Birthplace of Śrīla Gurudeva

The name of Tridandi Swāmī Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja in his pūrvāśrama^[1] was Śrīman Nārāyaṇa Tiwari. He took birth in a highly educated and respected brāhmaṇa family, in the famous village of Tiwaripur, in the Buxar district of Bihar, India. In the past, Tiwaripur was situated on the banks of the sacred river Gaṅgā, but Gaṅgā has since shifted her course, and is now some distance away. Tiwaripur was a village where only brāhmaṇa communities lived; everyone was educated and prosperous. Many historical events took place in Śrīla Gurudeva’s birthplace, but out of genuine humility, Śrīla Gurudeva has said, “I am so unfortunate that I took birth in Bihar, the kingdom of Jarāsandha^[2]. My birthplace is the place of the atheist Gautama Buddha and it is pāṇḍava-varjita-deśa, the place neglected by the Pāṇḍavas. My Śrīla Gurudeva, nitya-līlā praviṣṭa oṃ viṣṇupāda Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja, is so merciful that he grabbed me by my śikhā and pulled me out of material existence.”

In ancient times, the state of Bihar was known as Magadha. It has always been the site of much religious importance, yet despite its colourful and glorious history, it is also been the scene of some notorious events.

The village of Tiwaripur is situated near the towns of Buxar and Dalsagar. Since the Gaṅgā shifted her course, Tiwaripur is presently two kilometres away from the sacred river. At the time of Śrīla Gurudeva’s appearance in 1921, the population was around two thousand.

The village was founded thousands of years ago by the Tiwari brāhmaṇas. Tiwari, or Trivedi, refers to brāhmaṇas who have knowledge of three Vedas. They used their title as their surname. There are four Vedas, and those with knowledge of all four vedas are called Chaturvedi or Chaube, while those with knowledge of two Vedas are called Dvivedi. In Śrīla Gurudeva’s village, there were only Tiwari brāhmaṇas, the outskirts of the village and surrounding villages being inhabitated by other social orders (varṇas).

What does Śrīla Gurudeva mean when he says that he is unfortunate to have taken birth in Bihar? Here are some historical events that took place there:

Jarāsandha, the father-in-law of the wicked King Kaṃsa, was the notorious king of Magadha during the Mahābhārata era. With his huge ruthless army, he captured and imprisoned many hundreds of kings, with the desire to kill them.

Magadha is also known as the place that the pious Pāṇḍavas neglected (pāṇḍava-varjita-deśa) during their exile. At one time, the Pāṇḍava princes were banished to the forest for twelve years and had to spend the thirteenth year incognito. If Duryodhana, the head of the Kauravas, found them during the thirteenth year, they would have to start another twelve years of exile in the forest, followed by another year in hiding. Duryodhana and his uncle Śakuni devised this devious political intrigue. This culminated in a tragic series of manipulated dice games, in which the Pāṇḍavas were inevitably defeated. Stripped of their royal status and wealth, for twelve years the Pāṇḍavas roamed throughout Bhārata-varśa, the Greater India, and visited many places. Those places that were neglected by the Pāṇḍavas during their exile are called pāṇḍava-varjita-deśa.

Because of these inauspicious histories, some consider that the state of Bihar is not a worthy place. How is it, then, that Śrīla Gurudeva, an eternal associate of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and the Divine Couple Śrī Śrī rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, took birth in such an apparently infamous place? Due to Śrīla Gurudeva’s genuine Vaiṣṇava humility, he considers himself unfortunate to have such a birthplace. However, his place of birth is actually very glorious for the following reasons:

(1) Such is the influence of the river Gaṅgā that all places within eight miles of her banks become very auspicious and are considered pure and holy. The Gaṅgā flows very close to the village of Tiwaripur and as a child, Śrīla Gurudeva used to take bath with his father Paṇḍita Baleśvaranātha Tiwari in her cool, flowing waters every day.

(2) Near the village Tiwaripur is the place where Viśvāmitra Ṛṣi, a great sage of ancient India, conducted a fire sacrifice for the benefit of the whole world. However, every time Viśvāmitra Ṛṣi began his fire sacrifice, Mārīca and Subahu, the two mischievious sons of the demoness Tārakā, caused disturbances and prevented him from completing his sacrificial rite. Viśvāmitra was powerful enough to kill the demons, but to do so would have reduced the fruit of his penance. Therefore, to avoid having to kill the troublesome duo himself, he journeyed to the city of Ayodhyā to bring the young prince rāma and his younger brother Lakṣmaṇa back to his hermitage.

The next time Viśvāmitra Ṛṣi started the fire sacrifice, the two demons again started to create havoc by throwing flesh, bones, and other impure items into the sacred fire. With His magnificent prowess in archery, Lord rāma swiftly used His sharp arrows to create a spinning wheel in the sky and this stopped the demons’ downpour of blood, liquor and other impure items. Viśvāmitra was extremely pleased that he could successfully complete his sacrifice.

After this incident, Lord rāma killed the demoness Tārakā and her son Subahu at that very place. From there, He also released an arrow that hurled Tārakā’s other son, Mārīca, across the continent into the middle of the Indian Ocean. Much later, the demon king rāvaṇa’s brothers, angry at the slaying of their family members, arrived in the same place to meet their death at the hands of the valiant Prince rāma.

(3) Also located near Śrīla Gurudeva’s birthplace is Ahalyāvalī, the place of Ahalyā-devī. Ahalyā-devī was the chaste wife of the powerful mystic sage Gautama Ṛṣi. During that time, a devastating drought had struck ancient India stopping the growth of grains and plants, and thus causing a severe scarcity of food. Gautama Ṛṣi, by the power of his bhagavad-bhajana, fed the whole population for one year. King Indra, the king of heaven, seeing how famous Gautama had become as a result of this extraordinary feat, became jealous of him and wanted to cause disturbance in his practice of austerity. Indra also felt threatened; being afraid that Gautama Ṛṣi might usurp his throne and take possession of the heavenly kingdom. He therefore enlisted the help of the moon-god, asking him to make the moon set at midnight, so that it would appear as if morning had come. The moon-god did that.

When Gautama Ṛṣi saw that the moon had set, he went to the river for his pre-dawn bath. Indra then disguised himself as Gautama Ṛṣi and taking advantage of the sage’s absence in the middle of the night, entered the sage’s āśrama and broke the chastity of his wife Ahalyā-devī.

Meanwhile when Gautama Ṛṣi arrived at the sacred river Gaṅgā he perceived that it was not morning at all and returned to his āśrama. As he arrived, he saw someone looking just like him coming out of his bedroom, and immediately understood what had happened. Gautama Ṛṣi cursed Indra and strongly reprimanded his wife, “Oh, how could you not have determined that this man was not me? For this, I curse you to become a stone!” Later, Gautama Ṛṣi granted a boon to his wife that she would be brought back to human form by Lord rāma’s divine touch. This history is found in the Rāmāyaṇa.

When Lord rāma was on His way to Viśvāmitra’s āśrama, He touched that stone with His lotus foot, and thus, Ahalyā-devī regained her human form. She offered praṇāma to Lord rāma, circumambulating Him four times as a mark of respect and then went to the her husband’s āśrama.

(4) The district of Śrīla Gurudeva’s family is also the site of the āśrama of Nārada Ṛṣī. Nārada had āśramas in many different places, and one of them was in Nāradaulī, no more than four kilometres from Tiwaripur.

(5) As mentioned earlier, the region where Śrīla Gurudeva grew up was previously the kingdom of King Jarāsandha. Jarāsandha, though cruel at heart, was outwardly very charitable, and every day he would give donations to people who came to him. During Lord Kṛṣṇa’s manifest pastimes five thousand years ago, Kṛṣṇa and the two heroic Pāṇḍavas, Arjuna and Bhīma, disguised themselves as brāhmaṇas and visited Jarāsandha in his capital. The king gave them audience and told them to ask for anything they wanted. He was so liberal that he could never refuse any request for charity, so Kṛṣṇa said, “Yuddham dehi–I pray that you will grant give us a battle. We want to fight with you.”

Jarāsandha laughed at the idea of a brāhmaṇa requesting a battle.

“Who are you? Identify yourselves!”

Kṛṣṇa smiled and said, “I am Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa, this is Arjuna and this is Bhīma.”

True to his charitable nature, Jarāsandha immediately granted their request. However, he refused to fight with Arjuna, saying that the mighty warrior was a eunuch. This degrading insult referred to the time when Arjuna was disguised as a woman, in his thirteenth year of exile. This was due to a curse, which enabled him to avoid being tracked down by Duryodhana.

Jarāsandha also refused to fight with Kṛṣṇa, enviously accusing the all-powerful Kṛṣṇa to be a coward. This referred to His performance of His wonderful rancor pastime.

Jarāsandha finally chose Bhīma, considering him to be the fittest and most qualified candidate for him. This was exactly what Kṛṣṇa wanted. He did not want Arjuna to fight with Jarāsandha who was expert at club fighting. Arjuna was the greatest archer but Bhīma was the greatest club fighter and was more than capable of defeating Jarāsandha.

From this pastime we can see that after the exile, two of the Pāṇḍavas did set foot in Bihar along with Lord Kṛṣṇa. Now consider these two points: first of all, they were no longer in exile; and secondly, they were with Lord Kṛṣṇa. As a result, they were very happy there, so the place cannot be rightly called pāṇḍavavarjita-deśa as it was not entirely neglected by the Pāṇḍavas.

Śrīla Gurudeva’s grandfather’s name was Dyānacānda Tiwari and his grandfather’s brother was Gorakhanātha Tiwari. Dyānacānda Tiwari had three sons named Paṇḍita Baleśvaranātha Tiwari, Nandalāla Tiwari and Kamalākānta Tiwari. Gorakhanātha Tiwari’s son was named Śyāmalāla Tiwari. Paṇḍita Baleśvaranātha Tiwari, the eldest son of Dyānacānda Tiwari, was the father of Śrīla Gurudeva.

Śrīla Gurudeva's mother’s name was Śrīmatī Lakṣmī-devī. Both his parents were Vaiṣṇavas belonging to the Śrī sampradāya. They were virtuous, truthful, generous, and were well liked and respected in their community. Paṇḍita Baleśvaranātha Tiwari and Śrīmatī Lakṣmī-devī had eight children–four sons and four daughters. Their first son died as a baby even before his name-giving ceremony. Śrīman Nārāyaṇa (Śrīla Gurudeva) was their second son; the third son was Viśvanātha, and the fourth was Siddhanātha. The names of the four daughters were Motīrānī, Sarasvatī, Phulakeśarī and Anapī.

The three brothers–Paṇḍita Baleśvaranātha, Nandalāla and Kamalākānta–all lived together as one extended family, along with their cousin Śyāmalāla. Along with their wives and children, they all shared the same kitchen and household facilities. That was the culture and traditional way of living. even fifty years ago in India families lived together in this way.

Due to the death of his older brother, Śrīman Nārāyaṇa became the eldest child of Paṇḍita Baleśvaranātha. When a first child dies families become very affectionate to the second child so Śrīla Gurudeva became the object of deep affection from his parents and his uncles and aunts.

S’rīla Gurudeva’s Family Tree

Gorakhanāth Tivārī (M) Dhyānacānda Tivārī (M) Śyāmalāla Tivārī (M)
Nandāla Tivārī (M) Paṇḍit Baleśvaranātha Tivārī (M) Śrīmati Lakṣmī Devī (F) Kamalakānta Tivārī (M)
Expired Before Name Giving (M) Śriman Nārāyan Tivārī (M) Viśvanātha Tivārī (M) Siddhanātha Tivārī (M) Motirānī Tivārī (F) Saravati Tivārī (F) Phulakeśarī Tivari (F) Anapī Tivārī (F)

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

When a renounced person is living with guru in the maṭha, the previous (pūrva) āśrama in which he took birth is called pūrvāśrama.

[2]:

Father-in-law of the cruel hearted King Kaṃsa