Biography of ‘Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (18th Feburary 1486- 1534) was born in Mayarpur in the town of Nadia. In his eighth year he was admitted into the Tol of Gangadas Pandit in Ganganagar close by the village of Mayapur. In two years, he became well read in Sanskrit Grammar and Rhetoric. His readings after that were of the nature of self-study in his own house, where he had found all important books belonging to his father who was a Pandit himself. It was at the age of fourteen or fifteen that Mahaprabhu was married to Laksmhi Devi, the daughter of Ballabha Acharya, also of Nadia. He was at this age considered as one of the best scholars of Nadia, the renowned seat of Nyaya philosophy and Sanskrit learning.
It was at the age of sixteen or seventeen that he travelled to Gaya with a host of his students, and there took His spiritual initiation from Iswar Puri, a Vaishnava recluse and a disciple of the renowned Madhavendra Puri.
Sri Chaitanya visited numerous places in southern India as far as Cape Comorin, and returned to Puri in two years by Pandarpur on the Bhima. During his journey he had discussions with the Buddhists, the Jains and the Mayavadis in several places, and converted his opponents to Vaishnavism. Mahaprabhu continually lived in Puri in the house of Kasi Misra, until his disappearance in his forty-eighth year at the time of Sankirtan in the temple of Tota Gopinath. During these 18 years, his life was one of settled love and piety.
He was surrounded by numerous followers, all of whom were of the highest order of the Vaishnavas and distinguished from the common people by their purest character and learning, firm religious principles and spiritual love in Radha-Krishna.
