Sri Gaur Sundar & Sri Laksmipriyadevi & Sri Visnupriyadevi
Information – On the middle altar is Gaura Narayana along with His two consorts. On His right is Lakshmipriyadevi and on His left is Vishnupriyadevi.
Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the great apostle of love of God and the father of the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord, advented Himself at Śrīdhāma Māyāpura, a quarter in the city of Navadvīpa in Bengal, on the Phālgunī Pūrṇimā evening in the year 1407 Śakābda (corresponding to February 1486 by the Christian calendar).
His father, Śrī Jagannātha Miśra, a learned brāhmaṇa from the district of Sylhet, came to Navadvīpa as a student because at that time Navadvīpa was considered to be the center of education and culture. He domiciled on the banks of the Ganges after marrying Śrīmatī Śacīdevī, a daughter of Śrīla Nīlāmbara Cakravartī, the great learned scholar of Navadvīpa.
Jagannātha Miśra had a number of daughters by his wife, Śrīmatī Śacīdevī, and most of them expired at an early age. Two surviving sons, Śrī Viśvarūpa and Viśvambhara, became at last the object of their paternal affection. The tenth and youngest son, who was named Viśvambhara, later became known as Nimāi Paṇḍita and then, after accepting the renounced order of life, Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu exhibited His transcendental activities for forty-eight years and then disappeared in the year 1455 Śakābda at Purī.
For His first twenty-four years He remained at Navadvīpa as a student and householder. His first wife was Śrīmatī Lakṣmīpriyā, who died at an early age when the Lord was away from home. When He returned from East Bengal He was requested by His mother to accept a second wife, and He agreed. His second wife was Śrīmatī Viṣṇupriyā Devī, who bore the separation of the Lord throughout her life because the Lord took the order of sannyāsa at the age of twenty-four, when Śrīmatī Viṣṇupriyā was barely sixteen years old.
(SB introduction)
We offer our respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of the Lord, upon whom one should always meditate. He left His householder life, leaving aside His eternal consort, whom even the denizens of heaven adore. He went into the forest to deliver the fallen souls, who are put into illusion by material energy.” To accept sannyāsa means to commit civil suicide, but sannyāsa is compulsory, at least for every brāhmaṇa, every first-class human being. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu had a very young and beautiful wife and a very affectionate mother. Indeed, the affectionate dealings of His family members were so pleasing that even the demigods could not expect such happiness at home. Nevertheless, for the deliverance of all the fallen souls of the world, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu took sannyāsa and left home when He was only twenty-four years old. He lived a very strict life as a sannyāsī, refusing all bodily comforts.
(SB 6.10.8)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Caitanya Mahāprabhu went to East Bengal for teaching, and actually, the girl felt too much separation, and she died. And figuratively it is used that the separation took the form of a serpent and bitten her, and she died. And when He came back His mother requested that “You should marry for the second time,” and He agreed. And so next marriage was with Viṣṇupriyā.
(690804 – Conversation on Lord Caitanya Play – Los Angeles)
O my Lord! You are eternally existing—in the past, present, and future—yet You are the son of Śrī Jagannātha Miśra. I offer my repeated obeisances unto You along with Your associates (Your devotee servants), Your sons (Your Gosvāmī disciples or the processes of devotional service, such as the congregational chanting of the holy name), and Your consorts (who, according to regulative principles, refer to Viṣṇupriyā, who is Bhū-śakti, Lakṣmīpriyā, who is Śrī-śakti, and Navadvīpa, which is Nīlā, Līlā, or Durgā, and, according to devotional principles, refer to the two Gadādharas, Narahari, Rāmānanda, Jagadānanda, and others).
(Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata, Ādi-khaṇḍa 1.2)
The Ādi-khaṇḍa describes the disappearance of Lakṣmīpriyā and the Lord’s second marriage with the daughter of the Rāja Paṇḍita.
COMMENTARY
The Lord’s first wife was Lakṣmīpriyādevī. The word vijaya in this verse indicates that she gave up her body and returned to her own abode. The Lord then married Śrī Viṣṇupriyādevī, the daughter of Sanātana Miśra, who was the king’s priest.
(Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata, Ādi-khaṇḍa 1.110)
Śrī Sanātana Miśra took birth in the family of Rāja-paṇḍitas. Poets headed by Jayadeva, the author of Śrī Gīta-govinda, were renowned as Rāja-paṇḍitas. Lakṣmīdevī, the daughter in the family of Rāja-paṇḍitas, incarnated to serve Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nārāyaṇa. On seeing Śrī Gaura- Nārāyaṇa’s display of vipralambha rather than opulence, Śrī Lakṣmī could not remain steady. In order to serve the Lord’s vipralambha pastimes, she abandoned all the opulence of Vaikuṇṭha and manifested a mood of subordination to Lord Caitanya’s feelings of separation in the pastimes of Śrī Caitanya. In order to demonstrate that the feelings of separation, which enhance the concept of conjugal pastimes, that Lord Kṛṣṇa exhibited in His Gaura pastimes are supremely relevant for unfortunate people, Gaurasundara became the life and soul of the Rājapaṇḍita’s daughter. May those pastimes be glorified.
(Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata, Madhya-khaṇḍa 13.254 Commentary)
For further reading, please refer to:
Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata, Ādi-khaṇḍa : Chapter Fifteen, entitled, “The Marriage of Śrī Viṣṇupriyā.”