The young
students at the Sanskrit schools in Nadiya naturally found all this
very amusing, and cracked jokes to their hearts' content on the crazy
enthusiasts.
In January 1510, Chaitanya suddenly took it into his head to become a
Sanyasi or ascetic, and received initiation at the hands of Keshab
Bh??rati of Katwa. Some say he did this to gain respect and credit as a
religious preacher, others say it was done in consequence of a curse
laid on him by a Brahman whom he had offended. Be this as it may, his
craziness seems now to have reached its height. He wandered off from
his home, in the first instance, to Pur?® to see the shrine of
Jagann??th. Thence for six years he roamed all over India preaching
Vaish.navism, and returned at last to Pur?®, where he passed the
remaining eighteen years of his life and where at length he died in the
48th year of his age in 1534 A.D. His Bengali followers visited him
for four months in every year and some of them always kept watch over
him, for he was now quite mad.
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