Appearance of Srimate Vishnupriya Feb 14, 2013

SRIMATI VISNUPRIYA DEVI

Srimati Visnupriya Devi was the wife of Lord Caitanya before He took sannyasa. After His sannyasa, she lived a life of severe austerity. Every day, she would set aside one grain of rice for every round of the Hare Krsna mantra she chanted. At the end of the day she would cook and offer these few grains to Lord Caitanya, and that would be her meal. She is a manifestation of the internal energy of the Lord. And tomorrow is Her Glorious Appearance Day.

In the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.23-20 we found the following:
The words bhartur vrata-dharma-niṣṭhayā indicate that a woman’s duty, or religious principle, is to serve her husband in all conditions. In Vedic civilization a man is taught from the beginning of his life to become a brahmacārī, then an ideal gṛhastha, then vānaprastha, then sannyāsī, and the wife is taught just to follow the husband strictly in all conditions of life.

After the period of brahmacarya, a man accepts a householder’s life, and the woman is also taught by her parents to be a chaste wife. Thus when a girl and boy are united, both are trained for a life dedicated to a higher purpose. The boy is trained to execute his duty in accordance with the higher purpose of life, and the girl is trained to follow him. The chaste wife’s duty is to keep her husband pleased in householder life in all respects, and when the husband retires from family life, she is to go to the forest and adopt the life of vānaprastha, or vana-vāsī.

At that time the wife is to follow her husband and take care of him, just as she took care of him in householder life. But when the husband takes the renounced order of life, namely sannyāsa, the wife is to return home and become a saintly woman, setting an example for her children and daughters-in-law and showing them how to live a life of austerity.

When Caitanya Mahāprabhu took sannyāsa, His wife, Viṣṇupriyādevī, although only sixteen years old, also took the vow of austerity due to her husband’s leaving home. She chanted her beads, and after finishing one round, she collected one grain of rice. In this way, as many rounds as she chanted, she would receive the same number of rice grains and then cook them and so take prasāda. This is called austerity…