Hussain Shah did not release Sanatana from his post as easily as he had released Rupa. When Sanatana pressed his resignation, the Sultan refused it and personally tried to persuade him to remain, going so far as to visit him and press him to accompany an upcoming military campaign against the neighboring kingdom of Odisha. Sanatana stopped attending court and pretended to be ill; the Sultan, suspicious, sent his own physicians to examine him, and they reported back that Sanatana was in perfect health. When Sanatana continued to refuse the King's summons, Hussain Shah had him thrown into prison.
A Letter from Rupa #
While Sanatana sat in confinement in Bengal, word reached him that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had left Jagannatha Puri and set out for Mathura, and that Rupa and Anupama had already resolved to meet Him there. The news, carried in a letter from Rupa, pushed Sanatana to act. He went directly to the superintendent of the jail, a Muslim official whom Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita describes bluntly as "a meat-eater," and appealed first to religious principle - reminding him of his knowledge of the Koran and of the merit, in any tradition, of releasing a rightfully bound soul - and then, when persuasion alone wasn't enough, to plain self-interest, offering him five thousand gold coins. The jailer wavered, afraid of what the Nawab might do if the truth came out, until Sanatana, with the composure of a man who had spent years managing far larger sums as a minister, coached him on exactly what to tell Hussain Shah if he returned and asked after his prisoner: that Sanatana had gone to the Ganges, seen the river, and simply thrown himself in with his shackles still on, and drowned. Still not fully satisfied, the jailer held out until Sanatana stacked seven thousand gold coins before him. That night, the jailer cut Sanatana's shackles and let him cross the Ganges into the dark.
A Robber Who Chose Not to Rob #
Sanatana could not travel the main roads as a fugitive, so he made his way on foot, day and night, through difficult hill country toward a place called Patada, accompanied only by a servant named Ishana who carried what remained of their money - eight gold coins. At Patada, a landholder took them in and, on the advice of a palmist staying with him who had divined that the strangers carried gold, began plotting to murder Sanatana and his servant that same night and take the coins. Sensing something wrong in the landlord's excessive hospitality - the instincts, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita notes dryly, of a former royal minister who understood diplomacy - Sanatana quietly asked Ishana how much money remained, then walked up to the landlord and offered him seven of the eight coins outright, asking only safe passage across the hill tract. The landlord's answer is one of the most striking small speeches in the whole narrative: "On this very night I would have killed you and taken your coins. It is very good that you have voluntarily offered them to me. I am now relieved from such a sinful activity... I shall not accept these coins, but I shall get you across that hilly tract of land simply to perform a pious activity." Sanatana insisted he take the coins anyway, reasoning that if this man did not, someone else along the road certainly would, and the landlord finally relented, sending four of his own men to guide them safely through the forest overnight.
Across the Ganges to Varanasi #
Beyond the hills, Sanatana sent Ishana back and continued alone, "covered with a torn quilt," carrying only a waterpot, until he reached Hajipura, where by good fortune he ran into his own brother-in-law Srikanta, a government official then buying horses for the Mughal emperor with a large sum of money in his charge. Srikanta urged him to rest and dress respectably for a few days; Sanatana would not stay even a moment, and Srikanta instead gave him a woolen blanket and helped him cross the Ganges one final time. After several more days of travel, Sanatana arrived at Varanasi and made his way to the door of Chandrasekhara, a householder devotee with whom Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was then staying - setting the stage for the reunion and the extraordinary two months of personal instruction told in The Instruction at Varanasi.