Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/516

 480 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap.. The Chaitanya Bhagabat of Brindavana Das used to be read in Brindavana by the holy men of the place every evening, and they felt that the last portion of Chaitanya’s life was not described in the work with that completeness which the Vaisnava community required in a recognised bio- graphy. One evening when Krisna Das sat in his” cottage counting the beads of his rosary—old and | infirm as he was and suffering from the various. diseases which age brings on, a deputation of the Vaisnavas of the place, consisting of Govinda | Gosvami, Jadavacharyya Gosvami, Bhugarbha Gos- © vami, Chaitanya Das, Kumudananda Chakravarti, Krisna Das Chakravarti, Civananda Chakravarti and of others, waited on the old scholar requesting him to undertake to write a life of Chaitanya Deva. The hoary headed Krisna Das pleaded his age and | weakness, but they insisted on his_ undertaking the — work. At this moment the priest of the temple of Govindaji came to him and presented him with an Adecamalaya—a garland of flowers—a sign of divine command, from the temple, and the request made © by the deputation became by this act of the priest inviolable as a_ religious injunction. Krisna Das” had no other alternative than to take up the work. He was helped by the materials given him by~ Cri Das, Loknath Gosvami, Gopal Bhatta and | ০০ Nath Das. Besides this he received impor- | tant help from the scholarly notes on Chaitanya ok life by Murari Gupta and Svarupa Damodar and from Chaitanya Bhagabat by Brindaban Das, and. Chaitanya Chandrodaya by Kavi Karnapur. But from these materials we can scarcely gain any idea of the vast erudition and extraordinary panis- -