Rajashekhara Dasa
From the book “Chaurasi-kosa Vraja Mandala Parikrama”:
This ghata was named after the five Pandavas who were the sons of Maharaja Pandu and the heroes of the Mahabharata war. It is said that these five brothers took birth here in the form of trees on the bank of Shyama-kunda in order to meditate on the transcendental pastimes of Radha and Krishna. During the excavation of Shyama-kunda, these five trees were going to be cut down along with others so that Shyama-kunda could be made into a square-shape, the same as Radha-kunda. The night before the trees were to be cut down, Raghunatha Dasa Goswami had a dream in which Yudhisthira Maharaja appeared before him and told him that the five trees on the bank of Shyama-kunda were in fact the five Pandavas, and requested Raghunatha not to cut them down. Consequently, after receiving the dream, Raghunatha Dasa cancelled the cutting of the trees and therefore Shyama-kunda was made in the tri-angular shape seen today. Directly in front of Vishwanatha Chakravarti’s bhajana-kutira is a dead tree trunk that is said to have been the tree in which Bhima took birth. The last of the five trees still alive is an ashoka tree said to be the Pandava hero Arjuna, which is situated about thirty meters along the ghata to the east. The locals say that this tree has existed as long as anyone can remember and flowers once a year.
