Most people know Shridhara for a habit, not for a single dramatic scene. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did it nearly every day for years. As the young Nimai Pandit, He would come to Shridhara's stall and take whatever He wanted from the banana leaves, flowers and stems laid out for sale. He would pay Shridhara far less than the asking price, sometimes only a token amount, sometimes nothing at all. Then, before leaving, He would drink water straight from Shridhara's own jug. It was a battered, cracked iron pot, the only water vessel the poor brahmana owned. Sri Chaitanya-caritamrta records the habit in a single line: "Every day Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu jokingly snatched fruits, flowers and pulp from Sridhara and drank from his broken iron pot" (Adi 10.68). It is the kind of detail that gets only one line in a summary chapter, because everyone already knew the fuller story behind it.
Sri Chaitanya-Bhagavata tells that fuller story. It was not so much a single theft as a long-running, half-serious argument that neither man seemed to want to end. "Why are you taking the goods from My hands? Don't you know yet who I am?" the Lord would ask, teasing him. Shridhara was annoyed but never truly angry, and he would answer back in the same spirit. Sometimes he answered with mock humility ("Listen, O respected brahmana. Please forgive me, for I am Your dog"). Sometimes he simply told Him to go elsewhere ("Are there no other shops? Go there and buy leaves cheaper"). On other days the Lord pressed him directly about his poverty. He asked why Shridhara lived like an ascetic when, as the Lord saw it, he had so much wealth. Shridhara would offer to hand over a stem, a few bananas, a few leaves, and ask, "then am I still at fault?" And the argument would start again the next day as if it had never been settled. In a sense, it never was.
Why the Lord Would Not Simply Pay #
Sri Chaitanya-Bhagavata is direct about what was really going on beneath the teasing. The Lord values what His devotees offer with love, however small, above anything a non-devotee could offer at full price or more. Through most of these exchanges, Shridhara did not know who was arguing with him over banana leaves every day. He only knew that a restless young brahmana kept coming, kept taking more than He paid for, and kept drinking from his broken pot as if it were the finest water vessel in Navadwip. Yet, for all his loud protesting, Shridhara never once turned Him away.
One Pot, Several Retellings #
Later tellings of Shridhara's life sometimes turn this years-long habit into a single vivid scene. In it the Lord asks to buy the water pot itself, or simply takes it, in a moment often set at Shridhara's home in what is now called Shridhara Angan. That version is not really wrong. It is a short way of telling the story. In one picture, it shows what Sri Chaitanya-caritamrta and Sri Chaitanya-Bhagavata both describe as a regular, near-daily arrangement, not a single dramatic episode. All the versions agree about the object itself and its meaning. It was a cracked iron water pot, the only one Shridhara owned. The Lord drank from it not because He needed the water, but because it was Shridhara's, offered simply and honestly by a man who owned almost nothing else to give. The Lord drew on this same relationship when He finally showed Shridhara who had been arguing with him all along. It had been built out of years of teasing and an argument that neither of them would let go. That story is told in The Maha-Prakasha and Shridhara's Boon.
