CC daily 124 – M 6.176 – Sarvabhauma fights till the end

In our next class, thank you … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … try to come back for another battle another day.

Now in the past, especially in the Vedic tradition, when scholars would debate, they would debate with great integrity. Of course, this does not apply to all scholars, there were always scholars who would try to use one grand techniques and tricks to try to gain upper hand on their opponent but overall the debates were conducted honourably and honourable participation in the debates is also important code of honour for code of conduct for scholars. So Jaitan Mahaprabhu started presenting some arguments, critiquing the impersonal conceptions about the conclusion of scripture and about the nature of the absolute truth.

Naturally, Sarobhom and Tacharya didn't go down without a fight, he had this apara, he presented stiff resistance, even an ordinary person is often quite attached to one's opinion even if that opinion has been formed by just a few minutes of thought but Sarobhom and Tacharya was not an ordinary person, he was a reputed scholar, not just any ordinary scholar who had somehow acquired some reputation but he was one of the foremost scholars of his times so much so that the king of Puri had actually invited Sarobhoma to come and stay in Puri thereby demonstrating how much the king appreciated Sarobhoma's scholarship. In fact, later in the Chetan Charitamrith, we will see how intimate a relationship Sarobhoma has with the king Pratapudra, how Pratapudra considers him like a very proximate and trustworthy advisor on all spiritual matters. So, Sarobhoma and Tacharya had great learning and in learning had such fame for him that even a king of a prosperous state had gone out of his way to send an invitation to him and thereby get him to resettle from Nadia by moving to Puri.

So, Chetan Sarobhoma and Tacharya had pioneered a school of thought known as Naugirai, a new form of logic within the Nyaya school and he was a celebrated scholar. As compared to that, Chetan Mahaprabhu was also relatively speaking unheralded. Although he had had one dramatic victory over Keshav Kashmiri when he was just 14, apparently the fame of that victory had not spread very far because Sarobhoma and Tacharya had not heard about that particular accomplishment of Lord Chaitanya and even during the preceding discussion when they met Sarobhoma and Tacharya and Chetan Mahaprabhu and Chetan Mahaprabhu's associates, none of them bring up that particular accomplishment.

No doubt, if it is R. Keshav Kashmiri, what a stupendous feat, but still that had not catapulted Lord Chaitanya, who was the Mayapandita at that time, to the level of fame that was anywhere comparable with that of Sarobhoma and Tacharya. So, to give a rough parallel, Lord Chaitanya is like an unseeded player who moves right through the initial qualifying rounds, all the way through the initial rounds in a grand snap in his championship like the Wimbledon and comes to the final. And in the final, there is a defending champion who is a world-famous player with an illustrious track record and sometimes an unseeded player might just catch a celebrated player on an off day when the celebrated player is out of form and thus change in upset because that celebrated player is on the off day.

But if the celebrated player is playing well, if he is playing almost at one's best, then to defeat such a player is an astonishing feat indeed. And that player will not go down without a fight. That player will somehow or the other try to find a way to spring back and get into the game once again and not only get into the game but to take control of the game and carry the game away from the upstart opponent.

So, Sarobhoma Tacharya also tries something similar in his attempts to deal with Lord Chaitanya and to counter Chaitanya's arguments. So, despite Sarobhoma Tacharya's best efforts and we'll see in the future verses, we found Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's logic and his spiritual revelation is overwhelming. In this verse, Krishna's Kaviraj Goswami conveys that sin much that has not been stated.

Krishna's Kaviraj is usually concerned about not making his book inordinately long and to also ensure that the book doesn't become too technical for Levant Gali readers and learners in other languages to read. So, what could have been several minutes, hours, days of discussion and debate that is described over here by Krishna's Kaviraj Goswami in just one line and he says that when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu thus pointed out the fallacies in Sarobhoma Tacharya's arguments, Sarobhoma Tacharya does not just a matter of scholarly reputation but it was also a matter of personal spiritual affiliation. He had himself chosen Shankara's impersonal spa and it became a question that was not just status-defining but life-defining and therefore, as he stated here, he presented stiff opposition, refusing to go down without a fight and the fact that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did indeed succeed in softening and spiritualizing him indicates that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was phenomenally scholarly.

By the power of his scholarship, he was able to transform Sarobhoma Tacharya as a individual and a future person. So, to do that, a person convinced against you becomes the same opinion still. But the Lord can change the will itself.

So, the Lord doesn't just change the head in terms of changing the opinion that is held in the head but the Lord changes the will itself, changes the heart that the heart rather than somehow defending or trying to find a way to defend.