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Visiting Sri Ramkeli
Sunday, 5 May 2019
Ramkeli, Malda District, West Bengal
Photographs courtesy of Sripad B.N. Sadhu Maharaj
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The temple on the right is the temple of lotus footprints of Sriman Mahaprabhu, established by Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Sriman Mahaprabhu is known to have taken rest under this very tree when He came to Ramkeli.
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"sri-chaitanya krpa-nidhi asiya ap... atmasatha kaila hetha rupa sanatana sri bhakti siddhanta saraswati mahajana kirtti yanra visvavyapi krsna sankirtana loka hita lagi kaila vividha yatana sri gaura padanka mandira karila kalpana sri chaitanya saraswata mathasrita gana mandira prakase yache tara krpa-dhana" |
Sri Madan Mohan temple nearby
Sri Nityananda Prabhu, Sriman Mahaprabhu, Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu
A little further to the south, there are remains of the fort of Nawab Hussain Shah Badasaha.
His Divine Grace is pointing at the place (pictured below) where the prison that Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu had to stay and escape from was.
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Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj says in Sri Sri Rupa Sanatan Siksa (Available for download as ePub for offline reading):
Rupa and Sanatan stayed in Ramkeli-gram in Malda district, Gauda Mandal.
Mahaprabhu actually went there to rescue them. They both worked for the
emperor Hussein Shah (Husain Shah), a Muslim king of that area, and were in
charge of a big state and all the property within it. Malda is half way to
Siliguri, on the other side of the Ganges, it is maybe 200-300 km from
Nabadwip.
We must understand how many obstacles they faced to come to Krishna consciousness, how much they tolerated after joining Krishna consciousness, and how much service they did for Mahaprabhu. We can learn something from them. When Rupa Goswami and Sanatan Goswami lived in that area, Mahaprabhu went there with a few devotees and started sankirtan. It was a Muslim area, so the king's people stopped the kirtan, but Mahaprabhu still stayed in that area for some time. In the meantime, Rupa and Sanatan heard that somebody tried to start kirtan, and, understanding that it had to be Mahaprabhu, they went to meet with Him. It is written here in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita,
শ্রীরূপ-সনাতন রহে রামকেলি-গ্রামে ।
sri-rupa-sanatana rahe ramakeli-grame Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan stayed in a village called Ramkeli, and after meeting with Mahaprabhu, they went back to their house. The two brothers then began to devise ways how to give up their material life. They hired two brahmans and paid them a lot of money. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 19.2-3 The two brothers were thinking how to leave all the material things—how to detach themselves from the material work and things. And they succeeded. The verse that Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami recited in Remkeli upon meeting Mahaprabhu:
mat-tulyo nasti papatma, naparadhi ca kaschana "There is no parallel to my sinful, criminal life. Everything that can be conceived of as bad is found in me. O Supreme Lord, I am even ashamed to come before You to petition, 'please forgive my offenses.' What more can I say than this?" |
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