Gauranga Nagaris

The gauranga nagaris are a type of sahajiya who mix moods of devotion (rasas) in a clashing, unpalatable way. This error is technically called rasabhasa. The gauranga nagaris are prominent in Bengal and Bangladesh.

Some of their customs seem praiseworthy. For example, like staunch Vaisnavas they wear tilaka and neckbeads, perform good kirtana, and strictly abstain from flesh and fish. But they are counted out of Lord Caitanya's disciplic line because of a subtle contamination in their idea of who Lord Caitanya is.

The gauranga-nagaris are devotees of Lord Caitanya, who is also known as Gauranga ("the golden-limbed Lord"). But they impose upon Him Krsna's role as the free enjoyer of the village girls of Vrndavana. They style Him as nagara (a lusty village youth) and themselves as nagari (village girls).

Yet although it is true that Lord Caitanya is Krsna Himself, His mood is never that of Krsna, the supreme enjoyer, but always that of Krsna's devotee.

In the Caitanya-caritamrta (Adi 1.5), Lord Gauranga is said to be golden because He is radha-bhava-dyuti-suvalita, "adorned with the mood and luster of Srimati Radharani," Krsna's foremost devotee. Nowhere in any revealed scripture is it said that Lord Caitanya descends with the mood of Krsna.

Spokesmen for the gauranga-nagaris not only say that Lord Caitanya exhibited Krsna's enjoying mood; they say that Visnupriya Devi, the Lord's second wife, was Srimati Radharani and that her close female friends were gopis.

But as Srila Vrndavana dasa Thakura makes clear in Sri Caitanya Bhagavata, Visnupriya Devi is actually a form of the goddess of fortune, Laksmi. The wives, mothers, and daughters of Lord Caitanya's associates attended Visnupriya just as the maidservants of Laksmi serve Laksmi in the spiritual world. They serve in awe and reverence, not in the informal mood of the gopis.

Sri Caitanya Bhagavata also speaks clearly about Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's extreme gravity in His dealings with women even with His own wives, what to speak of other women. But the gauranga nagarishave invented offensive myths about Lord Caitanya's supposed love affairs. These stories should never be heard.

The so-called mood of devotion of the gauranga nagaris is mere eroticism. Their conception of Lord Gauranga is a creation of their impure minds, and as they meditate upon this wrong conception, they succumb to lust. But, following the sahajiya line, they take that lust to be spiritual ecstasy.