Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu disappeared at Jagannatha Puri in June 1534. Within a few years Advaita Acharya, Srivasa Pandit and most of the first generation of the Nabadwip devotees had followed Him. Nityananda Prabhu had spent the last twenty or more years of the Lord's manifest life in Bengal, not in Puri. He lived only a little longer than all of them. Then he too departed, some time around 1540.
| Source | Date Given |
|---|---|
| Most modern accounts | About 1540 |
| Vaishnava-digdarsini | 1542, at the age of sixty-nine |
| Some sources | As late as 1544 |
| A few sources | As early as 1533 |
Why the Date Cannot Be Fixed #
The date cannot be fixed. We are not avoiding the question. The record simply does not give the date, and it helps to understand why. The two great biographies both leave us without an answer here, and for opposite reasons. Vrindavana Dasa Thakura's Chaitanya-bhagavata was written in Nityananda Prabhu's own lifetime and, according to Krishnadasa Kaviraja, by his order. So it has to end before his disappearance. Krishnadasa Kaviraja's Chaitanya-charitamrita was written half a century later, in Vrindavana, and it is a life of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It describes Nityananda's activities only where they are connected with the Lord's, and it simply does not describe his passing. No one ever wrote a detailed account of his disappearance like the Puri accounts of Mahaprabhu's own disappearance. What survives is temple tradition, later Bengali devotional biographies, and the family lineage records, and they do not agree.
The Dates Given by the Sources #
Most modern accounts settle on about 1540. The Vaishnava-digdarsini gives 1542, and says he was sixty-nine years old at the time, which fits an appearance in 1473. Some sources give a date as late as 1544. A few place it as early as 1533, which does not fit well with other events. A good deal of devotional writing about him was produced while people who knew him were still alive. Even so, the dates given for his disappearance cover a range of ten years. So the sensible course is simply to say around 1540.
Two Accounts of the Place and Manner #
The sources also disagree about the place and the manner of his departure, and in a more interesting way. Two quite different accounts have been handed down, and each is connected with a real place.
Merging Into Banka Raya at Ekachakra #
Most Gaudiya Vaishnavas follow the account that puts it at Ekachakra, and this is also the account connected with a place people still visit. In this version he travelled back to the village of his birth in Birbhum, and there he merged into the Deity of Banka Raya. Some tellings say he took Jahnava Devi with him to show her where he had come from. Banka Raya, also called Bankima Raya, is a form of Krishna. According to the priests of Ekachakra, Nityananda Prabhu had himself taken this Deity out of the water at the Kadamba-khandi ghat as a boy and installed Him in the village. The priests of the temple describe the disappearance in exactly those terms. They also add one detail that makes the account fit together. After this, the deity of Jahnava Mata was placed at Banka Raya's right-hand side, where she stands to this day. The Bhakti-ratnakara supports the Ekachakra version, and Srila Prabhupada records the temple tradition in his purport on Ekachakra in the Adi-lila.
The Khardaha Account and Its Difficulty #
The other account puts it at Khardaha, on the Ganges north of Calcutta, where he had lived for the last part of his life. It says that he disappeared during kirtana in the temple of Shyamasundara there. The objection to this version is about dates, not about devotion. The Shyamasundara Deity at Khardaha is generally held to have been installed later than 1540. So it is hard to accept the story exactly in that form. Some versions place the event at Khardaha without naming that Deity. Some traditions connect it with the death of Vasudha. Others simply record that he passed away at Khardaha and say nothing about the manner.
Why the Tradition Has Not Chosen #
Looking from the outside, there is no honest way to choose between the two accounts, and the tradition has not really tried. Differences like this are completely normal for that period and for such a subject. Every one of His biographers deliberately says very little about the disappearance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. It is still one of the most discussed questions in Gaudiya history. The word used everywhere is disappearance, not death. The accounts that survive are statements about spiritual truth as much as statements about places. In the tradition's own way of speaking, to say that he merged into the Deity of Banka Raya tells us where he is now. It is not a report of what was done with a body. The claim is that he is present in that Deity, and that is why people go there. A reader who wants an official record of how Nityananda Prabhu died will not find one. The reason is that nobody who wrote about him was interested in producing such a record.
What He Left Behind #
But some things are clear, and the whole tradition agrees about them. These are the things he left behind, and he left a great deal.
Bengal Left Organised #
He left Bengal organised. The eleventh chapter of the Adi-lila names more than seventy-five branch leaders of his line. Twelve of them are identified as the cowherd boys of Vraja, who had come again. Krishnadasa Kaviraja sums up by saying that each of them had the independent strength to give love of Krishna to anyone they met. The householder congregations at Khardaha, Panihati, Saptagram, Ambika Kalna and across the Birbhum country were his work. So was the return of the suvarna-vanik community to respectable society. For centuries this community had been outside respectable Hindu society in Bengal, until he went and ate in Uddharana Datta Thakura's house at Saptagram.
Virabhadra and Jahnava Mata #
He left a family. Krishnadasa Kaviraja describes Virabhadra Gosani, his son by Vasudha, as the topmost branch of the line and the main pillar of the whole building of devotional service. It was Virabhadra who built the temple at Ekachakra, which his father had not built. And Nityananda Prabhu left behind Jahnava Mata. She guided the second generation, and her leadership reached its high point when she presided over the festival at Kheturi. All the founders of the movement died within a few years of each other. Her leadership is the single reason the movement did not come apart in those decades.
The Two Books Written on His Order #
In an indirect way, he also left both of the movement's main books. The Chaitanya-bhagavata was written by Vrindavana Dasa Thakura on his order, and Krishnadasa Kaviraja says so: by Nityananda Prabhu's order and strength, Vrindavana Dasa described elaborately everything that he himself had left out. And the Chaitanya-charitamrita exists because Nityananda Prabhu appeared in a dream to Krishnadasa Kaviraja at his home in Jhamatpura. He put His feet on Krishnadasa's head and told him to go to Vrindavana, where he would attain everything. He went, met Rupa Goswami's successors, and wrote the book. So Gaudiya Vaishnavism's two central biographies of its founder both come from him, in different ways.
Ekachakra and the Sites Shown Today #
Ekachakra today is called Birchandrapur, after his son, and lies in Birbhum district in West Bengal. The site of the birth, Garbhavasa, is still maintained. Half a mile away stands the Banka Raya temple, which was rebuilt after lightning struck it in 1924. In it Radharani stands on one side of the Deity and Jahnava Mata on the other. Visitors are also shown the ancient bakula tree, the tank at Hantugada, and the spot called Visramatala, where he is said to have acted out the Vraja pastimes with the village boys. Large fairs are still held there on his appearance day and at Goshthashtami.
Why the Disappearance Changed So Little #
Perhaps the most typical thing in the tradition's view of his disappearance is how little it is felt to have changed. Jahnava Mata is said to have continued receiving his guidance for the rest of her life. The teaching about his mercy, explained on the mercy of Nitai, has always been stated in the present tense. Krishnadasa Kaviraja wrote perhaps fifty years after the event. Yet he describes what Nityananda did for him personally as something still going on. In practice, too, the deities installed in Gaudiya temples show the same thing without any argument. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is not installed alone. Nityananda Prabhu stands beside Him, arms raised, exactly as he did in the streets of Nabadwip. And Bengali Vaishnavas still put his name first when they greet each other.
