Sri Sulochana

Sulochana is one of the devotees Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami names in the long roll call of associates who gathered around Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Bengal. The name has no connection to the Ramayana's Sulochana, wife of Indrajit, or to any other unrelated Sulochana outside Gaudiya Vaishnavism. The Sulochana described here is the Bengali devotee Krishnadasa Kaviraja places among Mahaprabhu's own associates in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita.

Named Among the Branches of the Chaitanya Tree #

Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami describes Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's following as a single all-merciful tree with many branches. In this list Sulochana has an exact, numbered place. He is the forty-second branch, named together with his close friend Chiranjiva, the forty-first. The same two verses name three devotees just before them. Khandavasi Mukunda dasa and his son Raghunandana Thakura are the thirty-ninth branch, and Narahari Sarkar Thakura is the fortieth. Krishnadasa Kaviraja's own summary line for the whole group states plainly what they did with their lives: "They were all big branches of the all-merciful tree of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. They distributed the fruits and flowers of love of Godhead anywhere and everywhere." Beyond this one line, the text gives Sulochana no separate sentence of his own. His recorded life cannot be separated from this small circle of five men.

Srila Prabhupada's own purport to this verse tells a good deal about Chiranjiva's family, but adds nothing more about Sulochana himself. Chiranjiva's elder son, Ramachandra Kaviraja, was a disciple of Shrinivasa Acharya and a close associate of Narottama Dasa Thakura. His younger son, Govinda Dasa Kaviraja, became one of Bengal's best-loved Vaishnava poets. Both sons have their own pages: see Ramachandra Kaviraja and Govinda Dasa Kaviraja. No similar family record survives for Sulochana himself. The purport names his companion's wife, father-in-law and two sons, but says nothing more about Sulochana's own household. The record shows this Srikhanda circle together in an actual scene, not just named in a list, only once. That scene comes years later at the Ratha-yatra festival in Jagannatha Puri. See The Srikhanda Singers at Ratha-yatra.

Srikhanda or Shrihatta: Two Sources Disagree #

The sources even disagree about where Sulochana lived. Prabhupada's purport to Adi 10.78-79 states directly: "Cirañjiva and Sulocana were both residents of Śrikhaṇḍa, where their descendants are still living," and this is the same village, four miles west of Katwa, that was already home to Raghunandana Thakura and Narahari Sarkar Thakura's families. But Kavi Karnapura's own Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika says something else. In the very passage that gives Sulochana's identity in Krishna-lila (see below), it states that Chiranjiva and Sulochana "lived in the village of Shrihatta." These are two different places in Bengal, and nothing in the sources explains the difference. So we note both, instead of quietly picking one. The fuller written evidence points to Srikhanda: the descendants, the neighboring families, and the land records Prabhupada cites. But Kavi Karnapura's own text says Shrihatta.

His Identity in Krishna-lila #

Kavi Karnapura's Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika holds that many of Mahaprabhu's male associates were, in their eternal identity, gopis of Vraja who took male form to serve Him in Gaura-lila. The same group of verses names Chiranjiva as the former gopi Chandrika. It then closes its list with Sulochana as the former gopi Chandrashekhara, one of the many maidservants of Shrimati Radharani. Prabhupada's own purport confirms that Chiranjiva was Chandrika and gives the verse number (Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika, verse 207). But it does not give Sulochana's own verse number. The link between Sulochana and Chandrashekhara rests on the way Kavi Karnapura's text places the two names last, in matching order, in both of its parallel lists. This Chandrashekhara is not connected with the historical Chandrashekhara Acharya of Varanasi, a different person whom the same tradition remembers separately.

In the Sanskrit this pattern is easy to see. Verse 197 ends the list of gopis with Chandrika and Chandrashekhara. Verse 198 says these gopis took male form and appeared in the same order (kramashah). Verse 207 then ends the list of devotees with Chiranjiva and Sulochana:

kalakaṇṭhī kurāṅgākṣī candrikā candraśekharā
yā yāḥ sva-yogya-sevāyāṁ niyuktāḥ santi rādhayā
gaureṇa tat-priyaiḥ sārdhaṁ dhṛta-puruṣa-vigrahaḥ
khelanti sma svabhāvānusārāt tāḥ kramaśo yathā
...
kavidatto rāma-dāsaś cirañjīva-sulocanau

"...Candrika, and Candrasekhara, were among the maidservants of Srimati Radharani. Assuming male forms they appeared among Lord Caitanya's associates, and each displayed his particular kind of ecstatic love for the Lord. These gopis became ... Kavidatta, Ramadasa, Ciranjiva, and Sulocana respectively." (Gaura-ganoddesha-dipika 194-207)

A Second Devotee of the Same Name #

Chaitanya-charitamrita is not finished with the name Sulochana after Adi-lila 10. One chapter later, a devotee named Sulochana appears again in the list of Lord Nityananda Prabhu's own personal associates. He is the fifty-seventh in that separate list, following Vasanta, Navani Hoda, Gopala, Sanatana, Vishnai and Krishnananda (Adi-lila 11.50). Krishnadasa Kaviraja gives no further word about this second Sulochana. Prabhupada's purport to the verse says nothing that either links him to the Srikhanda devotee described above or separates him from that devotee. None of the sources tell us whether this is one man remembered twice, in two different groupings, or two different devotees who happened to share a name. The question remains open.