Chaitanya-charitamrita's Antya-lila devotes its entire second chapter to an episode known as the chastisement of Junior Haridasa, and Madhavi Devi stands at the story's very center, though entirely without fault of her own. She was, by this point in the narrative, established near the Jagannatha temple as an elderly and highly respected devotee, self-sufficient enough that other devotees could turn to her for alms without a second thought. It was that ordinary trust that set the events in motion.
A Simple Request for Alms #
One day Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepted an invitation to dine at the home of Bhagavan Acharya, a devotee preparing rice and vegetables in the Lord's honor. Wanting the finest rice for the meal, Bhagavan Acharya called on a devotee known as Junior Haridasa, who used to sing for Mahaprabhu, and sent him with a simple instruction: go to the sister of Shikhi Mahiti, and in my name, ask her for a measure of white rice. Junior Haridasa did exactly that, and Madhavi Devi gave the rice, as an elderly Vaishnavi of her standing naturally would to a devotee who came in a respected householder's name. When the rice reached Mahaprabhu's table that afternoon, He praised its quality at once and asked where it had come from.
An Answer That Changed Everything #
Bhagavan Acharya named Junior Haridasa as the one who had begged and brought the rice. Mahaprabhu ate the meal and returned to His own residence. He then gave His personal servant Govinda an order that startled everyone who heard it: from that day forward, Junior Haridasa was not to be allowed anywhere near Him. No one could understand what offense had been committed. Junior Haridasa fasted for three days in his distress. At last Svarupa Damodara Goswami and some of the Lord's other most confidential devotees approached Mahaprabhu directly to ask what had gone so wrong.
Mahaprabhu's answer was very clear, and it had nothing to do with any fault in Madhavi Devi. "I cannot tolerate seeing the face of a person who has accepted the renounced order of life but who still talks intimately with a woman," He told them. He went on to quote an old verse of caution. It says that one should not sit closely even with one's own mother, sister or daughter, because the senses are strong enough to attract a person advanced in knowledge. He added that the senses hold so firmly to their objects that even a wooden statue of a woman can disturb the mind of a great saintly person. Those who take the renounced order lightly, He said, and then wander about speaking intimately with women, are renounced in name only. The strict standard that Mahaprabhu applied to Junior Haridasa was not a judgment on Madhavi Devi's character. In every other account in the text, she was one of His most trusted and advanced devotees, a woman "very advanced in devotional service" whom He personally counted among His three-and-a-half most confidential associates (see her main page for that designation in full). The fault the Lord found lay entirely in the manner and ease with which a man in the renounced order had approached her, not in anything Madhavi Devi said or did.
A Standard No Devotee Could Move #
Mahaprabhu's own closest associates pleaded with Him, but He never gave way. Chaitanya-charitamrita records that Junior Haridasa, unable to bear his separation from the Lord, went a year later to the place where the Ganges and Yamuna meet at Prayaga and drowned himself there. It also records that even afterward, in his spiritual body, he continued singing devotional songs that Mahaprabhu could still hear. It is a hard episode, and Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami does not soften it. In the text it stands as the clearest possible example of how absolute Mahaprabhu's standard for the renounced order was. No exception was made, even for a devotee who had served Him for years. Madhavi Devi's part in it is small and passive. She is simply the respected elder whose rice, and whose name, became the cause for that standard to be tested. Nothing in the record suggests she ever knew, at the time, what the result of that ordinary act of charity would be.
