The Second Book (_Madhya Lilá_), which is the longest and most detailed of the three and the foremost authority on Chaitanya's teachings, life and character, and contains the clearest and fullest exposition of Vaishnav philosophy, has been here translated into English for the first time. In the second edition, many long extracts from the Third Book (_Antya Lilá_) have been added, to complete the story of Chaitanya's doings and sayings at Puri till his death. Readers to whom the Bengali tongue is unknown, will here find an unvarnished account of Chaitanya as his contemporaries knew him, without any modern gloss, interpolation or criticism. My version is literal; only, in certain places needless details have been curtailed, all repetitions have been avoided, and the texts so freely quoted by our author from the Sanskrit scriptures have been indicated by reference to chapter and verse, instead of being done into English. The word _Prabhu_, applied by the author to Chaitanya, has been rendered by me as _Master_. There are three other contemporary lives of Chaitanya in old Bengali. The earliest of them is the _Chaitanya Bhágabat_, composed in 1535 A.D., by the Brahman Brindában-das, a sister's son of Shribas Pandit of Navadwip. This author (b. 1507, d. 1589) was a votary of God as incarnate in Nityánanda; to him Chaitanya was almost a secondary object of adoration. His poem is encumbered with miracles and digressions, and far inferior to Krishna-das's work in wealth of philosophic exposition and description of men and events. Trilochan-das (born 1523) wrote the _Chaitanya-Mangal_ at the age of fourteen! It is full of marvellous incidents and should be classed with romances rather than with sober histories. Its text is still sung by wandering minstrels and is appreciated by the lower ranks of the Vaishnav community. Jayananda Mishra (b. about 1511) wrote his _Chaitanya-Mangal_ about 1568, and his poem gives us much new information about the saint and his family. He is our only authority for the narrative of Chaitanya's death, which I have translated at the end of this work. * * * * In the second edition parts of two chapters of the first edition, _viz._, xviii. pp. 254-269 and xxii. pp. 290-303, have been omitted, as they can be understood only by very learned Sanskrit scholars, the remaining part of ch. xxii has been incorporated with ch. xxi, while ch. xxiii has been renumbered as xxii. In the present edition, all the chapters from xxiii to the end are taken from the _Antya Lilá_. In preparing the second edition, the translation has been carefully compared with the text and minutely revised. Many mistakes have been detected and corrected; some of them came no doubt from the manuscript from which the first edition was printed, but most of the others were due to the inefficiency and carelessness of the press. In going through the original a second time I have in a few places modified my interpretation of the text made twelve years ago.