In 1514, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu passed through Gauda on His way toward Vrindavana, traveling with a large group of followers. Sanatana and Rupa were still serving at the Bengal court under their Muslim titles of Sakara Mallika and Dabira Khasa. They had already heard of Him and secretly longed for His association, but their position made an open approach dangerous. According to Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, the King himself asked Dabira Khasa, that is Rupa, what he thought of this wandering preacher's growing influence. Rupa answered carefully. He told the Sultan that whatever conviction arose in the Sultan's own mind about who Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was should be trusted as evidence enough. Satisfied, the King himself declared, "I consider Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead. There is no doubt about it." That conversation settled the matter for both brothers. That same night the two of them decided to go and see the Lord in person, in secret.
In the Dead of Night #
Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita describes what followed in vivid detail: "Thus in the dead of night the two brothers, Dabira Khasa and Sakara Mallika, went to see Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu incognito. First they met Nityananda Prabhu and Haridasa Thakura," who in turn told the Lord that two men named Rupa and Sanatana, names apparently already known to Him by reputation, had come. The two brothers approached with straw held between their teeth, a traditional sign of deep humility. They had cloths tied around their necks, and they fell before the Lord "like rods." Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was overwhelmed and asked them to rise. But they got up only to fall flat before Him again. They offered a long prayer in which they called themselves more sinful than the notorious brothers Jagai and Madhai, whose deliverance by the Lord was already well known: "We two are millions and millions of times inferior to Jagai and Madhai. We are more degraded, fallen and sinful than they." In reply to this prayer, the Lord addressed each of them by their court names one last time: "My dear Dabira Khasa, you two brothers are My old servants... My dear Sakara Mallika, from this day your names will be changed to Srila Rupa and Srila Sanatana," and told them plainly to give up their humility, "for My heart is breaking to see you so humble."
Turning the Lord Back from Vrindavana #
That same night, or shortly after, Sanatana gave Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu a piece of advice that shows the same sharp practical sense he had brought to his years at court. Sanatana learned that the Lord intended to go on to Vrindavana followed by the hundreds and, by some accounts, thousands of devotees then traveling with Him. He pointed out that this was not a fitting way to make a pilgrimage. The company was too large and too visible to move safely or humbly through territory that was, after all, still under Muslim rule. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita records that the Lord privately considered this advice that same night and accepted it. He went only a short distance further, as far as a place called Kanair Natshala, and then turned back, instead of pressing on toward Vrindavana as He had first planned. This small moment is easy to pass over. But it shows something important about how Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu related to Sanatana from their very first conversation. He did not treat Sanatana only as a devotee to be instructed. He also trusted Sanatana's judgment, sharpened by years of real administrative responsibility, and He was willing to act on it.
What the Meeting Set in Motion #
The Ramakeli meeting did not end the brothers' troubles with the Bengal court. Rupa was able to resign his post fairly soon afterward and begin making his way toward the Lord. But Hussain Shah refused outright Sanatana's request to resign, because he was unwilling to lose so capable a minister. So the meeting that began that night at Ramakeli as a secret meeting of the heart was only the start for Sanatana. Before he could actually join the Lord he had just met, he had to travel a much harder and more dangerous road, told in full in Imprisonment and Escape. The names Rupa and Sanatana, given in that single night, are the names by which the tradition has known the two brothers ever since. Their former court titles survive only as a detail of history. They are kept mainly to explain how two Sanskrit scholars were, for a time, called by Muslim titles at all.
