Arriving at Southern Mathura #
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's tour through South India had already carried Him past dozens of temples and holy rivers when He arrived at southern Mathura - present-day Madurai - from a place Chaitanya-charitamrita calls Kamakoshthi. There He met a brahmana who, on recognizing his guest, invited Him home for the midday meal. Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami takes care to describe exactly who this brahmana was before the story goes any further: a great devotee, an authority on the pastimes of Lord Ramachandra, and a man so given over to chanting Rama's holy name that ordinary conversation with him was rare. It was, on the surface, an unremarkable act of hospitality along a well-worn pilgrimage road.
"Sita Will Cook When Lakshmana Returns" #
Mahaprabhu bathed in the river Krtamala and arrived at the appointed hour, only to find nothing prepared. Asked directly why, the brahmana answered as though the question had been asked of someone else entirely: "My dear Lord, we are living in the forest. For the time being we cannot get all the ingredients for cooking. When Lakshmana brings all the vegetables, fruits and roots from the forest, Sita will do the necessary cooking." He had, for that stretch of time, stopped experiencing himself as a householder in a South Indian town and started living inside the exile years of the Ramayana, as though he himself stood somewhere in the forest of Panchavati waiting on Sita's cooking. Chaitanya-charitamrita records that Mahaprabhu was not offended by this at all - He was, the text says, very satisfied to see the depth of the brahmana's absorption in his chosen form of worship. Only once the brahmana's ordinary awareness returned did he realize, with real embarrassment, what had happened, and he hastily prepared a meal after all.
A Vow to End His Own Life #
What followed was harder to resolve than an unmade lunch. Once Mahaprabhu had eaten - past three in the afternoon by then - the brahmana himself would not touch food at all. Pressed on why he was fasting and so visibly unhappy, he gave an answer with no hesitation in it: "I have no reason to live. I shall give up my life by entering either fire or water. My dear Sir, mother Sita is the mother of the universe and the Supreme Goddess of fortune. She has been touched by the demon Ravana, and I am troubled upon hearing this news. Sir, due to my unhappiness I cannot continue living. Although my body is burning, my life is not leaving." This was not a minor scruple. For a devotee whose entire religious identity centered on Sita and Rama, the idea that Ravana's hands had ever actually touched the Goddess of Fortune was, for one afternoon, close to unbearable.
The Lord's Answer #
Mahaprabhu's reply drew on a theological point that runs through much of the Ramayana's own devotional interpretation: "Please do not think this way any longer. You are a learned pandita. Why don't you consider the case? Sita Devi, the dearmost wife of the Supreme Lord Ramachandra, certainly has a spiritual form full of bliss. No one can see her with material eyes, for no materialist has such power. To say nothing of touching mother Sita, a person with material senses cannot even see her. When Ravana kidnapped her, he kidnapped only her material, illusory form. As soon as Ravana arrived before Sita, she disappeared. Then just to cheat Ravana she sent an illusory, material form. Spiritual substance is never within the jurisdiction of the material conception. This is always the verdict of the Vedas and Puranas." Srila Prabhupada's own purport to this passage grounds the teaching in the Katha Upanishad's statement that spirit lies beyond the reach of material eyes, words, or mind, and in a verse of Srimad-Bhagavatam warning against mistaking the body for the self. "Have faith in My words," Mahaprabhu told him, "and do not burden your mind any longer with this misconception." Trusting a man he had known for less than a single day, the brahmana accepted food at last, and his life was saved.
The story did not end there. Weeks later, on a different stretch of His South Indian tour, Mahaprabhu would come across independent scriptural confirmation of precisely this teaching - and go out of His way to bring proof of it back to the man who had needed to hear it most. That return journey is told in The Return of the Kurma-Purana Leaf.