Srila Raghunatha Dasa Goswami

Srila Raghunatha Dasa Goswami is remembered among the Six Goswamis of Vrindavana as the very image of renunciation carried to its furthest point. Born into more wealth than most of his contemporaries would see in several lifetimes, he walked away from all of it to beg his food at a temple gate, and in his final decades survived on a few mouthfuls of buttermilk a day beside a small lake in Vraja. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu placed him in the personal care of His secretary Svarupa Damodara Gosvami at Jagannatha Puri, and it was there, and later at Vrindavana under Rupa Gosvami and Sanatana Gosvami, that Raghunatha Dasa became, in Srila Prabhupada's own repeated estimation, the standard by which every Gaudiya Vaishnava measures the meaning of surrender.

Birth into Wealth in Bengal #

Raghunatha Dasa was born the only son of Govardhana Majumadara, a landholder of the Saptagrama area of Hooghly district in Bengal whose family, together with his brother Hiranya Dasa, farmed a share of the region's imperial tax revenue and moved among considerable wealth. According to Srila Prabhupada's own description in a 1975 Vrindavana lecture, his father's income amounted to twelve lakhs of rupees, an extraordinary sum for the period. As a boy Raghunatha received the association and blessing of Haridasa Thakura, and from an early age his heart was already drawn toward Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu, even while he continued, outwardly, to live and later marry within his father's prosperous household.

The Long Escape to Puri #

Raghunatha's family, sensing his restlessness, tried marriage and responsibility to hold him, but he found no taste in either. Over several years he made repeated attempts to leave for Jagannatha Puri, was caught and brought home each time, and finally succeeded only through the help of his own family priest, Yadunandana Acharya, who engineered his escape by a ruse late one night. Along the way Lord Nityananda Prabhu met him at Panihati, publicly called him a thief for having stayed away so long, and gave him the memorable order that produced the famous chida-dadhi-mahotsava, the festival of chipped rice and yogurt still commemorated by Gaudiya Vaishnavas today. The fuller account of these years is told in The Struggle to Renounce the World.

Under the Care of Svarupa Damodara #

Raghunatha reached Jagannatha Puri after a twelve-day journey on foot, having eaten only three times along the way. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu embraced him and entrusted him, by name, to His own secretary Svarupa Damodara Gosvami, who from then on was known as the guardian of "Svarupera Raghu." Under this care Raghunatha's renunciation became legendary: he stood at the Simha-dvara gate to beg alms, gave up even that when he judged it too uncertain a dependence, and for years ate nothing but the spoiled temple rice that even the temple cows would not touch. Mahaprabhu personally gave him a Govardhana-sila and a garland of conchshells that He Himself had worn for three years, and taught him directly the verse beginning trnad api sunicena — that one who considers himself lower than a blade of grass can chant the holy name without obstruction. These episodes are described fully in Service Under Svarupa Damodara at Puri.

To Vrindavana After the Lord's Disappearance #

Raghunatha Dasa remained at Puri roughly sixteen years in all, serving Svarupa Damodara Gosvami through Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own disappearance and for some years after. When Svarupa Damodara himself passed from view, Raghunatha could no longer bear to remain, and made his way to Vrindavana, where Rupa Gosvami and Sanatana Gosvami received him and drew him back from the edge of despair. There he became a living link between the Lord's Puri pastimes and the Vrindavana Vaishnava community, and it was from Raghunatha, above all, that Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami — who accepted him as diksha-guru — received the detail that fills the Antya-lila of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita.

Bhajana at Radha-kunda #

Raghunatha Dasa settled beside Radha-kunda for the remainder of his life, some four decades, keeping a discipline of chanting, bathing and obeisances that left barely ninety minutes a day for eating or sleep. As grief for his departed associates deepened with each passing year, his intake narrowed further still, until in his final years he had all but given up eating and drinking altogether. In this same period he wrote the poems gathered as his Stavavali, including the celebrated Manah-siksa and the tearful Vilapa-kusumanjali, along with the drama Dana-keli-cintamani and the shorter Mukta-caritra. Fuller treatment of both the bhajana and the writings appears in Bhajana at Radha-kunda and in Literary Works and the Stavavali.

Disappearance and Place in the Parampara #

Raghunatha Dasa Goswami is traditionally said to have left this world in 1586, on Shukla Dvadasi of the month of Ashvina, and his samadhi still stands on the bank of Radha-kunda, visited by pilgrims to this day. Srila Prabhupada returned to his example again and again as the measure of what vairagya, renunciation, actually costs and actually means — a rich man's son who, offered every comfort, chose a leaf-cup of buttermilk instead. His own closing words in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita's Antya-lila name Raghunatha Dasa Goswami as his spiritual master, carrying his legacy directly into the book that has shaped Gaudiya Vaishnavism ever since.