The one part of Shrinatha Pandita's life that has not been lost from history is the temple he built. The commentary tradition connected with Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami's Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita credits him with founding a Deity called Sri Krishna Raya. He left behind a physical site that can still be visited in Bengal today. Its walls carry a tablet inscribed with his name and the names of his father and grandfather.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Deity | Sri Krishna Raya (Radha-Krishna) |
| Original site | Kanchadapada, about one and a half miles from Kumarahatta / Kamarhatta, Bengal |
| Present-day location | Rathtala area, Kanchrapara, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal |
| Present structure built | Shakabda 1708 (1785-86 CE), by the brothers Nimai Charan and Gour Charan Mallick of Pathuriaghata, Calcutta |
| Sister Deities (tradition) | Radha-vallabha of Vallabhapura; Shyamasundara of Khadadaha |
| Stone's traditional origin | Said to have been brought from Murshidabad by Virabhadra Prabhu, son of Nityananda Prabhu |
A Temple at Kanchadapada #
According to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura's Anubhasya commentary on Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi 10.107, the village of Kanchadapada lay about one and a half miles from Kumarahatta, which is itself a few miles from Calcutta. Shivananda Sena, the householder devotee who organized Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own household affairs, lived in the same area and built his own temple there to Sri Gaura-Gopala. Shrinatha Pandita's own temple stood a short distance away. It housed Radha-Krishna Deities under the name Sri Krishna Raya. So this was a separate temple, with a separate pair of Deities, in the same small corner of Bengal. This area was also where Shrinatha Pandita's future disciple, Kavi-karnapura Goswami, grew up.
Two More Deities from the Same Stone #
The Anubhasya adds a striking detail, but it reports the story only as something people said, not as settled history. Virabhadra Prabhu, the son of Nityananda Prabhu, is said to have brought a single large stone from Murshidabad. From it, three separate Deities were carved: the Radha-vallabha Deity of Vallabhapura, the Shyamasundara Deity of Khadadaha, and the Sri Krishna Raya Deity that came to Kanchadapada. If the tradition is accurate, a single block of stone ties Shrinatha Pandita's own Deity to two other well-known Bengali temples. It also ties his Deity to Nityananda Prabhu's family, through Nityananda Prabhu's son, who is said to have brought the stone. Even if not every detail of the story can be checked independently, it shows how the generations after Shrinatha Pandita remembered the temple.
Rebuilt by the Mallick Brothers #
The original structure, standing on the bank of the Ganges, in time fell into disrepair. The Anubhasya records that a prominent Calcutta zamindar named Nimai Mullik saw the ruined temple of Krishna Raya while traveling to Benares. Afterward he built the large temple that stands on the site today. It was completed in Shakabda 1708, which corresponds to 1785-86 CE. Photographs of the temple on Wikimedia Commons were taken at the Rathtala area of present-day Kanchrapara, in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district. Their descriptions speak of an atchala, or eight-roofed, structure with a porch set on a triple archway. There the temple is credited to two brothers, Nimai Charan and Gour Charan Mallick. The Anubhasya speaks of a single builder, while the photographed temple's own record names two brothers. These two accounts are not necessarily in conflict, because large family temple projects of this kind were often credited to more than one family member. Both versions are reported here, instead of choosing one. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati's commentary also describes a large courtyard in front of the temple, rooms for visitors to stay, and arrangements for cooking prasadam. High boundary walls enclose the whole compound. The commentary notes that a tablet inside names Shrinatha Pandita together with his father and grandfather, along with the date the temple was built.
Worship Continues Today #
The temple that stands today at Kanchrapara is large. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century accounts describe it as almost as large as the well-known Mahesh temple elsewhere in Bengal, and photographs confirm a big building that is still looked after. Gaudiyahistory.iskcondesiretree.com's own biography page for Shrinatha Pandita reports that "his Deity of Sri Krishna Raya is still residing there," which is a small but real sign that the worship he established has outlasted him by more than four centuries. Yet almost nothing about his own personal life has survived alongside it.
