Along the same vein of Syama-Gopala Prabhu's previous thread, but not having to do with Gaudiya Math or ISKCON ...
I recently ran into another Vaisnava online and had a brief exchange re Lord Caitanya. He relayed a story to me--which i had never heard--about Lord Caitanya being kidnapped by a cannibal king who wanted to eat him and one of Lord Caitanya's devotees (not named) took on the personae of Lord Nrsimhadeva, killed everyone in the cannibal king's kingdom, and "left a stream of blood from the immense casualties" (if anyone is interested in hearing this entire pastime, i can post it).
According to this devotee, this pastime (as well as several others) are not in any scriptures or Puranas. When i asked him where he got it from, he said from small Oriyan books and gurukulas around Orissa.
I asked him which lineage he was from, and he said the Jyotish parampara, which was started by Acyuta dasa, who is one of the panca-sakhas of Lord Caitanya.
I have found scanty information on this lineage. What is the validity of these pastimes and of this devotee, Acyuta dasa? Apparently he was a direct disciple of Lord Caitanya. Obviously, if he is a direct disciple of Lord Caitanya, he was around during the Lord's antya-lila (since he comes from Orissa).
And who are the panca-sakha?
This is merely my curiousity speaking. But i'm just wondering why i have never heard of this pastime or of the panca-sakha or the prominence of Acyuta dasa. Plus, I've never heard of such gruesome lila linked to Lord Caitanya.
Jaya Nitai!
The followers of this particular Acyutananda Das say that he was initiated by Sanatana Goswami, however, the doctrine of his lineage differs a great deal from that of the Vrndavana Goswamis. It centers around what they call panca-sakha (five friends), who they envision as incarnations of five of Krsna’s intimate friends in his Vraja lila.
One of the problems to begin with is that we Gaudiyas identify these friends of Krsna differently in Gaura-lila. Philosophical differences include:
Acyutananda considered Lord Jagannatha to be an incarnation of Buddha and Sri Caitanya as a manifestation of Buddha and Jagannatha.
He did not stress suddha-bhakti, but rather jnana, yoga, karmic, particularly astrology. Thus the term jyotish lineage.
The so called panca-sakhas venerate impersonal Brahman and have Buddhist conceptions of sunya attached to their worship of the Deity.
There is one astrologer from his lineage, Sanjay Rath, who travels internationally. One of his pupils corresponded with me about a year ago. He made plans to visit Audarya, but never made it. Sanjay is pious, a good astrologer, and appreciates Mahaprabhu, but he is not someone to hear siddhanta from.
Thank you, Guru Maharaja, for the explanation. For some reason, I never thought it could be possible that there could be impersonalist Caitanya bhaktas. To me, it just seems "natural" that any follower of Lord Caitanya would be a Vraja bhakta as well.
The questions remains, when we hear of such lilas from other sampradayas, how much can we take them as valid and/or authentic? Lord Caitanya's pastimes are unlimited--I'm sure Krsna dasa Kaviraja and Vrndavana dasa Thakura (and other exalted acaryas) could not have possibly recorded every lila the Lord performed on this earth. Then again, for example, perhaps there are many made up pastimes, such as the Book of Mormon in the Christian faith is made up (I'm not sure if anyone else thinks that's a valid text, but I do not).
I think that according to your instructions--"Sanjay is pious, a good astrologer, and appreciates Mahaprabhu, but he is not someone to hear siddhanta from"--i shouldn't take such things as valid. And neither do i have the desire to hear pastimes from impersonalists.