Srivasa Thakura came from Srihatta, the district of eastern Bengal known today as Sylhet. The family of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also came from this district. Upendra Mishra, the Lord's paternal grandfather, was a Srihatta brahmana, and it was his son Jagannatha Mishra who moved west to Nabadwip to study. Srivasa and his brothers made the same journey for a different reason. The accounts say they moved to the Ganges bank because they wanted the company of devotees. Nabadwip was publicly known for its logicians. But it also had a small Vaishnava circle, and that circle was worth crossing a whole province to join.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Native district | Srihatta, known today as Sylhet |
| Father | Jaladhara Pandit, a Vedic brahmana |
| Place among sons | The second of five |
| Brothers at Nabadwip | Srirama Pandit, Sripati Pandit, and Srinidhi or Srikanta |
| Wife | Malini Devi, an intimate friend of Sachi Devi |
| Niece | Narayani, later the mother of Vrindavana Dasa Thakura |
| Identity | Narada Muni |
His Father, Brothers and Household #
The Gaudiya Vaishnava Abhidhana, citing the Prema-vilasa, names his father as a Vedic brahmana called Jaladhara Pandit, and makes Srivasa the second of five sons. The brothers who lived with him at Nabadwip and shared his life in the movement were Srirama Pandit, Sripati Pandit, and a fourth whom the sources call either Srinidhi or Srikanta. This is an ordinary difference between manuscripts, and we note both names instead of choosing one. Krishnadasa Kaviraja treats the four of them as a single unit of the Chaitanya tree. Srivasa Pandit and Srirama Pandit are two celebrated branches, and Sripati and Srinidhi are with them. The four brothers, together with their servants and maidservants, are counted as one great branch, whose sub-branches cannot be numbered. Beyond the brothers, two people in the household matter to the story. Srivasa's wife was Malini Devi, a close friend of Sachi Devi. Malini was constantly visiting the Mishra house, and she helped to nurse the infant Nimai. And his niece Narayani, a small girl during the sankirtana years, would grow up to be the mother of Vrindavana Dasa Thakura, the author of the Chaitanya-bhagavata. So the earliest full biography of Mahaprabhu was written by a man whose own family held this household's memories.
Srivasa was much older than Mahaprabhu. He was old enough to have been a settled and practising Vaishnava before the Lord was born, and old enough to give Him advice as a boy and be listened to. He and his brothers sang the names of Krishna, worshipped Krishna, and bathed in the Ganges three times a day. Krishnadasa Kaviraja says that the family engaged fully in the Lord's service and knew no other god or goddess. In the Bengal of that period, this was not a mild, ordinary piety. It was a definite social position, and a slightly awkward one.
A Vaishnava Circle in a Town of Logicians #
Here it helps to be clear about how the town saw them. In the 1480s Nabadwip was a great centre of Sanskrit learning. It was dominated by Nyaya, the school of formal logic, and by smarta ritualism. In such a place, a man's standing came from his ability to hold a position in debate, or to perform the prescribed rituals correctly. A group of brahmanas met at Advaita Acharya's house to read the Bhagavatam and chant the holy names aloud. They were not really persecuted. They were simply not taken seriously. The little circle was made up of Advaita Acharya, Srivasa and his brothers, Haridasa Thakura, Mukunda Datta, Murari Gupta, Shuklambara Brahmachari and a few others. They met, read and chanted. According to the biographies, they also prayed with real urgency for the Lord to descend. They could not see how anything less than that was going to change the age they lived in.
Knowing That the Lord Would Appear #
Srivasa is one of those whom the tradition credits with sensing what was coming. Vrindavana Dasa Thakura records that, by the strength of his devotion, Srivasa understood that Krishna was going to appear in the house of Jagannatha Mishra. He also records that when the child was born, the Vaishnavas of Nabadwip knew it, just as Advaita Acharya knew it at Shantipura. But the biographies are careful to add that this knowledge faded once they were with the child. The Lord's own concealing potency made sure that the devotees who had recognised Him could not hold on to that recognition. Instead, their hearts were filled with ordinary parental affection, without a trace of awe. In practice, Srivasa and Malini were like a second father and mother to Him.
Asking Nimai What Learning Is For #
He also scolded Him. One exchange has been preserved from the years when Nimai was a young scholar with a reputation, and rather proud of it. In it, Srivasa asked Him what learning was for. Why do people study, he said: so that they may come to know what devotion to Krishna is. If a man's scholarship does not produce that, what has it done for him but consume his time. If You have really learned anything, begin worshipping Krishna now; that is what a life is for. Nimai laughed and answered that by their mercy it would certainly come about. It is the sort of conversation a self-assured young man has with an elderly neighbour, and the biographies keep it because of what happened next.
Recognising Prema After the Journey to Gaya #
What happened next was Gaya. Mahaprabhu went west in about 1508, took initiation from Isvara Puri, and came back a different person. Bhaktivinoda Thakura's summary is that He was no longer a contending logician, a wrangling ritualist or a criticising rhetorician; He fainted at the name of Krishna and behaved like a man possessed by something. The people of Nabadwip came to the obvious conclusion. A brilliant young man had broken down, whether from grief for his dead father or from something worse, and the town said so. Srivasa understood it the other way. He had spent thirty years in the company of the Bhagavatam. He knew what the symptoms of prema were supposed to look like when they were real, and he recognised them. He made that judgement as an older man with something to lose, and it was the first thing the movement owed him.
The Four-Armed Form in His Deity Room #
The Chaitanya-bhagavata places the confirmation in his own house. One day Mahaprabhu came in, in ecstasy. He asked Srivasa whom he worshipped and meditated upon, and told him to look now with his own eyes. Then He went into the little Deity room of the household, sat on the seat of Vishnu, and showed a four-armed form with conch, disc, club and lotus. What He said then is the reason the house is remembered as it is. He said that their chanting and the roaring of Advaita Acharya had called Him, and so He had left Vaikuntha and come down, with His eternal associates. He also said that Srivasa could now chant His glories without fear. Vaishnava readers take this as the founding statement of the sankirtana movement. In any case, after this moment Srivasa Angan was no longer a private house.
Bhakta-tattva and the Fifth Place #
Gaudiya theology gives Srivasa Thakura the fifth place in the Panca-tattva and defines it as bhakta, the pure devotee. This place is distinct from the Lord Himself, His expansion, His incarnation and His potency. Krishnadasa Kaviraja writes that the innumerable unalloyed devotees are headed by Srivasa Thakura. Kavi Karnapura identifies him as Narada Muni, his brother Srirama as Narada's friend Parvata Muni, and Malini Devi as Ambika, the nurse who suckled Krishna in Vraja. Why does the Panca-tattva keep one place for a plain householder? The pages that follow take up this question, beginning with what happened in his courtyard.
