His first efforts at authorship were in Sanskrit and dealt with the mysteries of _bhakti_ and the service of Krishna. The great work of his life was the composition of his old age, and was undertaken at the request of the faithful. Every evening the Bengali Vaishnavs of Brindában used to gather together and hear the acts of their Master read out from his poetical biography, the _Chaitanya Bhágbat_ composed by Brindában-das. But this book dealt with the saint's last years in too meagre and concise a fashion to satisfy the curiosity of his followers. They, therefore, led by Haridas Pandit, the chief servitor of the Govindaji temple, pressed Krishna-das to write a new and fuller life of the Master. The poet was old and infirm, but he regarded the request as a solemn charge which he was not free to decline. That very evening he prayed to the image of Madanmohan, and the god's approbation was shown by a sign,--a garland of flowers slipping down from his neck at the end of the prayer! On the bank of the Radha-kunda tank, the aged Krishna-das completed his _Chaitanya-charit-amrita_ in 1582 after nine years of unremitting toil. It is divided into three Books, the _Adi Lilá_, the _Madhya Lilá_, and the _Antya Lilá_, dealing respectively with the three stages of Chaitanya's life, _viz._, (i) the 24 years from his birth to the time of his entering the monastic order, (ii) the six years of his pilgrimage, and (iii) the last eighteen years of his life, which were spent in residence at Puri. In spite of its epic length, prolixity, and repetitions, the _Chaitanya-charit-amrita_ is a masterpiece of early Bengali literature, and has the further merit of making the subtle doctrines of the Vaishnav faith intelligible to ordinary people. Indeed, the older school of Vaishnav Fathers, as represented by Jiv Goswámi, had at first objected to its publication, lest the merits and completeness of this vernacular work should cause the learned Sanskrit treatises on _bhakti_ exegetics to be neglected by the public! The author's manuscript is still preserved in the Radha-Damodar temple of Brindában, and worshipped as a holy relic.