Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4.7

c7.s4.7

What is actually found in the *Caitanya-caritāmṛta* and 'elsewhere' about Gopāla Bhaṭṭa can be summarised as follows. Murāri-gupta (iii. 15. 14-16) mentions the hospitality of Trimalla (and not of Veṅkaṭa) during the rainy season, and describes Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, then a young lad, giving up his boyish sports and turning into a Bhakta by the touch of Caitanya, as the son of Trimalla; but no other details are given. In his Sanskrit Kāvya on Caitanya (xiii. 4), Kavi-karṇapūra states that Caitanya spent four months in the house of Trimalla Bhaṭṭa at Śrīraṅgam during his South Indian pilgrimage, but no mention is made of Veṅkaṭa, Prabodhānanda or Gopāla Bhaṭṭa in this connexion. Nor is this incident referred to in Karṇapūra's better known Sanskrit drama on Caitanya. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja makes matters worse confused¹ by speaking separately (Madhya i. 108-10 and ix. 82-166) of the hospitality of Trimalla and Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa, at Śrīraṅgam, respectively for four months; both of them are described as Śrīvaiṣṇavas, but their connexion is not stated; and, as Narahari says, the name of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa does not appear. In other biographies of Caitanya there is no reference to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa or to this incident at all.