The Life of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu

In the latter part of the fifteenth century, India's most extraordinary political, cultural, and religious reformer appeared in a small town in West Bengal.

Five hundred years before Gandhi, this remarkable personality inaugurated a massive nonviolent civil disobedience movement. He swept aside the stifling restrictions of the hereditary caste system and made it possible for people from any station in life to achieve the highest platform of spiritual enlightenment. In doing so, He broke the stranglehold of a proud intellectual elite on India's religious life. Ignoring all kinds of outmoded rituals and formulas, He introduced a revolutionary spiritual movement that was rapidly accepted all over India, a movement which, because of its universal appeal, has now spread all over the world. The name of this powerful reformer was Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the founder of the modern-day Hare Krishna movement.

The Vedic scriptures of India had long predicted His birth, in 1486 in Mayapur, a quarter of the city of Navadvipa. Great saints and scholars soon detected that He was not an ordinary human being, but an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna Himself, appearing as a great devotee of the Lord.

Caitanya had little patience with ritualistic religious functions, and as He grew to young manhood, He began to carry out His divine mission. He wanted all people, everywhere, to have access to the actual experience of love of God, by which one can feel the highest spiritual ecstasies. This awakening, Sri Caitanya taught, could be attained by sankirtana-the chanting of the holy names of the Lord, the Hare Krishna mantra.

Caitanya rapidly acquired many followers, who immediately took up the chanting, sometimes performing it in their homes and sometimes in the streets of Navadvipa. The Lord's sankirtana movement immediately threatened the established groups in the social hierarchy-the Muslim rulers of Bengal and the hereditary Hindu priestly class, the caste priests who were attempting to artificially monopolize religious leadership. Members of both groups lodged complaints with the local Muslim ruler, Chand Kazi.

Agreeing that Caitanya and His followers threatened the established order, the Kazi tried to suppress the growing sankirtana movement. On his order, constables raided the home of one of Caitanya's followers and smashed the drums used in the chanting. The Kazi ordered that the chanting of the holy names of the Lord be immediately stopped and threatened that if it began again in Navadvipa, he would ruthlessly punish those responsible.

When informed of the raid, Sri Caitanya immediately organized the largest peaceful civil disobedience movement in Indian history up to that time. On a prearranged evening, Sri Caitanya and one hundred thousand of His followers suddenly appeared in the streets of Navadvipa and divided into many well-organized chanting parties. As they danced through the city, the sound of the Hare Krishna mantra resounded in a deafening roar. Finally, the chanters converged on the residence of the Kazi, who hid inside.

At the Lord's invitation, however, the Kazi appeared, and the two began negotiations. Speaking politely, and with great logic and reason, the Lord convinced the Kazi that the complaints against sankirtana were groundless. In a dramatic conversion, the Kazi himself became a follower of Caitanya and actively promoted and protected the sankirtana movement. To this very day, Hindus visit the tomb of this Muslim magistrate to pay their respects. Since the time of the Kazi, the Muslim inhabitants of Navadvipa have never interfered with the public chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra, even during the time of the Hindu-Muslim riots.
Not long after this important victory in His native town, Sri Caitanya began to spread His movement all over India. For six years He traveled the length and breadth of the country, chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and spreading love of God. At many places, crowds of hundreds of thousands of people would join with Him in massive chanting parties.

In this way, Lord Caitanya laid the foundation for a universal religion for all mankind, a scientific process of spiritual awakening that is now rapidly spreading around the globe. In this present age, when attendance at churches, temples, and mosques is diminishing daily, and the world is torn with violence between numerous religious and political sects, it is easy to see that people are growing more and more dissatisfied with external, divisive religious formulas.

People are hungering for an experience of spirituality that transcends all boundaries. Millions are now finding that experience in the worldwide sankirtana movement of Lord Caitanya, who said, "This sankirtana movement is the prime benediction for humanity at large because it spreads the rays of the benediction moon. It is the life of all transcendental knowledge. It increases the ocean of transcendental bliss, and it enables us to fully taste the nectar for which we are always anxious."

- From “Chant and Be Happy”
Text courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.  www.krishna.com. Used with permission.