The Death of Krsna Caitanya, When Biographical Narratives Disagree Options

[Brainiac]

When Biographical Narratives Disagree: The Death of Krsna Caitanya
Author(s): Tony K. Stewart
Source:Numen, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jan., 1991), pp. 231-260
Published by: Brill

Summary: The conflicting death narratives of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1486-1533), who was the inspiration for the Vaiṣṇava movement of Bengal, provide insights into the way
members of a believing community reveal historical information about themselves and the way that they think, rather than about their ostensible subject. According to the
mainstrean theologians of this group, it is improper to speak of Caitanya's death because he is Kṛṣṇa, svayaṃ bhagavān, and as such he only descends to earth and
ascends back to heaven. Four of the hagiographers underscore this by refusing to speak of the event, making clear that it carries no soteriological significance. Fourteen
other authors, however, provide four alternatives: Caitanya disappears into the temple of Jagannātha, into the temple of Gopīnātha, or into the waters of the sea, or he dies
from a foot infection. In spite of the obvious differences, the surface narratives follow a distinct pattern of action: devotional action, transition or separation in the locale of
an axis mundi, and reintegration to heaven. The pattern, in turn, parallels basic Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava conceptions of ontology, the steps of devotional sādhana, and the
progression of devotional consciousness, which suggests that the tripartite structure is more than a coincidence, that it is endemic to their conceptual worlds. Because
all of these explicit narratives curtail Caitanya's divinity by depicting his death, they are theologically heterodox, yet the underlying pattern demonstrates that their vision is
conditioned by conceptualizations consistent with orthodox thought.

In the hermeneutics of sacred biography, when scholars resort to different standards of interpretation in order to accommodate, explain away, or simply dismiss disagreement in the narratives, they are more than anything guilty of mistaking the nature of their sources. When sacred biographies agree about certain events in the life of their subject, scholars and believers alike generally accept the historical accuracy of such accounts on the assumption, questionable though it is, that agreement is tantamount to historical veracity; yet when the narratives disagree, many historians of religions seem to change their own hermeneutic rules in a process that often invalidates their conclusions. To ask questions of "historical truth" regarding the subject of a sacred biography or hagiography is to ignore the most salient feature of such a composition: religious belief. Hagiography or sacred biography is religiously motivated discourse, not the history of a religious subject, although something of that history may well lurk in the narratives. The hagiographer or biographer, as interpreter of an exemplary religious life, cannot but filter that life through the lens of belief, and the more sophisticated and systematic the statements of belief by the author, the more stylized or mythologized become the "facts" of the life in question. When the narratives tend to agree in their retelling of an episode in the life of a religious subject, we do not necessarily have any greater historical probability regarding the facts of the individual's life than when they do not, unless they can be verified by independent sources that are not written from the standpoint of the religiously committed. What the narratives do when they uniformly agree is to document the historical beliefs aimed at the biographical subject, beliefs which are held by the author and perhaps the community that author represents; the history is far more one of the authors, than of the subject.¹

Disagreement between the narratives, however, can be understood in two different ways, both of which reveal underlying assumptions and attitudes on the part of the author or the community. The point of disagreement may be a highly charged theological issue, with the differences in interpretation overtly obvious to the point that we can, with some level of assurance, pinpoint the tensions that seem inevitably to grow among communities of believers. Or, and this is the side which is generally ignored, the bone of contention may be theologically insignificant and, to the authors, unworthy of systematic treatment or contest. I propose that the inconsistency regarding relatively minor issues can open a window onto the ways that the authors, and perhaps their immediate communities, think about the world they have constructed, an insight that is just as, if not more, subtle, compelling, and revealing than the more often emotionally-charged theological struggles, which can become political watersheds in the believing community.

The argument for this position is straightforward, but needs to be made explicit: we can generalize that the positions which are taken by authors when they disagree about apparently minor issues are not going to be as well considered and tightly argued as major theologically or ritually motivated conflicts. The positions - they are not always arguments - will tend to be tempered by general trends in thinking and structured by generally unquestioned presuppositions about the world, much as Foucault and other theorists have argued regarding the limiting nature of discourse and the influence of the period episteme. These apparently insignificant differences are, then, just as revealing as their more well-publicized counterparts. To illustrate just how telling such disagreement can be, I shall examine the death stories of the charismatic Bengali Hindu, Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1486-1533), whose sixteenth century biographers submitted no fewer than five accounts, often radically different, of his worldly demise.



1. It should be noted that recent "reader response" criticism, largely stemming from the prod of the literary deconstructionists, proposes that little or nothing of the author's beliefs or intentions can be divined from the literary work, and this indeed is a sound argument, especially for fiction. But in the case of sacred biography or hagiography, we can argue that the author can and does declare his or her belief or intention to believe by virtue of the act of writing. The author may not have done it well and we may not perfectly understand, but the intention remains. That the religious community accepts certain of these writings, likewise confirms that the writings do in fact reflect at least some of the beliefs of that community.

[Dhyana]

This promises to be interesting!

I like this:

What the narratives do when they uniformly agree is to document the historical beliefs aimed at the biographical subject, beliefs which are held by the author and perhaps the community that author represents; the history is far more one of the authors, than of the subject.

Recommended reading; I am sure you will find it delightful:

"Patterns in North Indian Hagiography" by William L. Smith.

He was an Indology professor at the Stockholm University when Ek was studying there. Ek proofread the book for him if I remember right. Prof. Smith was something of a maverick, as far as scholars go. I remember a lecture by him on the topic of Puranic canon being adopted/stretched to incorporate tribal deities of "conquered" tribes. His turn of phrase was special. How about, for example, "cephalically remarkable demons"? (meaning: demons with animal heads, ten heads or something else out of the ordinary)

The book is hugely enlightening and just as entertaining!

[Brainiac]

This promises to be interesting!

Ha, yes I dug this paper out because I remember you saying a while back that this topic would be interesting. Thanks for that book recommendation, I think I've heard of him also. I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Brainiac]

The Mainstream Position: A Death That is Not Death

There are no fewer than thirteen extant biographies of the charismatic Vaiṣṇava leader, Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, in Bengali, Sanskrit, and Oriya, and a host of ancillary works containing biographical materials, that are datable to the century following his death in 1533. Regarding this death, significantly the two most popular and authoritative Bengali biographies -Vṛndāvana Dāsa's Caitanya bhāgavata and Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja's Caitanya caritāmṛta - and the two earliest Sanskrit biographies - Murāri Gupta's Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta and Kavikarṇapūra's Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta mahākāvya - were essentially silent on the subject. Theologically, death could not be an issue, for Caitanya was svayam bhagavān, the supreme lord Kṛṣṇa himself, and as such he simply descended (ava + √tṛ < avatāra) to earth in the year 1486 and ascended to heaven forty-seven years later. Murāri Gupta, the first the first biographer and elder intimate devotee of Caitanya, writing in the year of his master's death, remarks only on the coming and going of his lord. In Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta 1.2.11-14 he states:²

11. Prabhu [Caitanya], Unborn source of the World, was born as his [Viśvarūpa's] younger brother, just as Upendra, the son of Aditi by Kaśyapa, was the younger brother of Indra. 12. Personally making the triple-world intent upon Hari-saṃkīrtana, he dwelled in the preeminent place designated Puruṣottama-kṣetra [Puri]. 13. He performed devotion (bhakti) to Hari and imparted instruction in the same to others. He tasted the sweetness of Śrī Vṛndāvana and caused others to taste it too. 14. After saving the whole world, he was propitiated by the inhabitants of Vaikuṇṭha heaven and, pleased, he journeyed to his own innate resplendent abode.

The message is unambiguous: Kṛṣṇa came to earth as Caitanya Prabhu and, after leading the world to salvation, returned to heaven. There is no talk of death; Caitanya has only changed the venue of his eternal activities.

Paramānanda Sena, who was given the name Kavikarṇapūra, "Ear Ornament of Poets," by Caitanya himself and who appears to be the only other biographer to have known Caitanya personally, follows the lead of his senior Murāri. In the conclusion to his Sanskrit Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta mahākāvya (20.39-47),³ with a title similar to Murāri's work and which was composed shortly thereafter, in 1542, Kavikarṇapūra summarizes Caitanya's sojourn on earth:

39. Gauracandra [Caitanya] gathered together his own devotees from different regions and nurtured an intense mutual love among them. He experienced much pleasure with the aforementioned devotees in the lands of Gauḍa and Utkala [Orissa]. When this lord, Prabhu, returned to his own innate realm, the earth was plunged into the ocean of the fire of separation. 40. For twenty-four years Mahāprabhu revealed his love (prema) and was suitably uncontrolled. Although he undertook ascetic vows near Navadvīpa, he passed three years wandering hither and yon, finally returning to Kṣetra [Puri]. He then spent twenty years participating in religious festivals. 41. In this fashion, for forty-seven years Śrī Gaurāṅga-deva [Caitanya] carried out a succession of dramatic activities as he played in the earthly realm. Afterwards he journeyed back to his own innate abode.⁴

This basic statement is echoed by Vṛndāvana Dāsa in the oldest extant Bengali biography of Caitanya, the Caitanya bhāgavata 1.2.282 (ca. late 1540s): The activities (līlās) of Caitanya never end, the Veda speaks only of their appearance (āvirbhāva) and disappearance (tirobhāva) from human view.⁵ Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, writing the final word in the hagiographical tradition (ca. 1600- 1615), concurs in Caitanya caritāmṛta 2.6.149.⁶ Elsewhere he summarizes this journey, but, as one might expect given his theological erudition and inclination to systematics, he stylizes the dates so that they are more symmetrical (1.13.7-12):

7. Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya descended at Navadvīpa, and for forty-eight years his sport was apparent. 8. 1407 of the Śaka era witnessed his birth, and in 1455 he disappeared. 9. For twenty-four years Prabhu lived as a householder, always praising Kṛṣṇa. 10. At the end of twenty-four years he took saṃnyāsa, and for twenty-four years he lived at Nīlācala [Puri]. 11. Of this, six years [were spent] in wandering, sometimes in the south, sometimes in Gauḍa [Bengal], sometimes to Vṛndāvana. 12. For eighteen years he remained at Nīlācala, and caused all to float in the nectar of name and love (prema) of Kṛṣṇa.

There is no reason to speak of a death that did not occur.

In further confirmation of the descent and ascent explicitly articulated by Vṛndāavana Dāsa, Kṛṣṇadāsa reports an enigmatic exchange between Caitanya and his chief disciple Advaitācārya that underscores the voluntary nature of Caitanya's departure from the worldly realm (CC 3.19.14-28). Advaita, speaking in riddles, sends a message that suggests that Caitanya's work is finished. Caitanya, in response to his devotees' puzzled inquiries about this message, explains that Advaita is a great ritualist (pūjaka), and that it was he who invoked the deity and that he is now dismissing that deity. Although Kṛṣṇadāsa himself claims ignorance of the meaning of this statement, it seems rather clearly to refer to Advaita's well-attested role as the efficient cause of the avatāra, for he awakened Kṛṣṇa from his slumber on the cosmic ocean by his worship (pūja) and by his loud cries (huṅkāra) for help in this degraded Kali Age, and from that invocation Kṛṣṇa descended to earth as Caitanya (CC 1.3.72, 76-91; 1.4.225; 1.6.30-31; 1.13.61-69; 3.3.210-213). Now, as the controller of a life-long pūja that was Caitanya's life, and recognizing that Caitanya has accomplished his mission to spread prema-bhakti through kīrtana, Advaita admonishes him to return to heaven. The implied conscious manipulation of this departure is a theme that will be echoed in other biographies, albeit under different circumstances.

Clearly all four of these biographies - and the Caitanya bhāgavata and Caitanya caritāmṛta are revered today as the most influential and orthodox within the tradition - find the disappearance of Caitanya to be theologically insignificant; it has no soteriological value, as the deaths of major religious figures often have, and it appears to serve little or no didactic purpose.⁷ In fact, to speak of death is to misunderstand the nature of Caitanya as bhagavān, the supreme lord. Bhagavān has no physical body (māyā), rather his is pure, unadulterated cit or consciousness (or on occasion his being is characterized as sat [being], cit [consciousness], and ānanda [bliss]).⁸ By comparison, the nature of Kṛṣṇa as Caitanya can be compared to the Manichean concept of docetism.

In spite of this position of avowed docetism, other biographers within the tradition did feel the need to explain to their devotional audiences how Caitanya disappeared. In so doing, of course, they flirt with deviation from the standard, orthodox position as it has emerged in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava world.⁹ Notably, however, none of them uses any term that could technically be construed as referring to Caitanya's mortality (Skt. √mṛ); they do use an assortment of euphemisms, which sidestep the direct assertion of his death, but in so doing they imply his physical death or come dangerously close. To write as these authors do is to promote an attenuated heterodoxy or at least a variance from the accepted theological norms, albeit seldom in more than a limited way. These alternative narratives offer four different versions of Caitanya's death and many more minor variations between them. Two of the stories have strong cultural and sectarian biases: Caitanya disappears in the confines of the Jagannātha temple or in the Gopīnātha temple. In a story with strong mythic overtones, he is injured in the foot and ushered off to heaven. And in another, somewhat less explicit, but popular story that shows psychoanalytic undercurrents, he slips into the ocean never to return. While these narratives differ in most respects, they do seem to share certain important features - for instance, with only one minor exception, they are uniform in that when Caitanya disappears, he leaves behind no physical body. With no physical body, there is no burial or cremation, nor is there any death celebration.¹⁰ What mourning there is is interpreted through the theologically prominent conception of virāha, the searing agony of separation's fire suffered in the most heated of loves, an attitude clearly based on the model of Kṛṣṇa's departure for Mathurā where he left Rādhā and the other cowherd girls in the idyll of Vṛndāvana. The virāha is all the more poignant in this case because of its finality and its amplification by repeating the mythic paradigm of the Bhāgavata purāna. Still, the basic stories diverge significantly from the norm and from each other, and from these differences we can glimpse something of the way these sixteenth century authors think.

[Brainiac]

(Footnotes for the above)

2. Murāri Gupta, Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta, edited by Mṛṇālakānti Ghoṣa, 4th ed. (Calcutta: by the editor, 459 GA).

3. Kavikarṇapūra [Paramānanda Sena], Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta mahākāvya, edited with introduction and Bengali translation by Prāṇakiśora Gosvāmī; (Calcutta: by the editor at Śrī Gaurāṅga Mandira, n.d. [1377 BS]).

4. The point is reiterated in Act 1 of his much later biographical drama, Caitanya-candrodaya nātaka (edited with Bengali translation by Rāmanārāyana Vidyāratna, 2d ed. [Murshidabad: Rāmadeva Miśra at Rādhāramaṇa Press of Barahampura, 1330 BS]).

5. Vṛndāvana Dāsa, Caitanya bhāgavata, edited with the commentary Natāikaruṇā-kallolinī tīkā by Rādhā-govinda Nātha, 6 vols. (Calcutta: Sādhanā Prakāśani, 1373 BS); see also 2.1.294; 2.10.280; 2.13.365; 2.23.508; and 2.26.223. In 3.9.169-73, Vṛndāvana Dāsa extends this appearance and disappearance to all Vaiṣṇava devotees who accompanied Caitanya:

169. All of these Vaiṣṇavas came down as incarnations (avatāra). Prabhu sent all of them down prior to his own coming. 170. In precisely the same manner as Pradyumna, Aniruddha, and Saṃkarṣaṇa, and just as Lakṣmaṇa, Bharata, and Śatrughna, 171. so those Vaiṣṇavas who came down to accompany Prabhu did so at Prabhu's express command. 172. Therefore these Vaiṣṇava devotees neither took birth nor died; they simply accompanied [Prabhu] when he came and accompanied [him] when he left. 173. Vaiṣṇavas are never subject to the birth bound by karma - this is witnessed to in the Padma Purāna.

This proposition appears to be one of the first systematic statements of the dhāman-incarnation theory that became a major feature of mainstream Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava theology, following the lead of the purānas that make clear that Kṛṣṇa descends to earth only with his realm and retinue, his total environment.

6. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, Caitanya caritāmṛta, translated with an introduction and commentary by Edward C. Dimock, Jr., edited and revised with addenda by Tony K. Stewart, Harvard Oriental Series no. 50 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, in press). The translation is based on: Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, Caitanya caritāmṛta, edited by Rādhā-govinda Nātha, with the commentary Gaurakṛpātaraṅgiṇī;, 4th ed., 6 vols. (Calcutta: Sādhanā Prakāśani, 1369 BS). The text is hereafter cited as CC.

7. The literature on the religious interpretation of death is voluminous. Among the more germane studies to the History of Religions, one might profitably examine the following: S.G.F. Brandon, "The Personifications of Death in Some Ancient Religions," John Rylands Library Bulletin 43 (1961): 317-35; G.M. Carstairs, "Attitudes to Death and Suicide in an Indian Cultural Setting," Inter national Journal of Psychiatry 1 (1955): 33-41; R.A. Craddick, "Symbolism of Death: Archetypal and Personal Symbols," International Journal of Symbology 3 (Dec., 1972): 35-44; Mircea Eliade, Death, Afterlife, and Eschatology: A Thematic Source Book of the History of Religions (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1974); Herman Feifel, ed., The Meaning of Death (New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1959); R. Hertz, Death and the Right Hand, trans by Rodney Needham (New York: Free Press, 1960); J.E. Heuscher, "Death in the Fairy Tale," Diseases of the Nervous System 28 (1967): 462-67; Frederick Holck, ed., Death and Eastern Thought (New York: Abingdon Press, 1974); Meena Kaushik, "The Symbolic Representation of Death," Contributions to Indian Sociology 10, no. 2 (1976): 265-92; Bruce Lincoln, "Death and Resurrection in Indo-European Thought," Journal of Indo-European Studies 5 (1977): 247-64; J. Bruce Long, "The Death that Ends Death in Hinduism and Buddhism," in Death: The Final Stage of Growth, edited by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975), 52-72; Albert Jay Miller and Michael James Acri, Death: A Bibliographical Guide (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1977); H. Orenstein, "Death and Kinship in Hinduism: Structural and Functional Interpretations," American Anthropologist 72 (1970): 1357-77; R. Pannikar, "The Time of Death: the Death of Time (an Indian Reflection)" in La Réflexion sur la Mort (Meleté Thanatou), 2^c Symposium International de Philosophie (Athens: Ecole Libre de Philosophie «Plethon», 1977), 102-21; Talcott Parsons, "Religious Symbolization and Death" in Changing Perspectives in the Scientific Study of Religion, edited by A.W. Eister (New York: Wiley, 1974), 217-26; Frank E. Reynolds and Earl H. Waugh, eds., Religious Encounters with Death: Insights from the History and Anthropology of Religions (University Park, PA: Penn- sylvania State University, 1977); Donald Ward, "The Threefold Death: An Indo- European Trifunctional Sacrifice?" in Myth and Law among the Indo-Europeans, edited by Jaan Puhvel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 123-42; Heinrich Zimmer, "Death and Rebirth in the Light of India" in Man and Transformation, edited by Joseph Campbell, Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Bollingen Series 30, vol. 5 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).

8. The Caitanya caritāmṛrta details the nature of bhagavān in numerous places, but see especially the first four chapters of the text, 1.1-4. Kṛṣṇadāsa's theological position of the dual incarnation, that is Caitanya as androgyne, Rādhā and Krsna in a single body, poses additional problems. If Caitanya exists only in this dual form, then to speak of a return to heaven is to tell of Caitanya's ultimate demise, for in heavenly Vṛndāavana, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa must exist separately. The incarnation was explicitly to overcome this separation, which could only be effected on earth. One might surmise what would become of Caitanya in heaven and the resulting disintegration would undoubtedly have cosmic ramifications; whatever the result, an undivided Caitanya could not continue to exist in that realm. Conveniently, perhaps, Kṛṣṇadāsa avoids the issue altogether.

9. It should be noted that the more generally accepted position of silence is found in the earliest and the very last of the biographies, the latter (CC) clearly motivated to coordinate and unify the theological positions of the other biographies.

10. The lack of a body has led scholars to speculate at length regarding the nature of Caitanya's death. Based largely on cultural precedent as depicted in the Vaiṣṇava biographies themselves, Edward C. Dimock speculates that Caitanya was probably buried on the ocean shore much in the manner of Haridāsa, whose body was interred in that manner by Caitanya himself (see Section II, Introduction to the CC). S.K. De in his Early History of the Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Bengal (2d ed., Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1961), reports the various stories but does not speculate, unlike his predecessor, M.T. Kennedy, who in The Caitanya Movement (Calcutta: Association Press, 1924), 50-51, looking with a rather jaundiced eye at the motivations of the various actors, concludes the Caitanya was done in and buried by the local temple priests and that the stories of merging with various images were encouraged by them for purposes of revenue. The prominent Bengali scholar, D.C. Sen in his article "Śrīgaurāṅgera līlāvasāna" Bhāratvarṣa 16, pt. 2, no. 3 (Phālguna 1335 BS): 321-29, among others, created an uproar with his speculation, again centering on the body, that Caitanya died of foot infection and was buried in the Guṇḍicābāḍi of Jagannātha. Probably in response to his rather intemperate remarks regarding "miracle mongers" and his use of Jayānanda's text (see below), rebuttals poured off the pages of Bengal's journals: see especially Vasantakumāra Caṭṭopādhyāya, "Caitanyadevera tirodhāna," Bhāratvarṣa 16, pt. 2, no. 5 (Vaiśākha 1336 BS): 735-40; Maṇīndracandra Raya, "Śrīgaurāṅgera līlāsaṅgopana," Śrī śrī soṇāra gaurāṅga 7, no. 1 (Śrāvana 1336 BS: 54-59); Sāradācaraṇa Dhara, "Śrīgaurāṅgera līlāvadāna o dakṭara dīneścandra sena," Śrī śrī soṇāra gaurāṅga 7, no. 6 (Pauṣa 1336 BS): 305-313; and a postscript to his previous article, Maṇīndracandra Raya, "Śrīgaurāṅgera līlāsaṅgopana," Śrī śrī soṇāra gaurāṅga 7, no. 10 (Vaiśākha 1336 BS): 594-602. A number of other scholars have promoted these and other theories, but the most comprehensive summary of the speculation on "what actually happened" is a recent book Mālībuḍo [Yudhiṣṭhira Jānā] titled Śrī caitanya antardhāna rahasya, 2 vols. bound in one (Calcutta: Mayanā Prakāśanī, 1986).

[Brainiac]

Caitanya disappears into the Jagannātha temple

Locana Dāsa, writing his Caitanya maṅgala in the 1570s, tells of Caitanya's disappearance into the temple of Jagannātha; the text is one of the most detailed of any of the accounts of Caitanya's passing (4.15.15-39).¹¹ Jagannātha is the lord of Puri, Dāru Brahma, identical to Kṛṣṇa whose temple is a great pilgrimage center for Vaiṣṇavas in northeast India. It was in the presence of Jagannātha that Caitanya passed his last eighteen years essentially uninterrupted. Given his devotion to Jagannātha and the strong identifications made between them by the various authors, Locana Dāsa writes:

15. One time when Mahāprabhu [Caitanya] was in the home of Kāśī Miśra, he retold the stories of VRndāvana, and his heart ached. 16. Sighing deeply, Mahāprabhu remarked, "I have never witnessed such a display [of devotion] among devotees." 17. Reverently Mahāprabhu stood up in order to go visit Jagannātha. Proceeding deliberately, he worked his way through the main gate. 18. A number of intimate followers accompanied him in like fashion, quickly passing inside the temple compound. 19. They looked but could not see Prabhu, while Prabhu, inside that compound, pondered his own course of action. 20. Abruptly he slammed shut the entryway door, and deranged, ran quickly into the sanctuary. 21. During the course of the seventh lunar day of the month of Āṣāḍha [June-July] it is reported that Prabhu gave up his life (niḥśvāsa). 22. The ages are Satya, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali. In the Kali Age, chanting of the name (saṃkīrtana) is established as the best worship. 23. "Bestow your mercy, Jagannātha, Protector of the Fallen! The Kali Age is upon us, grant me your shelter!" 24. Because of this cry [of Caitanya's], He who is the Lord of the Three Worlds stretched out his arms and embraced [Caitanya] to his heart.

25. On Sunday during the time of the third watch, Prabhu merged (līna) himself in Jagannātha. 26. There was a brahman priest present in the guñjā-bārī when Caitanya came in, and this priest wondered aloud what was going on. 27. The devotees spied the brahman and cried out, "Listen, 0 priest! Open the door! We want to see Prabhu!" 28. In response to the distress of the devotees, the brahman attendant consoled them, "Prabhu disappeared within the inner sanctum. 29. Right before my eyes Gaura united with the Lord. All of you, listen, for I am certain of what I say." 30. Hearing this announcement, the devotees wailed loudly, "Never again will we behold the beams of Prabhu's moon-face!" 31. Everyone - Śrīvāsa Paṇḍita and Mukunda Datta, Gaurīdāsa, Vāsudatta, and Śrī Govinda, 32. Kāśī Miśra, Sanātana and Haridāsa - with many gut-wrenching sighs, wept bitterly and loudly. 33. When King Pratāparudra heard the news he fell insensate in the presence of his family. 34. Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭacārya, with his son, cried out, "Prabhu, Prabhu, hear me, Gaura Raya!" 35. The devotees wailed in their misery, but how can I, a worthless person, write of all this? 36. Prabhu's virtues are famed far and wide. Not having him now in my sight, I flounder in the dark. Take heed, listen one and all! Serve Gaurāṅga's feet day and night, my brothers. 38. May everyone hear of the qualities of Gaura and become stain-free. By this means one destroys the disease of existence. 39. Grief-stricken Locana laments; the last chapter of the kīrtana of Prabhu comes to an end.

The expression in v. 21 for "gave up his life" is niḥśvāsa, literally to be "without breath" or to "quit breathing." This, of course, implies a physical body, or it might be construed simply to refer to the absence of the life force, prāṇa, which implies the same. Locana Dāsa significantly adds in the following verses: Caitanya merges (līna) with Jagannātha, and thereby established a clear relationship of identity between the two. But then Caitanya calls out for Jagannātha to rescue him (vv. 23-25) in a way that seems to position Caitanya as a mere devotee of or at most only a portion (aṃśa or avatāra) of Jagannātha, which suggests an asymmetry of relation that grossly violates the generally accepted theology regarding Caitanya's constitution. Although Caitanya is often held up as the model devotee - and this would be an appropriate relation - the episode, perhaps inadvertantly, reduces Caitanya's importance by mitigating his ontological status as Kṛṣṇa. By the prevailing standards of the Gosvāmin theologians in the community, this episode fails to maintain Caitanya's precise and generally accepted identity as svayam bhagavān.

This basic story is likewise found in the Advaita prakāśa of Īśāna Nāgara.¹² The authenticity of this biography as a sixteenth century work has been questioned, for it appears from several anachronisms to be a much later attempt to elevate the status of the subject of the work, Advaitācārya, Caitanya's chief disciple in Nadīyā. The text claims to be composed as early as 1569, but a later date, perhaps as much as a century, might be more correct. Īśāna Nāgara's brief statement (Advaita prakāśa 21.63-67) is very much in line with Locana Dāsa's Caitanya maṅgala.

63. One day after visiting Jagannātha, Gaura [Caitanya] entered the holy temple, crying out, "0 Lord!" 64. Just as he entered, the door closed of itself. A terrible apprehension was born in the hearts of the devotees. 65. A short while later the door opened up. The group inferred that Gaurāṅga had passed away (aprakaṭa). 66. Even though none of the devotees was present there when Caitanya passed away (aprakaṭa), the perfected ones among Gaura's entourage grieved bitterly. 67. Their grief, fierce and flaming, suffused with tremendous energy (tejas), consumed the bodies, minds, and hearts of all living beings.

The term aprakaṭa, "unmanifest," is semantically congruous with Locana Dāsa's usage of līna, "merge." It is perhaps significant that Īśāna mentions that no one was present when Caitanya withdrew his manifest form, so there were apparently no eye-witnesses - a position generally seconded by most of the authors who chose to write of his death. Three Oriya Vaiṣṇavas, all members of the Pañca-sakhā community centered in Puri around Jagannātha, wrote of Caitanya's death in a similar vein. Acyutānanda Dāsa in the Śūnya-saṃhitā records the basic version that is found in other Oriya texts, such as Divākara Dasa's Jagannātha caritāmṛta, and the much later Caitanya bhāgavata of Īśvara Dāsa.¹³ In all of these texts, Caitanya merges with Jagannātha, but with the addition of the reigning king, Gajapati Pratāparudra, as witness.

Of obvious overriding theological concern is the relationship of Caitanya to Jagannātha. Jagannātha is the most important temple-based deity in northeast India, especially during the sixteenth century, because the entire region, save the Gajapati dynasty's territory of Orissa, which includes Jagannātha-kṣetra (Puri), had succumbed to Muslim domination.¹⁴ Jagannātha represents the last bastion of a Hindu-controlled world. Because Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa, he is Jagannātha, and he is routinely referred to - in Bengali and Oriya works - as the "mobile" (sacala) Jagannātha in contrast to the wooden image in the temple which is "immobile" (acala). Entering the temple and disappearing is only what many devotees would expect and could undoubtedly accept. This ending for Caitanya's life is on the surface theologically acceptable, for Jagannātha in his temple is the premier axis mundi of Northeast India, but perhaps more importantly, this solution is politically expedient. The presence of Pratāparudra, the Gajapati king, reaffirms his divine kingship and sanctions his position as rightful leader, himself another important axis mundi. But the politics of these popular narratives collides directly with the sophisticated theology of the mainstream tradition. The dramatic sequence in each of these cases has a discernible pattern. In the company of devotees and often the king, Caitanya engages in worship which results in a trip to a temple housing Jagannātha - either the main temple or the guñja-bārī. Caitanya, experiencing the rapture of devotion, slips inside the temple and becomes separated from his devotees, never to return - the Bengali version of Locana Dāsa and Īśāna Nāgara - or he merges with Jagannātha in the presence of the Gajapati king - the Oriya versions of Divākara Dāsa, Acyutānanda, and Īśvara Dāsa.

Taken collectively, these five texts give the most uniform, explicit, and extensive accounts of Caitanya's disappearance. Yet there are two additional stories which offer an interesting variant of the Jagannātha narrative and which lead us to the next prominent cycle. The first is Govindadāsa Bābājī's Oriya Caitanya cakaḍā, a book which has only recently been recovered and circulated, and which contains a fairly detailed account of Caitanya's disappearance.¹⁵ According to Govindadāsa Bābājī, Caitanya, on his last day, had been swept up in the ecstasy of kīrtana to the point of total physical exhaustion; he was carried in this state to the Gopīnātha temple by his devotees, several of whom had inferred that he was about to withdraw, lit., "cover over" (saṃvaraṇa), his worldly activities (līlā). Later he stood at the Garuḍa pillar for the evening ārati of Jagannātha, apparently having regained his composure and not needing the immediate aid of his followers, who had let him be. At an auspicious moment a garland fell from the neck of Jagannātha, a sign, and in a sudden, blinding flash of light brighter than a crore of the sun's rays, Caitanya disappeared. "According to his own wish, his body became unmanifest. He merged (līna) into the body of Jagannātha" (p. 60). His devotees could not find him anywhere, even though they looked in the Jagannātha temple compound, the Indradyumna Lake, the Gopīnātha temple, the various forests and groves around Puri, and a host of other of his favorite spots. It was Rāmānanda Rāya who finally determined exactly what had happened. In a reversal of the sequence, Vaiṣṇava Dāsa writes in his Śrī caitanya gaurāṅga cakaḍā that Caitanya fell insensate at the Garuḍa pillar and was subsequently taken to the Ṭoṭā Gopīnātha by his devotees, where he disappeared.¹⁶

That a number of authors would interpret Caitanya's death through his identity with Jagannātha would surprise no one; but it must be remembered that in spite of the devotees' understanding of Jagannātha as Kṛṣṇa, the form is, as the name makes clear, an image of martial and universal sovereignty and one that is connected with the institution of divine kingship, the Gajapati dynasty. Jagannātha represents Kṛṣṇa's aiśvarya, sovereignty and lordship. The Gopīnātha image, however, is devoid of such associations, and Caitanya's message, as most generally understood within the community, was focused on the love of Gopīnātha - "Lord of the Gopis" - for the cowherd girls. This is Kṛṣṇa's image of mādhurya, loving sweetness, which is deemed the most desirable and indeed the ultimate form of Kṛṣṇa by the mainstream theologians, especially the Gosvāmins of Vṛndāvana. It was possibly to emphasize both of these aspects of his divine nature that Govindadāsa Bābājī and Vaiṣṇava Dāsa sought to connect the two; but several authors, either reporting what they heard from others or choosing to emphasize his mādhurya nature, write of Caitanya's demise in the temple of Gopīnātha without explicit connection to Jagannātha.


11. Locana Dāsa, Caitanya maṅgala, edited by Mṛṇālakānti Ghoṣa (Calcutta: Amṛta Bājār Patrikā Office, 1354 BS), 210-11. The versification has been added for convenience.
12. Īśāna Nāgara, Advaita prakāśa, edited by Mṛṇālakānti Ghoṣa, 3d ed. (Calcutta: Sucārukānti Ghoṣa, 1339 BS). Versification has been added for convenience.
13. For summaries of these stories, see Prabhat Mukherjee, The History of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa (1940; reprint: New Delhi: Asian Education Ser- vices, 1981), 156-69.
14. See Hermann Kulke, Jagannātha-Kult und Gajapati Königtum: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte religiöser Legitimation hinduistischer Herrscher, Schriftenreihe des Südasien Instituts der Universität Heidelberg, vol. 23 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1978). See also K.C. Misra, The Cult of Jagannātha, 2d rev. ed. (Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1984) and Anncharlott Eschmann, Hermann Kulke and Gaya Charana Tripathi, eds., The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, New Delhi Branch, South Asian Studies no. 8 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1978).
15. Govindadāsa Bābājī, Caitanya cakaḍā, edited by Sadāśiva Rathaśarmā (Calcutta: Kailāsa Prakāśana, 1985), 57-60.
16. I was unable to confirm this account which is reported by Mālībuḍo, Śrīcaitanyera antardhāna rahasya, 295.

[Brainiac]

Caitanya Disappears in the Temple of Gopīnātha

Possibly the earliest account of Caitanya's death occurs in a lyric by Vāsudeva Ghoṣa, a Nadīyā songwriter. The account merits serious historical consideration, for Vāsudeva was a long-time companion of Caitanya, and in his later years personally attended the leading guru, Nityānanda, at the express request of Caitanya himself. Vāsudeva was not in Puri, however, when Caitanya died. But it is not with history that Vāsudeva Ghoṣa is concerned, as demonstrated in his poem, which is in the style of Nadīyā-nāgarī-bhāva, wherein the author assumes the attitude of a female lover or would-be lover of Caitanya (who is Kṛṣṇa).

Tears gush from my eyes unchecked,
Without Gaura there's no end to my heart's ache.
He is wealth.
He is life.
He is all things.
Without Gaura everything causes me grief.
Gaura is the creamy essence
of a heaven submerged in praise.
If there one's heart fails to dwell
His body, a burden, drags him down.
What will I do?
Where will I go?
Words fail me-
I've lost my Gauracānda in Gopīnātha's house.

Vāsudeva Ghoṣa suffers in grief,
"My heart runs away in passion for Gaura." ¹⁷

We recognize here the agony of parted lovers, indeed vipralambha - love in separation - is the ideal form in the bhakti-rasa that shaped Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava devotional life. This type of separation is only possible when Caitanya is understood to be the object of the devotee's erotic love; it is only suitable for his mādhurya nature. It would be theologically confused and devotionally imprudent to approach Jagannātha, who is the sovereign lord of the cosmos, in this fashion. Details of Caitanya's demise, however, are completely lacking, for the focus is on the emotional content of the moment as experienced by the poet. So too are the details in the other accounts of his disappearance into the Gopīnātha house.

Writing a generation later, Narahari Cakravartī records in his Bhaktiratnākara (8.354-60)¹⁸ the visit of his guru, Narottama Dāsa, to the pilgrimage center of Puri, and while there Narottama receives information regarding the passing of Caitanya within the Gopīnātha compound. Two pieces of information are forthcoming in this narrative. First, the priest indicates that Caitanya had first slipped away from everyone to enter the temple (v. 357), much as had been recorded in the stories that attribute his death to disappearance in the Jagannātha temple. Second, the priest showed Narottama the very place where Caitanya fell insensate at his death (v. 359), much as the two Oriya works place him at the Garuḍa pillar. An Oriya writer, Sadānanda Kavisūrya Brahma, seconds this position in his Prema taraṅgiṇī.¹⁹ This inclination to point out the specific place where Caitanya fell suggests that, while the official biographies may have ignored Caitanya's death in favor of the theologically correct position that it was meaningless to talk of it, the devotees in the immediate community and in the following generations clearly felt in need of an explanation.

What emerges as a common theme, in spite of the brevity of these accounts, is that Caitanya eludes the company of his devotees as he prepared to die, and does so by entering into the abode of Gopīnātha: as a prelude to death or departure, physical separation occurs in a spot sacred to the Vaiṣṇavas. The time of this death for virtually every writer, including the orthodox who only talk of his departure, is the general time of the Jagannātha Car Festival, the most important period of sacred time in the annual ritual cycle for the Vaiṣṇavas of Northeast India, especially Puri. And it is the procession of the Jagannātha Car Festival that sets the scene for the most controversial of the death stories.

To Be Continued ...

17. Vāsudeva Ghoṣa, Vāsu ghoṣera padāvalī, edited by Mālabikā Cākī (Calcutta: Bangīya Sāhitya Pariṣat, 1368 BS), 131, pada 146.
18. Narahari Cakravartī, Bhaktiratnākara, 2d ed. (Calcutta: Gauḍīya Mission, 1347 BS).
19. See Prabhat Mukherjee, The History of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa, 165.

[zvs]

I need more of this. Where'd it go??

[Dhyana]

Choked by the silence?

In cyberspace, no one hears you nod and think, "Humm, this was good, looking forward to reading more!"

[darwin]

I need more of this. Where'd it go??

Puri Beach. I think this is where Caitanya drowned. I always wanted to swim there.



Here is a Google search for drownings at Puri beach
It looks like it pretty much just eats people.

[Brainiac]

Haha, damn, completely forgot about this. There's plenty more to the tale - stay tuned!

[Brainiac]

Caitanya Suffers an Injured Foot

For many devotees, the most problematic of the death narratives is that of Jayānanda Miśra, who wrote sometime during the 1550s. In his Caitanya-maṅgala (uttara khaṇḍa 119-55),²⁰ Jayānanda records that Caitanya struck his foot on a brick, and after the ensuing infection ran its course, he returned to Vaikuṇṭha heaven riding in the chariot pulled by Garuḍa, the winged mount of Nārāyaṇa-Viṣṇu.

119. Crossing the Mahānadi River, [Caitanya] travelled to Nīlācala [Puri]. He lived in Nīlācala for twenty-eight years.²¹
120. Everyone was intent on dharma and the earth was prosperous. A flood of love stretched up to the edge of the Himalayas.
121. In this ocean of love, Nityānanda was the helmsman. The ship loaded with the sins of the Kali Age sank in this sea.
122 [Lord of Death] Yama's abode, containing hell's many tortures, was empty, so Yama went to the seat of Brahmā to discuss the issue.
123. Said Yama to Brahmā, "You must correct this situation! Caitanya Ṭhākura has saved all sinners.
124. All eighty-four hells have completely emptied out. Sixty thousand messengers of death sit idle in their rooms.
125. And so many sinners have been saved by Jagannātha; numbers of sinners were liberated when they consumed mahāprasāda;
126. numbers of sinners have been liberated by serving tulasī; numbers more of sinners have been saved in the Ganges at Vārāṇasī;
127. numbers of sinners have been freed through the śālagrāma stone; and so many more sinners have been saved by the name of Hari that
128. Yama's hell is devoid of any sinners at all! Caitanya Gosañi has rescued all the wicked!"
129. Brahmā listened intently to and evaluated Yama's plea. Taking Indra and Śaṅkara, he went and met with these and the other gods on the earth.
130. During the night in his garden hut in Nīlācala, they petitioned Caitanya to return to Vaikuṇṭha heaven straightaway.
131. [He replied,] "I promise. On the seventh day of the bright lunar fortnight of Āṣāḍha [June-July] send a chariot and I will proceed to the heavenly citadel of Vaikuṇṭha. "
132. While Nityānanda was attending the Car Festival, [Caitanya] related everything to Advaitācārya honestly.
133. "Nityānanda and you, Advaita, are of a non-different, single form. Because you do not really understand, you argue," he said.
134. "I pass my authority on to Nityānanda and to you, Advaitācārya. All of you adepts perform saṃkīrtana.
135. For twenty-eight years have I lived in Nīlācala. I tell you frankly that now I am going to the other realm.
136. Many will become Vaiṣṇavas, male and female. Devotee upon devotee will extend out over the earth...."
140. In the month of Āṣāḍha, [King] Pratāparudra sat in Prabhu's room while Advaita told stories of Kṛṣṇa, amidst many smiling faces.
141. Prabhu soaked his loin-cloth with the tears that streamed from his eyes. On fire from the story of Kṛṣṇa, he rivaled [the brillance of] a peacock ....
144. On the fifth day of Āṣāḍha, as Caitanya danced during the Car Festival, he struck his left foot sharply on a brick.
145. [Prior to] Advaita's return journey to Bengal the next morning, [Caitanya] privately revealed to him the particulars of what had transpired.
146. Then with all his companions, Caitanya played aquatic games in the waters of the Narendra pool.
147. On the sixth day [of the light half of Āṣāḍha], admitting that the pain raged in his foot, he finally lay down in his hut.
148. He revealed everything to [Gadādhara] Pandita Gosāñi. "Tonight, at the dark hour of ten, I shall go away for good."
149. Multicolored heavenly garlands rained down from nowhere and many heavenly musicians danced on the main thoroughfare.
150. He summoned the gods, in chariot after chariot, and climbed into the car bearing the banner of Garuḍa.
151. His physical māyā-body fell to the earth where it remained as Caitanya departed from Jambudvīpa and soared to Vaikuṇṭha heaven.
152. Many of his attendants died from the bite of the serpent of separation. Meteors fell, thunder boomed, and the earth quaked.
153. When they heard, Nityānanda, Advaitācārya, Viṣṇupriyā and Śaci Ṭhākurāṇī fainted.
154. Nityānanda consoled and reassured Śrī Rāmadāsa and all his followers.
155. Puruṣottama and the other followers of Advaita fell silent upon hearing the news of Caitanya's passing.

The mythic element dominates this account. That Caitanya would be directly compared to Kṛṣṇa in this text is of course no cause for protest. The mythic framework in which it is set is perfectly understandable by the average Vaiṣṇava, for it confirms what has already been described in the Bhāgavata purāṇa (II.30-31)²² and other texts, such as the Mahābhārata (16.4)²³; Caitanya, like Kṛṣṇa before him, died from a wound to the foot,²⁴ but the parallels are even greater. Like any perfected being, Caitanya possessed a foreknowledge of his death, just as Kṛṣṇa knew of his impending doom from the curse of the ascetics and from Gandhārī's prophecy (MBh 11.25.38-42). Rather than subvert karma, which is certainly within the capacity of the supreme lord (MBh 16.8), Kṛṣṇa consented to it and allowed himself to be killed at the appointed time. Kṛṣṇa repaired alone to the forest - separating himself from his compatriots - where the most excellent of hunters, Jara, spied him. Thinking he was a deer, Jara fired the arrow that pierced Kṛṣṇa's foot. Horrified at what he had done, Jara begged for Kṛṣṇa's mercy and by meditating on him, was saved at the time of Kṛṣṇa's ascent to Vaikuṇṭha heaven. As Kṛṣṇa ascended in this chariot, the heavenly musicians and other celestial creatures sang, while the earth grieved over the cataclysmic event. Similarly, Caitanya struck his foot on a brick or shard - the verb is actually causative, i.e., literally the brick struck Caitanya's foot - in an apparent accident. The parallels are too striking to be ignored.

That Yama, in consultation with the gods, becomes the agent for ending Caitanya's stay could certainly be cause for some disagreement, but this is a relatively common convention in the pāla-gāna and maṅgala-kāvya genres, from which this text draws much of its inspiration and style. It does, however, seem to trivialize Caitanya's nature as god, especially as it might be interpreted by the theologians. The real controversy, however, seems to stem from the foot injury itself. Were Caitanya truly Kṛṣṇa, his body (as noted by the earliest authors) would not be subject to any physical distress because it was not material, yet in v. 151 Jayānanda tells how Caitanya laid down his physical or māyā-body to return to Vaikuṇṭha.²⁵ Jayānanda is alone here in his proposition that Caitanya left any physical remains, but he provides no clue to its handling.

Jayānanda manages to present a narrative sequence that in its broadest sweep mirrors the narrative patterns of the other death accounts. While actively worshiping the deity and surrounded by his devotees during the Car Festival, Caitanya wounds his left foot - and the traditional symbolism would require it to be his left - which turns septic; he retires to his hut in semi-seclusion; and after conferring secretly with several close devotees, he rides his chariot to Vaikuṇṭha heaven amidst the appropriate glory and catastrophe. Even though the content of this narrative is largely purāṇic and unique in its reasoning about Caitanya's death, Jayānanda still constructs his story in terms that are analagous to his peers'; the specific context and some of the content is altered, but the underlying structure remains constant.

To Be Continued ...

20. Jayānanda Miśra, Caitanya maṅgala, edited by Bimenbehari Majumdar and Sukhamay Mukhopadhyay (Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1971).
21. All of the other biographies claim twenty-three or twenty-four years, but this text is very explicit (aṣṭaviṃśati); see also v. 135.
22. Śrīmadbhāgavatam of Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa, edited with Bengali translation by Rāmanārāyaṇa Vidyāratna, with commentary BhAvArthadIpikA of Śrīdhara Svāmin, Kramasandarbha of Jīva Gosvāmin, and Sārārthadarśiṇī-tīkā of Viśvanātha Cakravartin (Murshidabad: Rādharāmaṇa Press of Bharaṭpura, 1304-1305 BS).
23. Mahābhārata of Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa, critically edited by Visnu S. Suthankar (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933), hereafter cited as MBh.
24. It should also be noted that Caitanya's first wife, Lakṣmīpriyā, died of snakebite to the foot, while Caitanya was away in East Bengal, but some saw her death resulting from the bite of the serpent of separation. See Murāri's Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta 1.11.21-28; Kavikarṇapūra's Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-caritāmṛta mahākāvya 3.101-103; and Vṛndāvana Dāsa's Caitanya bhāgavata 1.10.98-107.
25. As Dimock notes in the Introduction to the CC, Amūlyacandra Sena, a Calcutta physician, has cogently argued from the standpoint of medical plausibility that Caitanya's foot injury does qualify as the probable cause of death, and that, in spite of the obvious mythic narrative framework, Jayānanda's account must be the most historically accurate. So iconoclastic is this position and others in Sena's study that the Vaiṣṇava community succeeded in getting the publisher to withdraw his book from circulation; so complete is its erasure that when I visited the offices of the publisher in 1981 with a xeroxed copy of the title page, I was told that the book has never been published and that I was simply mistaken. See Amūlyacandra Sena, Itihāsera śrī caitanya (Calcutta: Sārasvata Library, 1965), esp. 196-99. Not surprisingly, it was this same story that caused so much of the negative response to D.C. Sen's article noted above.