Srila Rupa Goswami Bhajan Kutir

On his arrival in Vrindavana, Shrila Rupa Goswami chose this spot in the sacred garden of Seva Kunja near the banks of the Yamuna to perform his bhajana and rest beneath the trees at night. This spot in Seva Kunja eventually became his ‘de facto’ headquarters, where he would hold meetings with the other Goswamis and where he held discourses on Shrimad Bhagavatama and other Vaishnava literatures. It was also here where he wrote many of his important books including the great Vaishnava classic Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, the Nectar of Devotion, which he completed in 1541. Within time, a simple thatched cottage was built for Rupa Goswami where he could keep his parchment leaves and other items used for writing books.
After personally instructing Shrila Rupa Goswami at Prayag (Allahabad) on the philosophy and practices of pure devotional service to Krishna, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu directly ordered him to go to Vrindavana as His personal representative, for the purpose of excavating the lost holy places of Lord Krishna’s pastimes, to write books on the science of devotion, and to construct temples dedicated to Radha and Krishna, as well as establish the rules and regulations pertaining to deity worship. Lord Chaitanya’s vision was that Vrindavana would be the centre from where His sankirtana movement would spread out across the face of the earth.
Shrila Rupa Goswami arrived in Vrindavana from Prayag, along with his youngest brother Shri Vallabha (Anupama), in the year 1516. At the time his elder brother Sanatana, had been imprisoned by Hussain Shah, the Nawab of Bengal, and could only join Rupa sometime later after gaining his release from jail. The three brothers Rupa, Sanatana, and Shri Vallabha, belonged to the aristocratic saraswata-brahmana community, and had been forcibly coerced under threat of dire consequences to accept important ministerial posts in the government of Hussain Shah. This happened because the brothers were the most highly educated and erudite scholars of the day, and were proficient in a number of languages including Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali. By the divine grace bestowed upon them by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the three brothers eventually gained release from the clutches of the Nawab and were able to surrender their lives to the Lord’s sankirtana mission.
Although Rupa’s youngest brother Shri Vallabha died untimely, his son ]iva eventually joined Rupa in Vrindavana in the year 1535, and became an important assistant who knew the art of making parchment leaves for writing books, and because of his high level of education, especially in Sanskrit grammar, ]iva was able to edit all the books written by Rupa Goswami.
Eventually, Jiva, who was already a brilliant scholar of Sanskrit and Vedic philosophy, even inhis youth, became the initiated disciple of Rupa Goswami and under his expert guidance; ]iva he went on to become the greatest scholar of Sanskrit literature that has ever lived.Lord Chaitanya had specifically asked Rupa to find the important deities of Vrindavana that were formally established five thousand years earlier by Vajranabha Maharaja, the great grandson of Lord Krishna, that during the course of time had been lost, including the famous deity of Govindaji, the presiding deity of Vrindavana. During the course of his excavation work in Vrindavana, Rupa Goswami, with the help of a ‘cowherd boy’, discovered the deity of Lord Govindaji buried in the ground near the site known as the Yoga-pitha, where some years later the monumental temple of Govindaji was eventually constructed. Rupa also discovered the deity of Vrinda Devi at Brahma-kunda, after she appeared in a dream and told him exactly where she was hidden.

“When Srila Rupa Gosvami would Sit in his bhajan kutir at Tera-Kadamba, and write about the pangs of separation that Sri Radha and Sri Krsna felt for one another, the leaves on the Kadamba tree would fall off, just like tears running down the face of someone in pain. And when Sri Rupa wrote about Radha and Krsna’s ecstatic loving reunion, that overjoyed kadamba tree immediately sprouted new leaves and blossoming flowers. by the mercy of a pure Vaisnava like Srila Rupa Gosvami, this Kadambha tree could understand and appreciate intimate and confidential subject matters which remain beyond our comprehension”(SVM P).