Some years after Vishvarupa left home to accept sannyasa under the name Shankararanya, an odd, brief episode took place in the house of Jagannatha Mishra in Nabadwip, one that Chaitanya-charitamrita tells almost in passing, sandwiched between an account of the young Lord's schooling and the death of His father. It is one of the few moments in the whole of Chaitanya-charitamrita where Vishvarupa, absent for years by this point, appears again, even if only inside his brother's own mystical experience.
Betel Meant for the Deity #
One day, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ate some betel nuts that had been offered to the household Deity. Betel of that kind is not ordinarily eaten by a child, and it acted on Him as an intoxicant: He fell to the ground unconscious. His father and mother, alarmed, sprinkled water on His face and revived Him as quickly as they could. When Chaitanya came back to His senses, He said something that neither of them had ever heard from Him before.
Taken Away by Vishvarupa #
What Chaitanya described was an experience of being taken away by His brother. Vishvarupa, he said, had come and led Him off and asked Him to accept the sannyasa order as well, to follow the same path he himself had already taken years earlier. Chaitanya-charitamrita records His reply to Vishvarupa inside this vision almost word for word: "I have my helpless father and mother, and also I am but a child. What do I know about the sannyasa order of life? Later I shall become a householder and thus serve my parents, for this will please Lord Narayana and the goddess of fortune." Vishvarupa, satisfied or at least accepting of the answer, is described as bringing Him back home, and before doing so asking one thing of Him: to offer thousands and thousands of obeisances, on his behalf, to their mother Sachi Devi.
A Message Carried Across a Vision #
Whether this should be understood as a literal dream, a mystic vision brought on by the sacred remnants Chaitanya had eaten, or something else again, Chaitanya-charitamrita does not spell out, and this page will not guess further than the text itself does. What is clear is what the episode is doing in the larger story: it is the one place where Vishvarupa, gone from the narrative since Leaving Home Rather Than Marry, is allowed to speak again, however briefly, and where his continuing concern for the mother he left behind is placed on the record in his own words, however they reached Chaitanya. It is also the only place in Chaitanya-charitamrita where Chaitanya is shown declining an invitation to sannyasa, years before He would accept it Himself after His father's passing.
Not long after this vision, Jagannatha Mishra himself passed away, and Chaitanya, though grieving, carried out the funeral rites for His father according to Vedic custom, then settled for some years into married life as a grihastha, exactly as He had told Vishvarupa He intended to do. Word of what had actually become of Vishvarupa himself, in all this time, had still not reached the family; how it finally did, years later and far from Bengal, is told in Word From Pandharpur.