Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Minor Religious Systems v2.c13.20

v2.c13.20

Vallabha. He was the son of a Tailaṅga Brāhmaṇa named Lakṣmaṇa Bhaṭṭa, who was a student of the Black Yajurveda and lived at a village named Kāṅkarava in the Telugu country. On one occasion Lakṣmaṇa Bhaṭṭa went on a pilgrimage to Benares with his wife, Elamāgāra. On the way she gave birth to a son on the eleventh of the dark half of Vaiśākha of the Vikrama year 1535, corresponding to 1479 A. D. ¹ That son was known as Vallabha. Vallabha lived for some time in Vṛndāvana and for some time at Mathurā. About that time it is alleged that Gopāla-Kṛṣṇa manifested himself on the Govardhana hill by the name of Devadamana, called also Śrī-Nāthajī. The God told Vallabha in a dream to come and see him, informing him that his companions in the cow-settlement, when he became incarnate as Kṛṣṇa, were born again in the present age and commissioned him to make them his attendants, that he might sport with them as in the former age. Accordingly, Vallabha went and saw Devadamana or Śrī-Nāthajī. Śrī-Nāthajī commanded him to erect a shrine for himself and to promulgate the method of worshipping him, without which a man would not be admissible to the Puṣṭimārga, or the path of divine grace, which Vallabha had founded. The meaning of this seems to be that Vallabha connected his system with a special manifestation of Kṛṣṇa known by the name of Śrī-Nāthajī ².