(1/1) At Saranga Murari's Temple

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama, Day Three
19 March 2019, parikrama, part 9
Translated from Bengali

We have come to the temple of Saranga Murari.

One time, there was a brahman called Saranga Thakur who served the Deities of Sri Sri Radha-Govinda and Mahaprabhu. Eventually, he became very old and could not serve his Deities properly, so he prayed to the Lord one day, 'O Lord, please give me one person. I cannot do it anymore, so please send me somebody who will be able to serve you.' At night, the Lord came to him in a dream and said, 'You always go to bathe in the Ganges in the morning. When you go there tomorrow, give initiation to whoever you see first on your way.'

In the morning, when Saranga Thakur came to the Ganges, he saw a banana-tree raft floating in the river. There was a ten–twelve-year-old dead boy lying on the raft. A snake had bitten him and his parents set his dead body floating down the river. (This is what people did in olden days.) So, the first person Saranga Thakur saw that day was the dead boy. The Lord had ordered him to give initiation to whoever he saw first that day, so he spoke the Hare Krishna maha-mantra into the ear of the dead boy. Suddenly, the boy became alive.

The boy came to Saranga Thakur's ashram and started serving the Deities.

After a while, the boy's parents got to know that their son was somehow alive, so they came to the ashram to take him back to their house. But the boy told them, 'No! I will not go with you. I am not your Murari – I am Saranga's Murari! I will not go back to your house; I will stay here and serve the Lord.'

From that time, this place became known as the temple of Saranga Murari. Please offer your obeisance here and then we will go to take prasad. After that, we will go to the temple of Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur. I heard that there is a big crowd at the temple now, so we will first take prasad nearby.

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