After a few years
of stay at Barpeta, Sankaradeva set out again on a pilgrimage near about 1550 A.D. One
hundred and twenty devotees accompanied him. During this journey, he was said to have
caught a glimpse of Chaitanya at Puri. Unfortunately his biographies testify that he had
no
opportunity to talk with the great saint of Bengal. The other notable Vaishnava
personality he came into contact with in this journey was the granddaughter of Kabir.On return, from second pilgrimage, Sankaradeva resumed his customary works of
prayer, meditation and nam-kirtan, and gave religious instructions and initiation to a
large number of people. But the Brahmana pundits of king Naranarayana's court did not like
the growing popularity of Sankaradeva's
activities, which they considered mleccha acaras or non-Vedic. King Naranarayana
(1540-1584) summoned Sankaradeva to his court and the saint by his scholarship and
erudition defeated the Brahmana pundits in a contest. Sankaradeva then expounded before
the king the main principles of the Bhakti-dharma with relevant citations from the
Bhagavata Purana and other Vaishnava texts. |
