Sanodiya community - priests who traditionally served goldsmiths and jewelers - and a sannyasi did not, as a rule, accept food cooked in a Sanodiya home. Madhavendra Puri had broken that rule once, seeing past caste to the man's Vaishnava character; Mahaprabhu now broke it again, deliberately, to make the same point unmistakable. Genuine bhakti, the episode says without needing to say it twice, outranks birth.
Word spread through Mathura fast. Hundreds of thousands are said to have come to see Mahaprabhu after this, so many that He had to come outside the brahmana's house simply to be seen. What began as one man's private ecstasy at a temple had turned, within days, into a citywide events - and had bound this otherwise unknown brahmana permanently into Mahaprabhu's story. What happened once the crowds grew too large to manage is told on Persuading the Lord to Leave Vrindavana.