CHAPTER TWO
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Sanatan Goswam1i

I offer my respectful obeisances unto Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, by whose
mercy even a person in the lowest status of life can find direction in transcendental
devotional service to the Lord.

After Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepted the renounced order of life,
Sannyasa, He travelled all over India. During this period, He went to Maldaha,
a district in Bengal, and in that portion of the land there was a village by the
name of Ramkeli. Two government ministers of the Nawab Hussain Shah’s
regime lived there, namely Dabir Khas and Shakar Mallik, later renamed
Sanatan Goswami and Rupa Goswami. They had a chance to meet Lord
Chaitanya, and after meeting Him they decided that they would retire from
the government service and join His Samkirtan movement. The two brothers
at once took steps to leave their material engagements, and appointed two
learned Brahmins to perform certain Vedic religious rituals in order to achieve
complete freedom for the devotional service of Krishna.

These preliminary activities are known as Purascharya. The ritual function

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