The house stood about two hundred yards north of Jagannatha Mishra's, on the same bank of the Ganges. By the standards of that neighbourhood it was a big property. It had large rooms, a wall high enough to give privacy, and gardens and groves. The wall and the door are what matter in the story that follows. The Bengali word angan means courtyard, and Srivasa Angan, Srivasa's courtyard, is the name by which Gaudiya Vaishnavas know the place where their movement began.
A Year of Chanting Behind Closed Doors #
Krishnadasa Kaviraja states the essential fact in a single line: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu led congregational chanting of the maha-mantra at the house of Srivasa Thakura every night for one full year. Not occasionally, and not in public. Every night, for twelve months, before a word of it went into the streets.
The doors were shut. The Chaitanya-charitamrita says why, without embarrassment. The chanting was done behind closed doors so that unbelievers who came to make fun could not get in. This is worth thinking about, because religious movements do not usually like to remember their beginnings in this way. The most influential devotional movement in the history of eastern India spent its entire first year as a private gathering in a walled compound. It kept the public out, because the public thought it was ridiculous.
The Abhiseka of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu #
What went on inside is described at length. Srivasa Thakura performed abhiseka upon Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. Abhiseka is the ceremonial bathing by which a Deity is installed. Mahaprabhu sat on a cot and showed His transcendental opulence. So here was a householder brahmana formally worshipping his young neighbour as the Supreme Lord, in his own courtyard, with his own family watching.
The Six-Armed and Two-Armed Forms #
Shortly after that ceremony Nityananda Prabhu arrived. Mahaprabhu showed Him first a six-armed form and then, at the end, the two-armed cowherd of Vrindavana in yellow cloth with the flute.
Twenty-One Hours of Continuous Ecstasy #
On another occasion the Lord remained in an unbroken ecstatic condition for twenty-one hours while the devotees watched.
The Mood of Lord Nrsimha #
On another, He asked Srivasa to read out the thousand names of Vishnu. At a particular verse He took on the mood of Lord Nrsimha, and went out into the road with a club, terrifying the passers-by. He then came back, threw the club away and sat down, very unhappy. He said that He had frightened people, and that frightening people is an offence. Srivasa had to console Him.
Talk of Vrindavana and the Mango Festival #
There were nights when He asked Srivasa simply to keep talking about Vrindavana: the gopis drawn out of their houses by the flute, the seasons of the forest, the rasa dance. He asked him to go on talking, and go on, until it was morning. And there was, for twelve months, a mango festival at the end of the chanting every single night.
Nityananda Prabhu in the Household #
Nityananda Prabhu lived in that house during this period, and Malini Devi looked after Him as she would a son. On one of these nights, while the chanting went on in the courtyard, a child of the household died in the inner rooms. The family kept it silent until the kirtana had finished. That night is told here.
Wine and Tantric Paraphernalia at His Door #
The hostility this drew was serious. The Chaitanya-charitamrita says that the scoffers of Nabadwip, unable to get in, were burning up with envy. They began to plan ways of making trouble for Srivasa Thakura in particular. They did not aim at Mahaprabhu, who was too well known and too well connected. They aimed at the householder in whose compound the chanting was happening.
Their plan was carefully aimed. A brahmana named Gopala Chapala is described as the chief of the scoffers, and as a talkative man rough in his speech. One night, while the kirtana was going on, he went and laid out on Srivasa Thakura's doorstep the complete set of items for the worship of the goddess Durga. He set a pot of wine beside it. Anyone passing in the morning would come to the conclusion he intended. They would think that the great Vaishnava who would not eat or associate outside his own circle was really conducting tantric worship of Bhavani by night, even with wine. In the Nabadwip of that day, the charge would have ruined him socially. It would also have brought shame on everything that went on behind his wall.
How Srivasa Thakura Answered the Charge #
In the morning Srivasa Thakura opened his door and saw it. Then he did the one thing that made the accusation useless. He sent for the respectable gentlemen of the neighbourhood: the brahmanas and the men of the higher castes, the very people whose opinion the slander was meant to poison. When they had gathered, he told them, smiling, that he worshipped the goddess Bhavani every night. He told them that the items of worship were there in front of them, and that now they could all understand his position. Nobody believed a word of it. The slander died right there, in the courtyard where it was meant to begin.
The Leprosy of Gopala Chapala #
Three days later Gopala Chapala was struck with leprosy. Sores broke out over his whole body and bled. The accounts describe him tormented by insects and in continuous pain. At last he was driven out of the village, and he sat under a tree on the bank of the Ganges. There, one day, he saw Chaitanya Mahaprabhu passing and appealed to Him as a relative. By the way relationships were counted in the village, he was the Lord's maternal uncle and the Lord was his nephew. Look, he said, at what has come upon me.
The Lord's answer is one of the hardest passages in the book. He refused. He addressed the man as sinful and envious of pure devotees, and said He would not deliver him. He told Gopala Chapala that he would be bitten by those germs for millions of years. He also told him that for the single offence of making Srivasa Thakura appear to be a worshipper of Bhavani, he would fall into hellish life for ten million births. Only afterwards, in the same conversation, did the Lord give the remedy, and the remedy was not His to give. Gopala Chapala had committed his offence at the feet of Srivasa Thakura. So he must go to Srivasa Thakura and beg his mercy. If Srivasa granted it, and if he did not repeat the sin, he would be freed. He went. Srivasa Thakura gave his mercy, and the man was released.
Offence at the Feet of a Devotee #
This is the episode the tradition points to when it teaches that an offence against a devotee is in a separate category from other sins. It is the one fault that the Lord will not forgive on His own authority. Instead, He sends the offender back to the person he offended. Gopala Chapala is not the only case in the chapter. Another brahmana came to see the kirtana, found the door shut and could not get in. In his frustration he cursed the Lord. Krishnadasa Kaviraja records that anyone who hears of that curse is delivered from brahminical curses.
Chand Kazi and the Broken Mridanga #
There was official trouble as well, and it came to the same courtyard. Later the chanting moved into the streets, and the whole of Nabadwip could be heard chanting the holy names to the sound of mridanga and hand cymbals. Then the smarta brahmanas complained to Chand Kazi, the local magistrate. They said that a new religion, hostile to Sanatana Dharma, was being introduced. The Kazi came in person to Srivasa Thakura's house and broke a mridanga there. He issued an order forbidding street sankirtana. Anyone who disobeyed would have his property seized and be forcibly converted. The site kept the name Khol Bhanga Danga, the place where the drum was broken. The town panicked; the accounts say Srivasa laughed at the order. What followed belongs to the story of Mahaprabhu himself, not to this account of Srivasa Thakura. It includes the evening of ten thousand torches, the procession through every quarter of the city, and the Kazi's own promise that none of his descendants would ever stop the sankirtana movement.
Why the Year Behind the Wall Mattered #
This is the main lesson Gaudiya Vaishnavas take from Srivasa Angan. The sankirtana movement did not begin as a public campaign that later found a headquarters. It began as a year of nightly chanting among perhaps a few dozen people in a locked courtyard. The house belonged to a private householder who had a family, a reputation and neighbours, and he put all three at risk. When the doors were finally opened, what came out into the streets of Nabadwip had already been going for twelve months. The year behind the wall is why there was anything to bring out.
