Introduction to Purī
On his way through Orissa he visited several shrines sought out by pilgrims, and paid his devotions to the deities sacred in Vaishnava legend, not omitting a Śaivite shrine or two.
As they drew near to Purī the sight of the spire of the temple of Jagannāth threw Chaitanya into ecstasies.
At sight of Jagannātha’s temple he became absorbed. Prostrating himself in love, he began to dance. His followers, as though possessed, all danced and sang. With the Master, rapt in love, they went along the royal road, laughing, weeping, dancing, roaring. The six mile journey became a thousand!
When they reached the temple Chaitanya’s feeling overcame him completely. He rushed forward in an attempt to embrace the image of Jagannāth, and fell in a swoon before it.
The custodians of the temple were on the point of beating him to arouse him, thinking him a mad man, when they were prevented by an onlooker.
This was no less a personage than a famed Vedāntist scholar and logician, Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma, who had witnessed the scene with considerable interest.
He had the still unconscious body of Chaitanya carried to his own home, where some hours elapsed before he came out of the trance.
This chance meeting in the temple led to the eventual conversion of the Vedāntist to the enthusiastic religion preached by Chaitanya:
Sārvabhauma, himself a Bengali of Navadvīpa and the founder of the Navya Nyāya school of logic, which was its chief claim to fame, was drawn to the young sannyāsī by his beauty and the evident devotion of his life.
The scholar sought first to make him a Vedāntist, and then desired, as we have already noted, to introduce him into a higher order of sannyāsīs than the one in which Chaitanya had been initiated.
For 7 days the great pandit, who had been especially honoured by Pratāpa Rudra, the king of Orissa, instructed the young sannyāsī in the Vedanta, but without eliciting any response from him.
Rather nettled by his failure to produce any impression on his hearer, Sārvabhauma pressed Chaitanya for his own opinions until the latter finally launched into an exposition of the Vaishnava principles, so diametrically opposed to the Vedanta.
The result of this discussion, according to the Caritamṛta, was Sārvabhauma’s complete conversion to the Krishna-bhakti cult.
The account of this striking episode as given in our authority is enhanced by sectarian and magical elements that obscure the actual facts.
We are told that the scholar is finally overwhelmed by a vision of Chaitanya's deity, in which the young sannyāsī reveals himself as Vishnu and Krishna.
The record also makes Chaitanya expound pages of abstruse interpretations of the śāstras, which is little in keeping with the one consuming passion which had marked his life since his conversion to the life of bhakti.
The truth probably is that Sārvabhauma was won to a living interest in bhakti by the powerful appeal of Chaitanya's rapturous devotion and the charm of his personality.
However the change may have been wrought, there is no room for doubt of the fact. The Vedāntist pandit became a convert to bhakti, and took the youthful Chaitanya as his Guru.
In the Sanskrit drama, Chaitanya-Chandrodaya, by Kavi Karṇapura, the verses are given which Sārvabhauma wrote and sent to Chaitanya declaring his newfound faith.
They are quoted in the Caritamṛta:
The one, ever-ancient, Supreme Being who has taken form as Śrī Krishna Chaitanya for the purpose of teaching the knowledge of non-attachment (vairāgya vidyā) and his own method of devotion (bhakti yoga),
his shelter I seek, the ocean of mercy; may my mind like a bee cling closer and closer to his lotus feet, Śrī Krishna Chaitanya, who is born to restore his bhakti yoga, destroyed by time.
The conversion of this veteran logician was a notable achievement for Chaitanya: Sārvabhauma was one of the most noted scholars of his time and a confirmed Vedāntist.
For such a man to turn from the pursuits of a life-time and become the disciple of a mere youth is rather uncommon, even in this land of religious devotion.
Sārvabhauma’s confession of faith throws interesting light upon the way in which men thought of Chaitanya:
We have said that in Navadvīpa, among his devoted followers, even before his turning sannyāsi, the belief had established itself that he was an incarnation of Krishna.
This inclination to render divine homage to Chaitanya is attributed to his followers throughout the record. Considering his arresting personality this is not strange, among the rank and file of his followers.
The history of Hinduism bears witness to the ease with which the popular Indian mind tends to explain unusually gifted and forceful religious personalities in terms of incarnation.
We should expect this to a certain extent. But in the case of Sārvabhauma we are dealing with a mind far above the ordinary:
If in his confession we have a genuine document, and there is no reason to doubt it, it carries valuable confirmation of the powerful impression created by Chaitanya on the minds of his contemporaries, even at the beginning of his life as a sannyāsī.