CC daily 142 – M 6.206 – Sarvabhauma’s scholarship supersedes that of Keshava Kashmiri in disposition and content

Brihaspati tai chhe shloka na paare karite. Sarovam Bhattacharya, very glorifying Lord Chaitanya, composed chhata shloka, hundred verses, and the scholarship that was evident in these verses, in the composition of these verses, was so phenomenal, that even it could not be matched by the scholarship of Brihaspati.
It surpassed even Brihaspati’s scholarship. Now in the Chaitanya Charitamrita, this sort of phenomenal scholarship, in terms of glorifying, still composing what is called stuti-kavya, praise verses, this occurs earlier also, when at the request of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he was Nimai Pandit, he requested Keshav Kashmiri to glorify the Ganga. So, Keshav Kashmiri had approached Nimai Pandit, who was sitting with his students, and acknowledging Keshav Kashmiri to be a great scholar, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asked him to compose verses, and he also composed a whole series of verses, and the students of Nimai Pandit, their mouths fell open at that time, to see this astonishing scholarship that Sarvabhauma had exhibited, and as the evidence of the scholarship became more and more apparent, it was clear that there was nothing that anyone could do to match this scholarship.
The students had never seen scholarship like this. It is one thing to memorize and recite verses. In today’s culture, if a teacher of scripture is able to recite many verses, that is considered to be a sign of great scholarship.
In fact, many religious people mistake the capacity to recite verses as the primary, if not only, sign of scholarship. But, of course, there is much more to scholarship than recitation of verses. There is understanding, there is application, there is the ability to see connections.
But apart from that, the point relevant to the discussion here is that memorization and recitation of verses is relatively easier. Composition of verses is much more difficult. And, of course, those who are expert, who have this poetic talent of composing verses, whether it be in Hindi or English or any of the vernacular languages, which are the mother tongues for those people, even such people cannot compose verses extemper.
That is extremely difficult. So, to be able to not just compose verses, but to be able to compose them extemper and compose them in Sanskrit, that is extremely difficult. And, naturally, it is described over there.
That incident of Keshav Kashmiri glorifying Ganga happened in Navadvi, on the banks of the Ganga. This compositional marvel happened in Jagannath Puri, in front of Lord Jagannath in his temple. And the contexts are similar.
Although there it was done to demonstrate scholarship, here it was done to demonstrate devotion. Keshav Kashmiri lived in a culture where, naturally, there was great reverence for sacred things such as the Ganga. And he had, no matter how arrogant a scholar he might have been, he had come to the banks of the Ganga to offer his respects to Ganga and take bath over there.
So, as he came there and as he took bath, that itself indicates that he had some respect for the Ganga. So, he composed verses glorifying Ganga. Certainly, there was some amount of pious respect.
But along with that, the forum was clearly that he wanted to demonstrate his phenomenal scholarship to what he considered an upstart. He had come to Navadvip to challenge the scholars over there because Navadvip was a center of great learning and he wanted to be the champion scholar in the world. As he was called Digvijay.
Dig is directions. Vijay is the conqueror of all directions. So, he wanted to be the conqueror of all directions and that’s why he had come there to challenge and defeat the scholars of Navadvip.
Now, while he had come there, the important thing was that most of the scholars had retreated and had left their homes. They had to avoid any competition which they felt would be one-sided because Keshav Kashmiri had been blessed by Saraswati to always be victorious in his speech. Then, he had also heard about the great scholarship of this young Nimai Pandit.
So, he wanted to meet Nimai Pandit and he felt that he might be a scholar but he was probably an upstart. So, just like Sampadayans, there is a champion tennis player, the world number one and then from the junior ranks, from say the under 15 tennis league, there is a champion, a person who is very acclaimed as a great champion and then the person who is a champion in the main tennis tournament is playing a match with somebody who is considered a champion in the under 15 league. So, who plays, who enters into professional tennis.
At that time, the under 15 person is the underdog. He is often considered an upstart. Now, when you play a real player, now you will come to know where you stand.
So, there, Keshav Kashmiri’s attitude was supercilious that I will show this Nimai, what kind of scholar he is and it was with that attitude he composed the verses glorifying Ganga. So, the attitude was not devotional. It was, although the subject was religious, the attitude was largely demonstrational and it was demonstrating one’s scholarship.
So, the attitude was to a large extent egoistic. And further, the Ganga was a subject that had been glorified repeatedly. The praises of the Ganga have been repeatedly spoken in the sacred scriptures and by the great saints.
So, with those precedents to extemporaneously compose praise of Ganga is not all that difficult. But in the case of Sarovar Bhattacharya, the praise that he is singing is coming from the spontaneous devotion of his heart. He is amazed, thrilled, enraptured to see the spectacular scholarship of Lord Chaitanya and to realize that this is the Supreme Lord and the devotional thrill that is permeating his entire being is expressing itself through his scholarship.
And there were no precedents for the glorification of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu like this. Certainly, he had not heard it. So, both in terms of the disposition, which was devotional glorification, not egoistic demonstration and also in terms of content, Keshav Kashmiri had composed verses about a subject which had been glorified repeatedly in the past, whereas Sarovar Bhattacharya was speaking about a subject which had not been glorified in the past.
And therefore, Sarovar Bhattacharya’s scholarship surpasses Keshav Kashmiri’s in terms of disposition as well as content. And that’s why we will see that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu becomes enormously pleased by the scholarship.