Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Compassionate Embrace Of Leper Devotee Vasudeva Reveals The Power Of Divine Love
A devotional account from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s stay in Puri describes his compassion towards Vasudeva, a leprosy-afflicted Vaishnava. Despite being shunned by people, Vasudeva remained devoted to Krishna. The account says Mahaprabhu embraced him at the Kurma temple, after which his illness disappeared. The story highlights compassion, devotion and seeing beyond physical suffering.
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Compassionate Embrace Of Leper Devotee Vasudeva Reveals The Power Of Divine Love | AI
A moving story is narrated to us of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu during his stay in Puri. Vasudeva was a humble, pious and good-natured Brahmin, who was afflicted with the loathsome disease of leprosy. He was forced to stay as far away from people as he could, as he was completely disfigured by the disease and a foul smell emanated from his putrid sores.
Vasudeva was a true Vaishnava; when maggots used to crawl on his sores; he would carefully pick them up and deposit them in a safe corner where people would not trample on them!
One day, he heard that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was to visit the Kurma temple in the vicinity. He longed to have a darshan of the saint from afar. But the milling crowds in the temple drove him away, saying that Sri Chaitanya had left much earlier. Depressed and dejected, he fell down, exclaiming, “O Krishna, have You no hope to offer me?”
The voice of Krishna’s devotee fell on Sri Chaitanya’s ears; he rushed back to the temple, and seeing Vasudeva, lifted the afflicted bhakta in his arms. To Sri Chaitanya, it did not in the least matter that he was embracing a leper, an outcast who was shunned and reviled by the crowds. All he saw in the leper was a fellow Krishna-bhakta. And a miracle came to pass! Vasudeva’s leprosy disappeared without a trace, and he was hale and hearty, his skin unblemished, his body restored to its vitality and good health!
(Dada J P Vaswani was a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader.)
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