As Mahaprabhu's boat approached Adaila's ghat on the river near Prayag, He was seized by such powerful ecstatic love that He began to dance where He stood. The boat tilted under His weight, filling with water and coming close to capsizing, until the boatmen and companions grabbed hold of Him and pulled Him back onto its deck. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita is candid about what happened next: Mahaprabhu tried to stay composed in front of Vallabha Bhattacharya, but, in Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami's words, His prema was "difficult to stop" and would not be checked by will alone. Only an awareness of the circumstances - the presence of ordinary onlookers, and of a host still largely unknown to Him - allowed Mahaprabhu to settle His mind before the boat finally reached Adaila's shore.
Welcomed Into Vallabha Bhattacharya's Home #
Once Mahaprabhu had landed, Vallabha Bhattacharya - fearful for the Lord's welfare after what had just happened on the water - stayed close by Him, arranged for His bath, and personally brought Him home. There he offered Mahaprabhu a fine seat, washed His feet with his own hands, gave Him spices to freshen His mouth, and later massaged His feet himself while Mahaprabhu rested. A meal was prepared with what Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami calls "affection and great care." The remnants of Mahaprabhu's own plate went first to Rupa Gosvami and, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita specifies, to "the two brothers" - Rupa Gosvami and his own younger brother, Anupama Mallika, known in his own youth simply as Sri Vallabha - and only then to Krishnadasa, the disciple accompanying them on the journey. It was into this settled, well-fed household, still recovering from the drama of the river crossing, that a visitor arrived unannounced.
A Scholar Arrives From Tirhut #
Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami introduces him in a single line: a pandita of Tiruhita, a great vaishnava, a mahashaya - "a respectable gentleman." Raghupati Upadhyaya came forward, offered his obeisances at Mahaprabhu's feet, and received a blessing in return: four words in Bengali that Srila Prabhupada renders in English as "Always stay in Krishna consciousness." Raghupati Upadhyaya, delighted to hear it, was then asked by Mahaprabhu Himself to describe Krishna.
Two Verses That Undid Mahaprabhu's Composure #
What Raghupati Upadhyaya recited were not memorized scriptural verses but his own Sanskrit compositions. The first set aside every conventional object of worship in a single breath: "Those who are afraid of material existence worship the Vedic literature. Some worship smriti, the corollaries to the Vedic literature, and others worship the Mahabharata. As far as I am concerned, I worship Krishna's father, Maharaja Nanda, in whose courtyard the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Absolute Truth, is playing." Mahaprabhu, hearing it, was overwhelmed with ecstatic love and asked for more. Raghupati Upadhyaya offered a second: "To whom can I speak who will believe me when I say that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is hunting the gopis in the bushes by the banks of the river Yamuna?" Both verses would later find a permanent home in Rupa Gosvami's Padyavali - the first as verse 126, the second as verse 99 - but in that moment they existed only as one scholar's private devotion, spoken aloud to a man he had met only that evening. By the time the second verse ended, Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami writes, Mahaprabhu's "body and mind" had gone slack with prema. Srila Prabhupada's own purport on this moment reads simply: "Our minds and bodies are always engaged in material activities. When they are activated on the spiritual platform, they slacken on the material platform." It was Raghupati Upadhyaya's own astonishment at what he was witnessing, in that slackened, transformed state, that carried the evening into its second half, told on the next pastime page.