Kheturi's ruling family had governed the Gopalpur pargana of Rajshahi district, on the bank of the Padma river, for at least two generations before Santosha Datta was born. Raja Krishnananda Datta was the ruler. He and his wife Narayani Devi raised a son, Narottama Dasa Thakura, whose life would one day be far greater than the throne itself. Krishnananda had a younger brother, Purushottama Datta. Purushottama's son, Santosha, would one day inherit everything the family had built.
A Prince Slips Away, a Cousin Stays Behind #
While Santosha grew up as part of the extended royal household, his cousin Narottama was already showing signs of a very different future. As a boy Narottama lost his taste for the throne after hearing wandering devotees describe the mercy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu, and his family, alarmed, set a guard to keep him from leaving. He escaped anyway, slipping out of Kheturi on a full-moon night and making his way to Vrindavana as an ordinary pilgrim. That departure, and the years Narottama spent there under Jiva Goswami and his eventual initiating guru Lokanatha Gosvami, are told on Narottama's own page. For Santosha, left behind in Kheturi, it meant that the family's fortunes, and eventually its full weight of responsibility, would fall to him.
By the time Narottama was ready to return to Bengal years later, both Krishnananda and Purushottama had died. At this point Santosha was simply "the foremost of saintly persons in the village," an "erudite scholar as well as expert in the royal administration," according to Gaudiya History's own account. This is the natural description of an heir who had spent the years in between learning to govern, not to renounce the world. The estate and the raja's seat passed to him, and Kheturi had a new ruler.
A Life the Chronicles Barely Touch #
Almost nothing about Santosha's own boyhood, marriage or private devotional life survives in any source. He belongs to the generation after Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own lifetime. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata were both written to record Mahaprabhu's own pastimes and His immediate associates, so neither of them has any reason to mention him. Srila Prabhupada's translated works do not name him either. What is known comes instead from three later Bengali chronicles of the generation after Mahaprabhu: Prema-vilasa, Narottama-vilasa and Bhaktiratnakara. It also comes from the modern retellings based on them. This is a real gap in the record. We have not left these details out by choice.
The Cousin's Return #
Narottama's homecoming was itself an occasion for celebration. Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math's own account of these events records that the residents of Kheturi welcomed him back with rejoicing. Santosha did more than celebrate. He was moved by some mixture of family loyalty, personal conviction and plain awe at what his cousin had become. Whatever the mixture, Santosha chose to take diksha from Narottama and become his formally initiated disciple. He was one of the earliest, if not the very first, that Narottama accepted after his return. From that point Santosha set himself to help Narottama's preaching in whatever way a man with land, income and experience in administration could. This partnership would soon produce something far larger than either of them could have managed alone.
A Vow Takes Shape #
Narottama had brought back more than teachings from Vrindavana. Like many of the Six Goswamis' students, he carried the desire to see Deities properly installed and worshiped in Bengal itself. Whether the idea itself began with Narottama or with Santosha, the sources agree on what happened. Santosha decided to have a temple built at Kheturi, and he asked his guru's permission to do so. Narottama agreed. Over the following months, what began as one disciple's devotional offering to his teacher grew into preparations for the largest gathering of Gaudiya Vaishnavas since the days of Mahaprabhu's own presence in Nabadwip. That story is told in full on Host of the Kheturi Mahotsava.
