History of Gaudiya Vaishnavism – II (Post Chaitanya phase)
Recap of first session
In the first session we discussed about four different aspects of studying a tradition, i.e., studying the personalities, studying philosophy, studying the history and studying the literature. Our focus is studying of history, in that we looked at pre Chaitanya Vaishnavism as it is known to us from the historical records as well as from the Vedic literature. We discussed there is mention of Vishnu in the Upanishads, even though it is not emphasised, because they are primarily karma kanda scriptures. Also we discussed whether Krishna worship is product of Christianity or does it precede Christianity.
The Gupta dynasty call themselves as parama Vaishnavas, they were the first kings who consolidated India into single empire. That dynasty promoted lot of building of temples, in the epigraphs of those temples they refered themselves as parama bhagavatas, devotees.
Caste system and Spread of Buddhism
After Gupta dynasty fell in North India, Vaishnavism is not so visible in North. In south India it took resurgence with the Alwars , the Alwars are mostly poets, Andal Alwar was woman, Tondali padhya Alwar was criminal before etc. But they all went on to become great saints. From the starting of Kaliyuga the Brahmans started degraded with the misuse of Brahminical power by Srngi. The caste system started becoming more stratified and rigid. Buddhism and Jainism are basically reactions to oppressive caste system, they started around 500BC. The oppression of caste system was that the lower castes were neglected and subordinated, but it did not happen by the proportion that it was made out by theBritish reports about India, and the communist historians of India. They say that caste system was greatest curse of Indian society. Yes it did become harmful, but the very fact that Indian civilization stayed on for 5000 years indicates that there was some amount of internal strength and stability in it, without which such a long term survival would have been impossible. Whereever there is severe exploitation and abuse of group of people, they rebel about the existing order, and then there is revolution, but that never happened in Vedic culture. The red Indians who stayed in America before Europeans went there, there were practically several millions, now they are just few thousands, they were first kept in reserved parks like animals and eventually they were slaughtered. Through out the world there is exploitation of weak by powerful, and in many places it is worse than India. The Spanish missionaries wiped out Aztecz, Mayan civilizations. It is a systematic slaughter, either you convert to Christianity or you yet killed. Powerful exploiting weak is something that always happens. In India eventhough the lower castes were treated inferiorly still they have their own place in society, and they have continued to have that for thousands of years. The religions which did not accept system that is Buddhism and Jainism became popular. From 5th century BC to 7th century AD large parts of India was ruled by Buddhists and Jains. Ashoka used his state infrastructure to spread Buddhism. His son went to Srilanka that is how Busshism spread there. When the head of state takes particular religion that spreads very powerfully. Any religion that has spread has to have the combination of Intellectuals, and administrators. Christianity was persecuted religion till the 4th century, when an emperor took it up it became official religion, and it was propagated. Sankaracharya preached diluted version of Vedic teachings, and attracted people back to Vedic culture. Only in post independence when Bhim Rao ambedkar, who was fed up with the exploitation of caste system, accepted Buddhism. Then several lacs of people became Buddhists. Ambedkar’s idea of Buddhism is non religious, non theistic Buddhism, it is simply a moral religion. He did not accept reincarnation, and Karma, the Lama of Kolkata said that Ambedkar did not accept Buddhiam, but he accepted some Ambedkarism.
Contribution of Vaishnava acharyas to spread Vaishnavism
Sankaracharya brought the people back to Vedic culture, but not to the vedic conclusion of vedic culture. One of the reasons for the popularity of Vaishnavism was its going beyond the caste distinctions. After the Alwars and before Ramanujacharya there were Acharyas, they are Nada muni, Yamunacarya etc. Alwars wrote in vernacular languages, the Acharyas started writing in Sanskrit, these are called Ubayavedantis. All the four sampradayas are founded by the Lord through a particular agent like Lakshmidevi for Sri sampradaya, Ramanujacharya is the systematiser of those teachings. Sri sampradaya spread widely in south india, Madhva sampradaya in west India around Udipi. In north India Nimbarkacharya spreaded Dwaita adwaita philosophy. Ramanujacharya allowed the lower castes to study the Divya prabandas of Alwars. In North India Nimbarkacharya and Ramananda allowed the lower caste people to declare as saints, the teachers of others, that led to very rapid spread of Vaishnavism. Vallabhacharya spreaded Suddha advaita philosophy, there is no distinction between soul and the Supreme Lord, but the difference is there for the sake of Lila. When Mahaprabhu appeared at that in Bengal Shaktism was wide spread and some demigod worship, even Sachi mata worshipped Shasti to get protection for her children.
Five land marks in Chitanya mahaprabhu’s preaching
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu started Harinaam sankirtan and it became immensely popular, in his propagation of sankirtan there are five land mark events from the propagation point of view.
- Confrontation of Khazi, Harinaam sankirtan became public from that time
- Transforming Sarvabowma bhattacharya from impersonal logician to devotee, this was major victory, through Sarvabowma bhattacharya eventually Prataparudra transformed.
- Active propagation of Krishna Bhakti during south India tour. But there was no systematic leadership or organization set up was not there to carry on what Mahaprabhu did in south India.
- In North Indian tour defeat of Prakasananda saraswati in Varanasi. The fact that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went into the heart land of Mayavadis and transformed the people over there is of extraordinary significance.
- Chaitanya mahaprabhu’s meeting and initiating Rupa and Sanatan. They were the first to go to Vrindavan and set up the plan for the plan for intellectual, philosophical and scriptural foundation of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
Gaudiya Vaishnavism sort of became distributed in Orissa, Bengal and Vrindavan. Vrindavan was wilderness at that time, prior to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu there were despotic Muslim rulers. Babar was known to be barbaric, and he desecrated Vrindavan. Moghuls were not the first muslim invaders. Vrindavan was practically lost. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu saw Radhakund and Shyam kund as two puddles. From historical point of view Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, Jiva Goswami , Lokanath Goswami and others they have done remarkable job transforming Vrindavan from a desolate state to a flourishing devotional centre. Around Chaitanya Mahaprabhu time was Akbar, it is said that Akbar was inspired hearing about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.Akbar might have met Jiva Goswami. Akbar allowed the Rajput commanders under him to assist Goswamis in building beautiful temples, that is why Gaudiya Vaishnavism both philosophically and culturally strong in Vrindavan.
Gaudiya Vaishnavism after Lord Chaitanya
Sri Chaitanya mahaprabhu’s departure is unexpected and mysterious. Like Tukaram maharaj, for whom vaikunta viman came and took him, no physical body left. Similarly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also departed by entering the Thota Gopinath diety and no material body left, in traditional Hinduism it is considered as most extraordinary departure. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departure devastated Vaishnavas, soon after the kingdom of Orissa was ravaged by muislim invaders, then Gaudiya Vaishnavism became less public. He did not instruct Advaita acharya or Nityananda prabhu to construct temples in Bengal because the kings like Nawab Hussain shaw are not at all tolerant about any public form of worship. All the Vaishnavas they have their own deities and do kirtans. Jahnava mataji took up the leadership after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nitayananda prabhu’s departure. In Chaitanya Bhagavat it is written that there were playful quarrels between Nityananda prabhu and Advaita acharya, both of them were prominent spiritual leaders. Some of the followers of Nityananda prabhu and Advaita acharya could not understand the playful nature of the differences. Because of that there were some frictions between Gaudiya followers. Nityananda prabhu was Avadhut, there are considered to be equivalent of sanyasi. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu instructed him to get married so that he can reach out to larger number of people, but when he got married at that time, there were some people who criticised him for getting married at advanced age, that also led to some sort of conflicts.
Setback to Gaudiya Vaishnavism on departure of leaders: Whenever leader departs there will be traumas. In VRINDAVAN DAS THAKUR’s book repeated references to point that one should not take sides when two Vaishnavas are fighting. These are eternal principles and also responses. Remarkable thing is that without any organization still GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM continued. LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU had not written books, appointed successors and established organization. Srila Prabhupad did these three still there was tough period in 1990s. ISKCON has survived that serious period and started expanding from 108 centres to 400-600 centres.
Goswami’s contribution:
How come GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM survived? LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU appointed Goswamis as intellectual flag bearers of sampradaya. RUPA GOSWAMI understood emotions as important part of GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM. Ramanujacharya acharya and Madhwa acharya are presented philosophy but in intellectual way. BG is also intellectual book rather than emotional. BG is to save one from material emotions rather than emphasising spiritual emotions. But in SB , Uddhava gita we find some references but there was no scriptural emphasis.
Rasa and Vedanta:
RUPA GOSWAMI was first Vaishnava acharya to synthesize Vedanta with rasa. Vedanta is independent from religion. Natyasastra came from brahma. Dramatology is both art and science. Why dramas? To give rasa to audience. Abhinav gupta wrote mayavadi commentary and highest emotion is santi, peace. One experiences total peace. Bhoja explained that santi is absence of any experience. He introduced sringara ras. RUPA GOSWAMI used this and integrated with Vedanta. Purpose of hearing Krishna lila is to experience rasa and one has to enter pastimes. People discussed about emotions but do not know difference of material and spiritual rasa. Both Vallabhacharya and Nimbarkacharya discussed abour Radha Krishna. But they emphasized vatsalya ras. But glory of Radhara bhav revealed by LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU is given intellectual structure by RUPA GOSWAMI through BRS and ujjvala nila mani.
JIVA GOSWAMI, RUPA GOSWAMI by writing sandharbhas, integrated GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM with Vedanta. Vedanta represents head, aesthetics represents heart. GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM addressed both. Eventhough there are political upheavals and quarrels, still GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM continued because JIVA GOSWAMI send his siksha disciples to Orissa and Bengal and take all these books. They followed instruction and left. This rejuvenated GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM. Gradually broad understanding depth and philosophical breadth of GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM was known. GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM is so much spread that in Bengal (even during British rule), every home has LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU’s deity.
Two types of setbacks to GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM: One happened in Vrindavan and other in Bengal. There is always threat to spiritual movements from ungodly forces.
In Vrindavan: Extremely horrendous period because of Aurangajeb. Vaishnavas had to go underground. Century later VCT , got direct call from Lord Krishna. He took lonely and dangerous journey and pioneered reclamation in Vrindavan. Then Baladev vidyabhushan, VCT’s siksha disciple wrote Govinda bhashya.
In Bengal: In Bengal something else happened. Many apa-sampradayas came up. Almost 27 biographies of LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU came up. Most of books written in Bengal are pastimes. No much philosophy. Krishna das kaviraj GOSWAMI got extraordinary synthesis. He heard pastimes in Bengal and philosophy in Vrindavan and thus integrated both. Thus he wrote this book in Bengali so that Bengali people will be used. Viswanath chakravarti thakur wrote sanskrit commentary on CC. Locandas thakur wrote book called Chaitanya mangal. This book is exaggerated and construed to get apasampradaya called Gauranganagar. CC states that LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU was very strict in dealing with women.
Some asked this question. If LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU did not claim Himself to be God, why His followers claim so. Answer was that when Lord was in mood of devotee, they assisted Him in that mood. When He was in aishwarya mood, (Mahaprakash lila) , they assisted Him in that way. LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU states that as long as I am in planet do not reveal My divinity. Devotees respected that mood. To get respectability to His teachings He took sannyas in Mayavada sampradaya. He is yugavatara and we have to assist and fulfil in His mission. Divinity about Him is established by quoting from 24 scripture.
LORD CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU never dealt with women as Krishna. Infact He dealt very strictly. He rarely joked with His wife also. Some people distorted philosophy and brought apasampradayas. BVT has to deal with these.
In next class we will discuss about how BVT dealt and eliminated these apasampradayas.
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so today we will start the second session in our discussion on the history of Gaudiya Vaishnavism am I audible yes okay thank you so in the first session we discussed about the four different aspects of studying a tradition studying the personalities studying the philosophy studying the history and studying the literature so we decided to focus on the study of the history and we looked at pre-Chaitanya Vaishnavism as it is known to us from the historical record as well as from the literature how it is explained in the Vedic literature and we discussed historically how there is mention of Vishnu and even Krishna in the Shrutis and the Upanishads although it is not emphasised because those are primarily Karmakant scriptures and the revelation of Bhakti becomes more clear in the Bhakti scriptures which is the Puranas and especially the Bhagwat Puran so I also mentioned about how there was some debate whether Krishna worship is a product of Christianity or does it precede Christianity so there was the Herodotus column and there was Megasthenes and others who even Greeks seem to have at least nominally or deeply we don’t know but they seem to have adopted some kinds of worship of Vasudeva Krishna and I didn’t mention last time that the Gupta dynasty that was there, Chandragupta and his successors they called themselves as Parambhagvatas and they ruled North India in fact from the historical record point of view they were the first kings who consolidated India into a single empire Chandragupta did that with the help of Chanakya and they were Vaishnavas and that dynasty promoted a lot of building of temples and there they would have generally when a temple is built in the Indian tradition building of a temple was considered to be a great honour and prestige for the king and the king would also have his name inscribed and some poets may write some of his own the glories of that king also so they would inscribe themselves on the epigraphs epigraphs are engravings in stone as Parambhagvatas as those who were devotees so after the Gupta dynasty fell in North India to some extent the Vaishnavism was not so visible but in South India not so widespread not visible but not so widespread and in South India it took a resurgence with the Alwars so after the Alwars, the Alwars were mostly poets they were lay people Andal was a woman and then Thrupan was a from the lower caste and Tondalipathy Alwar was a criminal before so but they all went on to become great saints so in one sense we know that the Vedic literature talk about the division of society into Varanashram but from the start of Kali Yuga as the Brahmana started becoming a little more degraded with the with the misuse of Brahmanical power by Sringi the Brahmanical, the caste system started becoming more stratified and rigid fossilised in terms of birth and Buddhism and Jainism which are both religions which emerged around somewhere around 500 BCE where basically from the historical point of view reactions to the oppressive caste system and the oppression of the caste system was that lower castes were to a large extent neglected and subordinated now this did not happen everywhere and it did not happen in the proportion which is made out by the by the British reports about India and by the communist historians of India who say that the caste system was the greatest curse of Indian society yes it did become harmful, it did lead to some exploitation but the very fact that the Indian civilisation stayed on for for not just centuries but for millennia the Vedic civilisation even from the mundane historical point of view dates back to at least 2500 to 3000 BCE Haribo can you hear me? the very fact that the Indian civilisation survived for over 5000 years indicates that there was some amount of internal strength and stability in it without which such a long term survival would have been impossible so wherever there is severe exploitation and abuse of any group of people eventually that group of people rebel against the existing order and there is a revolution so that never happened in the Vedic culture and if we see the Red Indians who stayed in America before Europeans went there there were practically several million and now there are just a few thousand so they were first kept in reserve parks like animals are kept in reserve parks and eventually they were just slaughtered so actually throughout the world there has been exploitation of the weak by the powerful and in many places it has been worse than what it is in India when the Spanish missionaries went to South America they just wiped out the Aztecs, the Mayans or whatever civilisation was there earlier this is just a systematic and heartless slaughter it was basically something either you convert to Christianity or you get killed so the point is that, we are not trying to blame Christianity over here, but the point is that the powerful exploiting the weak is something which always happens so it happened in the caste system also but there have been far more excesses worse than this that happened in India, no matter even if the untouchables or the lower castes were to some extent treated inferiorly and discriminatively but still they had their own place in society and they have continued to have that for thousands of years but anyway when the caste system became unduly exploitative so at that time as a reaction from the historical point of view the religions which did not accept this caste system that is Buddhism and Jainism became popular to some extent and actually if we look at the history from the 5th century BC to around 7th century AD large parts of India were ruled by kings who were Buddhist and Jains. We of course know about the famous example of Ashoka who used his entire state infrastructure and even his himself and his sons and daughters he sent to different parts of the world to spread Buddhism he sent them, his son went to Sri Lanka and that’s how they started Buddhism over there and like that there are various parts of the distant parts in India from his place of Kalinga to various to China, places like near China also so when the state administration when the head of state takes up a particular religion then that spreads very powerfully so generally speaking the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas combined together to establish Dharma in Vedic culture so the Brahmanas are the intellectuals and the Kshatriyas are the administrators so we will see historically that any religion that has spread has to have had this combination.
Christianity in the Roman Empire was a persecuted religion till the 4th century almost till the 5th century. Then when Emperor Constantine took it up then it became leave alone not a persecuted religion but it became the official religion it became the propagated religion by the empire so but when Shankaracharya came along then he preached a diluted version of the Vedic teachings so as to highlight the similarities between Buddhism and the Vedic teachings by which to attract people back into the fold of Vedic culture and in that mission he was hugely successful and Buddhism practically in India Shankaracharya’s offensive in Buddhism was so effective that Buddhism became an inconsequential force in India for the next 1200 years 1200 or 1300 years actually it is only post-independence that when Bhimrao Ambedkar being fed up with the exploitation in the caste system accepted Hinduism just a couple of months before accepted Buddhism couple of months before dying that several lakh people became Buddhists and after that Buddhism has become again a little more influential now because Ambedkar was from Maharashtra so Buddhism is strongest in Maharashtra but Ambedkar’s idea of Buddhism was a non-religious non-spiritual, non-theistic Buddhism which was simply a moral religion so he did not accept reincarnation, he did not accept karma so the the lama of Kolkata at that time said that Ambedkar has not accepted Buddhism, he has accepted some sort of Ambedkarism so anyway the point I am making over here is that historically there have been many forces which have acted in Indian culture and one of the reasons for the popularity of yeah so one of the reasons for the popularity of Vaishnavism is that it always is that Vaishnavism has sort of transcended or neglected the caste distinctions and has allowed everyone to engage in, to welcome in its fold the point about Ambedkar earlier I was making was that he adopted Buddhism not because it fulfilled any spiritual quest but just because he wanted to get out of Hinduism and he rejected the idea of karma and reincarnation within Buddhism which are there and that’s why one of the lamas of Kolkata, he said that this is not Buddhism what he has adopted, it is his own idea of Buddhism it is some sort of Ambedkarism so basically Shankaracharya brought back the people to Vedic culture but not to the Vedic conclusion of the Vedic culture so that was the role which was played by Ramamacharya, Mathacharya, subsequently Chaitanya Mahaprabhu but the point I was making here is that one of the reasons for the popularity of Vaishnavism was its going beyond the caste distinctions now Ramamacharya solidified Vaishnavism in South India after the Andals and before Ramamacharya, there were a group of teachers who were called the Acharyas Nath Muni and then Yamunacharya, these are basically as I said, the Alvars most of them wrote in the popular vernacular languages, the Acharyas started writing in Sanskrit they are called the Ubhay Vedantins so the second Veda, their writings and Ramacharya did the systematisation so sometimes we say that Ramacharya is the founder of the Shri Sampradaya that is wrong he is not the founder, it is founded by all the Sampradayas, four Sampradayas have a divine origin they are founded by the Lord through a particular agent like say for the Shri Sampradaya it is Lakshmidevi and through her the teachings are coming down and Ramamacharya was the systematiser of those teachings systematiser means that he systematically established the philosophy just like the Goswamis are the systematisers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings excepted members from the different even the lower castes so from the spread point of view the Shri Sampradaya was the most widespread in South India the Madhva Sampradaya although it never spread very far Madhvacharya himself travelled all over India and he had some significant victories but it didn’t spread very far but they have produced a substantial body of literature and they have strong influence in East India radiating around Udupi and in North India we had Nimbarkacharya who was sometime after Ramamacharya and probably sometime before or after Madhvacharya the dates are not very well known and his philosophy was called as Dvaita Dvaita we will discuss about the different philosophies and their subtle differences subtle and significant differences later so he so Ramamacharya allowed the lower castes also to study the Prabdivya Prabhandas of the Alwars and to participate in devotional activities but it was in the North Indian Sampradayas started by Nimbarka and later on by one of the followers of Ramacharya, Ramananda who practically allowed lower caste people to become saints and to become teachers of others so that led to a very rapid spread of Aishnavism and Vallabhacharya who was a contemporary of Mahaprabhu he was a follower of Nimbarkacharya in the sense that Sampradaya which is the Kumar Sampradaya, it is also called as the Hamsa Sampradaya because Hamsa was the teacher and the Kumaras were the students so both ways it is known as Kumar Sampradaya or Hamsa Sampradaya and he had his slightly different philosophy which is called as Shuddha Dvaita so according to him there is no difference between the soul and the supreme lord but the difference is there for the sake of Leela because without the difference in identity there can be no Leela and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when he appeared at that time there were a few Aishnavas here and there but it was not widespread what was widespread in Bengal at that time was Shaktism to some extent and we see that and there was other forms of demigod worshipping, Shachi Mata would go and worship the deity called Shashti who was said to be in charge of small children because so many of her children had died young so she was worshipping Shashti to get some protection for her children and when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu started his Harinam Sanchirthan it became immensely popular and in his propagation of Harinam Sanchirthan there are 5 landmark events of course everything the lord performs is significant but if we look at it from the propagation point of view there was of course his meeting with Keshav Kashmiri but he did not propagate devotion explicitly through that he basically defeated Keshav Kashmiri and Keshav Kashmiri himself went on to become a great Vaishnava from the Tarkik logician that he was but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at that time had not explicitly manifested his devotion so the first landmark event was his confrontation of the Qazi so before that the Harinam Sanchirthan was practically indoors in Shiva’s Angan but from that time it became public and in all over Navadvip Chaitanya Mahaprabhu what is the noise in the background so Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu propagated Krishna Consciousness within Navadvip and Nadia by taking Harinam Sanchirthan out on the streets in response to the Qazi’s banning it after that when he took sannyas that itself indicated his intentions to broadcast Krishna Consciousness far beyond his local hometown and when he went to Orissa and transformed Sarvam Bhattacharya from a logician, from an impersonalist logician to a devotee that was a major major victory because we will see that Jagannath Puri and Orissa became one of the strongholds, long lasting strongholds for Gaudiya Vaishnavism because through Sarvam Bhattacharya eventually Pratap Rudra was transformed and then the whole of Orissa was inspired towards Gaudiya Vaishnavism the third significant event was Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s active propagation of Krishna Bhakti during his South India tour and he transformed according to Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu thousands and thousands of people wherever he went and the way of devotion that was created was enormous at the same time because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu travelled alone and there was in one sense no consolidation or follow up done later on Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu about 300-400 years later he again started preaching South India he said that whatever Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has done is now lost to some extent because there were no generations to carry it on no systematic organisational or inspirational leadership was there to carry on what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did nonetheless of course still it was effective because people were inspired and converted to Vaishnavism. Similarly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went to North India and there the most significant event in the North Indian tour was his defeat of Prakashanand Saraswati again Varanasi because it was stronghold of Mayavad even Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not stay there in Varanasi for very long so Mayavad gradually took over Varanasi once again but still the very fact that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went into the heartland of Mayavad which is Varanasi, Shila Prabhupada called Varanasi as the Vrindavan of the Mayavadis and the fact that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu could go there and transform people over there is of extraordinary significance and the fifth event which had the most long lasting consequence was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s meeting and initiating and instructing Rupa and Sanatana Goswamis in general he instructed and inspired all the six Goswamis but Rupa and Sanatana were the first to go to Vrindavan and set up the plan for the intellectual philosophical and scriptural foundation of Gaudiya Vaishnavism so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu instructed and inspired them especially during his North India tour and then Gaudiya Vaishnavism sort of became distributed in Orissa, in Bengal and in Vrindavan so Vrindavan practically was a wilderness at that time because prior to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s appearance over there there were very despotic Islamic rulers Babur was known to be barbaric and he desecrated Vrindavan and before that also the Mughals were not the first Muslim invaders so Vrindavan was practically lost.
We know that when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was searching for Radhakund he found it as two small puddles and the people there were wondering why this sanyasi bathing so ecstatically in a puddle so the historical point of view Rupa Sanatana Goswami and subsequently Jiva Goswami, Lokanatha Goswami and all those who stayed in Vrindavan they have performed a remarkable job of transforming Vrindavan from a desolate place to a flourishing devotional centre and just a little after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s time around Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s and after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s time was the time of Akbar Akbar lived from roughly like 1505 to 1555 or something like that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was from 1486 to 1534 so it seems that Akbar was also inspired by hearing about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and some people say that he met Rupa Goswami that is unlikely because sorry Akbar was not from 1505 to 1558 Akbar was from 1558 onwards so some people say that he met Chaitanya Rupa Goswami but that is a little unlikely because Rupa Goswami departed from the world when Akbar was quite young so it is more likely that Akbar would meet Akbar might have met Jiva Goswami and some people give some very dramatic accounts at how he was able to see the spiritual realm something like that irrespective of the validity of that the important thing is that Akbar encouraged or at least allowed the Rajput commanders who were under him like Jai Singh and others to assist the Goswamis in building beautiful temples over there and that way Gaudiya Vaishnavism became both philosophically and culturally strong in Vrindavan now after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed, it was quite in one sense unexpected his departure and it was also mysterious he is among the few personalities great personalities for whom it is historically said that like Tukaram it is said that Tukaram Maharaj the Vaikuntha aeroplane came and took him and there was no physical body left similarly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also he departed by entering into the Totagopini Aditya and there was no material body left which in traditional Hinduism is considered to be the most extraordinary form of departure that the person departs and the body also disappears with it but what happened was that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s departure sort of devastated the Vaishnavas and soon after that the kingdom of Orissa was ravaged by the invading Muslims and in one sense Gaudiya Vaishnavism suffered a setback but it was not something which could destroy Gaudiya Vaishnavism but Gaudiya Vaishnavism became less public we see that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had the rediscovery of the deities and the establishment of the temple Vrindavan but he did not necessarily instruct Advaita Acharya or Nityananda Prabhu or any of the Vaishnavas from Bengal to construct temples over there because Nawaz-e-Hussain Shah and kings like him were not at all tolerant about any public forms of worship of what they consider the Hindu deities so Bhakti of course can be practised by chanting and singing itself and it does not necessarily need big temples so all the Vaishnavas had their own deities and they would worship and they would do kirtans and Janmabai Devi Janmabai Mataji she took up the leadership of Gaudiya Vaishnavism after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu his departure and after Nityananda Prabhu’s departure after some time and we know that from the Chaitanya Bhagwat there were some playful, premera kalaha there were playful quarrels between Nityananda Prabhu and Advaita Acharya and both of them were prominent spiritual leaders in Chaitanya Vaishnavism and after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed some of the followers of Nityananda Prabhu and some of the followers of Advaita Acharya could not understand the playful nature of their differences and because of that there were some sort of frictions in the Gaudiya followers and we know that Nityananda Prabhu was an avadhut he was not like an officially ordained Vedic sanyasi avadhuts are beyond the Vedic order but they are considered equivalent to sanyasis and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu instructed him to get married so that he could reach out to a larger number of people but when he got married at that time there were there were some people who criticised him for getting married at an advanced age and that also led to some sort of further conflicts in general, whenever the charismatic founder of any spiritual movement departs that leads to conflicts, that leads to often traumas so that’s why we see in Nityananda’s Chaitanya Bhagwat there are repeated references that if we see that two Vaishnavas have some differences, one should not take sides one should not have conflicts one should not see those conflicts as very serious and one should not misunderstand or offend the Vaishnavas in this these sort of statements, of course at one level they are instructions that apply to all time, at another level they are also responses to specific things that were happening at that time now what is remarkable about Gaudiya Vaishnavism is that how it continued on despite the sudden departure of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu without any sort of succession plan Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not start an official institution with a particular mandate he did not appoint or anoint any successors nor did he himself write any books so how can V.C. Shila Prabhupada in one sense did all these three things he wrote books he appointed the G.B.C. as his official successor and he initiated, he started the institution of ISKCON and in which the senior disciples the prominent senior leading disciples were considered to be his successors together, collectively not individually, anyone so in spite of that we know that after Shila Prabhupada departed the decade after that was quite challenging for devotees and ISKCON and it is to the credit of ISKCON that ISKCON has not only survived that very difficult phase of the departure of the charismatic leader but has also emerged stronger and has spread wider from the 108 centres where Shila Prabhupada was with us on the planet now we have over 400 to 600 centres the wide number the difference in number of 400 to 600 depends on how one defines a centre but still Krishna consciousness has spread the same thing happened with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at his departure Gaudiya Vaishnavism survived and flourished but how did that happen Chaitanya Mahaprabhu actually appointed the Goswamis as the intellectual flag bearers those who would carry on his message and Rupa Goswami recognising that emotionality was a very prominent part of Gaudiya Vaishnavism the emotional aspect of bhakti where dancing, singing and having profuse tears exhibiting symptoms of ecstasy this was a very prominent aspect of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and this was never so much emphasised by Ramacharya and certainly not by Madhvacharya because they were responding to intellectual presentations of Vedanta they also presented themselves in a very intellectual way and that intellectualised, internalised aspect of bhakti is what we see in Bhagavad Gita in Bhagavad Gita there are no verses of the devotee dancing and singing and shedding tears and exhibiting ecstatic symptoms there are some references like Rishyami, Chamurmu and that the devotee is ecstatic and that the hair were standing on end but the kind of bhakti the ecstasy of bhakti that is described or that is depicted by Shaitan Mahaprabhu we don’t find in Bhagavad Gita because Bhagavad Gita’s primary purpose is to save a person Arjuna from material emotions and get him to the platform of steady performance of duty and that duty is of course based on the understanding of bhakti but still the point remains that Jivad Bhagavatam does talk about Unmadeti Gayanti Lokabhaya in the 11th canto in Uddhav Gita in Uddhav Gita it teaches a lot of Krishna Krishna says how the devotee mad in Vela Unmadeti becomes mad, Gayanti he sings, he dances, Lokabhaya without caring for anyone else so there are some indications of this sort of bhakti also, it has scriptural basis although it may not have scriptural emphasis so to explain the emotionality of Gaudiya Vaishnavism Rupa Goswami based on the inspiration given by Shaitan Mahaprabhu was the first Vaishnav Acharya to synthesise Vedanta with Bhakti, Vedanta with Rasa, sorry not Bhakti so Rasa is a concept which has a long and independent tradition in Indian history, independent in sense that it was independent from Vaishnavism and it was independent in general also from religion at least in the known recorded history so according to Natya Shastra which is written by Bharat Muni it is described that when the Devatas went to Brahma and asked for a form of recreation that would be both entertaining and enlightening and at that time Brahmaji revealed to him Natya Shastra so that was how nowadays we can just do spontaneous dramas and somebody takes some role and somebody else takes some role and we just repeat the dialogues and try to simulate those emotions but dramaturgy was a very sophisticated subject which could be called both an art and a science the essential purpose of dramaturgy or Natya Shastra is to give the audience an experience of Rasa so Rasa means emotional mellow, a particular kind of emotion so how the gestures and how the actions should be performed so that the audience can experience that emotion, that is what was done by Bharat Muni to Natya Shastra, now Natya Shastra became so popular that there were many commentaries written on it, Abhinav Gupta was a Mayavadi who wrote a commentary on it similarly Bhoja was a Vaishnava who wrote a commentary on it and from the Mayavadi point of view the highest emotion that one can have is Shanti peace so that one absorbs one’s self in the drama so much that one forgets one’s existence and one’s experience is a kind of total peace that is very similar to the Brahman the happiness of merging in Brahman or imagining oneself to be merged in Brahman now Bhoja who was a Vaishnava he explained that no this is not the highest emotion because in one sense Shanti is the absence of emotion it is not the summit of emotion so he actually talked about Shringar in the world the highest emotion is the emotion between male and female now Rupa Goswami took the outer structure and tradition of Rasa and integrated and incorporated it with Vaishnavas so the Shubhad Bhagavatam also refers to Rasa in the sense that it is said it says that so become Rasikas and drink the Rasa of Shubhad Bhagavatam so we see that the theme of Shubhad Bhagavatam also is that Shukadeva Goswami is attracted from Shantarasa towards Madhura Rasa meditation on Brahman is something like Shantarasa, it is not Shantarasa because generally Shantarasa is the priest meditating on the personal form of the Lord in the spiritual world, in Vaikuntha especially but the mood of passive absorption is something similar to what the Gyanis experience the impersonalist experience, so Shukadeva Goswami is attracted from that impersonal realisation to the suprapersonal realisation the personal realisation of God as the object of conjugal love so now generally speaking in the Natya Shastra before Shukadeva Goswami it was mostly used for secular non-religious purposes the emotions which people were supposed to experience they were not necessarily connected with God and it was not so clear about what the nature and the difference between material and spiritual emotions was but Rupa Goswami he explained that Rasa is not just a one time or occasional experience that one has during a drama Rasa is the constant experience that a person has when a person has a mature and living relationship with the Supreme Lord so he took the outer structure in terms of the five Rasas, he took the contours which he had got from Bharat Muni through Abhinav Gupta and Bhoja and others but he focused primarily on the devotional aspect and so the purpose of hearing Krishna Leelas to experience Rasa not only to experience Rasa by hearing but eventually by entering and entering not into the Lord but into the pastimes of the Lord and experiencing emotions the way the devotees in those pastimes are experiencing so this was a remarkable synthesis to say the very least and in this way the worship of Radha Krishna, especially the worship of Radharani had not been so much emphasised by Ramacharya or Madhvacharya now of course Vallabha had talked about Radha Krishna worship and before him Dimbarkacharya also talked about Radha Krishna worship and they also recognised the importance of Madhurya Rasa of conjugal relationships but the concept of Rasa and the concept that the Madhurya is the highest in the Pushti Maha Vallabhacharya, they also consider Madhurya Rasa to be significant but they focus on the Vatsalya Rasa Laddu Gopal where Krishna is a child and the devotees try to serve him in an internal mood of parent so the glory of Radharabhaav which Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to reveal to the world was given intellectual structure and shape by Rupa Goswami by his synthesis of Vaishnavism and Natya Shastra through his Bhakti Rasamala Sindhu and then he subsequently described the advanced stages of Bhakti of Madhurya Rasa in Ujjvala Nilamani which is a very advanced book which sadhakas at least in the initial stages are not recommended are recommended not to read or rather by Bhakti Shastra Prabhupada instructed not to read but he showed how there are he analyses when a Gopi is saying like this or feeling like this or Krishna is doing like this what is the emotion that they are experiencing at that time so it is a very remarkable analysis he has done so but that was how he sort of laid a foundation he integrated Gaudiya Vaishnavism within as a as a melting pot as a blend of two two traditions and he strengthened Gaudiya Vaishnavism in both ways by that Shri Jiju Goswami also carried on the work of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Shri Rupa Goswami by writing the Sandarbhas which integrated Vaishnavism with the Vedanta tradition, with the philosophy and so Vaishnavism, Gaudiya Vaishnavism has two aspects it has the philosophy and it has the aesthetics the philosophy addresses the head and the aesthetics addresses the heart in this way actually Gaudiya Vaishnavism unites the head and the heart in a very beautiful way, in a way that is in many aspects unique not just in Indian history but in the world history and later on when we do an overview of the Gaudiya literature we will be discussing about the uniqueness of the Rasa concept of Bhakti Samudra Sindhu in much more detail later but now Vaishnavism had been intellectually given a solid foundation in Vrindavan by the Goswamis and in Orissa and Bengal it was popularised because Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had popularised the Hinam Sankirtan people had tasted the sweetness of Krishna’s holy name and although there were political and other upheavals after Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s departure and the sacking of Orissa by the Muslim kings but still Vaishnavism remained popular in Vrindavan and what gave that popularity an enormous flip an enormous boost was a significant event that happened in Vrindavan far away from Orissa and Bengal you know one day Jiv Goswami called his prominent Shiksha disciples Shri Masa Acharya Narottam Das Thakur and Shaman Pandit and told them to return back to Orissa and Bengal to the places where they had been earlier and to propagate the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and carry the books so that the intellectual foundation was laid. In one sense it was a traumatic moment for them because they had to go thousands of kilometres away, away from their spiritual teacher and the guiding presence that they were going to have but they followed that instruction and left and then they brought a new and all of them were very powerful preachers and Narottam Das Thakur by establishing the Kheturi festivals where several times the surviving followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu met and then they consolidated the books of the Goswamis were distributed to them and then gradually a broad understanding of the theological depth and the philosophical breadth of Gaudiya Vishnuism emerged among all the people and in this way Gaudiya Vishnuism became very strong and solidified in fact it was to such an extent that when Britishers came to Bengal as we know they came to India from Calcutta side primarily because the Portuguese had already taken Goa side so they did not have any quick way to emerge to enter India from the western side so they came from the eastern side so the British travellers of India they say that there were practically deities of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and they worshipped Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in every single house of Bengal in the 17th and 18th centuries that was how successful the preaching of Narottam Das Thakur Shri Matacharya and Shaman Pandit was we of course know how one of the prominent disciples Shaman Pandit Vasikananda Thakur was able to preach to barbarous Muslim kings and dangerous elephants and transformed them so in this way Gaudiya Vishnuism was given a widespread popularity and a deep rooted intellectual foundation by the combined efforts of the two generations the Goswamis who although in one sense they are two generations Jiva Goswami was a nephew of Rupan Sanatana Goswami and considerably younger to them but because all of them are in one sense considered the direct or direct followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu so their generation and the generation after that these two consolidated and expanded Gaudiya Vishnuism very powerfully and after around this time and after this time certain things happened by which Gaudiya Vishnuism again faced some challenges. Now the message of truth whenever it is brought in this world there is always a threat to that truth because of ungodly forces in the world so there were two kinds of ungodly influences.
One was in Vrindavan and the other was in Bengal In Vrindavan after the liberal period relatively liberal period of Akbar then there was eventually the extremely horrendous period of Aurangzeb and practically all the temples that had been built, all the efforts that had been done by the Goswamis were brought to naught by the atrocities of Aurangzeb and the Deities had to be as we know taken to Jaipur to be protected and most of the Vaishnavas had to flee or they had to go sort of underground in the sense that they could not do any visible activity they lived in the remote reaches of the forests and the mountains of Vrindavan and it seemed as if everything that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had done to the Goswamis for the restoration of Vrindavan was lost so it was a century later that in Bengal when Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur recognised the glory of Gaudiya Vaishnavism himself became a learned proponent of Gaudiya Vaishnavism that one day he got in his heart the inspiration, it was like almost a direct call from Lord Krishna, go to Vrindavan and restore everything over there so that time Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur took a lonely almost and dangerous journey from Bengal to Vrindavan and it was he who pioneered the re-establishment of Vrindavan as a Gaudiya Vaishnav and a Vaishnav centre of learning and devotion so subsequently after Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur we had Baldevidya Bhushan who was the Shiksha disciple and who faced and countered the challenge that was presented to Gaudiya Vaishnavism in Jaipur by the Ramanandis so we are going faster than ourselves so let us slow down a little bit so now on one level as I said Gaudiya Vaishnavism was restored in Vrindavan by the combined efforts of Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur and Baldevidya Bhushan of course they had many assistants also now in Bengal unfortunately something else happened that was the coming up of many Apasampradayas who distorted the teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnavism to a very unfortunate and unwholesome degree so there were almost as many as 27 biographies of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu written after he departed and this indicates how immensely popular and influential he was among the first to be written was Chaitanya Bhagwat by Vrindavan Das Thakur and after that now most of the biographies that were written in Bengal before Vrindavan Das or Chaitanya Bhagwat also there was written the Chaitanya Charita Mahakavya Chaitanya Charita by Murari Gupta there are many books written like that we cannot study all of even overview all of them right now but the important thing was most of the books written in Bengal were past times and there were a few philosophical statements in between but there were not philosophical analysis and exposition because that was the legacy that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had primarily given to the Goswamis so Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami wrote about extraordinary synthesis, a very extraordinary significant synthesis by being born and brought up in Bengal where he heard and deeply imbibed the past times of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and then going to Vrindavan and studying systematically under the Goswamis and imbibing the philosophy from them and then integrating both the past times and the philosophy into one book that is the Chaitanya Charita Amrit and because the Bengali followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu needed to recognise the importance of the philosophy of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and harmonise themselves with that philosophy he wrote this book in Bengali instead of Sanskrit although it is a philosophical book he wrote it in Bengali and Chaitanya Charita Amrit is probably among the very few books in the history of religious literature in India where the Moola Grantha, the original book is in a vernacular language and it attracted a commentary in the traditional Sanskrit language so Vishwanath Chitrako later wrote a Sanskrit commentary on Chaitanya Charita Amrit unfortunately that book seems to be lost today although devotees are scouring the houses of Gaudiya Vaishnavas in the libraries in Bengal to see if that book and several other books of our Acharyas can be recovered so anyway the point is that Chaitanya Charita Amrit brought about the synthesis of philosophy in past times in one book and that’s why it has a tremendous significance among all the biographies of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu now Lochindas Thakur wrote a book called Chaitanya Mangal and this book was misinterpreted and misused by one Appasampradaya to to exaggerate and distort the Gauranga Nagarbhau Lochindas Thakur describes how when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was performing his pastimes because he was so attractive the golden complexion, the majestic figure, the beautiful personality that he says that many of the women of Navadvip were attracted to him Chaitanya Charita Amrit describes how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was so strict that he would not even joke with, he would never joke with any women or associate with any women more than that was necessary and he also joked only very occasionally with his wife, even with his wife not to speak of other women so now some devotees consider Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to be Krishna and when they consider him to be Krishna then they serve him in the mood of Krishna so that mood is not wrong but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu never dealt with any women like Krishna dealt with the Gopis Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was surely practising and he was Krishna but he was a Channa Avatar of Krishna, he was, as a Yuga Avatar he wanted to spread the chanting of the holy names but he also wanted to taste the bhakti of Krishna that’s why he is a Channa Avatar so some people ask this question that if Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a hidden avatar and he did not declare himself to be God then why do his followers declare himself to be God so we have to understand that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is relishing relishing the devotional relationship at both its ends so when he is relishing the devotional relationship as the devotee the devotees want to assist him in that relationship, in that mood of relishing for him and when he is relishing that devotional relationship in the mood of the Lord the devotees want to assist him in that mood and we will see that generally if Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was dancing and singing he would not normally claim to be God and the devotees would surely be very respectful to him but they would not call him as God, but when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu started exhibiting in the in the Ashtapraharya Leela when he fulfilled the desires of all the devotees at that time when he exhibited the mood of being the Lord the devotees also assisted him in the mood of the Lord so in this way they actually arranged to adjust themselves according to the mood of the Lord and be of assistance so when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was dancing in Kirtan he was feeling the mood of Radharani’s separation from Krishna and he wanted to taste Krishna who was manifesting as the holy name, so in the Kirtans they were all glorifying Krishna and they would not glorify Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as the Lord because the devotees wanted to assist him in his mood so while Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was present on this planet he was tasting the mood of Srimati Radharani’s love for Krishna and that’s why the devotees did not glorify him as the Supreme Lord too often there are a few occasions like when Advaita Acharya tells all the devotees in Puri, let us glorify chant the names of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was displeased at that time at least externally by that but whenever there is a revelation by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu of his divinity whether it be in his childhood to the visiting Brahmana whose food he comes to eat or it is to several other people like Sitaram Bhattacharya whom it exhibits a 600 form, in general Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tells that as long as I am on this planet don’t reveal this to anyone because he wants to relish the mood of a devotee and if everybody starts glorifying him as the Lord then he cannot relish that anymore, so the devotees respected the wishes of the Lord and did not refer to him as Krishna regularly but along with relishing the mood of Srimati Radharani’s love for Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is also the Yuga Avatar who has come to spread the chanting of the holy names, repeat the chanting of the holy names and just as to ensure that his message and his teachings had respectability Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepted sannyas and he accepted sannyas from Mayavadi Sampradaya practically speaking so he went to that extent to ensure that his teachings had respectability so similarly to ensure that Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teaching of Harinama Sankirtana has respectability the devotees now understand that the Lord is as the Yuga Avatar propagating Yuga Dharma and now we have to assist him in that service in that mission of his so when the Lord is playing the role of God, the devotees will glorify him as God that’s how they as devotees they have written extensive books with references from the Vedic scriptures now on my website there is a question about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s divinity and there I have put a website which gives references from almost 24 different scriptures about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s divinity so in order to fulfil Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission the divinity his divinity is explained and established by the devotees now of course within Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes he never interacted with devotees in the mood of Krishna especially in the Madhurya Rasa yes he exhibited the mood of Krishna and devotees would offer him prayers and glorify him but he would never deal with any woman as if he were Krishna but unfortunately some of these references in Lochandas Thakur’s Chaitanya Mangal that the women of Nadia were attracted to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu they were taken as justification by the followers of by some pseudo followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to sort of justify not only the worship of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as Krishna with his consorts but also to try to imitate that same relationship in various ways so this had this led to the formation of lot of Apasampradayas which Sri Bhaktivinoda Thakur had to deal with and counter and that was an enormous challenge for him so how these distortions took place and how they were addressed by Bhaktivinoda Thakur we will discuss in our next lecture in that lecture we will also discuss a little bit about how Baldevidya Bhushan established Gaudiya Vaishnavism in a sampradayik way the status of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in that historic debate come discussion in Jaipur so today we will summarise quickly today we discussed about how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu a little bit before continued with Chaitanya Vaishnavism especially how it opened the caste opened the doors that were closed by the caste system and then we discussed about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s life and five significant events in his life and the most significant being the empowerment of the Goswamis to lay the intellectual foundations of Gaudiya Vaishnavism so Rupa Goswami brought about an integration between Rasa and Vaishnavism through his Bhaktiva Samudra Sindhu Jiva Goswami brought an integration between Vedanta and Vaishnavism through his Sandarbhas and then that intellectual foundation that was laid was transposed transported physically and transposed at a internal level by the three prominent second generation followers of Gaudiya Vaishnavism Vishwanath Acharya Shaman Pandita and Narottam Das Thakur and they spread Gaudiya Vaishnavism very rapidly with the intellectual foundations intact and then we discussed about how the Gauranganabharbhau emerged how it spread and what effects it had in terms of distorting Gaudiya Vaishnavism and distorting people’s perceptions of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and how that was reformed and corrected by Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Bhaktivinoda Thakur we will discuss in our next class. Thank you.