Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c6.s2.4

c6.s2.4

his wife Śacī, and was born at Navadvīpa in February 1486 (Phālguna Paurṇamāsī, Śaka 1407) before or during an eclipse of the full moon,¹ in the midst of universal taking of God's name (*haribol*), usual on such occasions. His father Jagannātha Miśra was a pious and scholarly Brahman of Vaiṣṇava faith and disposition and was probably a Rāma-worshipper. Originally an inhabitant of Dhākā Dakṣiṇa (Jājapura, according to Jayānanda) in Sylhet, Jagannātha appears to have migrated and settled in the academic city of Navadvīpa situated on the holy Ganges,² His modest dwelling house, according to Govinda Karmakāra, was situated at the extreme south of the city, on the banks of the Hooghly, and consisted of five big rooms; and he appears to have been a highly respected and fairly well-to-do middle class householder.³ The mother, Śacī, was the daughter of a devout and scholarly Brahman, named Nīlāmbara Cakravartin, who had also come from Sylhet to settle at Navadvīpa. She was a deeply religious and sensible woman, who bore the loneliness of her closing years with great patience and resignation.¹ Govinda Karmakāra describes her as a woman "of quiet temperament and of short stature" and very fond and proud of her boy.² In the midst of such traditions of piety, scholarship and affection, and with all the social advantages of well-born Brahmanhood, Viśvambhara grew up as a privileged child. The parents, who must have been fairly advanced in life when he was born, had already lost several children;³ and their only surviving boy, immediately older than Viśvambhara, named Viśvarūpa, had left home as an Advaita Saṃnyāsin under the name of Saṃkarāraṇya, and was never heard of again.⁴ It is natural, therefore, that all the wealth of their love was lavished, after Viśvarūpa had gone, upon their only surviving boy, whom pitying affection nicknamed Nimāi, but whose personal charm and beauty earned the epithet of Gaura or Gaurāṅga. It is possible that most of the miraculous legends associated with Caitanya's boyhood⁵ were piously