Rajashekhara Dasa
From the book “Chaurasi-kosa Vraja Mandala Parikrama”:
This temple on the northern banks of Pavana-sarovara is the place where Radha and Her sakhis would sport in the cooling waters of the sacred sarovara and where it is said Radha’s father Vrishabhanu Maharaja, constructed a beautiful lake-side palace for his beloved daughter. Pavana-sarovara was very dear to Radharani because of its association with Krishna and She performed many delightful pastimes on the banks of the lake. In an intimate poem addressed to Radharani found in the Sankalpa-kalpadruma of Srila Vishvanath Chakravati Thakura it says, “For the purpose of taking a cooling bath, You will enter the waters of Pavana-sarovara. At the same time Krishna and His boyfriends will be bathing on the opposite side of the sarovara. Unseen by others, Krishna will dive beneath the surface and after swimming across the lake, embrace You underwater, and then return back. Even though Jatila and Kutila will be standing nearby, and Balarama and others will be bathing there, no one will understand.”
Nearby to the Pavana-Bihari temple is the baithaka of Vallabhacharya who established many baithakas around Vraja where he would recite the Bhagavatam. Some say Lord Chaitanya’s baithaka is located here but there is no shastric evidence to support such claims. The confusion has arisen because the followers of Vallabhcharya have wrongly started addressing him as Mahaprabhu as part of a misguided campaign to artificially elevate their guru to the same level as the incarnation of God, the ‘Golden Avatara’, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Only a bona-fide incarnation can be called Mahaprabhu, not an ordinary mortal being.
