Lokanatha's wandering through the twelve forests of Vraja eventually brought him to Khadiravana and then on to Kishori-kunda, a small lake near the village of Umarao (also spelled Umaraa) by the forest of Chatravana. He was so struck by the beauty of the place that he stayed on to do solitary bhajana there, and it was during this stay that a long-held desire took hold of him: to worship Radha and Krishna not only in meditation but in Deity form.
An Unlooked-For Gift #
Tradition holds that Krishna, who knows the hearts of his devotees, answered this desire directly. He appeared before Lokanatha in person, presented him with a small Deity, told him its name was Radha-Vinoda, and then vanished. Lokanatha, astonished and suddenly anxious at having been left alone with the Lord himself in Deity form, is said to have been reassured by the Deity, who spoke to him with a smile: "I live here on the banks of Kishori-kunda, in the village of Umarao. I saw your eagerness to serve me, so I came here myself — now, please, give me something to eat." Moved to tears, Lokanatha cooked at once, offered rice on a fresh banana leaf, made a bed of flowers for the Deity to rest on, and fanned him with leaves — the first of what would become a lifetime of personal, hands-on service.
A Cloth Bag for a Temple #
Word spread among the local Vrajavasis and cowherds, who wanted to build Lokanatha a small hut so that he and his new Deity would have a proper home. He refused. Instead, he sewed a simple cloth bag, hung it around his neck, and kept Radha-Vinoda there at all times — the Deity, as the sources put it, becoming like a jeweled necklace worn constantly against his chest. This was not a temporary arrangement: it remained his practice for the rest of his life, through every season and every forest he walked, and it is remembered today as one of the clearest single images of *vairagya* (renunciation) in the entire Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. Lokanatha accepted nothing beyond what the Deity's own service strictly required, refusing even the comforts other devotees were eager to offer him.
From a Bag to a Temple #
The Deity Lokanatha carried through the forests did eventually find a settled home, though not in his own lifetime in the way later pilgrims would encounter it. A pratibhu-murti, or ritually authorized replica, of Radha-Vinoda came to be installed generations later on the altar of the Radha-Gokulananda temple in Vrindavana proper — a temple later rebuilt and expanded by Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakura, who brought several Deities, including his own Gokulananda, under one roof there (see Disappearance and Legacy for the fuller story of that temple and of what became of the original Deity). For the years covered on this page, though, Radha-Vinoda had no roof at all beyond a length of cloth and the constant, undivided attention of the renunciant who carried him — a life of service that continued right up until Lokanatha, in his later years, took on the one disciple this site describes in Initiating Narottama Dasa Thakura.
One Forest Among Twelve #
Chatravana, the forest by Kishori-kunda where Radha-Vinoda was revealed, is counted among the dvadasha-vana, the twelve sacred forests traditionally said to make up the wider Vraja-mandala. Identifying and reviving the forgotten holy places scattered through these forests was one of the great, patient projects the Goswamis of Vrindavana undertook together in this period, a labor most closely associated with Sanatana Goswami's own writings on Vraja's geography. Lokanatha's discovery of Radha-Vinoda at Kishori-kunda belongs to that same broader movement of rediscovery, even though no source claims he took a formal, organized part in it the way Sanatana did — his contribution was simply to find, and then never leave, one particular corner of it.
