How Jiva Goswami and Bhaktivinoda Thakura expertly expanded the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition

[Talk at online Bhakti Sanga Japa Conference]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I’ll talk today about the dynamism of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition as illustrated through its prominent Acharyas. So, basically, every tradition it is for it every new generation is like a new territory. Normally, we think of territory in terms of space.
So, it’s like a king might be ruling a particular state and the king expands. Maybe expands the kingdom by conquering another territory. So, we normally think of territory in terms of space.
But, there is territory in terms, we could say conceive of like the influence not only in terms of space but also in terms of time. That means, every generation has to fight its own battle to continue the tradition, to preserve it in the new generation and to carry it forward. And it is just like an army has commanders who lead the fight for that generation, for that army.
Similarly, each generation has its prominent Acharyas and those Acharyas lead the fight. They are like the commanders of an army that fights to preserve the territory and expand the territory. Here the territory is the head and the hearts of the followers.
It’s not the Acharyas, not physical kings. But, they are commanders on behalf of Krishna who protect and offer more and more heads and hearts to Krishna. And for offering this, in each generation there are certain misconceptions.
So, Avidya ignorance constantly keeps recycling itself. That means, Avidya keeps appearing in newer and newer versions. And when Avidya appears like this in newer and newer versions, it needs to be countered.
And there is a timeless knowledge but there are also timely or contextual situations. And the timeless knowledge has to be presented according to the contextual situations so that the timeless knowledge can move forward and be appreciated by people. So, I’ll talk primarily about one major challenge that Jiyogoswami faced and how he dealt with that and what we learn from it.
One major challenge that Thakur faced, how he dealt with it and how we can learn from it. So, for any tradition, for any body of knowledge to be respected it has to be presented in a way that seems respectable to its contemporary audiences. Say for example, now, in today’s world, we often may say that Krishna conscious is also scientific.
Now, 300 years ago or 400 years ago, if you had said Bhakti Yoga, Krishna conscious is scientific, what is science? Science was an unknown commodity. In fact, Newton himself didn’t call himself a scientist, he was a natural philosopher. So, but today science is considered the most respectable form of knowledge.
And thus, we have to often establish, when we talk about soul or God, is it scientific, people ask. So, we often as devotees have to present how Krishna conscious is scientific, it is logical, it is rational. And this emphasis on science is required because today, science is what is considered respectable and we present ourselves in terms of what is respectable.
So, similarly for Jiva Goswami, at his time, his challenge was he had to make Gaudiya Vaishnavism respectable among his audiences. Now, we can say that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is God and it is already respectable, isn’t it? But it is not that simple. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was not accepted as God by everyone.
And Gaudiya Vaishnavism began in Bengal and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had enormous influence wherever he went. But when he travelled across India, there was not much, you could say, follow up because he just went, visited once and then he came back. So, he consolidated in Jagannath Puri and basically Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had three main bases.
Jagannath Puri, Mayapur and Vrindavan. Now, Vrindavan at that time was the hub of, it was rapidly, it was in North India and it became the hub of Vaishnavism, especially Krishna worship. And Jiva Goswami became the prominent Acharya within two generations of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami were older than Chaitanya Mahaprabhu although they were his disciples. And Jiva Goswami was younger to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So, within the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition in Vrindavan, Jiva Goswami was the second generation.
And Jiva Goswami had a specific mission. He is called our Siddhanta Acharya. He wanted to establish the Gaudiya Vaishnav Siddhanta.
Now, what do we mean by establish? That it needs to be taken seriously by those who, not just those who are practising it. There will always be some insiders and many outsiders. So, how outsiders view our tradition is also very important.
They may accept it, they may respect it, they may embrace it or they may neglect it, they may deride it, they may outlaw it also. There can be various degrees of reactions. So now, Jiva Goswami had the task of making the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition respectable.
Now, how would he do that? At that time, there was the standard way for any tradition to make itself respectable was to show that how its teachings are based on the Vedanta Sutra. Just like today, if I want to appeal to, say, scientific audience, science college students or something like that, we might say how there is scientific evidence for the soul or scientific evidence for God. So, based on the praman that the audience accepts, we need to present our knowledge.
Or if we want to make a case before devotees, we might have to show how what we are saying is based on Prabhupada’s words, how it is based on Shastra. So, similarly, at that time, the authority, what was considered authority was that if a school of thought could be established based on the Vedanta Sutra. The Vedanta Sutra or the Brahma Sutra was considered to be the primary body of the culmination of all the Vedic essence.
And all the prominent Acharyas commented on the Vedanta Sutra. And their commentary became like the defining book of their tradition. Now, Jiva Goswami had done something quite radical.
He had this mission, the inspiration to learn, to learn, to defend the sampradaya. So, he went to Varanasi. Prabhupada said Varanasi is like the Vrindavan of the Mayavadis.
That means that’s where they are concentrated. And that’s like their home. And he went there and he learned Sanskrit over there.
Why? Because they were the scholars in Sanskrit. So, although they were great devotees and there were many great devotional scholars also, but Sanskrit vyakaran is a field in itself. And it’s not that just because somebody is a devotee, Krishna will change the rules of the game for the devotee.
No, we have to play according to the rules of the game and Krishna will empower us to play the game better. That means, even if we have a pure message to give, if suppose we don’t know English grammar, we don’t know how to speak English fluently and we give a message, we may not be able to speak effectively. The core message will be effective but we need to learn the rules of the game.
That means if we are able to speak a language, we have to learn that language. So, because he was going to explain Shastra and also connect with, explain Shastra as well as connect with Shastra, he had to actually learn from the Acharyas of Mayavada. And he did that but his purpose was very clear.
So, sometimes a devotee may have to learn some skills, some abilities from a non-devotee so that he can, so that they can serve the devotional mission properly. But this requires one to be very very strong. Along with Jiva Goswami, one more great scholar also from the Mayapur area went, that was that was Rupa Goswami that was Madhusudana Saraswati.
And Madhusudana Saraswati, when he went there at that time, he got influenced. And while studying grammar, he ended up becoming impersonalist. And he became later one of the most prominent Acharyas in impersonalism.
And Vyasa Kirtha, the great Madhava scholar wrote a critique of impersonalism of Advaita Vaad. It was Madhusudana Saraswati who wrote Nyaya Amrita and countered that. So the point is that, sometimes we might go with a good intention, but the inhospitable or negative association can affect us.
So Jiva Goswami’s strength of purpose was so strong enough that he was not affected. But Madhusudana Saraswati was affected. But Jiva Goswami came back to Vrindavan and now he had all the Sanskrit learning and he had also deep learning of scripture.
Now he had to defend the Gaudiya tradition. And people were asking, you say you are a tradition, but where is your commentary on the Vedanta Sutra? And he was told that he said, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had given an answer at that time that actually there is no need for a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra because the Bhagavatam is the natural commentary. The same author Vyasadeva has written that commentary.
But this was not acceptable to most people. They said that this is simply a cop-out. This is your excuse, your rationalisation for not having a commentary.
So then Jiva Goswami, what did he do? Now Jiva Goswami, he had this one challenge that they couldn’t have a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. Although 2-3 generations down the line, Baldevidya Bhushan was forced to write 5-6 several generations down the line. Baldevidya Bhushan had to write the commentary because the tradition itself was threatened.
In Jiva Goswami’s case, the tradition itself was not so big that it would be threatened, but authority was not established. But Baldevidya Bhushan had to write the commentary because the tradition was threatened. So, but at Jiva Goswami’s time, somebody writing a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra would have been unacceptable.
Because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has said Bhagavatam is the natural commentary. Why do you need any other commentary? So, what did he do? How does he deal with such a situation that he wants to respect the founder of our tradition, but at the same time he wants to get respectability of the contemporary intellectual world. So, the founder says there is no need for a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra.
The contemporary world says that you need a commentary. So, he found a very resourceful solution. And what he did was that he took the first four sutras of the Vedanta Sutra.
Chatushruti Tika. What he did was Athato Brahma Jijnasa, Janmadhyasya Yathaha, Shastra Yonitva, Tattva Samanvayat. These four sutras and he commented on them.
And he showed how the Bhagavatam itself explains these four sutras. So, then what happens is that he has to give a natural commentary. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said this is a natural commentary.
Now, natural commentary is not the same as a textual commentary. Textual commentary means there is a verse in the Vedanta. Say for example, Prabhupada’s Bhagavad Gita as it is, is a textual commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.
That means that there is a Bhagavad Gita verse and there is a commentary. Now, Bhagavatam is not like a textual commentary. You cannot say that this is the verse of Vedanta Sutra and this is the verse of Bhagavatam which is a commentary on that.
So, natural commentary would mean something like say, if a speaker gives a class, say one evening the speaker gives a class and some of the audience are very interested in the class. And the next morning, the audience says can you explain this topic more? Now, the speaker may go deeper into the same subject because the audience is interested. But it won’t be that one sentence of the speaker from the previous class it is elaborated necessarily by ten sentences in this class.
So, natural commentary means the same subject is discussed. But how the natural commentary is actually based on the original subject, that is not easily discernible as it would be if it were a textual commentary. So, what Jiva Goswami did was that he showed how Bhagavatam is a natural commentary.
That means he took the first four sutras of the Vedanta Sutra and showed how various verses from the Bhagavatam and various themes from the Bhagavatam illustrate and illuminate those four verses. And that section of the Sandarbhas is actually a masterpiece. Of course, the whole Sandarbhas are masterpieces of Jiva Goswami.
The Shat Sandarbhas are the foundational philosophical treatises for Gaudiya Vaishnavism in which the principles of Gaudiya Vaishnavism are established by Jiva Goswami. So, he meets with this challenge by he can’t write a new commentary but he then, ok, this is a natural commentary. How it is a natural commentary? He does it for four sutras.
Then he also faces another challenge. And this is an even more volatile or sensitive challenge. That is, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has said that Sridhar Swami is the natural commentator on the Bhagavatam.
And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had even chastised or at least reproached Vallabha Bhatta when he had said that I have written the commentary different from the Sridhar Swami’s. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had said that Swami is also the husband and one who does not respect the husband is like an unchaste woman. So, that was a very heavy statement to make.
So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu almost gave absolute authority to the commentary of Sridhar Swami. Now, Sridhar Swami was in a peculiar position. See, sometimes when an army is to be defeated, you can have an attack from the front.
Openly you come and oppose the enemy. Sometimes, you might enter into the enemy camp and try to create dissent within the enemy camp. That means, like say, infiltrate into the enemy camp and say, do you need to fight this? Do you need to fight over this? You know, actually they are also right and you can live together.
So, when somebody enters into the enemy camp, they have to win the trust of the enemy. So, say, if there is a fight between A and B, A directly attacks B is one thing. But if A has an agent, A1, who enters into the B camp.
Now, when they enter into the B camp, then they have to earn their trust of B at the same time make some proposals that are reasonable for A to accept. So, Sridhar Swami was like that. So, many of our Acharyas, say Madhvacharya, Ramanacharya, they are like A directly attacking B. B was the Advaitavada.
But Sridhar Swami is like A1. A1 means he entered into the Advaita Sampradaya. Officially, he was affiliated with the Advaita Sampradaya.
And while being affiliated with the Advaita Sampradaya, what he did was he made sure that within the Advaita Sampradaya, Bhakti’s stock started increasing more and more and more. And so, when he is commenting on the Bhagavatam, see, Shankaracharya never commented on the Bhagavatam. He managed the Bhagavatam to gain more and more importance as the Bhakti tradition spread.
The Advaitins also felt the need to comment on it. So, Sridhar Swami took that challenge and he commented on it. Now, because he is in B, say, if India and Pakistan are fighting, now one is directly India attacks Pakistan.
But the other is, see, there are some Indians in Pakistan who go and say, India is not that bad. Why do you need to fight? Both of us can live together. So, then, if somebody wants to take that strategy, then they will also have to earn the trust of the Pakistanis.
So, like that, Sridhar Swami, while commenting on the Bhagavatam, has to give the Bhakti perspective but he also has to earn the trust of the Advaitins because the Advaitins are who he is officially belonging to. So, then, what happens? That’s why in his commentary, Sridhar Swami’s commentary, there are many sections which are very beautifully devotional, profoundly establishing the Bhakti Siddhanta. But there are also quite a few sections which are Advaitic commentary.
So, now, Jiva Goswami, when he has to show how the Bhagavatam is a natural commentary on the Vedanta Sutra and he wants to establish the Gaudiya Vishnu Siddhanta based on that, he cannot use the commentary which is impersonal. So, what does Jiva Goswami do? This is a very important principle which we all can learn that many traditional cultures are what is called as face-saving cultures. Face-saving culture means that if somebody is older to us, somebody is senior to us, even if they are wrong, we don’t disgrace them publicly.
We don’t disrespect them. See, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was criticised by Ramachandra Puri because Ramachandra Puri was in the generation of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s spiritual master. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu didn’t directly ever criticise Ramachandra Puri.
So, similarly, what Jiva Goswami does is, when he has to explain the Bhagavatam verses, whenever Sridhar Swami has given a devotional commentary, he refers to that commentary. Like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he considers the commentary to be a natural commentary. It is Tikaiti.
Tika means the commentary says. And which commentary? It is Sridhar Swami’s commentary. So, he considers Sridhar Swami’s commentary to be the default commentary.
But whenever Sridhar Swami gives any kind of impersonal interpretation, then he does not take the name over there. And he says, according to some imaginary interpretations, it is said like this. But, actually it is like this.
So, while quoting something positively, take the name. While criticising someone, avoid the name. Why is that? Sridhar Swami is much much senior to him.
He is a venerable. He has become a respectable Acharya. He is a respectable Acharya.
So, Jiva Goswami does not disrespect that Acharya. But still, he makes sure that his mission goes on. So, it is Jiva Goswami primarily, he had this school of study of Shastra and so many scholars from the various parts of India came over there.
And Jiva Goswami established our tradition’s respectability. Otherwise, we were an unknown tradition. Especially in Vrindavan, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had stayed there for two months and gone.
Rupesh Narayan Goswami had performed ecstatic dancing. But, their charisma was there. But what for subsequent generations? When a very charismatic leader is there, in their presence, everyone is inspired.
But in their absence, what will carry on the tradition is not the remembrance of the charisma, but it’s also the Shastric foundation of what somebody is teaching. So, Jiva Goswami, he navigated this delicate balance of how to respect Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, respect Sridhar Swami. At the same time, how to gain respectability intellectually among the contemporary intellectual elite of the times.
So, respecting our tradition, at the same time, respecting the intellectual needs of our audience and then balancing the two. That is the challenge which we also face in our generation. When we present Krishna Bhakti to new people, we need to respect our tradition.
But at the same time, the respect that we have for our tradition, that new people are not likely to have. So, we have to make the tradition respectable in their eyes. And that is the resourcefulness that Jiva Goswami showed.
And that is the resourcefulness we all need to show to establish the, to continue the tradition. So, we can pray to Jiva Goswami that he give us a little bit of his mercy, so that whenever we face situations where people question our tradition, question our practises, then we can present in a resourceful way. We can explain and answer in present in a way that increases the respect of our tradition.
So, that was Jiva Goswami. Now, let’s move on to Bhaktivinod Thakur. Bhaktivinod Thakur lived at a time of extraordinary change.
That, see, Baldevidya Bhushans is the last traditional commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. And it was at least as Shankaracharya had propagated it, Advaitavada, that went down. But by the time Bhaktivinod Thakur came, the whole game had changed.
Because what had happened was the western powers had come to India and had started gaining more and more influence in India. So, the British, the first thing they conquered was Bengal. And from Bengal, they spread their influence all over India.
And India was ruled by foreign powers. The Islamic rulers were ruling India for a long time. But the Islamic rulers were never considered or Islam was never considered an intellectual threat to the dharmic tradition.
It was a political threat. And there was a lot of persecution and desecration of temples. But it was never an intellectual threat.
Nobody considered Islamic philosophy to be so formidable that it would challenge the dharmic philosophies of India. But when the western civilisation came, it brought with it science. And especially the product of science, that is technology.
So, gunpowder and sophisticated cannons and stuff like that proved decisive for the British, although they were small in number, to win the war. And along with that, they brought a world view. That world view was of rational enquiry or what is called a scientific method.
And with that method, what happened, many intellectuals of that time, especially in Bengal, they became very influenced. And they started getting attracted and converted to the western way of thinking. Now actually, when Britain conquered India, at that time Britain was also going through its own turbulence.
In Britain, there were two forces. There was the force of rationality and there was the force of Christianity. Both of them were also fighting with each other in Britain.
So, rationality was questioning everything within the Christian tradition also, which was irrational. And Christianity was countering it and defending itself. Now, among the British who conquered India, there were proponents of both schools of thought.
And although they were fighting over there in the west, in Britain, but both of them targeted the dharmic traditions. So, the rationalists would say, how irrational it is? You believe that people lived for 10,000 years and 100,000 years? What kind of nonsense is this? You believe that there are mountains which are hundreds of miles tall? There are oceans of milk? What kind of imagination? Don’t you people have intelligence to enquire? So, they condemned the many of which are the Indian traditional as irrational. And while Christianity has its own critiques, Christianity criticised the idolatry in our tradition.
It also criticised the caste system as causing discrimination. It also… But both of them basically attacked the dharmic traditions. Although the two of them were at war in UK, they both fought against the dharmic tradition.
So, Christianity and there was one, some people who also wrote something called the Christoplishen. So, it was like a Sanskrit conversation between Christ and various Brahmins. And Christ persuades, Jesus Christ persuades all those Brahmins.
It’s an imaginary, but there are big influential wins for Christianity. And the prominent Bengali intellectuals who became Atheists. And there was one prominent leader, not just Atheist in the sense of rejecting God, but rejecting many of the core tenets of religion.
So, the Christians would try to convert, try to critique deity worship. But it was, it was an Indian convert to western thought who wrote one of the strongest critiques of deity worship. And it became a time where lot of people were losing faith.
And there were traditional scholars who would write in Sanskrit and they were brilliant in Sanskrit, they would quote Shastra. But they considered the westernised, the western debate, which would happen mostly in English, they considered it below their dignity to deal with. You know, if somebody doesn’t know Sanskrit, we are not going to care for it.
But what happened, those who were learning English and were getting affected by the rational school of thought, they started saying, we don’t care for you. You live in a world which is outdated. And thus, the influence of western thought with both rational thought and Christian thought on the mainstream intellectuals of Bengal was continuing unabated.
And none of the traditional scholars were equipped to challenge that. Because these traditional scholars had studied Sanskrit, had studied Shastra, but they had not studied science, they had not studied western modes of thinking. So they were unequipped to meet those challenges.
So it is at such a time that Bhaktivinod Thakur took the mantle. Bhaktivinod Thakur in many ways empathised with those who were criticising the Indian traditions. And what did he do? He studied western philosophy.
He was a very respected intellectual among what was called at that time the Bhadraloka. The Bhadraloka were people who considered, they were good people, basically they were the educated people, western educated people who were thoughtful, who were seriously considering how to balance between what is the Indian tradition and what is the western mode of thought. So here we are not talking about western culture, we are talking about western mode of thought.
Western mode of thought, what we today call as western culture, which is, we say, filled with a lot of sensuality and a lot of immorality. Actually that came after the sexual revolution. That which came because of Sigmund Freud in 1920-1930 onwards.
Even the west was very conservative. In fact, when the British people came to India, there was a Victorian morality going on. And they criticised, the British criticised Indian women as lacking in dignity.
Because at that time in the Victorian morality, a woman should not, their idea was that a woman should always cover her hands and legs whenever she goes out. So they would wear stockings and gloves whenever she goes out. Indian women would never do that.
India is a hot country and there is a lot of practical work to do. So they would have some footwear, but in India practically no one would wear gloves. So they would consider these Indian women have no sense of chastity or dignity, how brazen and shameless they are, that they go out without covering their legs and covering their feet and their hands.
So at that time in many ways the Western culture, although they used to eat meat and that’s why Indians looked down upon them. They used to eat meat and things like that. But Indians also, Shaktas were eating meat.
So it was not clear that Indians were morally superior to the Christians or to the Europeans, to the British. The British often claimed that you are morally inferior to us. So what we call as Western culture is different from what was attacking the Dharmic tradition at that time.
That was Western mode of thought which was different. So within the Western mode of thought it was Bhaktivinod Thakur who learned that mode of thought and then he learned the tradition. It was Bhaktivinod Thakur as Prabhupada calls him as the founder of the Krishna Conscious Movement in the modern times.
If there had been no Bhaktivinod Thakur, there would have been no Krishna Conscious Movement. Of course we can say the same about Prabhupada but Bhaktivinod Thakur is Bhaktivinod Thakur actually navigated the foundation of presenting Krishna Conscious in the modern times. And what did he do? It was he who, he was also at one time quite critical because Western modes of thought influenced him.
This is his Leela because he is an eternal associate at one level. But at another level he is acting in a way so that people of the Bhadraloka could identify with him. So that he was one among them.
He used to discuss Western philosophers. He used to discuss various contemporary critiques of Dharmic traditions. But at that time, since his childhood, he was often very sickly.
And he in his childhood had, they used to live in a place which was apparently haunted. So his great-grandfather experienced it. That by chanting he would become fearless.
So as he grew up at one time, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was very much prominent in Bengal because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was there about 200-300 years ago. And almost every household in Bengal had Gauri Tai worship going on. But it was mostly based on Chaitanya Bhagavata and Chaitanya Mangala, which are books which tell the past times of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
So in general, books which tell stories become much more popular than books which give philosophy. So Chaitanya Charita Amrit gives philosophy. So Chaitanya Charita Amrit had almost become inaccessible.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s past times were known. They were known through Chaitanya Bhagavata and Chaitanya Mangala. But nobody knew much of the philosophy.
So it took years for Bhaktivinoda Thakur to discover the Chaitanya Charita Amrit. And when he discovered it, he literally devoured it. Just read it fully and it was like a epiphany for him, a new revolution of what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was and what his teachings were.
And then he writes in his autobiography that he prayed to the Supreme. He says, Chaitanya was such an exemplary person. Sri Chaitanya was such an exemplary person.
Why does he worship somebody like Krishna who apparently did something so immoral? Among the Hindu gods, both the Christians as well as the rationalists, they criticised especially Krishna and Kali. Kali for her Kali, not Kali, Kali. Kali is the goddess.
Kali is the Kali Yuga. So Kali for the barbarity of her worship. Now Kali has a garland of skulls and often she is shown killing somebody.
He says, how can you worship somebody who is so brutal? They criticised Kali for her brutality and Krishna for his immorality. That how can he you call him God and he dances with other men’s wives? And Bhaktivinoda Thakura had the same question. Now why does Chaitanya who is so morally exemplary renunciate, why is he worshipping an immoral figure like Krishna? And then, Lord Chaitanya from within his heart, the lord from within his heart gave him answers.
And then he became dramatically transformed and he became the most prominent proponent of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. So Bhaktivinoda Thakura took initiation from Bipin Bihari Goswami. Jagannath Das Goswami was someone whom he later met and he derived immense spiritual inspiration from.
But Bhaktivinoda Thakura, you remember what for a tradition to be respectable, you have to show that you respect your predecessors. At the same time you have to earn the respect of your contemporaries. So now Bhaktivinoda Thakura was an outsider in the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition.
He had intellectually discovered the Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s profound teachings on Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s Chaitanya Charita Amrut. But he was not born in the Gaudiya Vaishnav family.
He was born in the Shakta family. So for him, he had to earn the respect of the predecessors of the tradition and he had to earn the respect of the contemporaries. So how did he do that? To earn the respect of the tradition, he went to a respectable Gaudiya Vaishnava priest.
That was Bipin Bihari Goswami. And he took initiation from Bipin Bihari Goswami. Now this was more for the sake of affiliation than out of inspiration.
Of course, not that he was not inspired but his Bipin Bihari Goswami was also a scholar but he was a traditional scholar and he was more of a ritualist kind of person. You know, do this ritual this way, do this ritual that way. So he was not that resourceful.
But Bhaktivinoda Thakura took that initiation so that he would have the connection with the tradition and he would have the respect that I am representing the tradition. And then he started writing books. And when he wrote the books, he gave a completely new perspective of how to see the tradition.
And Bhaktivinoda Thakura separated essentially because that people were criticising so much about the Bhadraloka and the British, rationalists as well as Christians, they were criticising so much about our tradition. So in order to gain the respect he decided to choose his battles. And one of the main things he presented it’s a big subject but this one main thing I will present and then we will conclude.
He talked about a Saragrahi Vaishnava and a Bharvahi Vaishnava. Basically, Saragrahi is one who is the essence seeking and Bharvahi is one who is the burden carrying. So like a donkey carries a burden.
So what Bhaktivinoda Thakura said is that even in the tradition, everything that comes from the tradition is not necessarily from scripture. Within the tradition also lot of superstition can come up. Lot of irrationality can come up.
So he gave for example, he differentiated between Varanashram and the caste system. So he called it Vaigyanik Varanashram. Scientific Varanashram.
This is Bhaktivinoda Thakura using contemporary language. No Acharya before, Bhaktivinoda Thakura has used the word science also because it was not required and science was also not that prevalent. But he says Varanashram is a scientific division of society based on good karma.
And the caste system that is there today is something which is wrong. So he considered those who were trying to defend the caste system and those who were being victimised by the caste system, they were all like the Bharvahi. They were the burden carrying.
The Saradrahi are those who understand the essential principle of Varanashram and the essential purpose of Varanashram. The essential principle of Varanashram is that engage people according to their psychophysical natures. And essential purpose is if people are materially harmoniously engaged, then they can pursue spiritual life without much difficulty.
So like this, Bhaktivinoda Thakura… So many of the things which people were criticising about our dharmic traditions, Bhaktivinoda Thakura said, actually that is not really our tradition. Don’t be a Bharvahi. So, don’t just carry a burden when it is not required.
So, what is the essence? Bhaktivinoda Thakura said that the essence is that we need to love Krishna and experience that love for Krishna and share that love for Krishna with others. So, he wrote many books in which he presented this essence. His Chaitanya Shiksha Amrita, his Jaiva Dharma are among his most influential books.
And he also wrote another book which was quite controversial which is called Krishna Samhita, in which he tried to accommodate the rational people who had a rational mode of thinking. And, he also wrote an essay on the Bhagwat which was like his, you could say, his intellectual debut. Just like a cricketer, their first match on the international scene.
How they play is… and they scored a century at that time. It was a sensation. So like that, the book that… it was basically a talk which Bhaktivinoda Thakura gave on the Bhagwat.
And that was like his intellectual debut among the Bhadraloka. And there he anticipates what are the concerns, what are the objections, reservations about the Bhagwatam that people have. And some people say that, oh, its cosmology and chronology is unbelievable.
And they say that, okay, its divinity is immoral, that Krishna acts immorally. And its philosophy is incomprehensible. Some of the sections, especially, are incomprehensible.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura, one by one, addresses these points. And he talks about the cosmology and the chronology. He says, this cosmology and chronology, the specific figures are not important.
The point over there is that at all times throughout history and at all times across geography, at all places across geography, people have been practising Dharma. People have been practising Bhakti. And Dharma and Bhakti are the essential point.
The other things are not that important. I am oversimplifying things over here for the sake of explaining. But, and as far as Krishna’s immorality, he very beautifully explains that there is immoral, there is moral and there is trans-moral.
There is something which is not moral because it is below morality and something which is not moral because it is above morality. And he establishes how Krishna’s pastimes with the Gopis are actually trans-moral. And as far as the philosophy is being incomprehensible, then Bhaktivinoda Thakur says, but when you read western philosophers, there are sections in their works also which are incomprehensible.
It is expected that if a body of thought is conveying some profound wisdom, some parts of it will be incomprehensible. So, we need patience and diligence, not derision, not dismissing it. And thus, by his expert presentation, he created space for the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition.
And what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did? Bhaktisans Thakur expanded. And Srila Prabhupada expanded further across the world. So, we today, for us, we don’t have to establish our authenticity based on the Vedanta Sutra.
That battle is already over now. What Jiva Goswami fought? But what Bhaktivinoda Thakur fought? We are still fighting it. Now, we have to show how Krishna consciousness is rational.
It is something which is not unbelievable or mythological or like those things like that. So, how do we do that? Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s differentiation of saaragrahi and bhaarvahi, that is a very important thing. So, often, we start fighting with people over things which are not central.
So, I’ll give one example of Srila Prabhupada’s life and I’ll conclude that. When Prabhupada was in Hawaii, some of his disciples came to him and said that, Prabhupada, when we present the Bhagavatam to scholars and if we tell, say, for example, that Maharaj Ugrasen had some astronomical number of bodyguards that’s said in the Bhagavatam, so the scholars start laughing at us. And they say, Dwarka is such a small place.
Where did all of them live? Where were their rooms? Where were their restrooms? How is it possible? This is simply impossible. So, now Prabhupada could have answered, Krishna is God. Krishna can do anything.
Krishna can maintain the whole world on the tip of a needle. But Prabhupada exhibits this difference between saaragrahi and bhaarvahi. He says that among all the sections in the Bhagavatam, all the wisdom in the Bhagavatam, was that the only section you found to talk with the scholars? So, one of the offences to the holy name is to instruct faithless people in the glory of the holy name.
One way that can be understood also is that, if we tell people some things which they cannot reasonably have faith in, everybody has to take steps of faith, but sometimes if you make people take a leap of faith, they cannot take it. So, then we need to present the Bhagavatam in a way that is intelligible. We see Prabhupada’s own works.
How much does Prabhupada talk about, oh, this mountain is so big and this time scale is that big? Prabhupada stresses on the basic principles that we are not the body, we are the soul, life is not meant for material gratification, life is meant for spiritual evolution. Prabhupada himself was asked, what is the most important? If somebody wanted to study a brief sample of your work, what would you consider the most important? And Prabhupada said, the most important is 1, 2, 9, and 10. That is, that life is meant for transcendental pursuit.
Even Dharma is not meant for material improvement, it is for spiritual realisation. So, that is the essential teaching. So, we need to, in our own practise, as well as in our presenting Krishna Consciousness to others, learn to not become Bharavahi.
Keep carrying and passing on to others things which are not central to Krishna Consciousness and fighting that this is true, don’t challenge this, you have to have faith in this. Focus on what is essential, present that which is essential, and the core principles of Krishna Consciousness are very intelligible. In fact, they are attractive.
The vision of all attractive personal divinity, the conception that there is an indestructible core to us, which is evolving over many lifetimes. It brings a profound sense of meaning and purpose to life. And everybody in today’s chaotic relativistic world is looking for meaning and purpose.
So, if we let the Krishna Consciousness, the wisdom of Bhakti Yoga, stand on its own, without burdening it with a hundred other things, then there is a tremendous attractive potency that it has. And that is what we can pray to Bhaktanath Thakur that he give us the intelligence by which we stop being Bharavahi and start becoming Sargrahi and we start relishing and sharing the essence of Bhakti and attract many many people in today’s world as he attracted in his world. So, thank you very much.
Shrila Jeeva Goswami ki Jai! Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakur ki Jai! Hare Krishna! Is there anybody having any questions for Babuji? He’s asking great personalities and how they So, Babuji, my question on Bhaktivinoda Thakur is we find that he, I think Bhaktivinoda Saraswati spoke in the conference of Brahmanas and how he said that Vaishnavism is greater than Brahmanism. So, was that so much prevalent in Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s time also and how did he Sorry, can you repeat? What was prevalent? Brahmanical culture and the caste conscious Brahmanas who were Marathas and who were looking down upon Vaishnava tradition because of the Upasampradaya. Okay.
Yeah, okay. That’s also a big subject. So, were the caste conscious Brahmanas looking down upon the Vaishnavas because of the Upasampradayas at that time? Yeah, basically Chaitanya Mahaprabhu celebrated the Parakiuras.
He glorified it although he never ever imitated it. He was strongly condemned even the slightest of sexual immorality. But at that time there was also the Shakta tradition.
Shakta is a example of Tantra. Tantra has two aspects to it. The basic principle of Tantra is that spirit can be accessed through matter and there is left hand Tantra and there is right hand Tantra.
Diti worship is considered to be like the Sattvic Tantra worship. So, through properly arranged material manifestations of the Divine we can access the Divine. So, the Diti is made of material elements but the Diti is not matter because Krishna is manifesting.
But there is another side of Tantra which says that actually spirit can be manifested through any material activity and within Tantra there are some schools of thought who said that actually when a man and a woman unite even through sensuality, spirituality can be accessed and so some people would say that actually when a man and a woman are uniting it is Shiva and Shakti uniting through them. By the orthodox tradition this has never been accepted but anything which provides a licence for sensuality that can be very easily that is often easily taken up by because it rationalises what they want to do. So, this idea of the human union replicating the Divine union that was taken up by some people and then it became popular and then some people brought it into Vaishnavism also and people would perform Rasleela and they would do immoral activities and they would say actually Radha and Krishna are performing this through us and that led to the although Chaitanya Mahaprabhu never even remotely hinted at this and he strongly condemned anything like that but because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had been the most prominent teacher of Krishna Bhakti so somehow the Shaktism and Gaudiya Vaishnavism got mixed up in the upper Sampradayas and thus some people were doing immoral things in the name of Krishna Leela that we are doing Rasleela only because of that so there were different kinds of upper Sampradayas but Sahajiyaism where sentimental spirituality without any attempt for committed purification that was also a major problem so what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did was there were many popular songs the Baula Geet it is called they were popular and they would write some songs about Krishna and they would also be doing immoral activities and some of them genuinely thought that actually they were doing transcendental activities some of them were simply rationalising what they were doing but this Baula Sangeet became very popular so Bhaktivinoda Thakur at a philosophical level he did counter the upper Sampradayas but a tradition is spread not just by the philosophy but also by the culture culture means that it involves singing it involves music, it involves cooking, it involves decorating it involves celebrating festivals so Bhaktivinoda Thakur also wrote many songs which use the similar tune metre and structure of the Baula Sangeet but instead of the Baula songs would actually glorify sentimental Bhakti he in his songs used the same tune metre and structure but condemned sentimental Bhakti and exposed it so it’s like the weapons which they have manufactured he used it to actually expose them itself that was his expertise Bhaktivinoda Thakur was a remarkably versatile person generally people who are authors who write books it’s not so easy to write poetry for them because it’s a different almost like a different language in literature but he has written poetry he has written Bengali poetry he has written English commentaries, he has written Bengali commentaries he was phenomenally versatile so Bhaktivinoda Thakur one of his tasks was also pointing out how the upper Sampradayas were not representing Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Gaudiya Vaishnavism was separate from that he has an important contribution thank you for this question does it answer the question? and also if you answer the other question that I had for a long time how the pure Vaishnavism Sampradayas thank you okay any one last question so thank you very much that is a stupid question in your answer just now you said that in describing the deity form of Krishna that he the deity form is made of material elements but it’s not matter because Krishna is manifesting here so we are having a little bit of trouble reconciling those two clauses okay good point matter yet okay good point so how do we reconcile that the deity is made of material elements but is not matter it’s a see when we say it is not matter it means that it is more than matter it is and a currency note a currency note is also paper but the currency note is much more than paper so when we say the currency so a mother might tell a small child whenever you see any piece of paper lying on the ground tear it and throw it in the trash and today the father while going to office dropped a 50 dollar bill and the child sees that and child starts running towards and the mother says don’t tear it so you only told me to tear paper this is not paper this is Lakshmi Devi Lakshmi Devi this is paper yeah it is paper but it is not just paper it is so because of this case it is the authorisation by the government so that paper is imbued with the value far more than the value of ordinary paper so in that sense it is both paper and not paper so like that the deity is made of material elements but because of the prana pratishtha being done because of the sincere sincerity with which the devotees are worshipping the lord because of their intense desire to serve in the lord manifests over there and when he manifests over there then the deity becomes not matter but more than matter it is Krishna manifesting through matter so Bhaktivinoda Thakur talks about symbolism in two ways I have written a book called on this whole subject called Idol Worship or Ideal Worship a series of questions and questions on the subject but question answer on the subject so there is descending symbolism and ascending symbolism so the deity worship is an example of descending symbolism so what is these two kind of symbolism that ascending symbolism is say for example India or America they have a particular flag so India has a tricolour flag now if say the colour of green represents agriculture over there and India the Indian parliament so now whenever you want to want to have the feeling of patriotism at that time it is that you now you just say love the country well we need some visible symbols so you have the flag and you salute the flag you stand in attention salute the flag so then when there is a visible symbol of something which is abstract then that visual symbol invokes emotion so so the nation or the concept of nationalism is abstract conception the flag is a concrete symbol and the flag can help us to evoke emotions in our hearts which does the abstract concept will not evoke now many people have this conception of deity worship that God is all pervading and then when you give when there is one visible form then that evokes emotion within our hearts however this conception of deity worship is so this is one conception of deity worship but this conception of deity worship is based on a notion that the absolute is abstract and formless so this is the Advaitic the impersonalist conception of deity worship because impersonalist also do deity worship but they consider the deity to be like a concrete symbol for the abstract impersonal Brahman but Bhaktivinoda Thakur says that so this is this is ascending symbolism why ascending because there is no intrinsic connection between the symbol and the concept it’s our ascending imagination that links the two so if tomorrow the Indian government decides that the green strip in the Indian flag represents agriculture and we are no longer agricultural agri-based economy so we don’t need that green colour so instead of a tricolour India can have a bicolour flag all that it requires is a parliamentary resolution so that means in this case there is no intrinsic connection between the concept and the symbol and one symbol can be replaced by another symbol so that’s why the impersonalist they have the concept of Ishtadev you know you can worship Kali you can worship Shiva, you can worship Vishnu ultimately beyond all forms is the formless Brahman and if you know me and if you have Shraddha in me you can worship me also ultimately everything that you are worshipping is a symbol and success is to go beyond the symbol symbolism descending symbolism means that there is God who is himself having a form the absolute truth is personal and that personal is represented based on scripture in in the in the form of the deity so use the example of a photo Bhaktivinoda Thakur says a photo is based on how a person looks so you cannot just put any photo and say that it represents any person the photo has to be of that person say you know if a husband has the photo of his wife in his wallet and then one day when he comes home and his wife sees the person says there is the photo of some other woman over there he says hey what’s going on she says no no no actually I am thinking of you only but I just put some other photo over there so here the symbol and original the symbol and original are intrinsically connected so Bhaktivinoda Thakur says the deity worship is not like ascending symbolism it is descending symbolism, descending why? because there is original vision or original person and the deity is drawn not based on our imagination of how it is but on our replication of how it is so just a photo is a replication the deity is a replication so now Krishna is transcendental the deity is made of material elements but when the deity is fashioned according to scriptural description and the deity is invoked with devotional emotion then that transcendental lord manifests over there so thank you very much so please accept my humble obeisances