Srila Ishan Thakur

Ishan Thakur (also spelled Ishana or Ishana Thakura) was not a scholar, a poet, or a renunciate. He was a household servant in Nabadwip. Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition remembers him for one thing above all others. On the day the infant who would grow up to be Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was born, Ishan Thakur had the good fortune to hold Him on his lap. He then spent the rest of an unusually long life serving that household: first the child, then the child's mother, and finally the child's wife after He left home for good. Only a little of his story survives. But it is specific, it is recorded again and again in independent sources, and it is among the more touching smaller accounts to come down from Mahaprabhu's own boyhood.

Servant of Jagannatha Mishra's House #

Ishan Thakur served in the home of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own parents, Jagannatha Mishra and Sachi Devi, in Nabadwip. Nothing is recorded of his own birth, family, or background. No known source gives him a father's name, a birthplace, or an age. But the Chaitanya-bhagavata and the later devotional history Bhakti-ratnakara agree about his devotion. When the boy called Nimai was born, around 1486, Ishan Thakur held Him and cared for Him so tenderly that, as Bhakti-ratnakara records it, Nimai would not go anywhere without him. Ishan would do his best to fulfill every one of the child's demands and pranks. The affection went both ways. While still a small child, Nimai took to calling Ishan Thakur "father." Later Vaishnava writers found this loving name remarkable enough to record it and think about it on its own terms. It is told in fuller detail on The Boy Who Called Him Father.

Feet-Washing for Gaura and Nitai #

After Jagannatha Mishra's death, recorded in the Chaitanya-bhagavata, Ishan Thakur continued in service to Sachi Devi alone. One specific scene from those years survives. Before Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu sat down to eat together in Sachi's house, it was Ishan Thakur who brought the water to wash their feet. It was a small household service, but it was done for the two whom Gaudiya Vaishnavas worship at the very center of the Panca-tattva. Later, Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami's Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita formally recorded Ishan Thakur, counting him as the fifty-eighth branch of "the Chaitanya tree" in its list of Mahaprabhu's associates. Srila Prabhupada's own purport to that verse states plainly what the other sources confirm: "Isana was the personal servant of Srimati Sacidevi, who showered her great mercy upon him. He was also very dear to Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu."

Guardian of the House He Left Behind #

When Mahaprabhu accepted sannyasa and departed Nabadwip for Puri, He left behind a mother and a young wife, Vishnupriya Devi, whose devotion to Him did not end with His leaving. Ishan Thakur stayed on with them for the rest of their lives, sharing that service with another devoted household attendant, Vamsivadana Thakura. The Chaitanya-bhagavata calls him, in that role, "most fortunate in the fourteen worlds" for having served the Lord's mother constantly. A commentary by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura on that same passage remembers him doing the ordinary, humble work of a household servant. It remembers him sweeping and cleaning, and once gathering up rice that had been scattered through the house during one of Nityananda Prabhu's own moments of ecstasy. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati calls this work proof that "there was no limit to Ishan's good fortune." The fuller account of these later years is told on The Last Guardian of Nabadwip. It includes how Ishan Thakur became the last man in Nabadwip who could still show pilgrims where Mahaprabhu's pastimes had taken place.

Which Ishan? A Note on Sources #

Gaudiya Vaishnava history preserves at least four other devotees who also carried the name Ishan or Ishana: a servant of Sanatana Goswami's; a Vraja devotee remembered in Bhakti-ratnakara for accompanying Rupa Goswami on a visit to Vitthalesvara; an "Ishan Acharya" named in the Gaudiya Vaishnava Abhidhana; and Ishan Nagara, the author of the Advaita-prakasha. None of them is the Ishan Thakur described here. He is specifically Jagannatha Mishra and Sachi Devi's household servant, and he is identified as such in Srila Prabhupada's purport to Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and in the Chaitanya-bhagavata. We should also be clear about one household he is not recorded as having served. Ishan Thakur's Nabadwip and Srivasa Thakura's Nabadwip were the same small town in the same years. Srivasa Thakura's own courtyard, a short walk from Sachi's house, is where Mahaprabhu's nightly kirtana first began. Both households belonged to the same close circle around the young Lord. So it is easy to see how, in casual retellings, a servant this close to the family could be wrongly placed in that more famous and better-recorded household. But none of the main sources, Chaitanya-charitamrita, Chaitanya-bhagavata, or Bhakti-ratnakara, place Ishan Thakur's own service anywhere but Jagannatha Mishra and Sachi Devi's home.