Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami
From the book “Sri Vraja-mandala-parikrama”:
The current name of Śakaṭīkarā is Chaṭṭīkarā. It is on the Delhi–Mathurā highway, about four miles from Mathurā and two miles from Vṛndāvana. Concerned by the violence of the demons in Gokula-Mahāvana, Nanda Bābā came to Śakaṭīkarā with all the Vrajavāsīs. They established a place to live here by arranging their hundreds of thousands of bullock-carts in the shape of a crescent moon. This place became known as Śakaṭīkarā because the Vrajavāsīs used bullock-carts (śakaṭa) to set up their residence. Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Śrī Balarāma would go from here to sweet Vṛndāvana and other nearby places to graze the calves and cows. Kṛṣṇa performed rāsa-līlā and other Vraja pastimes while living here. At that time, Vṛndāvana, the place of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s playful pastimes, was not a prosperous city but a rural area ornamented with many varieties of groves, creepers and attractive forests.
