Tontroduction
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta  is the principal work on the life and teachings of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya. Śrī Caitanya is the pioneer of a great social and religious movement which began in India a little less than five hundred years ago and which has directly and indirectly influenced the subsequent course of religious and philosophical thinking not only in India but in the recent West as well.
Caitanya Mahāprabhu is regarded as a figure of great historical significance. However, our conventional method of historical analysis—that of seeing a man as a product of his times—fails here. Śrī Caitanya is a personality who transcends the limited scope of historical settings.
At a time when, in the West, man was directing his explorative spirit toward studying the structure of the physical universe and circumnavigating the world in search of new oceans and continents, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, in the East, was inaugurating and masterminding a revolution directed inward, toward a scientific understanding of the highest knowledge of man's spiritual nature.
The chief historical sources for the life of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya are the  kaḍacās  (diaries) kept by Murāri Gupta and Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī. Murāri Gupta, a physician and close associate of Śrī Caitanya's, recorded extensive notes on the first twenty-four years of Śrī Caitanya's life, culminating in his initiation into the renounced order,  sannyāsa . The events of the rest of Caitanya Mahāprabhu's forty-eight years are recorded in the diary of Svarūpa Dāmodora Gosvāmī, another of Caitanya Mahāprabhu's intimate associates.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta  is divided into three sections called  lilās , which literally means “pastimes”— Ādi-lilā  (the early period),  Madhya-lilā  (the middle period) and  Antya-lilā  (the final period). The notes of Murāri Gupta form the basis of the  Ādi-lilā , and Svarūpa Dāmodara’s diary provides the details for the  Madhya-  and  Antya-lilās .
The first twelve of the seventeen chapters of  Ādi-līlā  constitute the preface for the entire work. By referring to Vedic scriptural evidence, this preface establishes Śrī Caitanya as the  avatāra  (incarnation) of Kṛṣṇa (God) for the age of Kali—the current epoch, beginning five thousand years ago and characterized by materialism, hypocrisy and dissension. In these descriptions, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who is identical with Lord Kṛṣṇa, descends to liberally grant pure love of God to the fallen souls of this degraded age by propagating  saṅkirtana —literally, “congregational glorification of God”—especially by organizing massive public chanting of the  mahā-mantra  (Great Chant for Deliverance). The esoteric purpose of Lord Caitanya’s appearance in the world is revealed, his co- avatāras  and principal devotees are described and his teachings are summarized. The remaining portion of  Ādi-līlā , chapters thirteen through seventeen, briefly recounts his divine birth and his life until he accepted the renounced order. This includes his childhood miracles, schooling, marriage and early philosophical confrontations, as well as his organization of a widespread  saṅkirtana  movement and his civil disobedience against the repression of the Mohammedan government.
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