Discovering the Original Site

During the last century, when Sridhama Mayapura was all but forgotten, the great spiritual master Thakura Bhaktivinoda vigorously sought to restore it to its true importance. To be near that holy spot, he several times requested, while serving as a Government magistrate, to be transferred to the town of Krsnanagara, which is near Sri Navadvipa (Mayapura). When all such requests were rejected, he was willing to resign so that he could live where Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had appeared. When the Government officials saw his sincerity and intentness, however, they finally granted his request for a transfer. Thereafter, Thakura Bhaktivinoda spent every spare moment visiting Navadvipa, a town on the Western bank of the Bhagirathi, or Ganges.

To his surprise, Srila Bhaktivinoda found that the city then called Navadvipa was not more than a hundred years old and so could not have possibly been the same Navadvipa, or Mayapura, where Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu had appeared, although its residents tried to convince him that it was. Srila Thakura Bhaktivinoda, therefore, tried to find the actual appearance site of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Some people insisted that the city of Navadvipa was indeed the site where the Lord had appeared, whereas others held that the actual site was now under the Ganges River.

In the midst of such different opinions, Srila Thakura Bhaktivinoda ascertained the actual birthplace of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. By inquiring from the local people, he heard about a place northeast of Navadvipa, on land owned by Moslems, where there were seven large mounds covered with tulasi plants. It was shrouded with rumors, and it was uninhabited and uncultivated by the local Moslems, who, because of stories about strange lights and sounds, considered it haunted and never went there. That very spot, he learned, was also respected by a few perfect devotees as the actual appearance site of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Furthermore, two maps made by British pilots who had navigated the Ganges in the Eighteenth Century marked a town named Nadia on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi, north of the Jalahgi. That location corresponded to the one discovered by Srila Thakura Bhaktivinoda.

Srila Bhaktivinoda then showed the site to Jagannatha dasa Babaji, the foremost devotee of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu at that time, who definitely confirmed that it was the site where Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had appeared. Although Jagannatha dasa Babaji was incapacitated and had to be carried in a basket, when he reached that holy place and found it genuine, he immediately jumped up and began to dance, shedding tears of ecstatic love for Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.