Sri Jagadish Pandit

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata—Worldwide, 24 January 2021, part 4

It is ekadasi day today, a very nice day, and it is also the appearance day of Sri Jagadish Pandit today.

Sri Jagadish Pandit was older than Mahaprabhu, and he was a great devotee. Born in Guwahati, Assam, Sri Jagadish Pandit came to live in Nabadwip, but when Mahaprabhu took sannyas, Sri Jagadish Pandit left Nabadwip and settled in Chakdaha. There is a house (sripat) of Sri Jagadish Pandit in this place—later, Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Goswami Maharaj established a temple there. Chakdah is situated between Kolkata and Krishnanagar—when you go to Nabadwip through Krishnanagar, you pass Chakdaha on the way.

One time, Mahaprabhu took rice in Sri Jagadish Pandit's house on an ekadasi day. At that time, Mahaprabhu was a very small boy, and He was crying because it was ekadasi and His mother had not cooked any rice—she had cooked only ekadasi food. So, Mahaprabhu started to cry and shout very much. Then, His father, Jagannath Misra, took Him to Sri Jagadish Pandit's house.

Hiranya and Jagadish are two brothers, you may have heard their names mentioned in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavatam. Sri Jagadish Pandit is a very nice devotee.

When Mahaprabhu took sannyas, Sri Jagadish Pandit could not tolerate it, so he left Nabadwip. Sri Kavi Karnapur writes that Jagadish Pandit was a yajna-patni in Dvapar-yuga. Yajna-patni means a wife of a brahman engaged in performing fire sacrifices. You know this pastime of Lord Sri Krishna and Balaram.

One time, Lord Sri Krishna, together with Lord Balaram and other cowherd boys (Sridam, Sudam, Vasudam, Subal, Madhumangal, and others) went to graze the cows. Somehow, they came to a forest where there was nothing to eat, they could not even find any fruit. Krishna (the Lord Himself!) got very hungry and said, "Listen, we have come to a village of brahmans. Go to them and ask them for some food on My behalf." Krishna sent Balaram and others to bring some food from the brahmans' houses.

In the meantime, all the brahmans were doing a fire sacrifice—they were chanting the mantras, "Om svaha, Om svaha, Om svaha," etc. The boys came and saw them busy with the fire sacrifice, so they sat and waited, waited, waited. When the yajna finished, they asked the brahmans, "Give us some fruit! Give us some some sweets! We are very hungry!" All the brahmans became very angry, "What?! How dare you, cowherds, come here and disturb the fire sacrifice! We have not even made the offering for Lord Narayan, and you dare come here and ask us for food?! Get out of here!"

The boys came back to Krishna and complained, "Oh, we went there, but they chased us away. They said we would not get anything there because we are cowherd boys and do not know any rules and regulations—they scolded us for asking for food before the puja was done!" Krishna replied, "You went to a wrong place! You should go to those brahmans' houses! Their wives are at home, cooking so many things for the Lord. Go and ask them, tell them I am hungry."

So, the boys went to the brahmans' houses and asked the wives of the brahmans for some food. Hearing Krishna's Name, the wives became very happy, "Oh, Krishna has sent you to get something to eat?" They began to fuss, "What do we have? What can we give to Him?" At that time, they were cooking, and they took everything they had—what was cooked, what was not cooked—and went with the boys. They were very anxious to see Krishna. Seeing their wives going out, the brahmans were very angry, "They do not obey us! They left home without even asking us for permission! They are going with those cowherd boys! What is this?!"

Anyhow, the brahmans' wives brought so much food to the forest—so many pancakes, so much paneer, butter, cake, curd, cheese, etc. Krishna was very happy. He took all the food, and all the boys, all His friends also took the food that the brahmans' wives had brought, and after that Krishna said, "OK, you can go home now." The brahmans' wives, however, did not agree, "We did not come here to go! We came to stay here with You!" Krishna tried to reason the ladies, "You are brahmans' wife, I am a kayastha. It does not look right for you to stay here, people will start talking nonsense. It is better if you go." The brahmans' wives replied, "No, no, no. Our husbands are very angry, they will not take us back. They will kick us out of our homes..." Then, Krishna created some illusion, some Maya Devi came, and the brahmans felt attachment to their wives, so when the evening came, they started worrying, "Where have our wives gone? Why are they not coming back?"

Actually, there are many things described in Srimad Bhagavatam—there was a long conversation between the brahmans' wives and Krishna. Krishna told them, "You do not have to stay with Me. Make My murti (vigraha, or Deity), and worship Me at home." Then, the brahmans' wives said, "Oh, You only like the Vraja-gopis, You do not like us! OK, then we will serve the gopis! We will become their servants." Krishna thought, "They are very clever! They want to become servants of the gopis! They want to stay here one way or another." In the end, Lord Krishna created some illusion to arrange for the brahmans' wives to return to their homes. This is how the yajna-patnis got mercy from the Lord. After that, they started worshipping Bala-Gopal.

This month (magh month, according to Bengali calendar) I am going to a place in Basirhat where all housewives do puja of Gopal. They say that every year one thousand Gopals come to that programme, which means one thousand families will be joining this programme. Every family will bring their Gopal, and we will offer bhog and make a sankirtan programme. They told me to fix the date and to come this year—every year another (sahajiya) sampradaya comes to this festival, but this year they asked me to come...

So, Sri Kavi Karnapur writes that Sri Jagadish Pandit and Sri Hiranya were two yajna-patnis, two wives of brahmans. In another book, it is also written that Sri Jagadish Pandit is Chandrahash, a dancer, and now he became renowned as 'Nritya-vinodi' Jagadish Pandit.

I have already told you that the birthplace of Sri Jagadish Pandit is in Guwahati in Assam, and his father was a brahman named Sri Kamalaksa Bhatta. Sri Jagadish Pandit also had a brother named Sri Mahesh Pandit. Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya lived together on the bank of the Gages near Sri Jagannath Misra's house, and Mahaprabhu would often come to visit them.

It is written in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, that once Sri Gaurasundar told Jagadish Pandit, "You can come to Nilachal and preach about the Holy Name of Krishna there." Following the Lord's order, Sri Jagadish Pandit came to Puri. He came to see Jagannath temple and prayed to Lord Jagannath, and when he came back to Chakdah, he saw that there were Deities of Jagannath, Baladev, and Subhadra in his house! Those Deities remain at his house to this day. He also established a Deity of Gaura Gopal there.

Sri Gaurasundar and Nityananda Prabhu often came to the village of Yasor (Chakdah) and chanted and danced at the house of Sri Jagadish Pandit. There are many things described in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, as well as Sri Gopal-champu. Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya were two dear friends of Sri Jagannath Misra, and both of them knew that it was the Lord Himself who had been born in Jagannath Misra's house. That day, when Mahaprabhu cried a lot and His mother and father took Him to the house of Sri Jagadish Pandit, Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya said, "We were making an offering to the Lord, and now we see that Krishna Himself has come to take our offering!" When Mahaprabhu came and took that offering, they actually had the darshan of Bal-Gopal at that time. Seeing the beautiful form of the Lord, Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya began to chant, "Hari bol! Hari bol!"

Every year when Gaudiya devotees went to Sri Puri Dham, Sri Jagadish Pandit would go there with them. Also, when Nityananda Prabhu came to Panihati for the festival of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jagadish Pandit was also present there.

So, these are some of the glories of Sri Jagadish Pandit that I wanted to tell you about today...

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