Sivananda Sena (CC Adi-lila and Madhya-lila)
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Adi-lila
Let me repeatedly offer my respectful obeisances unto the beelike devotees who always taste the honey of the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. If even a doggish nondevotee somehow takes shelter of such devotees, he enjoys the aroma of the lotus flower.
The example of a dog is very significant in this connection. A dog naturally does not become a devotee at any time, but still it is sometimes found that a dog of a devotee gradually becomes a devotee also. We have actually seen that a dog has no respect even for the tulasī plant. Indeed, a dog is especially inclined to pass urine on the tulasī plant. Therefore the dog is the number one nondevotee. But Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's saṅkīrtana movement is so strong that even a doglike nondevotee can gradually become a devotee by the association of a devotee of Lord Caitanya. Śrīla Śivānanda Sena, a great householder devotee of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, attracted a dog on the street while going to Jagannātha Purī. The dog began to follow him and ultimately went to see Caitanya Mahāprabhu and was liberated. Similarly, cats and dogs in the household of Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura were also liberated. Cats and dogs and other animals are not expected to become devotees, but in the association of a pure devotee they are also delivered.
Vāsudeva Datta spent money very liberally; therefore Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu asked Śivānanda Sena to become his sarakhela, or secretary, in order to control his extravagant expenses.
Once Śivānanda Sena offered food to Lord Caitanya that had been cooked with excessive ghee, and the next day the Lord became sick and went to Murāri Gupta for treatment. Lord Caitanya accepted some water from the waterpot of Murāri Gupta, and thus He was cured. The natural remedy for indigestion is to drink a little water, and since Murāri Gupta was a physician, he gave the Lord some drinking water and cured Him.
Śivānanda Sena, the twenty-fourth branch of the tree, was an extremely confidential servant of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Everyone who went to Jagannātha Purī to visit Lord Caitanya took shelter and guidance from Śrī Śivānanda Sena.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu personally spread the saṅkīrtana movement, and He advised all the inhabitants of Bhāratavarṣa to take up His cult and preach it all over the world. The visible bodily symptoms of devotees who follow such instructions are called āveśa. Śrīla Śivānanda Sena observed such āveśa symptoms in Nakula Brahmacārī, who displayed symptoms exactly like those of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. The Caitanya-caritāmṛta states that in the Age of Kali the only spiritual function is to broadcast the holy name of the Lord, but this function can be performed only by one who is actually empowered by Lord Kṛṣṇa. The process by which a devotee is thus empowered is called āveśa, or sometimes it is called śakty-āveśa.
Śrīla Śivānanda Sena experienced the three features of sākṣāt, āveśa and āvirbhāva. Later I shall vividly describe this transcendentally blissful subject.
Śrīla Śivānanda Sena has been described by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Mahārāja as follows: “Śivānanda Sena was a resident of Kumārahaṭṭa, which is also known as Hālisahara, and was a great devotee of the Lord. About one and a half miles from Kumārahaṭṭa is another village, known as Kāṅcaḍāpāḍā, in which there are Gaura-Gopāla Deities installed by Śivānanda Sena, who also established a temple of Kṛṣṇarāya that is still existing. Śivānanda Sena was the father of Paramānanda Sena, who was also known as Purī dāsa or Kavi-karṇapūra. Paramānanda Sena wrote in his Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā (176) that two of the gopīs of Vṛndāvana, whose former names were Vīrā and Dūtī, combined to become his father. Śrīla Śivānanda Sena guided all the devotees of Lord Caitanya who went from Bengal to Jagannātha Purī, and he personally bore all the expenses for their journey. This is described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā, Chapter Sixteen, verses 19 through 27 (CC Madhya 16.19). Śrīla Śivānanda Sena had three sons, named Caitanya dāsa, Rāmadāsa and Paramānanda. As mentioned above, this last son later became Kavi-karṇapūra and wrote the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā. His spiritual master was Śrīnātha Paṇḍita, who was Śivānanda Sena's priest. Due to Vāsudeva Datta's lavish spending, Śivānanda Sena was engaged to supervise his expenditures.”
Śrī Śivānanda Sena actually experienced Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's features of sākṣāt, āveśa and āvirbhāva. He once took along a dog while on his way to Jagannātha Purī, and it is described in the Antya-līlā, First Chapter (CC Antya 1), that this dog later attained salvation by his association. When Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa, who later became Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, fled his paternal home to join Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, his father wrote a letter to Śivānanda Sena to get information about him. Śivānanda Sena supplied him the details for which he asked, and later Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī’s father sent some servants and money to Śivānanda Sena to take care of Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī. Once Śrī Śivānanda Sena invited Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu to his home and fed Him so sumptuously that the Lord felt indigestion and was somewhat sick. This became known to Śivānanda Sena's eldest son, Caitanya dāsa, who gave the Lord the kinds of food that would help His digestion, and thus Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu was very pleased. This is described in Antya-līlā, Tenth Chapter, verses 142 through 151 (CC Antya 10.142).
Once while going to Jagannātha Purī, all the devotees had to stay underneath a tree, without the shelter of a house or even a shed, and Nityānanda Prabhu became very angry, as if He were greatly disturbed by hunger. Thus He cursed Śivānanda's sons to die. Śivānanda's wife was very much aggrieved at this, and she began to cry. She very seriously thought that since her sons had been cursed by Nityānanda Prabhu, certainly they would die. When Śivānanda later returned and saw his wife crying, he said, "Why are you crying? Let us all die if Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu desires." When Śivānanda Sena returned and Śrīla Nityānanda Prabhu saw him, the Lord kicked him severely, complaining that He was very hungry, and asked why he had not arranged for His food. Such is the behavior of the Lord with His devotees. Śrīla Nityānanda Prabhu behaved like an ordinary hungry man, as if completely dependent on the arrangements of Śivānanda Sena.
A nephew of Śivānanda Sena's named Śrīkānta left the company in protest of Nityānanda Prabhu's curse and went directly to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu at Jagannātha Purī, where the Lord pacified him. On that occasion, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu allowed His toe to be sucked by Purī dāsa, who was then a child. It is by the order of Caitanya Mahāprabhu that he could immediately compose Sanskrit verses. During the misunderstanding with Śivānanda's family, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu ordered His personal attendant, Govinda, to give them all the remnants of His food. This is described in Antya-līlā, Chapter Twelve, verse 53 (CC Antya 12.53).
The sons, servants and family members of Śivānanda Sena constituted a subbranch. They were all sincere servants of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
he three sons of Śivānanda Sena, named Caitanya dāsa, Rāmadāsa and Karṇapūra, were all heroic devotees of Lord Caitanya.
Caitanya dāsa, the eldest son of Śivānanda Sena, wrote a commentary on Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta that was later translated by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in his paper Sajjana-toṣaṇī. According to expert opinion, Caitanya dāsa was the author of the book Caitanya-carita (also known as Caitanya-caritāmṛta), which was written in Sanskrit. The author was not Kavi-karṇapūra, as is generally supposed. This is the opinion of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. Śrī Rāmadāsa was the second son of Śivānanda Sena. It is stated in the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā (145) that the two famous parrots named Dakṣa and Vicakṣaṇa in kṛṣṇa-līlā became the elder brothers of Kavi-karṇapūra, namely Caitanya dāsa and Rāmadāsa. Karṇapūra, the third son, who was also known as Paramānanda dāsa or Purī dāsa, was initiated by Śrīnātha Paṇḍita, who was a disciple of Śrī Advaita Prabhu. Karṇapūra wrote many books that are important in Vaiṣṇava literature, such as the Ānanda-vṛndāvana-campū, Alaṅkāra-kaustubha, Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā and the great epic Caitanya-candrodaya-nāṭaka. He was born in the year 1448 Śakābda (A.D. 1526). He continually wrote books for ten years, from 1488 until 1498.
Śrīvallabha Sena and Śrīkānta Sena were also subbranches of Śivānanda Sena, for they were not only his nephews but also unalloyed devotees of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
When Lord Nityānanda Prabhu rebuked Śivānanda Sena on the way to Purī, these two nephews of Śivānanda left the company as a protest and went to see Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu at Jagannātha Purī. The Lord could understand the feelings of the boys, and He asked His personal assistant, Govinda, to supply them prasādam until the party of Śivānanda arrived. During the Ratha-yātrā saṅkīrtana festival these two brothers were members of the party led by Mukunda. In the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā (174) it is said that the gopī whose name was Kātyāyanī appeared as Śrīkānta Sena.
Śrīnātha Paṇḍita, the forty-ninth branch, was the beloved recipient of all the mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Everyone in the three worlds was astonished to see how he worshiped Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura writes in his Anubhāṣya, "About one and a half miles away from Kumārahaṭṭa, or Kāmarhaṭṭa, which is a few miles from Calcutta, is a village known as Kāṅcaḍāpāḍā, which was the home of Śrī Śivānanda Sena. There he constructed a temple of Śrī Gauragopāla. Śrīnātha Paṇḍita established another temple there with Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa mūrtis. The Deity of that temple is named Śrī Kṛṣṇa Rāya. The temple of Kṛṣṇa Rāya, which was constructed in the year 1708 Śakābda (A.D. 1786) by a prominent zamindar named Nimāi Mullik of Pāthuriyā-ghāṭa in Calcutta, is very large. There is a big courtyard in front of the temple, and there are residential quarters for visitors and good arrangements for cooking prasādam. The entire courtyard is surrounded by very high boundary walls, and the temple is almost as big as the Māheśa temple. Inscribed on a tablet are the names of Śrīnātha Paṇḍita and his father and grandfather and the date of construction of the temple. Śrīnātha Paṇḍita, one of the disciples of Advaita Prabhu, was the spiritual master of the third son of Śivānanda Sena, who was known as Paramānanda Kavi-karṇapūra. It is said that the Kṛṣṇa Rāya Deity was installed during the time of Kavi-karṇapūra. According to hearsay, Vīrabhadra Prabhu, the son of Nityānanda Prabhu, brought a big stone from Murśidābād from which three Deities were carved—namely, the Rādhāvallabha vigraha of Vallabhapura, the Śyāmasundara vigraha of Khaḍadaha and the Śrī Kṛṣṇa Rāya vigraha of Kāṅcaḍāpāḍā. The home of Śivānanda Sena was situated on the bank of the Ganges near an almost ruined temple. It is said that the same Nimāi Mullik of Calcutta saw this broken-down temple of Kṛṣṇa Rāya while he was going to Benares and thereafter constructed the present temple."
In the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā (172) it is stated that Sāraṅga Ṭhākura was formerly a gopī named Nāndīmukhī. Some devotees say that he was formerly Prahlāda Mahārāja, but Śrī Kavi-karṇapūra says that his father, Śivānanda Sena, does not accept this proposition.”
CC Madhya-lila
Eventually Narahari dāsa and other inhabitants of Khaṇḍa, along with Śivānanda Sena, all arrived, and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu met them.
When all the devotees from Bengal arrived, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu allotted them residential quarters, and Śivānanda Sena was put in charge of their maintenance.
A dog accompanied Śivānanda Sena and the devotees, and that dog was so fortunate that after seeing the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, it was liberated and went back home, back to Godhead.
Also hearing this auspicious news, Haridāsa Ṭhākura became very pleased. So also did Vāsudeva Datta, Murāri Gupta and Śivānanda Sena.
“Here is Hari Bhaṭṭa, and there is Nṛsiṁhānanda. Here are Vāsudeva Datta and Śivānanda Sena.
Then turning toward Śivānanda Sena, the Lord said, "I know that from the very beginning your affection for Me has been very great."
Immediately upon hearing this, Śivānanda Sena became absorbed in ecstatic love and fell down on the ground, offering obeisances to the Lord. He then began to recite the following verse.
The Lord also respectfully told Śivānanda Sena, “Take care of Vāsudeva Datta very nicely.
“Please take care of Vāsudeva Datta's family affairs. Become his manager and make the proper adjustments.
Vāsudeva Datta and Śivānanda Sena were living in the same neighborhood, which is presently called Kumārahaṭṭa or Hālisahara.
Śivānanda Sena, who was in charge of the party, made arrangements to clear the tax collecting centers. He took care of all the devotees and happily traveled with them.
Śivānanda Sena took care of all the necessities the devotees required. In particular, he made arrangements for residential quarters, and he knew the roads of Orissa.
Śrīvāsa Paṇḍita also took his wife, Mālinī, and the wife of Śivānanda Sena also went with her husband.
Caitanya dāsa, the son of Śivānanda Sena, also jubilantly accompanied them as they went to see the Lord.
As stated, Śivānanda Sena made all arrangements for the party's necessities. In particular, he pacified the men in charge of levying taxes and found resting places for everyone.
Śivānanda Sena also supplied food to all the devotees and took care of them along the way. In this way, feeling great happiness, he went to see Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu at Jagannātha Purī.
From Kumārahaṭṭa, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu went to Kāñcanapallī (also known as Kāṅcaḍāpāḍā), where Śivānanda Sena lived. After staying two days at Śivānanda's house, the Lord went to the house of Vāsudeva Datta.
From the house of Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura, the Lord went to the house of Śivānanda Sena and then to the house of Vāsudeva Datta.
Sometimes materialists, forgetting the pastimes of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma, go to Vṛndāvana, accept the land's spiritual facilities and engage in material activity. This is against the teachings of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. The prākṛta-sahajiyās proclaim themselves vraja-vāsīs or dhāma-vāsīs, but they are mainly engaged in sense gratification. Thus they become more and more implicated in the materialistic way of life. Those who are pure devotees in Kṛṣṇa consciousness condemn their activities. The eternal vraja-vāsīs like Svarūpa Dāmodara did not even come to Vṛndāvana-dhāma. Śrī Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi, Śrī Haridāsa Ṭhākura, Śrīvāsa Paṇḍita, Śivānanda Sena, Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya, Śrī Śikhi Māhiti, Śrī Mādhavīdevī and Śrī Gadādhara Paṇḍita Gosvāmī never visited Vṛndāvana-dhāma. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura points out that we have no authorized documents stating that these exalted personalities visited Vṛndāvana. Nonetheless, we find many nondevotees, Māyāvādī sannyāsīs, prākṛta-sahajiyās, fruitive workers, mental speculators and many others with material motives going to Vṛndāvana to live. Many of these people go there to solve their economic problems by becoming beggars. Although anyone living in Vṛndāvana somehow or other is benefited, the real Vṛndāvana is appreciated only by a pure devotee. As stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā, premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena (Bs. 5.38). When one has purified eyes, he can see that Śrī Vṛndāvana and the original Goloka Vṛndāvana planet in the spiritual sky are identical.
In his book Caitanya-candrodaya, Kavi-karṇapūra, the son of Śivānanda Sena, has elaborately described the meeting between Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
| Page Title: | Sivananda Sena (CC Adi-lila and Madhya-lila) |
| Compiler: | Sahadeva |
| Created: | 09 of Oct, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=30, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 30 |