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Sri Lokanatha Gosvami

He was born in either 1483 or 1484 in the village of Talakhandi in North Bengal. Lokanatha father’s name was Padmanatha Chakravarti and his mother was named Sita. They were highly respected Kulin brahmanas. His father was a disciple of Advaita Acarya. When he was 14 years old, he studied Srimad Bhagavatam from Advaita Acarya.
Lokanatha was an old friend of Lord Caitanya. He was a few years older than Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Lokanatha was a student of Advaita Acarya, while Mahaprabhu was in the tola (Sanskrit school) of Ganga Dasa Pandit in Navadvipa. By the time he was 20 he was a great Sanskrit scholar. In his first meeting with Lord Caitanya he completely surrendered himself to Him for his entire life.

When he completed his studies of Bhagavatam he returned to his native village of Talakhandi in North Bengal. He then renounced the world and went to Navadvipa, with the plan to spend the rest of his life with Lord Caitanya. He met Sri Caitanya in 1510 in Navadvipa, Who then ordered him to go to Vrindavana to identify the lost pastime places of Krishna. Bhugarbha, a disciple of Gadadhara Gosvami, volunteered to go with him. At this time Lokanatha spent five days with Lord Caitanya. It took Lokanatha and Bhugarbha three months to reach Vrindavana, because in those days the direct road to Vrindavana was not safe.

He never met Lord Caitanya again, despite the fact that he traveled widely to do so. After he heard that Lord Caitanya had taken sannyasa, he and Bhugarbha went to South India to meet Sri Caitanya, but where ever they went they were always to late by a few days. Even when they returned to Vrindavana, Lord Caitanya had just left a few days earlier.

As soon as Lokanatha and Bhugarbha got to Braja they started to search for the places in relation to Krishna’s pastimes. At that time the forest was very thick and it was very difficult to move around. Also very few people lived in Braja, and the few people that lived in Vrindavana did not know where the holy places were located. They had to depend mainly on descriptions given in the scriptures. Gradually some discoveries were made and they recorded them. Several other devotees came to Vrindavana, including Rupa, Sanatana, and Narayana Bhatta to help find the hidden holy places. Gradually Lokanatha left the work of discovery of these different tirthas to these other devotees and he retired in a solitary place, near Kesi Ghat. He devoted his time to bhajana and worshiping Radha-Vinoda, his Deity of Krishna. Sri Narayana Bhatta wrote in his Vraja Bhakti Vilasa that Lokanatha Gosvami discovered 333 forests and places in relationship to the pastimes of Krishna.

When Lokanatha Gosvami was about 100 years old, Jiva Gosvami approached him, and asked if his only disciple, Narottama, could be sent for preaching along with Syamananda and Srinivasa to Bengal and Orissa. Even though he was old and needed the service of Narottama, he immediately allowed him to go preaching.

He did not allow Krishna Dasa Kaviraja to mention his name in Caitanya Caritamrita. It is said that he left this world in the forest of Khadiravana at around the age of a hundred years old.

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