Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4.1

c7.s4.1

Apart from uncertain legends, there is no full nor satisfactory account of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa. Nothing practically is recorded of him by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, who refers to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa (Ādi i. 37) as one of his Śikṣā-gurus,² and must have known him quite well during the last phase of his life at Vṛndāvana. Narahari Cakravartin, in the first half of the 18th century, explains³ this extraordinary silence as due to an express prohibition, befitting his Vaiṣṇava humility, by Gopāla Bhaṭṭa himself, and undertakes to remedy this deficiency by a curious account in his own Bhakti-ratnākara.⁴