Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s leading Lord Jagannatha toward the Gundica temple

Thus there was a sort of competition between Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Lord Jagannatha in seeing who would lead, but Caitanya Mahaprabhu was so strong that He made Lord Jagannatha wait in His car.
– Sri Caitanya-caritamrta: Madhya-lila 13.119 –

PURPORT BY SRILA PRABHUPADA
In his Anubhasya, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura describes the ecstasy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as follows. After giving up the company of the gopis in Vrindavana, Sri Krishna, the son of Maharaja Nanda, engaged in His pastimes at Dvaraka.

When Krishna went to Kuruksetra with His brother and sister and others from Dvaraka, He again met the inhabitants of Vrindavana. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is radha-bhava-dyuti-suvalita, that is, Krishna Himself assuming the part of Srimati Radharani in order to understand Krishna. Lord Jagannatha-deva is Krishna, and Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Srimati Radharani.

Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s leading Lord Jagannatha toward the Gundica temple corresponded to Srimati Radharani’s leading Krishna toward Vrindavana. Sri Ksetra, Jagannatha Puri, was taken as the kingdom of Dvaraka, the place where Krishna enjoys supreme opulence. But He was being led by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to Vrindavana, the simple village where all the inhabitants are filled with ecstatic love for Krishna. Sri Ksetra is a place of aisvarya-lila, just as Vrindavana is the place of madhurya-lila.

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s following at the rear of the ratha indicated that Lord Jagannatha, Krishna, was forgetting the inhabitants of Vrindavana. Although Krishna neglected the inhabitants of Vrindavana, He could not forget them. Thus in His opulent Ratha-yatra, He was returning to Vrindavana. In the role of Srimati Radharani, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was examining whether the Lord still remembered the inhabitants of Vrindavana.

When Caitanya Mahaprabhu fell behind the Ratha car, Jagannatha-deva, Krishna Himself, understood the mind of Srimati Radharani. Therefore, Jagannatha sometimes fell behind the dancing Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to indicate to Srimati Radharani that He had not forgotten. Thus Lord Jagannatha would stop the forward march of the ratha and wait at a standstill.

In this way Lord Jagannatha agreed that without the ecstasy of Srimati Radharani He could not feel satisfied. While Jagannatha was thus waiting, Gaurasundara, Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in His ecstasy of Srimati Radharani, immediately came forward to Krishna. At such times, Lord Jagannatha would proceed ahead very slowly. These competitive exchanges were all part of the love affair between Krishna and Srimati Radharani. In that competition between Lord Caitanya’s ecstasy for Jagannatha and Jagannatha’s ecstasy for Srimati Radharani, Caitanya Mahaprabhu emerged successful.