Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/508

 The passing away of Chaitanya Deva. 472 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE [Chap Chaitanya Deva and by accepting his faith, is § generally believed to have been born in Budaaa, | but according to Jayananda, Hari Das was born in the village Bhatakalagachi on the bank of the river Svarna. We come to know from Jayananda’s § Chaitanya Mangala that Chaitanya Deva’s ances- | tors came to Bengal from Jajpur in Orissa. The history of how Chaitanya Deva passed away is a mystery ; itis not related either in the — Chaitanya Bhagabata or in the Chaitanya Charita-_ mrita—the two great authoritative works on Chaitanya’s life. It is said that devout Vaisnavas ; felt such pain in describing the story, that many of ; them scrupulously avoided narrating it in their bio- graphies. It is true that once Chaitanya fell into a — trance at the sight of the moon reflected in the sea as he witnessed it from the Orissa coasts—the scene reminded him of Krisna and he leapt into the ocean in an unconscious condition; but it is also related that he was shortly after rescued by a fisherman and carefully tended, till restored to consciousness. This fact in his life is well known. The more advanced members of our community, finding no other clue as to how he passed away, have lately started a theory that Chaitanya Deva was at this time lost in the waters and never again found. But the old records distinctly relate how he was saved by a fisherman; so to assert in the teeth of this evidence that he met with his death in the sea is certainly unwarranted and no historian can credit it. Our country-sides are full of fables, relating to the manner in which he finally disappeared ; it is said that he embraced the figure of Gopinath (Krisna) made of Nimba wood and worshipped in