Panihati Cida-dadhi Festival

Giriraj Swami: . . . the Panihati Cida-dadhi Festival. We don’t have time to discuss the whole pastime in detail but I will extract some important principles from some elements of the pastime. The Panihati festival was celebrated by Srila Raghunatha dasa Gosvami. His father and uncle, Govardhana and Hiranya Majumadara, were extremely wealthy landowners in Bengal, almost on the level of kings. They had a huge estate on the river. They had boats that would carry goods. They had so many buildings. Raghunatha dasa was the only son and so they put all of their hopes on him for the future of their dynasty. He was very expert. Sometimes there were complicated situations. The Majumadaras used to collect tax for the government and the government officer found some discrepancy in the accounts. He thought that the Majumadaras were not delivering the full amount due to the government treasury and he was ready to arrest them. But Raghunatha dasa spoke very sweetly and pacified the officer and saved the situation.

Within his heart he wanted to achieve the shelter of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So once when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was in Santipura, Raghunatha dasa went to see Him and told Him that he wanted to leave home and join Him. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu replied, “Don’t be a crazy fellow. You should return home and outwardly perform all of your duties and inwardly always think of Radha and Krishna.”

So Raghunatha dasa did return home, but he lost all interest in the happiness of family life. He followed the instruction of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He did his duties very efficiently, but he stayed outside of the main house in the Durga-mandapa. Then he heard that Nityananda Prabhu had come nearby to Panihati and he wanted to go and meet Him.

When he saw Nityananda Prabhu—Raghunatha dasa was very humble—so when he saw Nityananda Prabhu, he didn’t want to come too close or intrude, but from a distance he offered obeisances. One of Lord Nityananda’s associates said, “Oh look, there’s Raghunatha dasa offering obeisances.” So Nityananda Prabhu was very merciful and very humorous. He said to Raghunatha dasa, “Come here! Come here! Why are you hiding in the shadows like a thief? Come here.” Then He said, “Now that I have caught you, I will punish you, and the punishment is that you have to arrange a festival and serve all of My associates chipped rice and yogurt.” Now this is a very humorous request because Raghunatha dasa was so fabulously wealthy. It would be as if say Bill Gates was a follower of Rose. So he came all the way from Seattle just to see her and get her mercy and he says, “Rose, I’ll do whatever you want. I can build a big temple in Santa Barbara. Anything you want.” But she said, “Oh, I would like you to arrange some puffed rice and yogurt for my associates.” It is like a joke. [laughter]

That was Nityananda Prabhu’s order to Raghunatha dasa so he bought chipped rice, yogurt, condensed milk, different types of fruit—mangoes, bananas—and he soaked some of the chipped rice in milk, some in yogurt. The Caitanya-caritāmṛta describes in detail how the different preparations were made. And then a great feast of chipped rice and yogurt was served.

There are many details. Eventually Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself came, but not everyone could see Him. He came invisibly. And again sort of as a joke Nityananda Prabhu took Chaitanya Mahaprabhu amongst all the eaters and He would take a morsel of chipped rice and yogurt or chipped rice and condensed milk from each pot and put it in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mouth and laughed. But nobody could see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu except for a few very fortunate ones. So they weren’t quite sure what was happening but they were all in a happy mood.

Eventually the vendors who stocked chipped rice and milk and yogurt and fruit and sweets heard about the festival so they came with their goods and Raghunatha dasa bought all of their goods. And then he made them sit down and he fed them the same goods that he bought from them. Eventually there was no room on the land for the people to sit so some of them sat on the banks of the Ganges and when all the space there was taken, some of them actually stood in the water of the Ganges, eating their chipped rice and yogurt.

That night there was a big feast at Raghava Pandita’s house which is in Panihati just near the site of the Cida-dadhi festival and there was kirtan. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu danced in kirtan. And then the next morning Raghunatha dasa had to take leave to return home. He brought with him various gold coins and so he had Raghava Pandita draw up a list of all of Nityananda Prabhu’s associates and he put a figure beside the name of each one, how much Lakshmi he wanted to give. The more intimate associates were given a certain larger figure and then the subordinate associates were given a lesser figure. He told Raghava Pandita that, “After I leave you deliver these amounts of gold into the hands of Nityananda Prabhu and His associates.”

Now before he left he came to see Nityananda Prabhu and his heart’s desire was to get out of the bondage of family life and join Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So Nityananda Prabhu told him, “I am very pleased with the celebration of the Cida-dadhi-utsava and very soon you will be relieved from the shackles of family life and you will attain the shelter of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Puri and he will place you under the care of Svarupa Damodara Gosvami and you will become one of His intimate associates.”

So Raghunatha dasa returned home and by then his father and uncle had posted guards to watch him every minute of the day and night to make sure he didn’t escape. But one night, almost morning, Raghunatha dasa’s spiritual master Yadunandana Acarya who was the family priest of the Majumadaras, he came and he told Raghunatha dasa that the devotee who was supposed to do the worship in the morning was not agreeing to continue his service. So he wanted Raghunatha dasa to accompany him to convince him to take up his service. It was the middle of the night or passed the middle of the night and pretty much everyone was asleep besides Yadunandana Acarya who was part of the family. So everyone trusted him. Raghunatha dasa left and he told Yadunandana Acarya, “My dear master, there’s no need for you to come with me. I will get the pujari to take up his service again and you can return to your place.”

So Raghunatha dasa did. He got the devotee to resume his service and then he left for Jagannatha Puri. He knew that his father and uncle would send people to look for him so instead of taking the main road, he took the interior route. He wasn’t even conscious of his body. He was just fixed on meeting Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It took twelve days for him to walk from Bengal to Puri and in those twelve days he was able to eat only for three days and that also just whatever he could get. And then he eventually reached Jagannatha Puri and achieved the shelter of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and everything that Nityananda Prabhu said came to pass.

This pastime illustrates the process of liberation and the process by which one attains direct service to the Lord. There is a nice song by Narottama dasa Thakura, Gaurāṅga’ bali’te ha’be. It is actually called Lalasamayi Prarthana. Lalasa means “longing,” prārthanā means “prayer.” In this prayer he says, ‘āra kabe Nityāi-Candera karuṇā ha’be: “When will Lord Nityananda (Nitaicand), when will He be merciful to me?” ‘Samsāra-vaśana mora kabe tuccha ha’be: “At that time my material attachments will become insignificant.” Tuccha means “insignificant,” “worthless.” Generally people are materially attached. Every conditioned soul is materially attached, but to really make progress in spiritual life, one cannot harbor false hope for material enjoyment and as a matter of fact all hopes for material enjoyment are pretty false.

In one talk Srila Prabhupada was saying that this is very essential that we give up that hope for material enjoyment or that taste for material enjoyment. There’s another song by Govinda dasa: Bhajahū re mana śrī-nanda-nandana. In connection with that song Srila Prabhupada referred to capala sukha, that flickering happiness that, “Oh my child smiled at me. I feel very happy,” “My wife is pleased with me so I feel happy.” But that happiness cannot really satisfy the soul. And he said not only Govinda dasa or such Vaishnava poets, but even other philosophers and poets who have studied the nature of the world have come to the same conclusion. He quoted Vidyapati who said that the mind, the heart, the soul is like a parched desert that is hankering for oceans of happiness and that capala sukha, that flickering happiness of material enjoyment is like a drop in the desert. What can a drop do in a desert? For the desert to get relief, it needs oceans of water—not just a drop.

So tuccha. That was said about the Six Gosvamis by Srinivasa Acarya: tyaktvā tūrṇam aśeṣa-maṇḍala-pati-śreṇīṁ sadā tucchavat, that they gave up all association with aristocracy as insignificant because they were relishing a much higher standard of happiness. And then Narottama dasa Thakura sings: viṣaya chāriyā kabe śuddha ha ‘be mana, that, “When my mind becomes purified from material attachments then I will be able to enter Vrindavan.” Entering Vrindavan, that can take place internally and externally. And it happened both ways with Raghunatha dasa, internally from the beginning Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told him to think of Radha and Krishna within himself, and then after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu left, Raghunatha dasa went to Vrindavan and took shelter of Rupa and Sanatana there, developed Radha-kunda and Syama-kunda and lived there. That one can enter Vrindavan and one can understand the pastimes of Radha and Krishna.

So this prayer of Narottama dasa Thakura for the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu to make his material attachments insignificant and to purify his mind so that he is able to enter Vrindavan and appreciate the pastimes of Radha and Krishna, these principles were exemplified in the story of Raghunatha dasa and Nityananda Prabhu in the celebration of the Panihati festival.

Also in discussing this prayer, ‘gaurāṅga’ bolite habe pulaka-śarīra, Srila Prabhupada summarizes the whole song by saying that first one should surrender to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu because He came to deliver the fallen souls and give them Krishna consciousness. Krishna-bhakti rasa. When one surrenders to Lord Chaitanya then Lord Nityananda becomes pleased with him and when Lord Nityananda is pleased with him, He makes his material attachments insignificant, paltry, worthless. Then the devotee can enter Vrindavan and then he can . . . of course Narottama dasa Thakura was the next generation then. He can enter Vrindavan and get the shelter of the Six Gosvamis—Rupa Raghunatha.

So we are now a few generations down the line. Through paramparā we can pray like Narottama dasa Thakura, follow that process and at the same time pray for the mercy of Lord Nityananda especially on this occasion to free us. In the case of Raghunatha dasa, he was already detached, but he was bound by circumstances. That can also happen. So one can pray both to be freed from the illusion of material happiness and also to be released from situations that circumstantially keep one from one’s spiritual goals, fulfillment of one’s spiritual desires and then one will be able to attain Vrindavan and in Vrindavan one will get the shelter of the Six Gosvamis. Quite often Srila Prabhupada would translate that line, rūpa-raghunātha-pade haibe ākuti: “When will I be eager to attain the lotus feet of Rupa Raghunatha?” which really means the Six Gosvamis, beginning from Rupa Gosvami up to Raghunatha dasa Gosvami. He translates that to mean, “When will I be eager to study their books?” Then yugala-pirīti: “One will be able to understand the conjugal love of Radha and Krishna and then one’s spiritual life will be a success.”

These are very important points to have that eagerness to study their books and understand the conjugal love through them, by their mercy, not by our own speculation or material conceptions. And then all of our desires for spiritual perfection will be fulfilled. So we don’t really make that negative effort so much to reject material things, but it is more the positive effort: surrender to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, follow the process He has given, especially chanting the holy names, hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, worshiping the Deity, associating with more advanced devotees, and residing in a holy place—Vrindavan, Mayapur—or a temple, or at least making one’s home into a temple where Krishna is the center and everything is done for the pleasure of Krishna. When possible one should go to Vrindavan or again if one is unable to go there physically, one should live there mentally by reading these books, being absorbed in those thoughts of Vrindavan.

We make the positive effort to follow the process that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has given. Chanting is the main, chanting without offense. Then Nityananda Prabhu will be pleased and He will give us His mercy and by His mercy that whole sequence of attaining spiritual perfection will follow. So it is really a very special occasion to get that mercy that we want.

I tried to fit a little walk before I came here. At twenty to seven I left the park. It was just about five minutes away so I thought I’ll get here at quarter to seven, but I somehow thought that Victoria Street was north of Mitchell Terrena instead of south. Instead of turning right I turned left, walking up hill. But anyway [?] get Raghunatha dasa’s mercy, Nityananda Prabhu and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, holy name. And then when I got to Pedara Gosa, I started to see all these big mansions and large properties and nice gardens and I felt like entered a different realm, “This isn’t Janesh’s neighborhood.” [laughter] In 1920s or 30s there was one Admiral Bird who took an expedition to the North Pole and suddenly he came into this tropical jungle. It was very astonishing and devotees take this as evidence for the version of the Bhāgavatam, the cosmology of the Bhāgavatam—that’s a whole other subject—but I felt like that, like plodding through these little framed houses and then suddenly all these mansions and big properties. But we don’t want any heavenly planets. We can do much better than that. We can get the mercy of Raghunatha dasa Gosvami and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu. We can enter the spiritual realm. So then I turned back and eventually I made it here.

So yes, it is very auspicious and I am sure, not to get ahead of ourselves, but I am sure there will be a lot of mercy in the Cida-dadhi itself, which would have been relished by Nityananda Prabhu and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Their remnants would be infused with Their mercy and the nectar of Their lotus mouths. We really have everything. We have every facility. We just have to take advantage. It is pretty simple but like Prabhupada said, “It is simple for the simple, but difficult for the crooked.” Not that I am any example of it, but to develop that quality of simplicity and then we can be successful. Hare Krishna.