Bauri Giri’s daughter Pata Devi was very devoted to Gopal. From her early childhood she would come to see Gopal every day. Every morning she would sweep Gopal’s temple, make garlands, and cook for Him. Pata Devi married Ishwara Manik from the nearby village of Jagannathpur. Like the Giri family, Ishwara Manik was also in the business of selling bell metal. Ishwara and Pata had two sons, named Braja Bandhu and Kripa Sindhu, and one daughter named Swadhuri Devi. Their eldest son, Braja Bandhu, born on September 2, 1929, was later to be known as Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja. Being married did not detract from Pata Devi's devotion to Gopal. Although living 14 kilometers away in Jagannathpur, she always managed to come during festival times to serve Gopal. Pata Devi was always quiet and absorbed in serving her husband and children – every Saturday she would fast as an offering for their well-being. Each morning she would worship Lord Jagannath and recite from the Puräëa and Bhagavad-gétä. Every evening she chanted hare kåñëa and performed tulasé-parikramä with her husband and her son Braja Bandhu. After parikramä she would recite from the Çrémad Bhägavatam. Any beggar or sädhu that came to her house never went away empty-handed.
Once a famous blind astrologer named Nityananda Khadiratna traveled from Dhenkanal and stayed two days in Gadeigiri. At that time Braja Bandhu was a small child and he and his mother were staying at his uncle’s house in Gadeigiri. Pata Devi took her son to the astrologer, desiring to know something about his future. The astrologer said, “This boy is very intelligent and is full of devotion. He will be married and get government service. In his middle age he will give up family life and become a sädhu. He will acquire high knowledge and an important place on the map of sädhus. He will build temples. He will make Gopal's place bright. Lastly the astrologer said that God Himself has sent this child from His abode to the material world for preaching His message and for the deliverance of the conditioned souls.
Attachment to the Bhägavatam
Pata Devi was eager that her Braja Bandhu would become a devotee of Çrémad Bhägavatam, and she became very happy seeing that by her influence her eldest son was developing such attachment. By the age of eight Braja Bandhu had read the entire Bhagavad-gétä, Çrémad Bhägavatam and Çré Caitanya-carétamåta, and he could also explain their meanings. At night many villagers would come to hear his recitation of the *Odiya Bhägavata, Rämayäëa and Mahäbhärata. However, young Braja Bandhu was particularly attached to the Çrémad Bhägavatam. His old friend Fakir Charan Das recounts:
Srila Gurudeva once told me that whenever as a young boy he would become naughty and not stop crying, his mother would simply put the Çrémad Bhägavatam in his hands and he would stop. He as so much inclined to read the Bhägavatam that if he were reading he would forget to take his meal. The family was too poor to afford candles or a lamp for reading, so in the evening he would sit close to his mother’s cooing fire and read Çrémad Bhägavatam. At night he would go to sleep clutching the Bhägavatam to his chest.
From 1942 to 1945 Braja Bandhu stayed in Gadeigiri with his maternal uncles Gopinath and Jagannath Giri and he attended high school in nearby Balikuda.
Although Braja Bandhu often engaged in kértana with his uncles, still he did not neglect his school studies. During the day Braja Bandhu would engage in study, in the evening he would join the kértana with his uncles. Young Braja Bandhu was a quiet and serious boy. He did not engage in play with the other children and he showed no interest in cinema or mundane theatre. Whatever free time he had after completing his studies he would spend doing kértana with his uncles or in rendering various services to Gopal. Braja Bandhu would clean Gopal's temple, pick flowers for His worship, make garlands, and recite verses and songs for Gopal's pleasure. He would never take any food that was not offered to Gopal. As a child he was not interested in sleep and would only rest for three or four hours a night, a habit he maintained his whole life.
Ghanashyam Giri was taking care of Gopal's worship. Braja Bandhu would come and together they would perform kértana and render service to Gopal. Damodara Giri was a good singer and was expert in kértana. He was working in Bengal, but whenever he got the opportunity he would come to Gopal to perform kértana. These three, Ghanashyam Giri, Damodar Giri and Braja Bandhu often sat together and performed kértana.
Household Life
In 1952, on the request of his mother, Braja Bandhu entered household life. He first met his wife, Srimati Vasanti Devi, during their marriage ceremony. Family members recall how during the wedding ceremony while everyone was enjoying the festivities Braja Bandhu was sitting sadly by himself quietly chanting hare kåñëa. He considered family life a material entanglement and an impediment to his service to Gopal. He never wanted to marry.
Braja Bandhu’s father passed away in 1955, and as the eldest son he was responsible for maintaining the family. Owing to financial constraints he could not enroll formally in University course, but he studied privately at night to attend the examinations, obtaining a B.A. degree from Utkal University with overall second highest marks on the exam. He later obtained a B.Ed. degree in a similar way and obtained government service as a schoolteacher.
During the course of the next nineteen years Braja Bandhu and Vasanti Devi had four sons and three daughters. Despite many family responsibilities, Braja Bandhu’s devotion to Gopal never slackened. He would rise daily at 3.30 am, chant the hare kåñëa mahä-mantra, worship Tulasi, and speak to his family from Bhagavad-gétä. In school he took every opportunity to speak to his students about Krishna and devotional principles. Thirty years later some of those same students would become his disciples. During school breaks he would take his wife and travel to the Himalayan Mountains, visiting different térthas (holy places) and ashrams, and he would sometimes engage in philosophical debates with the mayävädés (impersonalists) he found there.
“Please Give Me Prema”
Throughout his life he wrote daily entries in his diary. For the most part these were in the form of letters to Gopal. Each entry would begin, prabhu gopäla kåparu, kaunasi mate dinoti koti gale – “By the mercy of Prabhu Gopal, this day was spent thus. . . “ The diary entries would end with a prayer to Gopal, “Please give me prema-bhakti, ecstatic love of God.”
Leaving Home
Out of respect to his mother, he spent twenty-two years in household life. At the age of forty-five, on 10th April 1974, at the end of the school year, he completed his routine teaching duties and then gave a letter of resignation to Prahlad Mahanty, the headmaster of the Bunbihari High School in Kujanga.
Leaving the school, he went home. He did not say anything to his family, but he packed his Bhagavad-gétä, two gaàuchäs, a pen, a pencil, and one notebook. That night, while his family was sleeping, he quietly got up at midnight and walked a half-mile away to a nearby temple known as Kakudia Math. He had decided to become a sannyäsé, a wandering mendicant, entrusting the care of his family to his eldest son Vijay, aged 19.
Leaving his old life behind, Braja Bandhu took on a new name, “Gour Gopal”. “Gour” for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who is also known as Lord Gouranga, and “Gopal” after his beloved childhood deity.
Gour Govinda Swami
Receiving Gopal's blessings, Gour Gopal left Gadeigiri and traveled to Cuttack, where he spent the night. The next morning he set off by train to the Himalayas where he wandered in search of a guru.
Not having money for the train ticket, Gour Gopal convinced the ticket collector to allow him free passage to Mathura. It was September 1974. For some time he moved from place to place, staying at different ashrams for one night at a time. At one Gaudiya Vaishnava temple, seeing that he didn’t have a çikhä the devotees mistook him for a mäyävädé sannyäsé and kicked him out. After some days he came to The International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Arriving at their property in Ramana Reti, Vrindavan, one devotee gave him a copy of the society’s magazine, Back to Godhead. Seeing the photo in the magazine of the Founder-acharya, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, he immediately felt attracted to him. He decided that he must go to see Srila Prabhupada. However, when Srila Prabhupada’s secretary saw his matted hair, beard, and torn cloth he was reluctant to allow him in.
Hearing about Gour Gopal's academic ability, Srila Prabhupada requested him to translate one of his articles from the Back to Godhead magazine into Hindi. Srila Prabhupada appreciated the work and ordered him to translate more. Gour Gopal then translated Srila Prabhupada’s first book, Easy Journey to Other Planets, into Hindi. Aside from translating, Gour Gopal engaged in whatever service was requested of him. He cooked, washed pots, and cleaned the temple. A few months later in Bombay he received first initiation from Srila Prabhupada. At that time his name became Gour Govinda Das. A few months after that in Mayapur, West Bengal, Srila Prabhupada gave him second initiation and sent him to preach in *Odisha.
Sannyäsa
After taking sannyäsa, Gour Govinda Swami came back to *Odisha and stayed in Puri at the Veda Bhavan. Srila Prabhupada gave Gour Govinda Swami three principal instructions, to translate his books from English into Oriya, to build a temple in Bhubaneswar, and to preach all over the world. Gour Govinda Swami molded his life around these instructions. It was his policy to not eat anything until he had completed his quota of translation for the day. Even after undergoing long international flights he would always insist upon first doing the translation work given to him by his spiritual master before he would eat or sleep. He maintained this practice up to his last day.
Following Srila Prabhupada’s order, Gour Govinda Maharaja inspired and headed up many preaching programs in the State of *Odisha. He established simple Padayäträ festivals and Näma-haööa programs that have helped thousands of people in this ancient land discover their spiritual roots and take up the chanting of the mahä-mantra:
hare kåñëa hare kåñëa kåñëa kåñëa hare hare,
hare räma hare räma räma räma hare hare.
Acting on the instruction of his spiritual master, Srila Gour Govinda Swami began going overseas for preaching in 1985. Despite a crippling leg injury, he continued this service for the following eleven years. Gour Govinda Swami was famous for his strong preaching and knowledge of the scriptures. He would substantiate everything he said with evidence from the Vedic literature.
In 1991, on Nityananda Trayodasi, the auspicious appearance day of Lord Nityananda Prabhu, after sixteen years of determined endeavor, Gour Govinda Maharaja fulfilled Srila Prabhupada’s instruction by opening the magnificent Sri Sri Krishna Balaram temple in Bhubaneswar. Since that time the Krishna Balaram Mandir has grown into a flourishing project that every year attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Ghanashyam Giri’s father, Gopinath Giri, departed this world in 1964. From 1964 until 1992 Ghanashyam Giri was entrusted with serving Gopal. He worked very hard to make Gopal happy, but after some time he found that there was very little help.
Concerned about how Gopal's service could be maintained, he remembered his cousin-brother Braja Bandhu Manik who had become a sannyäsé-guru in ISKCON and was now known as Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja. Ghanashyam Giri thought that since Gour Govinda Swami had so much devotion for Gopal he would be the appropriate person to whom to pass on the service of Gopal.
In the meantime, Gour Govinda Swami was regularly coming to Gadeigiri for darçana. Before and after traveling abroad for his preaching tours he would always go to seek the blessings of Gopal. In 1989 Gour Govinda Swami began bringing devotees from the ISKCON temple in Bhubaneswar to Gadeigiri to celebrate Rädhäñöami, the appearance festival of Srimati Radharani. This developed into a grand festival of kértana , lectures and prasädam, and many of the local villagers would enthusiastically participate.
Again, Ghanashyam Giri decided to give Gopal to Gour Govinda Swami. They discussed the matter and Gour Govinda Swami immediately accepted Gopal and the property, and on 15 November 1993 he recorded everything in the name of ISKCON, the institution of his spiritual master. Gour Govinda Swami then sent two disciples to Gadeigiri. They arranged to fix the broken temple building and made nice arrangements for Gopal's worship. The existing temple for Gopal was very small and simple. Now that Gopal was under his care, Gour Govinda Swami wanted to build something nice for Gopal. He was very eager to see the work begin. On January 17, 1994 Gour Govinda Swami laid the foundation stone for Gopal's new temple and he installed a deity of Ananta Sesha.
Disappearance
In late January 1996, Gour Govinda Swami mentioned, “Srila Bhaktisiddhanta said that this material world is not a fit place for any gentleman. Therefore, because he was disgusted, he left this world prematurely. I may also leave. I don’t know. Let me ask Gopal. I will do whatever He wants.” The next day he went to Gadeigiri to see Gopal. After returning, for the next four days he lectured before thousands of people at the Prahupada Centennial festival (Hare Krishna Utsava) in Bhubaneswar. Then he left for the annual ISKCON management meetings in Sridham Mayapur.
In Mayapur on February 9, 1996, the holy appearance day of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, two senior ISKCON devotees requested an appointment in the early evening to see Gour Govinda Maharaja. They inquired, “Why did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu stay in Jagannth Puri?” He enthusiastically began to explain the confidential significance of Mahaprabhu’s pastimes in Puri. He described the pains of separation felt by Radha and Krishna when Krishna was away from Vrindavan. He gradually unfolded the pastime to the point where Radha and Krishna were finally united after Their long separation. He described how Krishna became so ecstatic upon seeing Radharani that He manifested a form with big round eyes and shrunken limbs (Lord Jagannath). At that time the devotees noticed that tears had come to his eyes and his voice had become choked up. Barely audible, he said, “Then the eyes of Krishna fell upon the eyes of Radhrani. . . .eye-to-eye union.” Unable to continue, he apologized with folded hands, “Please excuse me. I cannot speak.” He then gave his final instruction: “Kértana ! Kértana !” The devotees present began to chant as he calmly lay back on his bed, breathing slowly and deeply. Upon his request a servant placed a picture of Gopal Jiu in his hand. Then, gazing lovingly at that picture of his worshipable deity, Gour Govinda Swami uttered, “Gopal!” Then his eyes closed and he lost external consciousness.
On 18th March 1991 Gour Govinda Swami brought some of his western disciples to Gadeigiri and spoke a few words about Gopal:
“From my boyhood this deity has occupied my heart. Everywhere I look I am seeing Him. Most of my childhood I spent here. I am 62 years old. Any day I may pass away, die. I have this desire that here in Gopal's place something be built. That will make me happy.”
