Narottama, Srinivasa Acharya, and Shyamananda Prabhu left Vrindavana together, carrying with them manuscripts of the Goswamis' writings. These books would give the widely scattered Bengali Vaishnava community access to the theology that was being developed in Vrindavana. On the way, as they passed through Vishnupur, the manuscripts were stolen in the night by agents of the local ruler, who apparently mistook the chest for buried treasure. The three searched anxiously before learning that the local king held the books in his own storehouse. At that point Shyamananda Prabhu turned toward Odisha, Narottama continued on toward Kheturi, and Srinivasa Acharya stayed behind to recover the manuscripts. That mission is told mainly in Srinivasa Acharya's own biography and is only touched on here.
A Pilgrim Among Old Devotees #
Before settling at Kheturi, Narottama travelled widely through the holy places of Bengal. He visited many of the older generation of Vaishnavas who had known Chaitanya Mahaprabhu directly. At Navadvipa he is said to have met an elderly brahmana who had watched Chaitanya Mahaprabhu discuss scripture at that very spot years before. The meeting moved both men to tears. Narottama then went on to the households of Srivasa Thakura's family, Shuklambara Brahmachari, and Ishana Thakura, an old servant of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's mother Sachi Devi. He continued to Shantipura to see Advaita Acharya's son Acyutananda, and to Ambika Kalna to meet Gauridasa Pandita's disciple Hridaya Chaitanya. He also went to Saptagram, where the devotees of the departed Uddharana Datta Thakura were still absorbed in grief at his passing. At Kharadaha he met Jahnava Devi and Vasudha, the consorts of Nityananda Prabhu. The Bhakti-ratnakara records that they personally blessed him. He went on to Shri Khanda to see Narahari Sarkara Thakura, who had known his father. Then he went to Khanakula to see Abhirama Gopala Thakura and his Gopinatha Deity, and to Ekachakra, the birthplace of Nityananda Prabhu itself. From there he traveled to Jagannatha Puri. There he visited the samadhi of Haridasa Thakura and the Gopinatha temple associated with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's final days, before continuing to Shyamananda Prabhu's base at Nrisimhapura.
Opposition on Grounds of Caste #
Once Narottama began actively making disciples in Bengal, including brahmanas by birth, he ran into fierce resistance. Whatever its royal standing, his family was not brahmana by caste. Sources describe the family as Kulin Kayastha, a caste of scribes and administrators that had risen to zamindari rank without holding priestly status. To a number of orthodox smarta brahmanas, the idea of such a person initiating brahmanas into vaishnava mantra was intolerable.
Traditional accounts preserve more than one episode showing how this played out. In one, a brahmana who had publicly insulted Narottama as a shudra was struck with leprosy. Only after he sought forgiveness at Narottama's feet, the story goes, was he healed. In another, two young brahmana sons of a zamindar named Shivananda Acharya were sent to slaughter goats for a Durga puja. Afterwards they took initiation from Narottama and his disciple Ramachandra Kaviraja, and their father was furious. Shivananda brought in a celebrated logician from Mithila to publicly defeat Vaishnava theology, but the debate went against him instead. In a related episode, a different ruler sent the visiting scholar Rupa Narayana to defeat Narottama directly. But first, two of the scholar's own students were defeated by two of Narottama's own disciples, who were working in disguise as a potter and a betel-seller in the marketplace. The students did not know who their opponents were. A gentler episode tells of a brahmana named Jagannatha Acharya, a worshiper of Durga. He is said to have been told in a dream to seek shelter of Narottama and take up Krishna-bhajana. He did so without protest and became one of Narottama's dear disciples. This is a reminder that not every brahmana who came to him arrived in opposition.
We cannot be sure of the exact history behind these devotional stories. But they all keep the same memory. Narottama did not answer caste-based hostility by running away, or by fighting back. Instead he quietly held that surrender to Krishna, not birth, decides who may serve and who may lead. Later Gaudiya Vaishnava teaching repeats this again and again.
