When he was about eighteen his father died, and he soon afterwards married Lachhmi Debi, daughter of Balabhadra Achârjya, and entered on the career of a _grihastha_ or householder, taking in pupils whom he instructed in ordinary secular learning. He does not appear, however, to have kept to this quiet life for long; he went off on a wandering tour all over Eastern Bengal, begging and singing, and is said to have collected a great deal of money and made a considerable name for himself. On his return he found his first wife had died in his absence, and he married again one Bishnupriyâ, concerning whom nothing further is said. Soon after he went to Gayâ to offer the usual pi.n.da to the _manes_ of his ancestors.
It was on his return from Gayâ, when he was about 23 years of age, that he began seriously to start his new creed. "It was now," writes Babu Jagadishnath, "that he openly condemned the Hindu ritualistic system of ceremonies as being a body without a soul, disowned the institution of caste as being abhorrent to a loving god all whose creatures were one in his eyes, preached the efficacy of adoration and love and extolled the excellence and sanctity of _the_ name, and the uttering and singing of _the_ name of god as infinitely superior to barren system without faith." Chaitanya, however, as the Babu points out, was not the originator of this theory, but appears to have borrowed it from his neighbour Adwaita Achârjya, whose custom it was, after performing his daily ritual, to go to the banks of the Ganges and call aloud for the coming of the god who should substitute love and faith for mere rites and ceremonies. This custom is still adhered to by Vaish.navas. The Charitâmrita veils the priority of Adwaita adroitly by stating that it was he who by his austerities hastened the coming of K.rish.na in the avatar of Chaitanya.
I praise that revered teacher Adwaita of wonderful actions, By whose favour even the ignorant may perceive the (divinity) personified. --Ch. I. vi.
Thus in Sanskrit verses at the head of that chapter which sings the virtues of Adwaita: by in the Bengali portion of the same chapter it is asserted that Adwaita was himself an incarnation of a part of the divinity, e.g.--