Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's austerities as a sannyasi at Puri were severe even by the standards of the renounced order. They grew more severe as the years of separation from Krishna deepened. Most of the devotees around Him responded by trying to console His mind. Jagadananda Pandita responded, again and again, by trying to manage His body. He did so with a persistence and a bluntness that no one else in the Lord's circle attempted. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita directly presents this as coming from his identity as an incarnation of Satyabhama: "Jagadananda Pandita always wanted to see to the comfort of Lord Chaitanya, but since the Lord was a sannyasi He did not accept the luxuries that Jagadananda Pandita offered." The stories below show, verse by verse, what his care for the Lord's comfort actually looked like.
At a Glance #
- Brought scented sandalwood oil from Bengal for Mahaprabhu's head; broke the pot in anger when the Lord refused it
- Fasted for three days until Mahaprabhu personally came to end his fast
- Force-fed the Lord roughly ten times His normal quantity of food out of fear that refusing would restart the fast
- Sewed a quilt and pillow for the Lord's increasingly thin body; was inwardly angry when they were refused
- Often got into what Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita calls "loving quarrels" with the Lord
The Jug of Sandalwood Oil #
While staying at Shivananda Sena's house in Bengal, Jagadananda had about sixteen seers of fragrant sandalwood oil prepared. He carried the full earthen pot all the way to Puri. There he asked Mahaprabhu's servant Govinda to rub it on the Lord's head, to relieve the headaches brought on by disturbed bile and wind. Mahaprabhu answered at once. A sannyasi had no business with oil, especially scented oil, and Govinda should give it to the Jagannatha temple to burn in the lamps instead. Jagadananda said nothing when Govinda passed on the message. Ten days later, when Govinda raised the matter again, Mahaprabhu grew genuinely irritated: "Why not keep a masseur to massage Me? Have I taken sannyasa for such happiness?" He repeated His refusal. The next morning Jagadananda denied ever bringing any oil at all. He took the jug into the courtyard in front of the Lord and smashed it. Then he bolted his door and lay down without eating.
Three days passed before Mahaprabhu Himself went to Jagadananda's door and asked him, gently, to get up and cook lunch. Jagadananda rose immediately, bathed, and prepared rice, vegetables and sweets on banana leaves. When the food was ready, Mahaprabhu insisted that Jagadananda spread a second leaf and eat beside Him. He sat with His own hands raised and would not touch the meal until Jagadananda, "with great affection and love," agreed to eat first. As He ate, the Lord kept praising the cooking: "Even when you cook in an angry mood, the food is very delicious." Meanwhile Jagadananda, still wanting to make his point, kept serving more and more vegetables. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says Mahaprabhu ate about ten times His usual quantity that day. He was afraid that if He refused a single dish, the fast would start again. He stopped only after He had directly asked Jagadananda, twice, to let Him rest. Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami closes the episode by comparing the whole exchange to Satyabhama's dealings with Krishna in Srimad-Bhagavatam. He adds that anyone who simply hears about it, "or who reads Jagadananda's book Prema-vivarta, can understand what love is."
A Quilt Against the Plantain Bark #
Some time later, the pain of separation from Krishna had made Mahaprabhu's body so thin that lying on His usual bed of dry plantain bark began to hurt His bones. The devotees around Him could see it. So Jagadananda dyed some cloth red, stuffed it with cotton from a silk-cotton tree, and made it into a quilt and pillow. He asked Govinda to offer them to the Lord, while Svarupa Damodara Goswami worked to talk Mahaprabhu into using them. When the Lord saw the bedding, He became angry at once: "You might as well bring a bedstead here for Me to lie on. Jagadananda wants Me to enjoy material happiness. I am in the renounced order, and therefore I must lie on the floor." He had the bedding put aside and lay back down on the bark. Svarupa Damodara tried once more. He warned that refusing it would cause Jagadananda real unhappiness. But Mahaprabhu held His ground, and Jagadananda was told that the bedding had been completely refused.
Then Svarupa Damodara quietly solved the problem in a different way. With his own nails he shredded dry banana leaves very fine. He stuffed them into two of the Lord's own outer garments to make a simple mattress and pillow. That bedding was humble enough that Mahaprabhu, after much persuading, finally accepted it. Every other devotee was relieved. But Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says plainly that Jagadananda stayed angry. He hid it outwardly, but inwardly it burned. This same anger, which had not gone away, pushed him soon afterward to ask Mahaprabhu for permission to leave for Vrindavana. It pushed him more than any long-held wish to see holy places, and he asked again and again, very directly. That request, and what came of it, is told in Mission to Vrindavana and Sanatana Goswami.
Why Mahaprabhu Put Up With It #
Mahaprabhu Himself gave the clearest explanation of all this. He gave it not to Jagadananda but to Nityananda Prabhu, when He was explaining why He wanted to tour South India without any companions at all: "Jagadananda wants Me to enjoy bodily sense gratification, and out of fear I do whatever he tells Me. If I sometimes do something against his desire, out of anger he will not talk to Me for three days." This is a remarkable admission. By Gaudiya Vaishnava understanding, He is the Supreme Lord. Yet He describes Himself as being managed, and even made a little afraid, by the sheer force of one devotee's loving insistence. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita always treats this only as proof of how deep that love ran. Later Gaudiya Vaishnava writers explain it through Jagadananda's identity as an incarnation of Satyabhama (discussed fully in His Identity in Krishna-Lila). In their understanding, this is why he alone among Mahaprabhu's associates was permitted to mother the Lord so openly and so insistently. It was never once called an offense.
