20 Srimad-Bhagavatam

saturated with transcendental ecstasy and fell down on the floor of the
temple unconscious. The custodians of the temple could not understand
the transcendental feats of the Lord, but there was a great learned pandit
named Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya, who was present, and he could under-
stand that the Lord’s losing His consciousness upon entering the Jagannatha
temple was not an ordinary thing. Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya, who was the
chief appointed pandit in the court of the King of Orissa, Maharaja
Prataparudra, was attracted by the youthful luster of Lord Sri Caitanya
Mahaprabhu and could understand that such a transcendental trance was
only rarely exhibited and only then by the topmost devotees who are
already on the transcendental plane in complete forgetfulness of material
existence. Only a liberated soul could show such a transcendental feat, and
the Bhattacarya, who was vastly learned, could understand this in the light
of the transcendental literature with which he was familiar. He therefore
asked the custodians of the temple not to disturb the unknown sannyasi.
He asked them to take the Lord to his home so He could be further
observed in His unconscious state. The Lord was at once carried to the
home of Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya, who at that time had sufficient power
of authority due to his being the sabha pandit or the state dean of faculty
in Sanskrit literatures. The learned pandit wanted to scrutinizingly test the
transcendental feats of Lord Caitanya because often unscrupulous devotees
imitate physical feats in order to flaunt transcendental achievements just
to attract innocent people and take advantage of them. A learned scholar
like the Bhattacarya can detect such imposters, and when he finds them
out he at once rejects them.

In the case of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the Bhattacarya tested all the
symptoms in the light of the sdstras. He tested as a scientist, not as a foolish
sentimentalist. He observed the movement of the stomach, the beating of
the heart and the breathing of the nostrils. He also felt the pulse of the
Lord and saw that all His bodily activities were in complete suspension.
When he put a small cotton swab before the nostrils, he found that there
was a slight breathing as the fine fibers of cotton moved slightly. Thus he
came to know that the Lord’s unconscious trance was genuine, and he began
to treat Him in the prescribed fashion. But Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu could
only be treated in a special way. He would only respond to the resounding
of the holy names of the Lord by His devotees. This special treatment was
unknown to Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya because the Lord was still unknown
to him. When he saw Him for the first time in the temple, he simply took
Him to be one of many pilgrims.
