Some five thousand years ago, after Krishna and His associates wound up Their earthly pastimes, the Lord's great-grandson, Vajranabha Maharaja, installed Deities of Krishna all over Vraja. Deities were installed also at Vrinda Kunda. Later, unfortunately, They were disfigured by Muslim invaders and for some time They disappeared from human sight. Today, although They are no longer worshiped, They are still giving darshan in a small kutir by the side of the main temple, under an old chokara tree."Time I am," Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad-gita, "the destroyer of the worlds." As days, weeks, months, years and centuries succeed one another, civilizations rise and fall and the surface of the earth changes. By the time Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu appeared on earth in 1486, all the places of Lord Krishna's childhood pastimes were deeply buried under the jungles covering the land of Vraja. Therefore, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu instructed Srila Rupa and Sanatana Gosvamis to excavate the lost places of pilgrimage in Vraja, which they did. Lord Caitanya Himself visited the fifty-six kundas surrounding Nandgaon, including Vrinda Kunda and Gupta Kunda. Then, some time between the Muslim invasions and the turn of the twentieth century, Vrinda Kunda again disappeared from human sight.Around 1920, the great Vaisnava scholar and saint Baba Madhava Dasa was born in a highly elevated brahmana family. A resident of Vraja Dhama for over fifty years, he spent his entire life as a sadhu. He also acted as a fiery reform leader. Responsible for the protection of many holy sites of Krishna-lila, he saved Pavana Sarovara from being drained by land developers. Baba Madhava also rescued Kalavata Hill, which bears the sacred footprints of Lord Krishna, and eleven other sacred hills in Vraja from the blind greed of land developers and road builders. (Government officials, unaware of the spiritual significance of these sites, were auctioning them to road builders to be chopped off as raw materials.) Baba Madhava Dasa also preserved the sanctity of the Govardhana parikrama path by successfully opposing, on behalf of many sadhus in the area, a proposed railway line that would have bisected the Govardhana parikrama path.To beautify the land of Vraja, Baba Madhava Dasa regularly got wealthy Vaisnavas to donate many hundreds of fruit, flower and sandalwood trees, which he would then arrange to be planted in various holy places, such as the beautiful gardens of Radha Bagh and Krishna Bagh in Varshana. Vrinda Kunda, however, is the crown jewel of his lifetime of service to the holy Dhama.After securing the property, Madhava Baba managed to get a Government grant to help him excavate the two sacred ponds, Vrinda Kunda and Gupta Kunda. Schoolboys from the Kishor Raman Degree College and a lady from Agra also helped. He then built a small temple and installed a Deity of Vrinda-devi on Jahnava Mata's Appearance Day in the early 1980s.The old mutilated sculpture under the chokara tree had been worshiped as Vrinda-devi for a very long time before Baba Madhava's arrival. According to the villagers, some thieves had come fifty years before, stolen the sculpture and stored it near Charan Pahari, along with some other stolen sculptures. But when they brought a small truck to carry them away one night, even six or seven of them together could not lift the sculpture of Vrinda-devi. So they left it there. In the morning one villager saw the murti lying by the side of the hill and carried it back to Vrinda Kunda.Baba Madhava Dasa had many plans to develop Vrinda Kunda: a surrounding compound wall, a small ashram for sadhus, a larger, more beautiful temple for Vrinda-devi, and lush gardens.
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