Twenty Years of Pilgrimage

A sannyasi came to Ekachakra when Nityananda was twelve years old and asked directions to the house of Hadai Pandita. He was given food and a place to stay, as any sannyasi guest would have been in a devout brahmana household. What happened next is told, with small variations, in every biography of Nityananda Prabhu, and it is the turning point of his early life.

The Promise Given Before the Meal #

Before he would eat, the sannyasi asked his host to promise in advance that a request of his would be granted. Hadai Pandita gave the promise. A guest who asks for hospitality on those terms is not to be refused. In the custom of those times, a promise given to a sannyasi at the door, with no conditions attached, could not be broken. The meal was taken. Then, as he was about to leave, the guest named what he wanted. He was travelling alone to the holy places and needed a companion, and he asked for the boy.

Hadai Pandita Gives Away His Son #

Hadai Pandita had one surviving son. Everything the biographies say about Hadai Pandita comes back to how much he loved the boy. The traditional accounts describe him standing there, thinking of the only example that could help him. That was Dasaratha, who had given Rama and Lakshmana into the hands of Vishvamitra and let them go into the forest rather than break his word to a sage. Hadai Pandita went in to his wife and asked her what he should do, and Padmavati answered that whatever he decided, she would accept. He came back out with tears in his eyes and told the sannyasi that if he really wanted the boy, he could take him. The biographers say that Nityananda wanted to go and had been waiting for the chance, but he would not have broken his parents' hearts himself. So when the request came from outside, he took it as the arrangement he had been waiting for. He comforted his mother and father, and left.

The Grief and Death of Hadai Pandita #

Hadai Pandita collapsed as soon as his son was out of sight, and all the accounts agree that he never recovered. He could not eat and could not sleep. He is described as remembering, over and over, that he had never in his life let the boy out of his sight even to walk to the market. The tradition holds that he lived on for some time only because his mind was continuously fixed on the Supreme Lord, and that he eventually died of the grief. It is one of the harshest passages in Gaudiya devotional biography, and the tradition has never softened it. The deliverer of the fallen begins his public life by leaving behind a household that was destroyed by his going.

Lakshmipati Tirtha and the Disputed Identity #

The sources really do differ about who the sannyasi was, so we set out the disagreement here instead of hiding it. Vrindavana Dasa Thakura's Chaitanya-bhagavata simply says that a sannyasi came. Later Bengali tradition names him as Lakshmipati Tirtha, a senior figure of the Madhva line. Narahari Chakravarti's Bhakti-ratnakara tells the story differently again. In that version the boy left Ekachakra with an unnamed sannyasi. Nityananda met Lakshmipati only later and further south, at Pandharpur. Lakshmipati was visiting a brahmana disciple there, and Nityananda happened to be staying in that disciple's house without being recognised. In that account, one night Lakshmipati was singing of Balarama and weeping over his own unworthiness. He was then given a dream in which Balarama appeared. Balarama told him that a brahmana's son in the dress of an avadhuta had come to that village and would become his disciple, and He spoke a mantra into his ear. The next morning Nityananda came and asked Lakshmipati for initiation, and Lakshmipati gave it.

Who Initiated Nityananda Prabhu #

The question of who initiated Nityananda Prabhu is not settled even within the tradition itself. The Premavilasa says Ishvara Puri. Jiva Goswami says Sankarshana Puri, a disciple of Madhavendra Puri. The Bhakti-ratnakara says it was Lakshmipati, who was Madhavendra Puri's own guru. As Gaudiya historians have noted, this line of gurus would make Nityananda a godbrother of Madhavendra Puri, who is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's spiritual grandfather. That would place Nityananda two generations above Mahaprabhu, and it does not fit well with the easy, brotherly relationship Nityananda and Mahaprabhu plainly had. The Chaitanya-bhagavata records something simpler and probably safer. Madhavendra Puri treated Nityananda as a friend and equal, while Nityananda treated Madhavendra Puri with the respect due to a guru.

Gaya Kashi Prayag and Vraja #

The pilgrimage itself lasted about twenty years, from his twelfth to his thirty-second year. Vrindavana Dasa records the route in such detail that it is worth following place by place. He began close to home, at the temple of Vakresvara and the groves of Vaidyanatha. Then he went to Gaya, and on to Kashi, where he bathed in the Ganges and could not drink enough of the water. At Prayag he kept the month of Magha, with the usual morning bath where the rivers meet. Then he went to Mathura, which the biographies call the place of his previous appearance. There he played in the Yamuna at Vishrama-ghata, circled Govardhana Hill, and walked through all twelve forests of Vrindavana. At Gokula he sat down in the house of Nanda Maharaja and wept.

Dvaraka the South and Rameshvaram #

From there the route runs the length and breadth of the subcontinent. At Hastinapura he wept at the home of the Pandavas and called aloud on Balarama, the holder of the plough, to deliver everyone. At Dvaraka he bathed in the sea. He went on to Siddhapura, and to Matsya-tirtha, where he distributed cooked rice at a large festival. He visited both Siva-Kanchi and Vishnu-Kanchi, and the account says he laughed at the bitter quarrel between the followers of the two. He went to Kurukshetra, to Naimisharanya, to the western Sarasvati. At Ayodhya he wept at Rama's birthplace. In the country of Guhaka the boatman, he is said to have lost consciousness for three days, remembering the devotion of a man whom the strict society of the time treated as untouchable. He bathed in the Sarayu, the Gomati and the Gandaki, climbed Mount Mahendra to bow to Parashurama, and went up to Haridwar. He travelled through the Dravida country, Venkata, Kanchi, the Kaveri and Sri Rangam, where he stayed for some time. He went south to Madurai, the Tamraparni and the Malaya hills. Then he went north again to Badarikashrama, where he stayed in seclusion and, the biographies say, met Vyasadeva. He came at last to Setubandha and Rameshvaram at the southern tip of the peninsula, and to Jagannatha Puri. There he is described as fainting at the first sight of the disc on top of the temple, and then losing consciousness again and again before the Deity.

The Story of Saksi Gopala at Kataka #

Only one episode from these twenty years appears in the Chaitanya-charitamrita, and even that one is told only indirectly. In 1510, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was travelling to Puri and reached Kataka, Nityananda told Him the story of Saksi-gopala. This is the Deity who walked from Vrindavana to Vidyanagara to give evidence for a brahmana in a lawsuit. Nityananda knew the story because he had heard it from the townspeople himself, years before, on this very journey. Krishnadasa Kaviraja mentions this almost in passing at the start of the fifth chapter of the Madhya-lila. It is a small thing, but it is the one point at which the twenty years of wandering connect with the recorded history of Mahaprabhu's own life.

The Meeting With Madhavendra Puri #

The meeting the tradition cares most about is the meeting with Madhavendra Puri, and every account treats it as the emotional centre of the whole pilgrimage. Gaudiya Vaishnavism regards Madhavendra Puri as the origin of the line. It sees him as the first in whom love of Krishna in the mood of Vraja was revealed. Through Ishvara Puri, he is also the spiritual grandfather of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. The biographies say that when the two of them saw each other, both lost external consciousness and fell, and that Ishvara Puri, Brahmananda Puri and the other disciples standing round wept. When they recovered they embraced and rolled on the ground. Nityananda said that all his pilgrimages had been completed in that moment, since the holy places live at the feet of a pure devotee. They stayed together for a long time speaking of Krishna. Madhavendra Puri said that in all his travels he had found nothing like it. He also said that whoever turned against Nityananda could never be dear to Krishna. Then they parted, one going south to Setubandha and the other north to the Sarayu.

Waiting in Vrindavana for the Order #

Finally he returned to Mathura and settled in Vrindavana. Here the accounts record a detail that is easy to miss. In fact, it tells us more than anything else in the chapter. He ate almost nothing, taking a little milk only when it was brought to him unasked. He knew perfectly well that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was at that moment a young man in Nabadwip, with His divinity still hidden. And although he had the power to give love of God to anybody he chose, he gave it to nobody. He would not begin until the Lord had begun. He waited in Vrindavana, playing in the Yamuna with the local children, until the news reached him that the sankirtana movement had started. Then he went straight to Nabadwip.

What the Twenty Years Establish #

That refusal is what Gaudiya Vaishnavas take from the twenty years. When a man whom the tradition identifies as Balarama tours the tirthas, it is not a search. In this case the pilgrim is himself the goal of the pilgrimage. The accounts say as much when they note that he went to the holy places in order to purify them. These years really show his relation to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He was a servant who had everything and would use none of it without an order. The original spiritual master does not act by his own decision. He waits, sometimes for twenty years, and when the word comes he moves the same day.