In the stories remembered about him, Jagannatha Dasa Babaji is not a solemn, distant figure. He is surprisingly direct and often playful. Nearly everything recorded about his personal character in old age survives because his devoted servant, Bihari Dasa, saw it at close range and passed the stories on.
The Dogs at His Plate #
Living in a tent on the bank of the Ganges at Nabadwip, Jagannatha Dasa Babaji shared his dwelling with a litter of puppies that had been born nearby. Whenever he took his prasadam from a large brass plate, the dogs would come and lick food from it, and he never objected. Bihari Dasa was disgusted to see dogs eating from his guru's plate, and finally he drove them off. Jagannatha Dasa Babaji reacted at once: "If the dogs can't eat, I won't eat!" Bihari Dasa had to go and bring the puppies back before his guru would touch his own meal. "These dogs are residents of the holy dhama," he told his servant on another occasion when the same argument arose. "You may not abuse them. If you wish to drive them off, you may take my plate away as well. I shall not eat today." When the puppies returned to share his plate once more, he exclaimed, "All glories to the dhama's dogs!" He also could not bear to leave prasada uneaten. If he thought someone might later eat what he had left on his leaf plate, he would finish every last bit, and eat the leaf itself as well. He did this so that nothing of what had been offered would go to waste.
The Rupee He Could Not Carry #
Bihari Dasa was famous for carrying his guru. Sometimes, without meaning to, he also gave his guru the occasion for a lesson in detachment. Once, while Bihari Dasa carried him through the countryside in his basket, a wealthy man gave a single rupee as an offering. Bihari Dasa accepted it and kept it safely. After they had travelled on for some miles, Jagannatha Dasa Babaji had Bihari Dasa turn back and return the rupee to the very man who had given it. "I understand that you have a good deal of money," he told the astonished donor. "I could not bear the burden of even one rupee, and I wonder how you tolerate the burden of so many." He is recorded as sometimes accepting donations for the service of the Vaishnavas. But this time he chose instead to show how careful a renunciate must be of wealth offered by men who judge their own worth by it. He did this without a word of blame.
Twelve Rupees Hidden From a Nearly Blind Old Man #
In his final years Jagannatha Dasa Babaji was nearly blind. Many visitors came to offer him donations for Krishna's service, and Bihari Dasa kept all of it in a bag for him. Once Bihari Dasa set aside twelve rupees for a service he had planned for his guru's benefit. Then he reported a smaller total than the bag actually held. Even with his failing eyesight, Jagannatha Dasa Babaji noticed the difference at once: "Bihari! Why have you kept twelve rupees aside? Give me all the rupees!" Bihari Dasa, caught and smiling, handed over the rest. Jagannatha Dasa Babaji then had the full amount, some two hundred rupees, spent entirely on sweets and rice cakes for the poor and on feeding every cow in Nabadwip. He said it was better to feed the Dhama's animals than to support the many hypocrites who wore the dress of a babaji but did not live its renunciation.
Austerities of Caturmasya and Puraścaraṇa #
Jagannatha Dasa Babaji kept the four-month Caturmasya vow of the rainy season very strictly. In the first month he took only four bananas each evening, in the second only guavas, in the third a little buttermilk, and in the fourth nothing but the flowers of the banana tree. Once he travelled to Rishikesh to perform puraścaraṇa, a very strict chanting vow for purification. He bathed at three o'clock each morning and then chanted inside a closed room until sunset. He did not speak or eat. He did not even leave the room to answer a call of nature without first bathing again. After keeping this vow for two months, he spoke a few words to Bihari Dasa by mistake. He did not let this slip pass. He began the entire vow again from the beginning and completed it in three months. He would afterward say that anyone who wished to have darshan of Krishna in the form of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu should perform puraścaraṇa in exactly this way.
Confirmed From Afar #
Once, while he was staying at Nabadwip, the landlord Srinath Rai and several family members came to seek him out without recognising him, and asked if he knew where the famous siddha-baba lived. "I don't know anyone who is a siddha-baba here," he replied. "I am staying here, but I am simply an ordinary living entity like all of you." Realising, from his manner, exactly who they were addressing, they humbly asked him to show them a miracle. Visibly displeased at the request, he picked up a stick and began beating the ground, as if in irritation, until the landlord, fearing he had given offence, begged his forgiveness.
"I am not angry with you," Jagannatha Dasa Babaji told him. "I was just chasing away a goat that was eating the tulasi plant near the cottage of Srila Lokanatha Gosvami at Radhakunda." Astonished, the Rai family sent a reply-paid telegram to Radhakunda to test the claim. The answer came back the following day: a goat had indeed entered Lokanatha Gosvami's cottage and ruined the tulasi plant there, at the very hour Jagannatha Dasa Babaji had been beating the ground at Nabadwip, many miles away.
Healing His Servant #
Once, while at Nabadwip, Bihari Dasa himself fell seriously ill with a severe fever and delirium, and he fell unconscious again and again. A doctor called from Calcutta said the case was hopeless and predicted that Bihari Dasa would not survive the night. Jagannatha Dasa Babaji sat beside his servant, placed a sanctified tulasi leaf in his mouth, and began to chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Within half an hour Bihari Dasa was cured. He got up at once to cook. His guru had fasted throughout the illness, and Bihari Dasa knew that he would eat nothing prepared by anyone else.
On another occasion, Jagannatha Dasa Babaji asked the illiterate Bihari Dasa, who did not know the alphabet, to read to him from Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. When Bihari Dasa reminded him that he could not read, his guru simply told him to look at the book for a while and begin. Within minutes Bihari Dasa was reciting the pastimes of Lord Chaitanya directly from its pages.
The Beggar and the Torn Kaupina #
Not everyone who came asking Jagannatha Dasa Babaji for charity found him generous with money. He preferred to guide beggars toward service instead of handing out alms. One man, Gaura Hari Dasa, came asking for money and was refused. He did not leave. He simply sat outside the Babaji's tent and fasted for three days. At last Jagannatha Dasa Babaji gave in, but not with money. He tore a piece from his own kaupina, the simple loincloth of a renunciate, and had Bihari Dasa give it to the beggar. Without a word of lecture, this made the point that before taking up the profession of a saint, a man must first learn to control his own senses.
Another devotional account tells what appears to be this same episode quite differently. In that version, a certain Gaura Hari Dasa came seeking babaji initiation, not money. He too was refused, and he too fasted for three days in front of the cottage. In the end he was given babaji initiation, not a piece of cloth. The two accounts agree on the man's name, his three-day fast, and Jagannatha Dasa Babaji's final mercy. But they disagree on what he actually asked for and what he received. Both are reported here instead of being combined into a single version.
Against Professional Recitation of the Bhagavatam #
He took an especially firm and uncompromising stand against one practice that was common enough in his day. This was the practice of professional public reciters who read the Srimad-Bhagavatam aloud for a fee. "This kind of professional Bhagavata-recitation is simply prostitution," he is recorded as saying. "Those who make their living reading Srimad-Bhagavatam are offenders against the holy name of Krishna, and no one should listen to the kirtana or Bhagavatam readings they produce. Anyone who listens and thereby commits offence against the holy name certainly goes to hell." He held that such people should give up the practice at once. Instead, they should humbly worship the residents of Vrindavana, consider themselves the most fallen, and pray only for forgiveness. It is remembered that one such professional reciter took this rebuke to heart at once. He gave up his recitations the same day, and he lived the rest of his life simply, as a genuine devotee in Vrindavana. In this one area, his strictness matched the same uncompromising standards that his spiritual grandson, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, would later bring to his own confrontations with doctrinal deviation.
