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Sri Raghunatha Dasa Gosvamiu

Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami was born around 1494 in a kayastha family in Krishnapur, a village in Bengal. He was the only son of his father Govardhana Majumdar, who was the younger brother of the then Zamindar, Hiranya Majumdar. His family were all Vaishnavas and very rich. Raghunatha Dasa organized the grand Cida Dahi Festival in Panihati. He was ordered to put on this festival by Prabhu Nityananda.

His spiritual master was Yadunandana Acarya. Because he wanted to leave home and join Lord Caitanya his father engaged special bodyguards to keep him at home. In 1517, at the age of 23, he left home and joined Lord Caitanya in Jagannatha Puri. He stayed sixteen years in Jagannatha Puri. During the day he spent time with Mahaprabhu and he saw His pastimes. What ever happened at night was described to him by Svarupa Damodara. Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami described these pastimes to Krishna dasa Kaviraja who wrote them down in Caitanya Caritamrita. After Raghunatha was in Puri for sixteen years, Lord Caitanya left this world. Raghunatha Dasa then decided to go to Vrindavana and have the association of Rupa and Sanatana.

Lord Caitanya gave Raghunatha a Govardhana-shila, that He would place over His eyes or close to His heart. He also gave him a gunja-mala, a garland of red and black berries, that He would wear around His neck.

Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami lived at Radha Kunda. He arranged to have Radha Kunda dug out and enlarged, and arranged to build the ghatas around Radha Kunda. Many people would come and listen to Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami describe the pastimes of Lord Caitanya. Krishna Dasa Kaviraja would come to listen to him. Krishna Dasa lived with him most of the time and would also serve him. Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami left his body around 1595 and his samadhi is at Radha Kunda. He lived at Radha Kunda for forty (some say 49) years.

Sri Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami’s daily activities included chanting 64 rounds of japa (100,000 names), worshiping his Govardhana-shila, bathing three times in Radha Kunda, offering 1,000 obeisances to Krishna, and offering 2,000 obeisances to the devotees, plus embracing them. He rested ninety minutes a day and some days not at all. It is said that his eyes were always full of tears. Throughout his life, Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami never ate anything for sense gratification. He only ate fruit and milk. After Sanatana Gosvami left this world he only ate a leaf cup of buttermilk every day or two. When Rupa Gosvami left he gave up eating and drinking.

A pastime of Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami is that once he went into trance and meditated that he cooked a delicious preparation of sweet-rice for Radha and Krishna. They accepted the sweet-rice and gave the remnants to the sakhis and manjaris. Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami then honored some of the sweet rice, but ate too much and became sick. Then Vitthalanatha, the son of Vallabhacarya arranged for two doctors to come see Raghunatha. The doctors said that Raghunatha was suffering from a disorder in reference to eating too much of a combination of rice and milk. All the devotees were surprised to hear this because they knew that Raghunatha only ate one leaf-cup of buttermilk a day. Raghunatha Dasa then told the devotees that he had eaten too much sweet-rice prasad while in the ecstasy of serving Radha and Krishna, and this was the cause of his indigestion. The devotees were astonished and relieved to hear this.

One time, a devotee brought Raghunatha Dasa some buttermilk in a leaf cup. Seeing that the cup was very large, Raghunatha Dasa asked where the cup had come from. When he was told the cup had come from Sakhistali, the village of Candravali, the competitor of Radharani, he became angry and threw the cup away. In his spiritual form Raghunatha Dasa is Rati Manjari, the intimate maidservant of Radharani, and could not bear anything to do with Candravali, the main competitor of Radharani. This shows how much Raghunatha Dasa was in the mood of Rati Manjari.

He wrote three books named Dana-carita (Dana-keli-cintamani), Mukta-carita, and Stava-mala (Stavavali). In the Gaura Ganoddesa Dipika (verse 186) it is stated that Raghunatha Dasa Gosvami was formerly the gopi named Rasa-manjari. Sometimes it is said that he was Rati Manjari.

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