Buddhimanta Khan

Expressions researched:
"Buddhimanta Khan"

CC Adi-lila

CC Adi 10.74, Translation and Purport:

The thirty-sixth branch, Buddhimanta Khān, was extremely dear to Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He was always prepared to carry out the Lord's orders, and therefore he was considered to be a chief servant of the Lord.

Śrī Buddhimanta Khān was one of the inhabitants of Navadvīpa. He was very rich, and it is he who arranged for the marriage of Lord Caitanya with Viṣṇupriyā, the daughter of Sanātana Miśra, who was the priest of the local zamindar. He personally defrayed all the expenditures for the marriage ceremony. When Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu was attacked by vāyu-vyādhi (derangement of the air within the body) Buddhimanta Khān paid for all requisite medicines and treatments to cure the Lord. He was the Lord's constant companion in the kīrtana movement. He collected ornaments for the Lord when He played the part of the goddess of fortune in the house of Candraśekhara Ācārya. He also went to see Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu when He was staying at Jagannātha Purī.

CC Madhya-lila

CC Madhya 3.153-155, Translation:

Śrīvāsa, Rāmāi, Vidyānidhi, Gadādhara, Gaṅgādāsa, Vakreśvara, Murāri, Śuklāmbara, Buddhimanta Khāṅ, Nandana, Śrīdhara, Vijaya, Vāsudeva, Dāmodara, Mukunda, Sañjaya and all the others, however many I can mention—indeed, all the inhabitants of Navadvīpa—arrived there, and the Lord met them with smiles and glances of mercy.

CC Antya-lila

CC Antya 10.9-11, Translation:

Vāsudeva Datta, Murāri Gupta, Gaṅgādāsa, Śrīmān Sena, Śrīmān Paṇḍita, Akiñcana Kṛṣṇadāsa, Murāri, Garuḍa Paṇḍita, Buddhimanta Khān, Sañjaya Puruṣottama, Bhagavān Paṇḍita, Śuklāmbara Brahmacārī, Nṛsiṁhānanda Brahmacārī and many others joined together to go to Jagannātha Purī. It would be impossible to mention the names of them all.

CC Antya 10.121, Translation:

“And all these varieties of food have been given by Vāsudeva Datta, Murāri Gupta and Buddhimanta Khān.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 6.1.6 -- Bombay, November 6, 1970:

You have read in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta that one Buddhimanta Khan, he was formerly... He was very rich man and Nawab Hussain Shah was the servant when he was not Nawab. So he was menial servant. So he stole some money as servants are generally habituated. So he whipped him with his cane. So that whipping stripe was on his back side. When he was Nawab, so his wife saw it and inquired, "What is this scar?" So he replied the whole story, that "I was formerly a menial servant to this Buddhimanta Khan and I did something wrong. So as my father, he punished me. That's all. He was treating me as my son."

Lecture on SB 6.1.6 -- Nellore, January 5, 1976:

There was the king in Bengal at that time. He was known as Nawab Hussein Shah. Formerly he was a Mohammedan servant to a big Hindu landlord. So this boy servant committed some theft so the master punished him by striking with a cane. So the striking mark of the cane was there on his backside. So one day the Nawab's wife, Begam, saw the mark and inquired from her husband, "What is this mark?" So the Nawab described that in his childhood, when he was a servant of that Hindu gentleman, Buddhimanta Khan, he beat him with that cane and that mark is there. So the wife of the Nawab, Begum Sair(?), she requested that "You kill this man. Otherwise people will blaspheme you." The Nawab, however, declined. "No, no, this cannot... This is not possible. He was my master, just like my father. He chastised me. There was no fault." So the wife then requested, "At least make him a Mohammedan." So the Nawab, to satisfy his wife, he agreed, "Well, that is not very difficult task." So one day he called Buddhimanta Khan and sprinkled the water on his body.

So Buddhimanta Khan took it that he has now become a Mohammeddan, so he went to the brāhmaṇa for consultation. So when Buddhimanta Khan went to a bhaṭṭācārya, he said that "The," what is called, "prāyaścitta is that you melt one kilogram of," what is called, "lead, and drink it." So he, being helpless, he went to consult another brāhmaṇa bhaṭṭācārya. He said, "All right, if you cannot drink molten lead, then you can drink one kilo of melted ghee." So in this way, when he was helpless, he went to Caitanya Mahāprabhu. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu knew the situation of the then society. He therefore advised him that "You better give (up) your family life. You go to Vṛndāvana." So He advised him that "Go to Vṛndāvana, live there and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." So the difficulty is, in the śāstras there are atonement for prāyaścitta of so..., not like that—you drink hot ghee or hot lead—but there are prāyaścittas. So one has to execute that.

Lecture on SB 6.1.7 -- Honolulu, June 15, 1975, Sunday Feast Lecture:

In this age things are being deteriorated. So even you go to a learned brāhmaṇa, he does not give you the proper instruction. He wants to exact some money from you. Therefore things have gone, everything, very bad. Even in Caitanya Mahāprabhu's time, when Caitanya Mahāprabhu was there, one gentleman, he was made into a Muhammadan. This is a long story. The shortcut is he was very rich man, and the Nawab of Bengal, Hussain Shah, when he was a boy, he was his servant. Later on he became the Nawab, the king. So one day the Nawab was being massaged, and his wife saw that there is a stripe on the back. So (s)he asked the Nawab, "What is this?" So he stated that "When I was a poor boy, I was servant of Buddhimanta Khan, and I committed some wrong, so he whipped me with a cane." "Oh? Then it is a sign that you were a servant of Buddhimanta Khan sometimes before. If people will see and you will explain, that is an insult for you." "Oh, what is that? He was just like my father. He chastised me. I don't mind." "No, no, no, no. You should kill him so that he may not say to anyone that you were sometime his servant." So Nawab disagreed. Nawab said, "No, no. He treated me just like my son, and I accepted him as my father. It is not possible to kill him." Then the queen suggested that "At least you make him a Muhammadan. Then that will be the punishment." So the king, or the Nawab, said, "All right, I shall make him." Because in those days, to make a Hindu a Muhammadan, it was very easy. The Muhammadans they have got a pot, it is called badna. So if the Mohammedan takes little water from the badna and sprinkles upon a Hindu, then Hindu community will immediately reject him, "Oh, he has become Muhammadan." This was the Hindu community. Therefore so many Muhammadans were there in India, and ultimately, by the British policy, they divided. They were not actually Muhammadans coming from Turkey or from West. They were lower-class Hindus. But the Hindus were so foolish that if a Muhammadan sprinkled some water in this way, so he becomes Muhammadan and he is rejected, in this way the Muhammadan population was there.

Anyway, that was done in the case of Buddhimanta Khan. The Nawab called him one day and took little water from his pot and sprinkled, and it was the law, "He has become Muhammadan, he has become Muhammadan." So he went to a bhaṭṭācārya, "So what is the atonement? Now I have become Muhammadan." Just see the conception. And the bhaṭṭācārya said that "You drink one pound of molten lead." "How it is possible?" "That is the atonement." So in this way he was baffled. He went to Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He was very respectable man. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu laughed, that "This the condition of the Hindu society." So He said that "I tell you that you give up your family life. You go to Vṛndāvana and chant there Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's all.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- Honolulu, May 20, 1976 :

Devotee (3): You..., you told a story once about, there was one, the devotee of Lord Caitanya, where he had never met Lord Caitanya, but he had some water sprinkled on him from a Muslim, Muhammadan, and that, that astrologer told him to pour..., to drink lead, hot lead. And he said, I was (indistinct)...

Prabhupāda: Buddhimanta Khān.

Devotee (3): Yeah, Buddhimanta Khān. (pause) You've also said in the past that there is no reality of this material world save for, save Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, save...

Prabhupāda: Yes, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (says), nāma vinā kichu nāhika āra, cauddha-bhuvana-majhe.