Post by Jagannāth Miśra Dās on Feb 20, 2022 0:33:08 GMT -6
Mahaprabhu’s Disappearance.
Govinda Dās’s illustration of Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s disappearance Līlā, taken from his caitanya-cakaḍā, written in Oriya in 1533. Gauranga Mahāprabhu, having already proclaimed his wish to abandon the world several days before, is now seized by a distempered viraha-bhāva whilst attending a kīrtan during the festive occasion when Lord Jagannāth dwells in the Gundica temple.
ratha samkīrttan prabhu hera badāile
virahākula-badana-netra thana thana
mauna kātara citta kampe apaghana (1)
As the saṅkīrttan connected with the celebrations of the ratha-yātrā concluded, the Lord is now assailed by a profoundly sorrowful strain of separation during the festivities of herā. He sobbed, his eyes and face flushed with copious tears. He spoke to no one, but kept himself silent. His heart saddened and apprehensive, and his bodily limbs shaking with tremulous force.
(herā is the annual festival of herāpāncami.)
caturadaśa yasthādhika pancasata sāke
apurva līlā ghaṭilā pratyakse (2)
It is now toward the end of 1456 śāka era, (1533) when an altogether astonishing and remarkable event unfolded.
sukla saptamī tithi se avaśa kahilā
ātura bhāvare gorā kīrttane gamilā (3)
āḍapa mandape cāri sampradāya saha
udanda narttana astabyasta prabhu deha (4)
On the seventh day of the waxing moon, (āṣāḍa sukla saptamī) Lord Gorā was gripped by an ungoverned and impatient temper during a kīrtan orchestrated in the āḍapa-mandap. Present in the āḍapa-mandap were the four sampradayas, and the Lord broke forth into a wild and exuberant dance, his limbs now abandoned to a frantic sway. (3-4.)
(Translator’s note; according to the commentator, the āḍapa-mandapa referred to the garden which surrounded the Gundica temple.)
govinda swarupa duhuṅ ākulita tanu
śrīanga sambhālibāre cakita sutanu (5)
Both Govinda and Swarupa were stricken by sorrow upon discerning the condition of his divine body. They guarded and cared for the Lord’s gracious limbs, whose movements were now startled and flustered.
pāduka kunda samīpe beḍhāre basile
viraha kīrttane sarve-asambhāla kale (6)
phiṭi bahirvāsa gala mālā asambhāla
maharāsasthalī rāsagīte anargala (7)
As they brought the Lord alongside the pāduka -kunda, everyone present lost their composure in the kirtan which heightened their viraha. The Lord’s wearing cloth, and garland around his neck appear dishevelled, as all the while songs of the rāsa-gitā echoed uninterruptedly from the mahārāsasthalī.
(Translator’s note; the commentator says the pādaka-kunda is a vessel containing the bathing water of the temple Deity; and the mahārāsasthalī he reasons to be a mandapa inside the Gundica Mandira, where songs of the rāsa-līlā are enacted and sung in the presence of Lord Jagannāth.)
sarva netra tāra pūrṇa ākula badana
rāya pāṣe basi kare ākule krandana (8)
mridanga betāla swara kātare betāla
sarve anubhāva kale sambarana kāla (9)
All eyes now gazed upon the Lord whose countenance bore a look of harrowing impatience; and as Ramānanda Rāya sat beside him and wept bitterly, those present appreciated how their discordant weeping still found harmony with the mridanga.
sandhya ārati darasane sevaka rāile
vije dvara dei gale gaurānga thākura
garuda stambha samipe darasane ātura (10)
As the Sevakas conducted the evening āroti, Lord Gaurānga made his advent by the doorway, and took darasan; still animated by an exasperated and fretful agitation, as he lingered beside the Garuda stambha. (10)
(Translators note; there was a Garuda stambha inside the Gundica temple in 1533.)
sandhya ārati uthilā paḍilā cahalā
chindi paḍilā prabhunka adharara mālā (11)
As the crowd swelled to behold the sandhya-ārati, one of Lord Jagannath’s flower garlands, which lay draped under his lower lip, broke on a sudden.
sahasā śataka candra udiyāra teja
prakāśera netra sarva ki ghaṭilā āja (12)
All at once it seemed as if the shining effulgence of a hundred moons had just arisen, which appeared before the eyes of all who were present, causing them to wonder at what had just happened. (12)
divyajoyti prāya teja garuda pacharu
jagannāth chāmu jate paḍe dhāti kāru (13)
A light, bearing a divine radiant lustre, appeared from behind the Garuda sthamba, coming before Lord Jagannāth in a beam pure and clear.
hari hari jaya nīlācala pati jaya jaya
śabade āḍapa kampe na dharila thaya (14)
The āḍapa now shook with the triumphant cries of “hari-hari” and “jaya nilācala pati” and no one was able to withhold their tears.
stambha pāśe thile prabhu na diśe badana
kene gale bhakata sarva ākulita mane (15)
The face of the Lord, who had kept himself near to the sthamba, was nowhere to be seen. An uneasy distress now dwelt in the bhakta’s hearts, as they wondered where he had gone.
kehe bole siṁhāsana pathe avāgale
pratihārigane vakya asvikara kale (16)
Someone said he may be beside the siṁhāsana, but the Pratihāri Servitors said he was not.
ākule khojanti sarve vaisnava mandalī
dekhile nirekhi āḍapara vanasthalī (17)
The entire vaisnava-mandalī, now troubled and perturbed, conducted a quest within the forest that lay adjacent to the āḍapa.
kehe bole indradyumna sara pathe gale
khojina swarupa tathi nirāśa hoile (18)
Another suggests he may have taken the path that leads to the Indradyumna lake, yet after close inspection, Swarupa’s hopes were in vain.
nrisiṁha vallabha āitaṭāre khojile
govinda sevaka sange vaisnava keteka
samudra pantā khojai kari mahāśoka (19)
In the fellowship of some Sevakas and Vaisnavas, Govinda explored and scoured the shore line, engulfed in consummate, unhappy despair.
sevaka bhaktagana baḍa deulara
khojanti siddha bakule nagara madhyare (20)
ananta siṁha pātra se aśvare ārohī
gaurācānda gale kene avāka kāṅhi (21)
Sevakas likewise searched the inner realms of the Jagannāth Temple, and others the immediate locality around the siddha-bakula. Someone, Ananta Siṁha Pātra, even ventured to climb up the tree, but their astonished downcast silence proclaimed that Gaurācandra had not been discovered. (20-21)
toṭa gopīnāth tānka priya sthalī
rāya bole avā thibe dharma sehi sthalī (22)
“As Toṭa Gopīnātha was his most favoured haunt,” said Rāya, “he may be there? is it not after all a sacred retreat?”
sakale dhāvanti bastra beśa asambhāli
gopīnāth beḍa thāre bahirvāsa dekhi (23)
swarupa vaisnavagane hele mahāsukhi
mātraka kheda ghaṭilā caitanya na dekhi (24)
They ran with such haste that their clothing became unfastened and loose, yet it was here that they beheld the garment of the Lord, the sight of which drew Swaupa Damodhara and the Vaisnavas into a greatly cheerful rapture, yet not seeing the Lord only surmounted their anguished torment.
vaisnavagana āture karanti vicāra
acetana gauracandra aceta sarīra (25)
Further impelled by an impatient haste, they wondered if Gaurācandra had fallen unconscious somewhere, and his body now deprived of sentient life?
bhaktagana e stānaku ādare ānile
bahirvāsa pāḍi achi prabhu kene gele (26)
All the bhakta’s were affectionately lead to the place where the lord’s cloth had fallen, and left to wonder of his actual whereabouts.
emanta samaya rāya ramānanda dhīra
sokāre adhīra hebā sāmānya vicāra (27)
dekha adbhuta bastu ethāre ghaṭichi
prabhu angabāsa mālā e thāre paḍichi (28)
gopīnāth jānudese kstara ākāra
na thila ta kadā ehu vicitra byapāra (29)
Now was the hour, when Ramānanda Rāya, whose grave sobriety, perplexed by a tormented anguish, begins to take into consideration the astonishing spectacle of the Lord’s fallen garland, and a wondrous mark, which had not been seen before, now upon the knee of Gopīnāth.
daivi satta deva sange vilina labhilā
eke deyi prabhu līlā sambarana kalā (30.)
In this manner, the Lord merged into the divine presence of the Deity, and thus ended his līlā. (30.)
Merging himself into the Deity
The Lord ends his līlā festivity. (30.)
(Translator's note; cakaḍā means diary, and many passages in the caitanya-cakaḍā merely state, in a rather perfunctory style, the chronological events of the Lord’s Līlā in Puri. Yet at other times, Govinda Das’s narrative conceit excels with the finest and richest oriental metaphor, coupled with graphic and lively images imbibed from someone who beheld Gauranga with his own eye. Govinda Dās was born in Puri and employed as a scribe in the Jagannāth Temple.
There are approximately 700 hundred verses in the caitanya-cakaḍā. The above thirty verses I translated from the closing passages, intrigued to see what he had written regarding Mahāprabhu’s disappearance. Some other līlās in the caitanya-cakaḍā are; the clandestine encounter of Mahāprabhu with Mother Saci in an underground chamber in Gauridās Pandit’s brother’s āsrāma in Puri; revealing his six armed form before Gajapati Pratapa Rudra inside the Jagamohana; the Lord’s dancing and kirtan at rathayātrā and at Alālanāth; the passing of Haridās Ṭhākura and of the devīdāśi Lavanya; the appearance of the siddha-bakula tree, and the advent of Mother Ganga in Paramānanda Puri’s well; and Gadādhara Pandita at Toṭa Gopīnāth; to name just a few.)
Govinda Dās’s illustration of Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s disappearance Līlā, taken from his caitanya-cakaḍā, written in Oriya in 1533. Gauranga Mahāprabhu, having already proclaimed his wish to abandon the world several days before, is now seized by a distempered viraha-bhāva whilst attending a kīrtan during the festive occasion when Lord Jagannāth dwells in the Gundica temple.
ratha samkīrttan prabhu hera badāile
virahākula-badana-netra thana thana
mauna kātara citta kampe apaghana (1)
As the saṅkīrttan connected with the celebrations of the ratha-yātrā concluded, the Lord is now assailed by a profoundly sorrowful strain of separation during the festivities of herā. He sobbed, his eyes and face flushed with copious tears. He spoke to no one, but kept himself silent. His heart saddened and apprehensive, and his bodily limbs shaking with tremulous force.
(herā is the annual festival of herāpāncami.)
caturadaśa yasthādhika pancasata sāke
apurva līlā ghaṭilā pratyakse (2)
It is now toward the end of 1456 śāka era, (1533) when an altogether astonishing and remarkable event unfolded.
sukla saptamī tithi se avaśa kahilā
ātura bhāvare gorā kīrttane gamilā (3)
āḍapa mandape cāri sampradāya saha
udanda narttana astabyasta prabhu deha (4)
On the seventh day of the waxing moon, (āṣāḍa sukla saptamī) Lord Gorā was gripped by an ungoverned and impatient temper during a kīrtan orchestrated in the āḍapa-mandap. Present in the āḍapa-mandap were the four sampradayas, and the Lord broke forth into a wild and exuberant dance, his limbs now abandoned to a frantic sway. (3-4.)
(Translator’s note; according to the commentator, the āḍapa-mandapa referred to the garden which surrounded the Gundica temple.)
govinda swarupa duhuṅ ākulita tanu
śrīanga sambhālibāre cakita sutanu (5)
Both Govinda and Swarupa were stricken by sorrow upon discerning the condition of his divine body. They guarded and cared for the Lord’s gracious limbs, whose movements were now startled and flustered.
pāduka kunda samīpe beḍhāre basile
viraha kīrttane sarve-asambhāla kale (6)
phiṭi bahirvāsa gala mālā asambhāla
maharāsasthalī rāsagīte anargala (7)
As they brought the Lord alongside the pāduka -kunda, everyone present lost their composure in the kirtan which heightened their viraha. The Lord’s wearing cloth, and garland around his neck appear dishevelled, as all the while songs of the rāsa-gitā echoed uninterruptedly from the mahārāsasthalī.
(Translator’s note; the commentator says the pādaka-kunda is a vessel containing the bathing water of the temple Deity; and the mahārāsasthalī he reasons to be a mandapa inside the Gundica Mandira, where songs of the rāsa-līlā are enacted and sung in the presence of Lord Jagannāth.)
sarva netra tāra pūrṇa ākula badana
rāya pāṣe basi kare ākule krandana (8)
mridanga betāla swara kātare betāla
sarve anubhāva kale sambarana kāla (9)
All eyes now gazed upon the Lord whose countenance bore a look of harrowing impatience; and as Ramānanda Rāya sat beside him and wept bitterly, those present appreciated how their discordant weeping still found harmony with the mridanga.
sandhya ārati darasane sevaka rāile
vije dvara dei gale gaurānga thākura
garuda stambha samipe darasane ātura (10)
As the Sevakas conducted the evening āroti, Lord Gaurānga made his advent by the doorway, and took darasan; still animated by an exasperated and fretful agitation, as he lingered beside the Garuda stambha. (10)
(Translators note; there was a Garuda stambha inside the Gundica temple in 1533.)
sandhya ārati uthilā paḍilā cahalā
chindi paḍilā prabhunka adharara mālā (11)
As the crowd swelled to behold the sandhya-ārati, one of Lord Jagannath’s flower garlands, which lay draped under his lower lip, broke on a sudden.
sahasā śataka candra udiyāra teja
prakāśera netra sarva ki ghaṭilā āja (12)
All at once it seemed as if the shining effulgence of a hundred moons had just arisen, which appeared before the eyes of all who were present, causing them to wonder at what had just happened. (12)
divyajoyti prāya teja garuda pacharu
jagannāth chāmu jate paḍe dhāti kāru (13)
A light, bearing a divine radiant lustre, appeared from behind the Garuda sthamba, coming before Lord Jagannāth in a beam pure and clear.
hari hari jaya nīlācala pati jaya jaya
śabade āḍapa kampe na dharila thaya (14)
The āḍapa now shook with the triumphant cries of “hari-hari” and “jaya nilācala pati” and no one was able to withhold their tears.
stambha pāśe thile prabhu na diśe badana
kene gale bhakata sarva ākulita mane (15)
The face of the Lord, who had kept himself near to the sthamba, was nowhere to be seen. An uneasy distress now dwelt in the bhakta’s hearts, as they wondered where he had gone.
kehe bole siṁhāsana pathe avāgale
pratihārigane vakya asvikara kale (16)
Someone said he may be beside the siṁhāsana, but the Pratihāri Servitors said he was not.
ākule khojanti sarve vaisnava mandalī
dekhile nirekhi āḍapara vanasthalī (17)
The entire vaisnava-mandalī, now troubled and perturbed, conducted a quest within the forest that lay adjacent to the āḍapa.
kehe bole indradyumna sara pathe gale
khojina swarupa tathi nirāśa hoile (18)
Another suggests he may have taken the path that leads to the Indradyumna lake, yet after close inspection, Swarupa’s hopes were in vain.
nrisiṁha vallabha āitaṭāre khojile
govinda sevaka sange vaisnava keteka
samudra pantā khojai kari mahāśoka (19)
In the fellowship of some Sevakas and Vaisnavas, Govinda explored and scoured the shore line, engulfed in consummate, unhappy despair.
sevaka bhaktagana baḍa deulara
khojanti siddha bakule nagara madhyare (20)
ananta siṁha pātra se aśvare ārohī
gaurācānda gale kene avāka kāṅhi (21)
Sevakas likewise searched the inner realms of the Jagannāth Temple, and others the immediate locality around the siddha-bakula. Someone, Ananta Siṁha Pātra, even ventured to climb up the tree, but their astonished downcast silence proclaimed that Gaurācandra had not been discovered. (20-21)
toṭa gopīnāth tānka priya sthalī
rāya bole avā thibe dharma sehi sthalī (22)
“As Toṭa Gopīnātha was his most favoured haunt,” said Rāya, “he may be there? is it not after all a sacred retreat?”
sakale dhāvanti bastra beśa asambhāli
gopīnāth beḍa thāre bahirvāsa dekhi (23)
swarupa vaisnavagane hele mahāsukhi
mātraka kheda ghaṭilā caitanya na dekhi (24)
They ran with such haste that their clothing became unfastened and loose, yet it was here that they beheld the garment of the Lord, the sight of which drew Swaupa Damodhara and the Vaisnavas into a greatly cheerful rapture, yet not seeing the Lord only surmounted their anguished torment.
vaisnavagana āture karanti vicāra
acetana gauracandra aceta sarīra (25)
Further impelled by an impatient haste, they wondered if Gaurācandra had fallen unconscious somewhere, and his body now deprived of sentient life?
bhaktagana e stānaku ādare ānile
bahirvāsa pāḍi achi prabhu kene gele (26)
All the bhakta’s were affectionately lead to the place where the lord’s cloth had fallen, and left to wonder of his actual whereabouts.
emanta samaya rāya ramānanda dhīra
sokāre adhīra hebā sāmānya vicāra (27)
dekha adbhuta bastu ethāre ghaṭichi
prabhu angabāsa mālā e thāre paḍichi (28)
gopīnāth jānudese kstara ākāra
na thila ta kadā ehu vicitra byapāra (29)
Now was the hour, when Ramānanda Rāya, whose grave sobriety, perplexed by a tormented anguish, begins to take into consideration the astonishing spectacle of the Lord’s fallen garland, and a wondrous mark, which had not been seen before, now upon the knee of Gopīnāth.
daivi satta deva sange vilina labhilā
eke deyi prabhu līlā sambarana kalā (30.)
In this manner, the Lord merged into the divine presence of the Deity, and thus ended his līlā. (30.)
Merging himself into the Deity
The Lord ends his līlā festivity. (30.)
(Translator's note; cakaḍā means diary, and many passages in the caitanya-cakaḍā merely state, in a rather perfunctory style, the chronological events of the Lord’s Līlā in Puri. Yet at other times, Govinda Das’s narrative conceit excels with the finest and richest oriental metaphor, coupled with graphic and lively images imbibed from someone who beheld Gauranga with his own eye. Govinda Dās was born in Puri and employed as a scribe in the Jagannāth Temple.
There are approximately 700 hundred verses in the caitanya-cakaḍā. The above thirty verses I translated from the closing passages, intrigued to see what he had written regarding Mahāprabhu’s disappearance. Some other līlās in the caitanya-cakaḍā are; the clandestine encounter of Mahāprabhu with Mother Saci in an underground chamber in Gauridās Pandit’s brother’s āsrāma in Puri; revealing his six armed form before Gajapati Pratapa Rudra inside the Jagamohana; the Lord’s dancing and kirtan at rathayātrā and at Alālanāth; the passing of Haridās Ṭhākura and of the devīdāśi Lavanya; the appearance of the siddha-bakula tree, and the advent of Mother Ganga in Paramānanda Puri’s well; and Gadādhara Pandita at Toṭa Gopīnāth; to name just a few.)