Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4.12

c7.s4.12

It will be seen at once that there is a great deal of discrepancy and uncertainty in the accounts, meagre in themselves, which the records of the sect give of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa. Narahari is not unaware of this fact, but he exhorts the faithful not to indulge in vain arguments.¹ It is clear, however, that those writers, who have at all recorded anything about Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, agree about his South Indian origin, but they do not agree about his ancestry and personal history. The account of his meeting with Caitanya is also enveloped in the uncertainty of legends; and it is curious that at the time when Caitanya is alleged to have directed Gopāla Bhaṭṭa to meet Sanātana and Rūpa at Vṛndāvana, he himself had not yet met them nor directed them to proceed to Vṛndāvana! The fact is that none of Caitanya's well known disciples accompanied him during his South Indian pilgrimage; it is, therefore, not strange that the accounts of it, written in much later times and based more upon hearsay than direct knowledge, should be meagre and conflicting.²