Lochana Dasa Thakura's guru was Narahari Sarkara Thakura, one of the personal associates of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He was among the senior Vaishnavas settled at Srikhanda, a village near Katwa in Bardhaman district. Sri Chaitanya-caritamrita describes the great branches of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's tree of mercy. There it names Narahari Sarkara Thakura directly, along with the Srikhanda householder-devotees Mukunda Dasa and his son Raghunandana Thakura. In his purport on that passage, Srila Prabhupada states that "Locana dasa Thakura, the celebrated author of Sri Chaitanya-mangala, was his disciple." Narahari Sarkara Thakura's own service to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is traditionally remembered as fanning the Lord with a camara, a yak-tail whisk, during kirtana. This small, humble service set the pattern for how he, in turn, dealt with his own disciples.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Guru | Narahari Sarkara Thakura |
| Place of discipleship | Srikhanda, near Katwa |
| Fellow Srikhanda Vaishnavas | Mukunda Dasa, Raghunandana Thakura |
| Textual confirmation | Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila 10.78-79, purport |
Taking Shelter at Srikhanda #
Drawn by his growing attachment to the sankirtana movement described on Birth and Early Life, Lochana Dasa Thakura received initiation from Narahari Sarkara Thakura and then went to live at his ashram in Srikhanda. In the opening invocation of Sri Chaitanya-mangala, he addresses his guru directly and again and again. "My lord and master is Narahari Dasa. I prostrate myself in humility to him," he writes in one verse, and in another, "Other than him, I have no friend in the three worlds." These are not just polite words. All through the Sutra-khanda he returns again and again to the point that only Narahari's mercy makes his work possible at all. He even writes that he considers himself utterly unfit to attempt such a composition without his guru's grace behind it.
Learning Kirtana, Receiving an Order #
At Srikhanda, Lochana Dasa Thakura learned the art of kirtana directly from his guru. In time, Narahari Sarkara Thakura instructed him to compose a Bengali account of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's life and pastimes. Lochana Dasa Thakura took this order so seriously that he spent years fulfilling it. Tradition holds that Narahari Sarkara Thakura had long wished for such a book to exist in Bengali. He wanted ordinary people, not just Sanskrit scholars, to enter into the deep, confidential sweetness of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's pastimes. Tradition also holds that from this point on, Lochana Dasa Thakura's whole life's purpose was to fulfill that wish. The resulting work, Sri Chaitanya-mangala, and the way he went about writing it are described in full on Writing Sri Chaitanya-mangala.
A Wider Circle of Srikhanda Vaishnavas #
Narahari Sarkara Thakura was not the only notable devotee at Srikhanda. Sri Chaitanya-caritamrita's list of great branches also names Mukunda Dasa. The Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika identifies him as an incarnation of the gopi Vrindadevi. The list also names his son Raghunandana Thakura, who is remembered for his personal Deity worship of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Another Srikhanda resident named in the same passage, Chiranjiva, had two sons. One of them, Govinda Dasa Kaviraja, became a famous Vaishnava poet himself. The names are easily confused, so note that this same Chaitanya-caritamrita passage also names a separate devotee called Sulocana as a distinct branch of the tree. Sulocana is a different person from Lochana Dasa Thakura. Srila Prabhupada's purport to the same passage names Lochana Dasa Thakura as Narahari Sarkara Thakura's disciple and the author of Sri Chaitanya-mangala. Being trained in this village so full of devotion, among householder Vaishnavas who were truly great poets and devotees, seems to have made Lochana Dasa Thakura himself serious about both kirtana and composition.
Present at His Guru's Final Festival #
According to the Bhakti-ratnakara, Lochana Dasa Thakura was present at Narahari Sarkara Thakura's own disappearance festival. There he took on the humble task of greeting the assembled guests and giving them sandalwood paste and garlands. This detail is small, but it shows that he kept serving his guru faithfully even after Narahari Sarkara Thakura's own life on earth had ended. Narahari Sarkara Thakura also left behind his own devotional writings, including the Bhakti-chandrika-patala and Sri Krishna-bhajanamrita. Lochana Dasa Thakura's deep respect for him never grew less throughout his life. In Sri Chaitanya-mangala he admits that his highest hope, greater even than fame for his own composition, is simply to remain at Narahari's lotus feet and continue serving him. He expressed this devotion to a single guru very plainly in his own verse. This is one reason later Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition remembers Lochana Dasa Thakura as much for the way he lived as a disciple as for how much he wrote.
