Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita gives Parameshvara Dasa a single verse, but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura's Anubhasya - drawing on the Chaitanya-bhagavata - fills that verse out with one of the more affectionate descriptions given to any of Nityananda Prabhu's associates. Vrindavana Dasa Thakura himself is quoted describing Parameshvara Dasa this way: "Parameshvara is the life of Lord Nityananda, and his form is the place of his pastimes. Krishna dasa and Parameshvara, being in the mood of cowherd boys, are always raising a commotion." The phrase is not simply poetic - it names the specific mood, sakhya, in which Parameshvara Dasa is remembered: not formal reverence, but the unguarded, boisterous friendship of a cowherd boy toward his most intimate playmate, exactly the mood the Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika assigns him in his identity as Krishna's Vraja friend Arjuna.
Life at Khadadaha #
For a period of his life, Parameshvara Dasa lived at Khadadaha village, a place named in Chaitanya-charitamrita's account of several devotees of this generation. The Anubhasya records only that he was "always filled with the ecstasy of a cowherd boy" there - no episode, no date, simply a description of the mood that stayed with him. This is the same mood later sources say carried into his temple service at Atapur, and into a documented later-life miracle at Akna Mahesh, both told on the-shripat-at-atapur.
Accompanying Jahnava Devi to Kheturi #
After Nityananda Prabhu's disappearance, his wife Jahnava Mata came to occupy an unusual and important position in the Gaudiya Vaishnava community, personally directing Deity worship and presiding over major festivals. Parameshvara Dasa is recorded as one of those in her company at the great festival held at Kheturi village, where Narottama Dasa Thakura installed Deities on Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's appearance day. Jahnava Devi herself supervised the cooking and made the first offering to the newly installed Deities, and tradition holds that during Narottama Dasa Thakura's own prema-nama-kirtana at the festival, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Their associates appeared before the assembled devotees. The Kheturi festival is remembered as one of the defining public events of the generation after Mahaprabhu's disappearance, drawing devotees from across Bengal; Parameshvara Dasa's presence in Jahnava Devi's own entourage there places him among that gathering, even though the sources used for this page give no further detail of what he personally did at the festival itself. The Bhakti-ratnakara, a later but widely used devotional history of this period, is the source for his presence in her entourage; Chaitanya-charitamrita itself, composed earlier, does not describe the Kheturi festival.
Escorting the Deity of Radharani to Vrindavana #
Sources describing Jahnava Devi's later years record that she sent a Deity of Radharani to Vrindavana, to stand beside Sri Govindaji there, and that Parameshvara Dasa was among those who accompanied the Deity on that journey. No source consulted for this page gives a date for the journey, or explains why Parameshvara Dasa specifically was chosen for it beyond his standing as, in the sources' own words, her very dear servant. Taken together with the Kheturi festival, this places Parameshvara Dasa in Jahnava Devi's personal service across a substantial part of her own long period of leadership - a second chapter of his life, distinct from and considerably longer than anything recorded of his years with Nityananda Prabhu directly.