[INDOLOGY] The title mahāprabhu

[Martin Gansten]

I am not sure if there is a good answer to this question, but I would be 
interested to hear what people think: what with Caitanya Mahāprabhu of 
Bengal, Jagannātha Mahāprabhu (the deity) of Orissa, and, in more recent 
times, Swargadwari Mahaprabhu of Nepal (of whom I confess I had never 
heard before a web search turned him up), I wonder if mahāprabhu is a 
title most prominently found in the (north)-eastern parts of South Asia, 
at least before the 20th century? I know there is a 16th-century 
Harivaṃśa Mahāprabhu from the Mathura area, founder of the 
Rādhāvallabha-sampradāya, but I suspect the use of the epithet in his 
case may have been modelled on that of Caitanya.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts,
Martin Gansten