Sri Saranga Thakur was a devotee of Supreme Lord Sree Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
He is also known as Sri Sringadhar and Sri Sarngapani. He used to live in Modadrumdwip. The name of the town is Mamgachi. He would sit in a secluded place by the banks of the Ganges to meditate and chant the Holy names. Through these practices he obtained many miraculous powers.
At first, Saranga Thakur did not want to make any disciples for fear of disturbances to his bhajan, but Sree Chaitanya Mahaprabhu repeatedly encouraged him to do so.
Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur writes in his Anubhashya: “Having been ordered by Sree Mahaprabhu to take disciples, Sri Saranga Thakur decided that he would make a disciple of the first person that he met the following morning. As fate would have it, the next morning, a dead body washed up against him while he was taking a bath in the river Ganges. He revived the corpse and made him his disciple. This disciple was known as Sri Thakur Murari, or sometimes as Sri Saranga Murari.
In the Gaudiya Vaishnava Abhidhana, it is further said that Sri Murari was a boy who had been killed by snakebite and his parents had set his uncremated body afloat on a raft in the river Ganges, as was the custom in that time. Sri Saranga Murari Thakur himself became an empowered preacher of Sree Mahaprabhu’s dharma. Descendents of his disciples still live in a village named Shava. (“corpse”).
Sree Saranga Thakur’s deities were served in the town of Mamgachi. The original temple was built in front of a bakula tree. The deities of Sree Radha Gopinath can be seen in this temple, as can the deity of Sree Mahaprabhu’s other parshad, Srila Vasudeva Datta Thakur, Sri Madana Gopal. The devotees who do parikrama of Sree Nabadwip Dham visit this temple for darshan.
