Pandit Baba’s disappearance day function

Vrindavan 2016.09.21 (VT):

congregation of the saints

The 76th disappearance day of Pandit Baba Ramkrishna Das Maharaj, considered as jewel among sants, was celebrated at Raman Reti located Bhagwat Niwas. Many Sants, Mahants and devotees came to participate and pay their homage to Pandit Baba. Sants also spoke about the biography of Baba Ji during the event.

Organised by Girindra Bihari Trust, the event witnessed Srimad Bhagwat class, flower decoration of Lord Shri Giridra Bihari Ji and Samadhi-Pujan of Pandit Baba.

Ramkrishna Pandit Baba was the dominant authority amongst Braj Mandal’s bhajananandi Vaishnavas in the first half of the 20th century. His influence stretched beyond the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, however, and he had friends and followers in all the Vrindavan sampradayas.

The following is a brief summary of his life as presented by Oudh Bihari Lal Kapoor in his book The Saints of Braj:

Early Life in Jaipur

Pandit Ramkrishna Das Babaji Maharaj was born Rampratap Mishra in 1857 in a brahmin family in Jaipur. The family had connections to various Vaishnava lineages: his grandfather belonged to the Ramanuja sect, while his father was a Ramanandi Vaishnava and his mother hailed from a family initiated in the Vallabhacharya line. The members of the family were teachers by profession and were patronized by the king of Jaipur.

Since the family lived near the Govindaji temple, Rampratap developed a spontaneous affection for Rupa Goswami’s deity. As a child, he considered Govindaji to be his playmate, playing marbles with him.

As a child of only five or six years Rampratap started to display a fascination for devotion. When he was seven or eight he would go to fetch water daily from a distant spring for offering worship to Lord Krishna. One day, while on his way there, he spotted a tiger eating human flesh. Strangely, he felt no fear and continued on his way, thinking that since the beast had eaten it would have no reason to harm him.

Rampratap’s father died in 1865. In the meantime, he himself turned to study. By the age of nine, he had completely learned Panini’s grammar, as well as memorizing the Amara-koÅ›a and other texts.

At around this time, Rampratap came into contact with Nrisinghananda Bhatta. Nrisinghananda was a Karnataka brahmin who had become a disciple of Siddha Nityananda Das Babaji. He had taken vesh from him and was known as Nrisingha Das. He was an erudite scholar of the six branches of Indian philosophy and an accomplished musician who became deeply absorbed upon seeing a performance on the GÄ«ta-govinda and Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmá¹›ta.

After coming in contact with Nrisingha Das, Rampratap was so overwhelmed by his qualities that he began to wonder how magnanimous Nrisingha Das’s guru must be. Rampratap held all Vaishnava saints in great reverence. At a later date he went to Vrindavan and took shelter at the feet of Nrsimha. At that time he also came in contact with Radhacharan Goswami Kakaji of Govinda Temple and started learning Bengali from Professor Kantichandra Sen. At the age of ten years Rampratap acquired command of the Urdu language. At the age of eleven he underwent the sacred thread ceremony. The priest who initiated him into Savitri mantra instructed Rampratap to repeat the mantra.

Rampratap comes to Vrindavan

Thereafter Rampratap received a divine command from Savitri and attempted to run away to Vrindavan on three occasions, but each time he was caught and held by his mother and the royal government. Shortly afterwards, while Rampratap was studying the Vedas at the age of thirteen, he finally reached Vrindavan. There he stayed with the Goswamis of Govindaji temple and studied Nyaya under Sudarshan Shastri of the Rangaji temple, the Six Sandarbhas under Nilamani Goswami, Srimad Bhāgavatam under Nrisingha Das, and Hari-bhakti-vilāsa under Gopilal Goswami.

At the age of twenty, Rampratap completed his studies. At the request of his mother, he visited his birthplace a few times, but inevitably ended up returning to Vrindavan again. After finishing his studies, Rampratap took spiritual initiation and vesh from Nityananda Das Babaji, receiving the name Ramakrishna Das. From him he received intensive instructions on bhajan and memorized the entire Govinda-lÄ«lāmá¹›ta.

Having acquiring a sound command of smaraṇa-manana (contemplation), Pandit Baba was directed by Siddha Baba to approach Krishnadasa Babaji for further instructions. After this, he told him to go to Barsana and practice bhajan there.

At Barsana, Pandit Baba heard kirtan performed by Gauracharan Das Babaji and began taking music lessons from him. As a result, he began neglecting his bhajan and spent most of his time learning music. Eventually his guru heard about this and called him back to Vrindavan and advised him to devote more time to the practice of bhajan.

Ramakrishna Das Baba never spoke with his guru directly, but carried on conversations through his elder Godbrother, Shiromani. As directed by Siddha Baba, Ramakrishna Das Baba went to Barsana but, finding it difficult to concentrate his mind, he decided to sit in one place at Uddhava Kyeri without moving, determined to get the blessings of the Divine Couple. For seventeen consecutive days, he repeated the eighteen-syllable Gopala mantra without stopping. Finally he was blessed with the vision of Lord Krishna with Srimati Radharani standing beneath a kadamba tree.

When the Divine Couple asked him to seek a boon, Pandit Baba said, “I am doing bhajan on the orders of my spiritual master. I do not know what I want. Other than your pleasure, what else could I possibly want?”

The Lord then commanded him to practice bhajan in the cave of Mahaprabhu’s associate Raghava Pandit in Puchari, at the western extremity of Govardhan. Ramakrishna Das Baba immediately went there, though the area was infested with wild animals, and for six years practiced intense bhajan without paying any attention to his physical needs.

Bhajan in Raghava’s Cave

By the grace of Radha-Krishna he had now become siddha in lÄ«lā-smaraṇa. From 2 o’clock in the morning to 2 o’clock in the afternoon he used to do 1i1a-smaraṇa inside the cave. After that he came out of the cave. At this time there used to be a crowd of sadhus in front of the cave. They sought his advice in bhajan. Baba removed their doubts and difficulties. Then patha and kirtan were performed. This continued till evening. In the evening Baba would go out for madhukari. After some time, Baba’s absorption in lÄ«lā-smaraṇa became so deep that it became impossible for him to follow any routine. No one knew when he would sit down for smaraṇa and when he would come out of the cave. Sometimes he remained lost in smaraṇa for two or three days continuously and did not go out even for madhukari. The sadhus who used to collect In front of his cave were deprived of his company.

One day Ramakrishna Das Baba’s mother came to Vrindavan in search of her son. After finding out where her son was from some Vaishnavas, she waited at the door of Raghava’s cave for three days. Ramakrishna Das Baba only used to come out of the cave once every two or three days. One day he came out dressed in tattered clothes and carrying a vessel which was full of holes. He walked straight past his mother, who was standing at the entrance of the cave. His mother followed behind him calling out to him but he did not respond, thus she left for Jaipur in tears.

Soon after his mother left, however, Ramakrishna Das Baba’s flow of bhajan was interrupted. Thus he began to think that perhaps he had unknowingly committed some offense. Some local Vaishnavas informed him that his mother had come in search of him but getting no response from him, had left in great disappointment. Fearing that displeasing his mother would seriously hamper his bhajan, Ramakrishna Das Baba wrote to his mother and brought her back to Vrindavan. There he arranged for her to stay at Puchari and served her with devotion. Soon he was torn between devotion to his mother and devotion to bhajan.

Around that time one Oriya brahmin boy named Krishnachaitanya Das came from Orissa and took shelter of Pandit Babaji. The boy was given spiritual initiation and bheka by Prabhu Dasji, as well as training in bhajan. Ramakrishna Das Baba engaged this boy in serving his mother. Within three years, Krishnachaitanya attained bhava siddhi by practicing bhajan. Madhava Das of Puchari was a disciple of Krishnachaitanya. After seven-eight years passed, Ramakrishna Das Baba’s mother passed away, thus he was able to devote himself entirely to bhajan.

Some years later a strong controversy arose within the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya involving the Gauranga mantra. Defenders of this mantra were Pandit Baba’s Kakaguru Gutikavala Krishnadasa Baba and Gopilal Goswami, the sevait of Radharaman. Its opponents were his Jethaguru Siddha Balaram Das Babaji, Vidyaguru Nilamani Goswami – the Nyaya scholar, and Jagadananda Das – the Mahanta of Radhakunda. Since Ramakrishna Das Baba had gurus on both sides of the controversy, he faced a great dilemma. He left his cave and went to Barsana to live in Mayurkuti. He spent eight years living quietly there in association with the Radhavallabha devotee Priyadasji and Swamicharan Baba.

Return to Puchari

As soon as the controversy was settled, Ramakrishna Das Baba came back to Raghava’s cave and practiced bhajan there with deep concentration for ten years. During this time three strange incidents occurred:

1. One night Ramakrishna Das Baba went inside his cave carrying a coal fire and closed the door, not knowing that the poisonous gas emanating from a coal fire could take one’s life. He lost consciousness due to the gas, but someone invisibly took Ramakrishna Das Baba out and placed him on the bank of Govardhan. Early in the morning Ramakrishna Das Baba woke up and found that he had been shifted from the cave. For two days he lay there immobile.
2. Once, on the occasion of a festival in the temple of Gangaji at Puchari some pua were distributed. Two bhangi-caste thieves who were anxious to get some pua but were unable to enter the temple, thought that perhaps Pandit Baba Ramakrishna Das Baba would have some. They went to his cave door and asked him to give them some pua. When they were told that no pua was available there, one of the thieves hit Ramakrishna Das Baba on the forehead with a stick, making him bleed. The other thief went inside the cave, but when he found nothing there he felt extremely repentant and collected some stray pieces of cloth to bandage Ramakrishna Das Baba’s wound.
3. One morning a venomous snake coiled around the throat and chest of Ramakrishna Das Baba, after sometime the snake uncoiled itself and slithered away. That night Ramakrishna Das Baba heard a voice which said, “You must leave this cave and go elsewhere.” He then moved to Shyama Kuti at Kusum Sarovar.

During Ramakrishna Das Baba’s stay in the cave, Balwant Rao, the elder bother of Madhava Rao, the king of Gwalior, once came and expressed his loyalty to him. It was arranged that Balwant would take spiritual initiation from Krishnachaitanya Das. But when Krishnachaitanya suddenly died, Balwant was initiated by Kesavdeva of Gopinatha Bagh. During Ramakrishna Das Baba’s stay at Shyama Kuti this Balwant secretly brought jewelry worth six lakh of rupees from his mother’s treasure with the aim of donating the sum to the Vaisnavas. He told Ramakrishna Das Baba, “The King will confiscate the money if he finds me spending it openly.”

Ramakrishna Das Baba refused to accept the wealth and after severely chastising him, told him to contact Haricharan Dasji, the mantra-sisya of Gaura Siromani. Gaura Siromani made all arrangements to utilize Balwant’s money for constructing a temple, maintenance of the Deity service and financial assistance to renounced Vaishnavas. One lakh out of the total amount lies in the government treasury accruing a monthly income of six hundred rupees, which is awarded to Vaishnavas belonging to the four sampradayas for their maintenance.

During Ramakrishna Das Baba’s stay at Shyama Kuti, Gauranga Das and Priyasharan Das practiced bhajan under his guidance. From time to time, Bengali rajarshis like Banamali Raya Bahadur and Manindra Chandra Nandi came to meet Ramakrishna Das Baba. Kripasindhu Das also came and surrendered at his feet.

In 1918, Ramakrishna Das Baba fell seriously ill with influenza. Kamini Kumar Ghosh and Dinesh Charan Das came from Vrindavan and shifted Ramakrishna Das Baba to the garden of Madanamohan. At that time floods and a severe epidemic of plague raged at Govardhan, thus Ramakrishna Das Baba stayed in Vrindavan for two years and listened to Harikatha from Purushottam Bhatta of Mathura. For the next three years Ramakrishna Das Baba stayed at places like Keari vana, Dharamsala in Delhi and the garden of Madanamohan. At this time Ramapratap instructed Gauranga Das in Vaishnava shastras and also taught Kripasindhu about bhajan and vairagya.

Three years later, during Ramakrishna Das Baba’s stay at Baraha Ghat Barduari, one dacoit arrived there introducing himself as the Prince of Nepal. Ramakrishna Das Baba arranged for this dacoit to take spiritual initiation from Radhacharan Goswami and taught him bhajan for two months. The dacoit, however, finding his desires unfulfilled, fled after cheating some persons.

Pandit Baba comes to Dauji Bagicha

During the Vrindavan flood of flood of 1925, Pandit Baba was forced to take shelter in the Mirjapur dharma shala, but after six months fell seriously ill with malaria and was almost at the point of death. Seeing his condition, Kripasindhu Dasji was greatly distressed. In a dream he received a divine command from Lord Chaitanya and brough Pandit Babaji to Dauji Bagicha, the present site of the Vrindavan Research Institute. There he recovered and he and Kripasindhu began to concentrate on bhajan together.

After some time Kripasindhu became inattentive to Pandit Baba’s care and he again became critically ill. Once more, Lord Chaitanya appeared to Kripasindhu in a dream and severely chastised him for neglecting Pandit Baba. Kripasindhu once again became attentive to Baba’s needs.

Pandit Baba’s baithak in Dauji Bagicha, now the Vrindavan Research Institute.

By this time Ramakrishna Das Baba was practically completely withdrawn from the external world, devoting himself entirely to bhajan. One day he blessed Bindobihari Vedantaratna Goswami, a descendant of Bhugarbha Goswami’s family, by giving him vesh.

Ramakrishna Das Baba was deeply admired by his disciples as throughout his life he was the highest ideal of iṣṭa-niṣṭhā, vairāgya-niṣṭhā, niṣṭhā in akiñcana-bhakti, niṣṭhā in guru, vrata-niṣṭhā and sampradāya-niṣṭhā. As a result of his bhajan, he was revered as guru by all Goswamis, Brajavasis and virakta Vaishnavas.

Baba was generally respected by the acharyas of all the sampradayas of Vraja, because of his devotion, learning and broad-mindedness. He was well-versed in the sastras of all the sampradayas and was also conversant with the modes of their religious practice. Pandit Amolak Ram Shastri and Baba Hamsadas of the Nimbarka Sampradaya, Sri Sudarshan Acharya, Sri Dulari Prasad Shastri and Ganapati Shastri of the Ramanuja Sampradaya, Sankarshan Dasji of the Ramananda Sampradaya and Sri Purushottam Bhatta Ji, the famous scholar and katha vachaka of the Pushti Sampradaya – all came to him for advice on matters relating to the shastras or religious practices, and Baba always advised them according to the philosophy and practice of their own sampradaya.

Sri Sudarshan Acharya of the Ramanuja Sampradaya, an erudite scholar of the six branches of theology, said: “Whenever I found it difficult to solve some particular philosophical problem, I would sit before Pandit Baba (Ramakrishna Das Baba) and the answers would just come to me.”

Prabhupada Prana Gopal Goswami also had the same experience in the association of Ramakrishna Das Baba. Many believe that this supernatural power which Pandit Baba possessed was the grace of Nityananda Das Babaji.

But some vicious people of a particular sampradaya got jealous of him. They once tried to defame Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan, the most respected acharyas of the Gaudiya sampradaya, by preaching that they originally belonged to their sampradaya, but were ousted from it on account of their misconduct. Baba forcefully criticized them. They felt very much humiliated and conspired to kill him.

One day they hid themselves somewhere near his cave, so that when he went out for madhukari they might attack him on the way. But when Baba came out of the cave and started towards the village for madhukari, they saw that a lion was following him like a domesticated dog. When he reached the village the lion hid himself somewhere near the samadhis of the Goswamis on the right side of the village. When Baba returned to his cave the lion again followed him up to the cave and disappeared. The miscreants were both surprised and frightened. They realized that Baba was a siddha mahapurush and their hostile attitude toward him was transformed into one of love and devotion.

Last days

At one point Baba’s health became worse. He asked Kripasindhu Dasa to call the kirtaniya Gadadhar Das Babaji and his party from Govardhan and arrange for one month’s astakalina lila-kirtan in the asrama. This was another indication to Kripasindhu Baba that Pandit Baba was preparing for the end. He made all arrangements for the kirtan. The kirtan went on for a month and Baba remained all the time absorbed in lila.

One evening, when all those, who were close to Baba were sitting round him, he said, “When I leave the body, you leave the bagicha and go elsewhere.” Perhaps he said this to ensure that none of his attendants would possession of the bagicha after him. Someone asked, “Baba, your samadhi?”

“No samadhi. Your bhajan will be my samadhi.”

“And what about utsava?”‘

“No utsava. That day all of you bring madhukari, sit together and eat.”

Then he turned his eyes towards the young sadhakas of his asrama and said, “Save these boys from women.”

The next day was Radhashtami. Baba fasted as usual. On Ekadasi again he fasted. Kripasindhu Baba insisted on both the days that he might take some panchamrita or at least some water, because he was getting weaker and weaker with every fast, but. in vain. On greater insistance he said with folded hands, “Please do not break my fast.”

After a couple of days he asked Kripasindhu to call Kushal Sinha Ji and Hari Sinha Ji by wire. Kripasindhu did not pay any heed to this, because he thought Baba’s condition was not yet too serious. The next day Baba asked again, “Have you sent the telegram to Jaipur?”

After this Baba went into samadhi. The telegram was sent.

On dvitiya, the second day of Krishna-paksha of the month of Ashwin, Baba suddenly spoke out. He said to Kripasindhu, “See, See Priya and Priyatama (Radha and Krishna) have come.”

“Are Priya-Priyatama alone, or are you there also in your manjari svarupa (siddha body)?” asked Kripasindhu.

Baba replied, “My manjari svarupa is also there.”

On the Ashwin chaturthi (of 1940), Baba asked Kripasindhu to prepare a bed of Vrindavan raja (holy dust) for him. Everybody was shocked to hear this. The bed was prepared and Baba was laid on it. Just then, Kusala Sinha Ji and Hari Sinha Ji arrived from Jaipur. Kusala Sinha Ji had brought Govinda Ji’s prasadi mala (garland) with him. The instant he put the mala round Baba’s neck, Baba left his body. Govinda Ji had come to him in the form of the mala and taken him away.

[From OBL Kapoor’s Saints of Braj, with some editing.]

Pandit Baba’s bhajan kutir at Dauji Bagicha. The rooms are still dedicated to him as a shrine.

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