Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami
From the book “Sri Vraja-maṇḍala-parikramā”:
Mahāvana and Gokula are in fact one and the same place. Nanda Bābā along with his family members journeyed from Nandagaon to Bṛhadvana, or Mahāvana, where they settled down. Mahāvana is called Gokula because go (cows), gopas, gopīs and so forth resided here. At the time of Nanda Bābā, Gokula was not a separate village or town. In fact, the current village of Gokula is a recent settlement. Nanda Bābā’s cowshed was in Gokula.
About five hundred years ago, after Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s arrival in Vraja, Śrī Vallabhācārya sat on this beautiful bank beside the Yamunā and read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from beginning to end. Śrī Vallabhācārya’s son, Śrī Viṭṭhalācārya, and his son, Śrī Gokulanātha, also have sitting-places (baiṭhakas) here. In fact, Śrī Viṭṭhalācārya tricked Aurangzeb and leased this place in his own name. It was actually he who founded Gokula. After them, the son of Śrī Gokulanātha resided here together with his family members. The gosvāmīs of the dynasty of Śrī Vallabha only lived in Gokula, where they established the deities of Mathureśa, Viṭṭhalanātha, Dvārikādhīśa, Gokula-candramā, Bāla-Kṛṣṇa and Śrī Madana-mohana. Later, Śrī Mathureśa went to Koṭā, Śrī Viṭṭhalanātha to Nāthadvārā, Śrī Dvārakādhīśa to Kāṅkraulī, Gokula-candramā to Kāmyavana, Śrī Bāla-Kṛṣṇa to Sūrata and Madana-mohana to Kāmyavana. Since the gosvāmīs in the dynasty of Śrī Vallabha reside in Gokula, they are well-known as the Gokula gosvāmīs.
Rajashekhara Dasa
From the book “Chaurasi-kosa Vraja Mandala Parikrama”:
Mahavana is one of the twelve sacred forests of Vraja and although it was once a large and verdant forest with a parikrama of around nine miles (13km), there are hardly any trees remaining today. Many Puranas refer to this forest by the name of ‘Brihatvana’ meaning ‘great forest’. Mahavana was the second largest forest after Kamyavana and the name ‘Mahavana’ means ‘great forest’. Nevertheless, one can still see all the places where Krishna enjoyed His transcendental pastimes during His early childhood (kaumara-lila) at Gokula. The ancient village of Gokula, which is presently known as Mahavana, is the actual village where Nanda Maharaja and Yashoda Mayi had their residence and where Krishna spent the first three and a half years of His childhood. The name ‘Gokula’ has a number of meanings including the residential place of cows. The word ‘go’ means ‘cow’ and ‘kula’ means a ‘residence’ or ‘living place’, or even a ‘herd of cows’. In other words Gokula was the residential village inhabited by cowherd men and their cows. The Bhakti-ratnakara says, “This place Mahavana and Gokula are one and the same. The beauty of this place is so enchanting that gradually Upananda and other cowherd men settled here. The many childhood pastimes Krishna performed here gladdened the hearts of the cowherd men and women. O Shrinivasa, see this old tree, the beauty of which is beyond description.”
Krishna’s childhood pastimes at Gokula are in particular very sweet, and more easily understood by the ordinary people in general. Krishna’s pastimes of stealing butter and yogurt from the houses of the married gopis and then feeding that same stolen butter and yogurt to His friends and also the monkeys, or His letting loose the gopis calves so they would drank all the cow’s milk, or His slaying of so many demons, are just some of Krishna’s many childhood pastimes that can be appreciated by people of all ages. On the other hand, Krishna’s amorous pastimes with the young gopis of Vraja are not so easily understood, even by greatly learned scholars, philosophers, and pious religionists.
