Discovery of Sri Gaura Gadadhar by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur

Especially during preparations for and conducting Navadvīpa-dhāma Parikramā, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī was able to determine the precise locations of many of the holy places mentioned in Navadvīpa-dhāma-māhātmya and Navadvīpa-bhāva-taraṅga, and subsequently established Maṭhas at some of these loci. In October 1920, prior to the first full nine-day Navadvīpa-dhāma Parikramā organized by the Gauḍīya Maṭha, he led an expedition through difficult and unfamiliar paths to chart out the route, arrange for construction of shelters, and search for lost sites connected with Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s activities and associates. One outstanding find was the ancient temple of Śrī Śrī Gaura-Gadādhara, established during the pastimes of Lord Caitanya by His devotee Vāṇīnātha Vipra. Deep in thick jungle, the party arrived at the once populous village of Cāṅpāhāṭi, which a few years prior had been devastated by a plague. Hundreds of former family homes were now the overgrown abodes of snakes, scorpions, and jackals. Only two families remained, somehow eking out a living.

With help from them, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī and his men negotiated a way through forbidding thickets, and after much effort eventually came upon a building so dilapidated that one side had completely collapsed. The door was locked, and upon prizing it open with the help of local residents, they peered through the semi-darkness therein and made out the unclothed, discolored, and soiled, yet still extraordinarily beautiful, deities of Śrī Śrī Gaura-Gadādhara. With overwhelming joy at having rediscovered Them, mixed with anguish for Their present plight, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī offered daṇḍavat and then lamented aloud at the state of that place where “with such love Vāṇīnātha Vipra served the lords of his life, the dust of whose feet the demigods, headed by Brahmā and Śiva, ever aspire to place on their heads.” To the accompaniment of kīrtana he then circumambulated the temple with his followers by breaking the surrounding undergrowth.

But further grief arose upon coming across fish scales and broken clay cooking pots on the temple veranda. Questioning of the neighboring inhabitants revealed that one local family cooked and ate fish there, but also that some semblance of worship was still going on: a fish- and meat-eating brāhmaṇa from the nearby village of Mamgachi would occasionally come according to his whim, offer a small quantity of puffed rice or flat-rice, have a picnic of flesh food, and then depart.

Pained at heart, Śrīla Sarasvatī Ṭhākura vowed to serve Śrī Śrī Gaura-Gadādhara in a befitting manner and prayed to Them for that opportunity. Within a few months the right of worship, the temple itself, and the adjoining land were transferred to the Śrī Caitanya Maṭha. And by the time the parikramā party visited there the following year, conditions had so wonderfully improved that hundreds of pilgrims were able to camp overnight and avail of full facilities for bathing and honoring mahā-prasāda. Lecturing at Cāṅpāhāṭi during Parikramā, Śrīla Sarasvatī Ṭhākura flayed the so-called brāhmaṇas of the area for being proud of their material academic knowledge and university degrees, which had converted them into śūdras, and moreover for their total lack of interest in spiritual matters and therefore being unfit to be called Hindus or even human beings.