||Hare Krishna||

||Jai Srila Prabhupada||

Sri Sri Radha MadanMohan Ji

(Established by Srila Sanatan Goswami in 1580)

 DwadashAditya Tila
Sri Radha MadanMohan Temple is located on the top of a hillock
called DwadashAditya Tila. This place is connected to Lord Krsna’s
subduing of the Kaliya serpent.
After spending a long time in waters of Yamuna while subduing Kaliya
seprent, Lord Krsna was feeling very cold and he came on top of this
hill to lie down for some time in the sunshine. Understanding that the
Lord was shivering due to being cold, all the twelve forms (dwadasha)
of the sun god, known as Adityas, appeared there and provided their
combined heat in order to warm Krsna’s body. Thus this hill became
known as DwadashAditya Tila and the place on top of the hill where
Lord rested became known as DwadashAditya Yoga-Pitha. Another
name used to describe this same place is ‘Dwadasha Surya Tirtha’
which means Holy place of twelve suns.
Praskandana Ghat is at the bottom of the hill, on the western side. It is
said that when Krsna was being warmed and dried, by the 12 forms of
the sun, he became hot and started perspiring and his perspiration ran
down the hill, forming a small lake immediately beneath it. The word
Praskandana means ‘with perspiration’.
Another Ghat beneath the hillock is Surya Ghat. It is said that
Radharani used to come to this place to offer flowers to the sun god.
 History of deity of MadanMohan Ji and the Temple

MadanMohan means ‘one who can even enchant cupid’. After the
disappearance of Lord Krsna, Maharaja Yudhishthira, unable to bear
the sepration from the Lord, also decided to leave the world. Before
leaving, he coroneted Maharaja Parikshit as the emperor of the world,
and the great grandson of lord Krsna, Vajranabha, as the king of
Mathura.
Vajranabh was requested by the great devotees to restore the glories
of Vrindavan. So Vajranabh decided to excavate those holy places of
Vraja bhumi in which Lord Sri Krishna had performed His Lila, and to
install beautiful and sacred deities in principal places of Vraja Dham.
He sat on the banks of Yamuna under a Kalpavriksha (desire tree) and
prayed to Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. By the auspicious mercy of that
Kalpavriksha tree, Radha and Krishna’s mercy entered his heart and
revealed to him the holy places of Sri Krishna’s Lila. Later when he
decided to install Deities, he called Vishwakarma, the architect of the
demigods. The three principal Deities carved by him were Radha
Madanmohana, Radha Govinda and Radha Gopinath.
Mother Uttara who had seen Krishna directly was present at that time.
When she saw the beautiful form of Radha Madanmohana, she
explained that the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna’s feet are most perfectly
revealed in this Deity.
For a long, long time Madanmohana performed His Lila of being un-
manifested in this world. When the dear and intimate associate of Sri
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Sri Advaita Acharya, descended in this world,
he traveled to many holy places. When he lived in Vrindavan, he was
staying on the banks of Yamuna under the same Banyan tree that is
today called Advaita Vat. Advaita Vata is situated directly in
Praskandana tirtha. There Sri Madanmohana, who is also known
among Gaudiya Vaishnavas as Madan Gopal, revealed Himself to Sri
Advaita Acharya. Before leaving Vrindavan, Sri Advaita Acharya, due
to the fear of Yavanas, and with his desire, with great love, entrusted
the worship of Madan Gopal to one very pure hearted Brahman in
Mathura of the name Purushottam Chaube. This great devotee, who
was completely free from all material inclinations, worshipped Madan
Gopal in the intimacy of his own child.
Later Sanatana Goswami came to Vrindavan, on the order of Lord
Chaitanya. He lived as a simple beggar in the forest of Vrindavan.
Every day he would do Madhukari – go house to house and beg a little
prasad. In Vrindavan, the staple food is roti, so he would take one roti
from each house. When he would be visiting these people, he would
often be invited inside to lead the kirtan and share with them the
transcendental teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Sometimes in the morning, SrilaSanatana Goswami walked sixteen
miles from vrindavana to Govardhan to perform the fourteen miles
parikrama. From there he would walk another sixteen miles to Mathura
to collect alms and then walk again to his Bhajana Kutir in Vrindavana.
Once when he was begging in the town of Mathura, he noticed
something very peculiar.In the house of Sriman Purushottam Chaube ,
two beautiful boys were playing the game of gulli-danda. Madana, the
restless, fidgety boy with a dark-bluish complexion defeated the son of
the Chaube. Madana climbed upon the shoulders of the defeated boy
and enjoyed a ‘horse ride’. But when the Chaube’s son defeated
Madana the second time they played, and it was his turn to enjoy the
ride on Madana’s shoulders, Madana ran into the temple room. Seeing
this, the son of Chaube angrily abused and pursued him. Pointing his
forefinger at Madana, who had turned into a deity, the son of Chaube
said, “You just wait, I will see you tomorrow.”
This scene amazed Sanatana Goswami. The next day, he arrived a little
earlier, at breakfast time, desiring to again have darshan. Although she
had not taken bath, the chaubain was making khichari for both boys,
who were sitting waiting for their breakfast. She was brushing her teeth
with one end of a stick and was stirring the khichari with the other end.
When she had finished cooking, she served the boys with hot khichari
in bowls, cooling it down by blowing on it with her mouth.
When Sanatana saw this, being the author of Hari Bhakti Vilas, which
is the most authoritative book describing the proper process of Deity
worship, he told the Purushottam Chaube, “The Deity of Krishna is
non-different from Krishna Himself. He is the Supreme Personality of
Godhead, the Absolute Truth, and the cause of all causes. He must be
approached with great reverence and devotion. Not that you treat Him
like your own child.” Purushottam Chaube being very humble
apologized and said, “I am sorry. Now by your great mercy I have
understood the proper process of worshipping the Deity.”
That night that beautiful form of Madanmohana appeared to Sri
Sanatana Goswami. Madanmohana told him, “My name is
Madanmohana, and many years ago I was installed by the great
grandson of Krishna, Vajranabh. But over the period of thousands and
thousands of years, I have ultimately been given to the care of this
great brahmana, Purushottam Chaube. He is a pure devotee and
worships me in the vatsalya-rasa. He considers me, in his pure love, to
be his own child. But now that you have trained him in a very formal
process of archana, I am not very satisfied. So very soon this brahmana
will come and he will give this transcendental form of mine to you, as
dakshina. You should worship me with great care and great love as
your life and soul.”
In this way Madanmohana came under the loving care of Sanatana
Goswami. But before , the deity promised to Sanatana that that he
would be satisfied with whatever Sanatana would offer him. Srila
Sanatan Goswami, being a travelling mendicant couldn’t give much
luxury to his deity. Sanatan goswami was practicing madhukari and he
could offer the deity just dry bread balls( called Bati). MadanMohan
asked him, if he could give him at least little salt. To this Sanatan
replied, “I knew you would complain. I told you that I am a poor man
and ou agreed to accept whatever I could offer, so if this isnt good
enough for you, I will take you back to the Chaube’s.”. But
MadanMohan exclaimed, “No,No I will take my Bati without salt, but I
just want to come with you”.
Shortly afterwards, down the DwadashAditya Tila, a merchant’s boat
went aground in the Yamuna River. The owner, Krishnadas Kapoor
was worried about his goods and didn’t know what to do.
MadanMohan took the form of a small boy and led him up upwards to
Sanatana. Merchant described what had happened, but Sanatana replied
that he couldn’t do anythoing about it, being just a sannyasi. But he
told him to pray to MadanMohan deity he had kept just humbly roofed
nearby. The merchant did what Sanatana advised and after a little time,
his boat was released by rising of Yamuna’s waters. Sailing down to
Agra and making a big profit, he later returned to Vrindavan and under
Sanatana’s direction began the construction of MadanMohan Temple.
It was the first temple to be established in Vrindavana.
The ancient hand written books, Seva-praktya and Ishtalabha, mention
that Sanatana Goswami obtained Sri Madan Gopala from Chaube of
Mahavana in 1534 and re-established the deity’s service and worship in
the same year on Shukla-dvitya( second day of bright moon) of
Magha( Jan-Feb). He entrusted the duties of the service and worship to
Krsnadasa Brahmachari. After that he again began performing
Madhukari in vraja. In this way, he maintained his life by living under
a different tree every night and performing rigid sadhana-bhakti.
The devotees understand that Srimati Radharani is the empress of the
heart of Govinda, Gopinath, and Madan Mohan. Therefore, the
Goswamis would worship Srimati Radharani, the supreme object of all
their veneration, within the heart of the Deity. In this way, they
worshiped Radha Govinda, Radha Madan Mohan and Radha Gopinath.
The son of king Prataprudra in Jagannath Puri, Purushottam Jana, felt
that if the common people could visually see Srimati Radharani, they
would be very pleased. He very much wanted that Govinda Dev and
Madanmohana be worshiped along with Srimati Radharani. Therefore,
he sent two beautiful deities of Srimati Radhika to Vrindavan with
many devotees. When this entourage of devotees arrived in Vrindavan
with the Deities, all the Vrajavasis were most joyful. There was a grand
festival to welcome them.
Then the pujari of the Madanmohana Deity had a dream. In that dream
Srimati Radharani appeared to him and explained, “The person who
sent these deities did not know, but one of the deities is me, Sri
Radhikarani, and the larger Deity   is Lalita Sakhi. Lalita Sakhi should
be installed to the right of Sri Madanmohana, and the Deity of Myself,
Sri Radhika, should be installed to the left”. This pujari had such a pure
heart that everyone had complete faith in him. He revealed this dream
to the vrajvasis and all the Goswamis, and they all accepted the wish of
Srimati Radharani. A grand installation took place at the temple of Sri
Sri Radha Madanmohana and the deities were installed according to
their desires.
However, in 1670, when Aurangzeb ordered his soldiers to plunder the
temples in Vraja mandala, Maharaja Jai Singh of Jaipur, moved
MadanMohan secretly to Jaipur for safekeeping along with Govindaji
and Gopinath where they were worshipped for years. The deity was
being worshipped there until the king’s sister got married to the prince
of Karauli area and took the deity of MadanMohan with her. Till this
day, the original 5000 year old deity of Sri MadanMohan ji is being
worshipped in Karauli town of Rajasthan.
During the attack, the spire (sikhara) of the original temple was
dismantled. So a new temple was built next to it down the hill in the
year 1819 by Sri Nand Kumar Bose of Bengal as the old temple was
unfit for worshipping. The Pratibhu forms of the deity are being
worshipped here. There is also a small Govardhan Shila worshipped by
Sanatana Goswami.

Within the temple area of Madanmohan, there is an old well which was
created by MadanMohan himself with his flute to quench the thirst of
his beloved devotee Srila Sanatana Goswami. It is called Krishna
Kupa.
 Samadhi of Srila Sanatan Goswami
Srila Sanatana Goswami left this world at Mansi Ganga at Govardhan
Hill in 1558, on Guru Purnima Day. However his transcendental body
was brought to Vrindavan and buried behind the MadanMohan
Temple. In one corner of the Samadhi Grounds, there is a Grantha
Samadhi( Samadhi of the Scriptures) where Srila Jiva Goswami buried
some of the works of the six goswamis.
Also in the Samadhi Grounds are Pushpa Samadhis of some of Lord
Chaitanya’s close associates like Tapan Misra and Chandrasekhar
Acharya.When Lord Chaitanya was on his journey from Jagannatha
Puri to Vrindavan, he spent around 10 days at Varanasi and stayed at
the house of his old friend Tapan Misra, who was an old acquaintance
of lord Chaitanya from east Bengal. Tapan Misra was father of Srila
Raghunatha Bhatta Goswami, who, while still as a child, got personal
association of Lord Chaitanya. After Lord had his meals and was
resting, Raghunatha used to massage his feet. While at varanasi, Lord
Chaitanya aslo met Chandrasekhar Acharya who was also a friend of
Lord from Navadwipa. On his retun journey, Lord Chaitanya again
spent some time in Varanasi, staying at the house of Chandrasekhar
Acharya and taking meals at the house of Tapan Misra.