The Life and Times of Krishna Chaitanya

This is a concise but critical biographical sketch of Chaitanya, situating him in his social and cultural environment. The structured narrative deals at length with some of the key episodes concerning both his pre-monastic life and the monastic. These are re-examined in the light of modern critical scholarship. The first half of Chaitanya’s life was spent at Nabadwip, where he provided the inspiration and leadership to a burgeoning religious movement centred on Krishna bhakti. Following his dramatic decision to embrace the life of an ascetic, Chaitanya turned an itinerant saint, travelling through peninsular India and camping at the Vaishnav pilgrim sites of Mathura and Vrindavan. The latter half of his life was spent at Puri where he enjoyed great popularity among the local people as also among his followers from native Bengal who visited him annually at the time of the Rath Yatra celebrations. It was from Puri that Chaitanya gave directions to his followers to launch an evangelizing movement in ethnic Bengal and which was successfully carried out by his most intimate flowers and companions. Mystery surrounds the death of Chaitanya in 1533 and conflicting accounts of this have been examined in some detail.