Na-Pāḍā

Resting Place of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu

Napāḍā is situated in the district of Bardhamān. One can get down at Napāḍā stoppage by Kāṭwā-Bākalsā bus. From there by five/seven minutes walk through the village one can come to Vaiṣṇava-tīrtha Viśrāmatalā (Resting Place) on the banks of the Ajaya River. This village is near to Kulāi Pāṭa.

When Mahāprabhu was traveling in trance through Rāḍhadeśa after His sannyāsa, He took rest here for some time. Here the shadow of a large banyan tree is expanded and on the side there is a Tamāla tree. It is known from the local aged persons that these two trees have been standing here since ancient times. Mahāprabhu took rest under this tree. There were nine (Na) sections (Pāḍā) of this village when Mahāprabhu came here and thus the village was named as ‘Na-pāḍā’. Mahāprabhu begged alms here at the brāhmin-pāḍā but nobody gave any. Since then the brāhmins of this village became very poor. They left the village by becoming vagabonds and went away to different places. Presently no brāhmins are living in this village.

By not getting any alms there Mahāprabhu went to the nearby village of Bhāṇḍāra-gaḍiyā. In that village immediately after Mahāprabhu started begging, the villagers gave Him in charity rice, dāla etc whatever they had in their storehouse (Bhāṇḍāra). Then Mahāprabhu blessed them, ‘In this village, nobody will have any scarcity of anything.’ As the villagers emptied their storehouse by giving everything to Mahāprabhu, He gave the name of the village as ‘Bhāṇḍāra-gaḍiyā’. Till today this village has calm and dense banyan and tamāla trees which are witnessing the ancient events.

There is proper arrangement of worship in this temple. The worship etc in this Śrīpāṭa is being managed by Mādhāitalā Śrīpāṭa of Kāṭwā. The temple has a lot of property and it is sufficient for managing the temple financially.