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Sri Gopala Bhatta Gosvamiu

Gopala Bhatta was born in 1500 in the village of Belagui, which is on the bank of the Kaveri River near Sri Rangam.

While traveling in South India, Lord Caitanya spent four months of the rainy season at the house of Venkata Bhatta, the father of Gopala Bhatta, in Sri Rangam. Venkata Bhatta belonged to the Sri Sampradaya of Ramanujacarya. He worshiped Lakshmi Narayana as his presiding Deities before being initiated by Sri Caitanya (January 1511). Gopala (Venkata Bhatta’s son) who was eleven at the time, rendered service to Lord Caitanya and ate the remnants of His food. Venkata Bhatta washed Lord Caitanya feet with water from the Kaveri and had the members of his family drink this water.

The Lord ordered Gopala Bhatta to remain at home until his parents passed away. After his parents passed away Gopala then went to Vrindavana, where he became like the younger brother of Rupa and Sanatana. He was always engaged in devotional service to Lord Krishna.
He worshiped 12 shalagrama-shilas. One of the shilas, Damodara, self-manifested into a three-fold bending form of Krishna holding a flute called Radha-Raman. Gopala Bhatta Gosvami did bhajana in Braja for 45 years, mostly at Radha Kunda. He left his body on the fifth day of Asvina (Sept-Oct) in 1578 in Vrindavana.

His spiritual master was his uncle, Prabodhananda Sarasvati Maharaja. Formerly they belonged to the disciplic succession of the Ramanuja Sampradaya, but later became part of the Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya. Two of Gopala Bhatta’s disciples were Srinivasa Acarya and Gopinatha Pujari. Gopala Bhatta wrote a book called Sat-kriya-sara-dipika, edited Hari-bhakti-vilasa, wrote the original draft of Sat-sandarbha, and he did a commentary on Krishna-karnamrita.

In the Gaura Ganoddesa Dipika (verse 184) it states that he was Ananga Manjari in Krishna-lila. He is sometimes said to be an incarnation of Guna Manjari.

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