How the Movement Grew
The growth of the movement in this first generation was not an organised expansion in any sense.
It was rather the spreading out of various uncoordinated groups or communities, each one gathering about the person of a disciple of Chaitanya who had caught something of the power of his master's contagious bhakti and was intent upon spreading it.
The successive pilgrimages to Purī kept up the fire in the hearts of a large body of Chaitanya' s followers, and thus the enthusiasm was maintained.
In a book called Vaṁśīśikṣā, which is largely descriptive of the life of a Brahman friend and disciple of Chaitanya named Vaṁśīvadan, or Vaṁśīdās, we get an illustration of the process of the sect's growth:
This disciple, to whose care Chaitanya had committed his mother and sister, migrated from Navadvīpa after Chaitanya's death, and established himself at a place called Bāghnāpāra. Here he set up a temple and gathered about him a considerable Vaishnava community.
His sons and grandsons followed in his steps, increased their following, and thus established the line of Bāghnāpāra Gosvāmīs.
In a similar way each well-known disciple of Chaitanya, recognised as a Gosvāmī, or guru, of the sect, because of his relation to Chaitanya, established himself at some centre and built up a larger or smaller following of disciples in the surrounding country.
Nityānanda settled at Khardaha, a few miles north of Calcutta, and made of this place a famous Vaishnava centre. He gathered about himself a group of disciples who took an active part in the propitiation of the faith.
Twelve of these men are familiarly known in the literature of the sect as the 12 Gopālas. They are associated with Nityānanda in the adoration of devout worshippers today. They were especially noted as singing evangelists.
Just when the cult of the worship of Chaitanya was introduced it is difficult to say:
Long before his death many had come to believe in him as an incarnation, but the actual worship of his image was hardly to be found during his lifetime.
King Pratāpa Rudra, of Orissa, had a life-sized image of Chaitanya made some time before his death, and the image preserved in the Chaitanya temple at Kālnā, in the Nadia district, was set up about the time of Chaitanya's departure from Navadvīpa.
But it is not likely that such worship gained much headway until after his death.
In the Vaṁśīśikṣā it is recorded that Vaṁśīdās became convinced, by means of a vision, that he should spread abroad the worship of Chaitanya’s image.
He therefore made an image out of the wood of the tree under which Chaitanya was born, especially for the benefit of Viṣṇupriyā, the stricken wife of Chaitanya.
This image, or something of it incorporated in a new one, is still preserved at Navadvīpa in great sanctity.
Another friend and follower of Chaitanya, named Narahari Sarkār, who wrote the first songs about him in the vernacular, is said to have been the first to preach the worship of Chaitanya:
"He prepared the code and the mantra for the worship of Chaitanya, and these were accepted by other Vaishnavas in Bengal a short time after."