Introduction
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with awe and veneration. Sometimes the young girls took pleasure in making the Lord cry and then stopping Him by chanting the holy name. So from His very childhood the Lord began to preach the importance of the holy name. In His early age Lord Śrī Caitanya was known as Nimāi. This name was given by His beloved mother because the Lord took His birth beneath a  nim  tree in the courtyard of His paternal house.
When the Lord was offered solid food at the age of six months in the  anna-prāśana  ceremony, the Lord indicated His future activities. At this time it was customary to offer the child both coins and books in order to get some indication of the future tendencies of the child. The Lord was offered on one side coins and on the other the  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam . The Lord accepted the  Bhāgavatam  instead of the coins.
When He was a mere baby crawling in the yard, one day a snake appeared before Him, and the Lord began to play with it. All the members of the house were struck with fear and awe, but after a little while the snake went away, and the baby was taken away by His mother. Once He was stolen by a thief who intended to steal His ornaments, but the Lord took a pleasure trip on the shoulder of the bewildered thief who was searching for a solitary place in order to rob the baby. It so happened that the thief, wandering hither and thither, finally arrived just before the house of Jagannātha Miśra and, being afraid of being caught, dropped the baby at once. Of course the anxious parents and relatives were glad to see the lost child.
Once a pilgrim  brāhmaṇa  was received at the house of Jagannātha Miśra, and when he was offering food to the Godhead, the Lord appeared before him and partook of the prepared food. The eatables had to be rejected because the child touched them, and so the  brāhmaṇa  had to make another preparation. The next time the same thing happened, and when this happened repeatedly for the third time, the baby was finally put to bed. At about twelve at night when all the members of the house were fast asleep within their closed rooms, the pilgrim  brāhmaṇa  offered his specially prepared foods to the Deity, and, in the same way, the baby Lord appeared before the pilgrim and spoiled his offerings. The  brāhmaṇa  then began to cry, but since everyone was fast asleep, no one could hear him. At that time the baby Lord appeared before the fortunate  brāhmaṇa  and disclosed His identity as Kṛṣṇa Himself. The  brāhmaṇa  was forbidden to disclose this incidence, and the baby returned to the lap of His mother.
There are many similar incidences in His childhood. As a naughty boy He sometimes used to tease the orthodox  brāhmaṇas  who used to bathe in the Ganges. When the  brāhmaṇas  complained to His father that He was