Sri Rup Goswami — The Embodiment of Sri Chaitanya's Madhurya-Ras

Once during the grand Ratha-Yatra festival in Puri, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was dancing to the tune of divine hari naam in front of Lord Sri Jagannath encircled with his devotees, completely immersed in the ecstasy of Srimati Radharani. Suddenly, in his unmindfulness, he uttered the following verses from Sahitya-Darpan, a book of poetry:

(Chaitra: A month of the Hindu calendar; Malati, Kadamba: Type of flowers; Reva: The river Narmada in central India; Betasi: A type of tree)

Nobody present could understand the inner essence of this verse and the bhava or emotion in which he uttered it excepting a young devotee who had renounced worldly life to follow the ideals of Mahaprabhu and had recently come to Neelachal to be in his holy company. The intentions of Mahaprabhu in this verse suddenly unveiled before this devoted young man and he immediately jotted down his ideas by composing another verse in which Srimati Radharani expresses a very similar thought:

He wrote this verse on a palm leaf, placed it somewhere in the thatched roof of his room and went to bathe in the sea. At that time, Mahaprabhu went to his residence to meet him and accidentally found the palm leaf on the roof. He read this verse and it instantaneously absorbed him into a overwhelming ecstasy. After this young devotee came back and offered his obeisances, Mahaprabhu gave him a mild loving slap and said, "The ways of my mind are extremely subtle and confidential. How could you understand them in this way?". Indeed, these verses aptly establishes the innermost intention of Lord Krishna in descending as the Chaitanya avatar - his urge to taste the nectar of Srimati Radharani's divine love for him in separation or viraha-bhava.. Hence his descent as the dual incarnation of Radha-Krishna in the form of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Seeing the verse, Swarup Damodar a very close companion of Mahaprabhu remarked that it couldn't be without Mahaprabhu's causeless grace that this young person was able to comprehend a verse with such secret spiritual implications. The Lord himself said that he was so pleased with his young devotee on that day that he had bestowed upon him the ultimate force of divine love and endowed the young man with the potential to become one of the principal figures in spreading his message of eternal love.

This young devotee was Sri Rup, who actually became famous as Srila Rup Goswami in his later life, one of the greatest leaders of Lord Chaitanya's bhakti movement and the foremost among the six Goswamis of Vrindavan. He gave the world classical literature which has remains among the very fundamental ones in gaining insights of the deepest and the most unfathomable of vaishnavic philosophies for more than four-and-a-half centuries.

However, the early life of this great saint provided little indication to his entire life after renunciation - a hallmark of absolute dedication towards fulfillment of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's desires and mission. Being top bureaucrats of the Sultan of Bengal, he and his brother Sri Sanatan led one of most lavish lifestyles in India during that era and legend goes that it required entire boats to carry their daily clothing and jewelry to choose from. Association with the Muslim king led to their denouncement from the orthodox Hindu society; Rup and Sanatan assumed Muslim names Dabir Khas and Sakir Mallik respectively. However, a single meeting with Mahaprabhu converted these two princes from the Lords of material wealth and power into beggars of divine love and devotion wandering through the streets of Vrindavan for the rest of their lives.

Sri Rup was born in 1493 A.D. in Jessore (now in Bangladesh) in the household of a pious Brahmin named Kumardev. He was the youngest of three brothers, the elder brothers being Sanatan who later became famous as Srila Sanatan Goswami and Anupam who had also renounced worldly life for the service of Mahaprabhu but suffered a premature demise. The three brothers later moved to Ramkeli where they were forced into government service by the Sultan of Bengal, Alauddin Hussein Shah due to their academic proficiency and noble characters. Rup became the chief secretary of the Sultan, while Sanatan became his revenue minister.

It was here in Ramkeli that in 1514 A.D. the three brothers met Mahaprabhu for the first time. The meeting changed their entire lives and they decided to leave the service of the Sultan and take up a life of renunciation in the association of Sri Chaitanya and his followers.

Not long afterwards, Rup and Anupam met Mahaprabhu in Prayag where he was staying at the house of a South Indian brahmin. While in Prayag, Mahaprabhu taught Sri Rup the essentials of Vaishnava philosophy and instructed him to go to Vrindavan to uncover the places of Sri Krishna’s pastime and compose literatures on bhakti.

Rup Goswami traveled to Vrindavan, stayed there for one month and then went to Puri to spend a few days in the divine company of Lord Chaitanya. After staying in Puri for ten months, Sri Rup returned to Vrindavan where he remained for the rest of his life.

As witnessed in the case of many Saints who have set their mortal feet upon our planet, the life of this devoted and liberated soul was also graced by the causeless mercy of the supreme Lord on many an occasion. One such miraculous incident is as follows. After a few days in Vrindavan, one day Sri Rup was sitting on the banks of the Yamuna, lamenting his failure to properly carry out Sri Chaitanya's instructions to rediscover Sri Krishna’s pastime places and establish the worship the deities Sri Madan Mohan, Sri Gopinath, Sri Govinda, etc. Suddenly, a very beautiful cowherd boy appeared before him and enquired about the cause of his remorse. The little boy's cheerful voice completely removed his deepening melancholy and he disclosed the reason for his pensiveness to him. The little boy brought him to Gomatila hill explaining that everyday a cow came on top of that hill and poured her milk there. To his great surprise, the boy further said that there was a good possibility of fulfilling his heart's objective by searching that place. But even before Sri Rup could come out of his trance, comprehend the quick succession of events and ask about the whereabouts of this sweet little boy, he suddenly disappeared before his very eyes. Ecstatic joy thrilled his whole body. The Next morning, as he waited at the Gomatila hill top, he actually found a beautiful Surabhi cow pour her milk there and then disappear inside the woods. After digging a little at that very place with the help of a few cowherd men from the nearby village, Sri Rup discovered the delightful charming deity of Lord Govinda. Tears of joy and relief rolled down Sri Rup's face as Mahaprabhu's wishes had started to get realized. Thus, Lord Govinda reappeared on this earth. Presently, Sri Govinda is being worshiped in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Not long afterwards, Sri Madan Mohan and Vrinda Devi also reappeared in Vrajabhumi.

Sri Rup composed many devotional literature in compliance with Mahaprabhu's instructions in Prayag. Most Significant among them are Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, Vidagdha-madhav, Lalit-madhav, Ujjwal-nilamani, Uddhav-sandesh and others. All these literature deal with various aspects of Vaishnava theology and guides readers into the realms of Madhurya-bhav, where devotion gives way to pure transcendental conjugal love of the devotee towards the Almighty, the love of the Gopis of Vraja towards Lord Krishna. This love ultimately refines into absolute unconditional and unwavering surrender and culminates in the sweet sublime and eternal union of the Supreme Devotee with the Supreme Divine, the perpetual pervading state of Srimati Radha Rani, the queen of the Gopis.

There is an interesting note of Sri Rup's meeting with revered saint Mirabai when she was staying in Vrindavan. Mirabai went for a visit at Sri Rup Goswami's place but he only agreed to meet him from behind a veil because he did not wish to see any woman as part of his austerities of sanyas. At this, Meerabai remarked,"Does Goswami-ji think himself to be purusha? I thought that the only purusha in Vrindavan was Lord Krishna himself, and all others are but gopis". Understanding the deep spiritual implication of this remark, Sri Rupa quickly removed the veil and paid his obeisances to Meerabai. Thus, this great saint who was initiated by Lord Krishna himself in his embodiment as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, also received the grace of Meerabai, an incarnation of Sreemati Radharani, before he left for his heavenly abode.

In Gaudiya Vaishnava theology, Sri Rup Goswami has been proclaimed to be the authoritative interpreter of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's mystical teachings of madhurya-ras and an incarnation of Rup Manjari, the foremost Gopi who eternally serves Radha-Krishna under the guidance of the gopi, Srimati Lalita Devi. This great saint left his mortal frame in 1564 A.D. at the age of seventy-three. His samadhi (tomb) is located in the courtyard of the Radha-Damodar temple in Vrindavan.