Srila Shrinatha Pandita

Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita names Shrinatha Pandita as one of the branches of the "Caitanya tree," which is its orderly list of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's associates in the tenth chapter of Adi-lila. The commentary on the verse that names him adds two things besides the simple listing. He was a disciple of Sri Advaita Acharya, and he was, in turn, the guru of the famous poet Kavi-karnapura Goswami. The same commentary also credits him with founding a Deity of Radha-Krishna, named Sri Krishna Raya, at a village in Bengal. Remarkably, that temple still stands today. Apart from these three connections, very little is recorded about Shrinatha Pandita's own life. No birth year, family name, or date of disappearance survives in any available source.

At a Glance

• Listed by name in Chaitanya-charitamrita's catalog of Mahaprabhu's associates, with no personal pastime narrated in the verse itself.
• Identified in the accompanying commentary as a disciple of Advaita Acharya.
• Became the diksha-guru of Kavi-karnapura Goswami, later famous as the author of Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika.
• Credited with founding the Sri Krishna Raya Deity, whose temple can still be visited in Bengal.
• Easily confused with two other, unrelated "Shrinatha" figures named elsewhere in the same catalog.

Named in the Chaitanya Tree #

Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita gives an orderly list of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's associates in Adi-lila, chapter 10. It describes them as branches and twigs of a great "Caitanya tree." Shrinatha Pandita appears there by name, as the forty-ninth branch: "Shrinatha Pandita, the forty-ninth branch, was the beloved recipient of all the mercy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Everyone in the three worlds was astonished to see how he worshiped Lord Krishna" (Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi 10.107). Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami gives him no further story inside the verse itself. Most names on this long list receive only a line or two. But the Anubhasya commentary of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura adds real, specific details about who he was and what he did. This commentary is printed alongside Srila Prabhupada's own English edition of the text.

A Disciple of Advaita Acharya #

That commentary states plainly that Shrinatha Pandita was one of the disciples of Sri Advaita Acharya. This places him in a known, recorded branch of the Gaudiya Vaishnava family, among the students and associates gathered around Advaita Acharya's own household. Apart from this one fact, no available source records where Shrinatha Pandita was born, what his family was called, or when he lived. There is one partial exception. It is found not in Chaitanya-charitamrita itself but in the writing of his own disciple.

Guru to a Great Poet #

Shrinatha Pandita is best remembered today for one well-documented relationship. He was the diksha-guru of Paramananda Sena, the youngest son of Shivananda Sena. Paramananda Sena grew up to become the famous Sanskrit poet Kavi-karnapura Goswami. Kavi-karnapura opens his own book, Sri Ananda-vrindavana-champu, with a guru-pranama verse in Shrinatha Pandita's honor (quoted in full above). In it he offers respect to Shrinatha Pandita as the one whose hari-katha freed everyone who heard it from attachment to worldly life. That verse is also the only available source that says anything at all about Shrinatha Pandita's family background. It states he "appeared in a brahmana family," without naming the family itself. Everything else known about the relationship comes from what Chaitanya-charitamrita's commentary says about Kavi-karnapura's guru. None of it comes from anything Shrinatha Pandita himself is recorded as having said or done.

Which Shrinatha? #

Names built on "Shrinatha" appear more than once in Chaitanya-charitamrita's catalogs, and the text itself treats them as different people. Adi-lila chapter 10 separately lists a Shrinatha Mishra as the fifty-fifth branch of the tree (Adi 10.110). Kavi-karnapura's own Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika identifies him as the gopi Chitrangi in Krishna's Vrindavana pastimes. He is a different person from Shrinatha Pandita of verse 107, and shares only the first half of a common name. Adi-lila chapter 12 separately lists Advaita Acharya's own line of expansions. There it names yet another Shrinatha, Shrinatha Chakravarti, the fifteenth branch (Adi 12.84). The Shakha-nirnaya praises him as "a reservoir of all good qualities and an expert in the service of Lord Krishna." Chaitanya-charitamrita keeps these as separate entries in separate chapters. A few later retellings, which are secondary sources, blend Shrinatha Chakravarti's name into Shrinatha Pandita's and treat them as one person under two titles. But nothing in Chaitanya-charitamrita itself, or in its own Anubhasya commentary, clearly says they are the same person. Following the original text, this page treats Shrinatha Pandita only as the person named at Adi 10.107: the guru of Kavi-karnapura and the founder of the Deity described below.

Founder of a Temple Still Standing #

Beyond his role as a guru, Shrinatha Pandita also established a temple of Radha-Krishna, according to the Anubhasya commentary on Adi 10.107. This was at a village called Kanchadapada, about one and a half miles from Kumarahatta (also written Kamarhatta). Kumarahatta is a place a few miles north of Calcutta, on the bank of the Hooghly river. The Deity installed there is named Sri Krishna Raya, and the temple that houses it can still be visited today. The Legacy page gives a full account of that temple: its legendary origin, its rebuilding two centuries after Shrinatha Pandita's own time, and its survival into the present.