01Lakshmana Sena and the raid
Lakshmana Sena, patron of the poet Jayadeva, kept court at Nadia. The Tabaqat-i-Nasiri says that around 1204 Bakhtiyar Khalji rode ahead of his army with eighteen horsemen, posing as horse dealers, and reached the palace gate before anyone knew; the old king slipped away by a back door and went east to Vikramapura, where his line ruled for some decades more. Nadia’s scholars stayed. By the 15th century its tols taught Navya-Nyaya, and Raghunatha Shiromani made it the logic school of all Bharat.
02Nimai of Nabadwip
On the full moon of Phalguna in 1486, during an eclipse, a son was born to Jagannath Mishra and Shachi Devi and named Vishvambhara; the town called him Nimai. He became a famous young teacher of grammar, then, after initiation at Gaya, turned the town upside down with nagar-sankirtan, the Harinama sung through the streets. At twenty-four he took sannyasa as Shri Krishna Chaitanya and left for Puri. The Chaitanya Charitamrita of Krishnadasa Kaviraja tells the whole leela.
03Mayapur today
The river has shifted many times. In the late 1880s Bhaktivinoda Thakur identified the site of the birthplace at Mayapur, on the east bank opposite present Nabadwip, and the Yogapitha temple was raised there. In the 1970s A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada made Mayapur the world headquarters of ISKCON, and the vast Temple of the Vedic Planetarium is rising beside it. Gaura Purnima in Phalguna and the nine-island Navadvipa parikrama before it bring pilgrims from every continent.
The life of this place
- c. 1204Bakhtiyar Khalji takes Nadia; Lakshmana Sena withdraws east.
- 1486Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is born on Phalguna Purnima.
- 1510Chaitanya takes sannyasa and leaves for Puri.
- 1970sSrila Prabhupada founds the ISKCON centre at Mayapur.
About 130 km north of Kolkata; ferries link Nabadwip and Mayapur across the river. Gaura Purnima (February–March) is the great festival.
