When Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura set out to establish, once and for all, the true site of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's birth, he did not do it alone. He asked Jagannatha Dasa Babaji to go with him. By then Jagannatha Dasa Babaji was a very old man, respected across the Gaudiya Vaishnava world as its greatest living authority. Vaishnava tradition remembers his part in that search as one of the great pastimes of his long life.
A Shifted River and a Vanished Town #
The problem Bhaktivinoda faced was truly difficult. Over three centuries the Ganges had changed its course again and again through the nine islands of Nabadwip. It had covered some places with water and uncovered others. So when the town called Nabadwip in Bhaktivinoda's own day was examined, it turned out to be barely a hundred years old. It was clearly not the Nabadwip in which Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had been born. Local Vaishnavas were divided in their opinion. Some held that the birthplace now lay beneath the river itself. Others held that it stood somewhere within the modern town. Bhaktivinoda was not satisfied with rumours. He turned to old maps, government land records and Vaishnava texts written in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own time. All of them agreed that the true site of Mayapur-Nabadwip lay on the east bank of the Ganges. There he found several large mounds, thickly overgrown with sacred tulasi plants. The land was then owned by Muslim landholders. They themselves avoided the site, because they believed it was haunted by strange lights and sounds.
Carried to the Spot in a Basket #
Many of the old babajis of the area already believed that this overgrown ground, which people kept away from, was the actual birthplace of Mahaprabhu. Bhaktivinoda most wanted Jagannatha Dasa Babaji to confirm it. By this time the Babaji was so old and weak that he could not walk at all. He could not even open his own eyes without forcing them apart with his fingers. Bihari Dasa carried him there in the same basket in which he carried him everywhere in those last years.
Upon arriving at the site, Jagannatha Dasa Babaji leapt out of the basket unassisted and danced in ecstasy, shouting "Haribol!" and "Gauranga!" It established, to everyone present, that this was indeed the place.
Traditional accounts date this decisive visit to 1893. Jagannatha Dasa Babaji was then living at Kuliya in Nabadwip. He went to Surabhi-kunja in Godrumadwipa, where Bhaktivinoda Thakura lived, and from there on to Mayapur with his followers. On this same journey he is said to have identified not only the birth-site itself but other lost holy places nearby. These included the Yogapitha and Srivasa Angana, the courtyard where the sankirtana movement had begun. A verse of homage still recited in the Gaudiya Vaishnava community credits him directly with the discovery:
gaurāvirbhāva-bhūmes tvaṁ nirdeṣṭā saj-jana-priyaḥ
vaiṣṇava-sārvabhaumaḥ śrī-jagannāthāya te namaḥ
"I offer my respectful obeisances unto Sri Jagannatha Dasa Babaji Maharaja, dear to the devotees, who is honoured by the entire Vaishnava community as Vaishnava Sarvabhauma, and who pointed out the place of Lord Gaura's appearance."
A Skin Disease Cured in the Dust of the Dhama #
Jagannatha Dasa Babaji spent some time at the Yogapitha itself with Bhaktivinoda Thakura. It is remembered that during this same visit he cured one of Bhaktivinoda Thakura's own sons of a skin disease. He simply told the boy to lie down in the dust of the ground where Lord Gaura had appeared. No medicine, mantra or ritual is recorded, only the instruction to take shelter of the dust of that dhama. The disease is said to have left him.
Settling at Nabadwip #
After this, Jagannatha Dasa Babaji remained in the Nadia area, performing bhajan on the bank of the Ganges at Kuliya. His bhajan kutir and samadhi shrine stand there to this day. On his instruction, Bhaktivinoda Thakura quickly built a veranda for his cottage at Kuliya, so that the devotees who kept coming to see him would have some shelter.
It is remembered that in this period prasada kept reaching him in ways no one could quite explain. Once, during the rainy season, the Ganges flooded Nabadwip and rain fell without stopping for a week, so no one could go out to beg alms. Even so, four people suddenly appeared in a small boat. They gave Jagannatha Dasa Babaji some twenty kilograms of flat rice, yogurt and sandesha. The unusual, often very funny character he displayed in these final years at Nabadwip, as witnessed by his servant Bihari Dasa, is described here, and his part in guiding both Bhaktivinoda Thakura and the young Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati is told here.
