Did the Goswami’s books not help preserve the Gaudiya tradition after their departure?
So what about the books that Narottam Das Thakur Shyama they had written? Yes, see there were the bhajans that they had written which were popular. Yeah, so the legacy of books that were brought by the Goswamis from Vrindavan here, see Sanskrit in India at least in recent history was never a language of the general people. Sanskrit was a language of the elite and in general the way the tradition lived on was through the oral tradition not the written tradition.
See if you look at the books of Bhaktivinoda of Vishwanatha Thakur, his commentary on the Bhagavatam practically nobody will find something like sense gratification is sinful you have to give it up because the books were written by scholars for scholars. That was the tradition of that time and these kind of instructions, do this, don't do this, they were conveyed in the oral tradition. So in every place there will be some sadhus and the sadhus will tell you, you should do this, you should not do this.
So that's why in the previous Acharya's books we don't find much practical instruction. Yes there is practical instruction in terms of principles but not too much specifics. So at that time the primary knowledge dissemination happened through the oral tradition and the oral tradition in each place was in the vernacular language.
So that was in Bengal, it was Bengali and as I told earlier the books of the Goswamis were in Sanskrit. So because they were in Sanskrit they were not really available for people in general. In fact the some of the caste brahmanas they were so elitist that when the Britishers came to India they were strongly criticizing Hinduism especially Vaishnavism as they criticized Vaishnavism and Shaktism both especially among the Indian tradition.
They said Shakta worship it is so brutal, so ghastly and this Krishna worship it is so immoral. That was their criticism. But the point which I am making is that they were writing books upon books in English criticizing but the brahmanas who were supposed to be the guardians of tradition they were just satisfied in their Sanskrit learning and they were just not relevant to the people over there.
So that's why ultimately the knowledge has to be presented in the language of the people. So what Bhaktivedanta Thakur did was that he took the knowledge that was there in Sanskrit or in Bengali he made it available in English more than Bengali, in Sanskrit that was available. So that's how the books were there but the oral tradition, if that is not vibrant then what is there in the books that does not come out.
It is only around the 17th, 18th century that the printing press started coming to India. Not in 17th, 18th century only. Towards the end of the 18th century.
That time books started becoming widespread. So Bhaktivedanta Thakur himself used the printing press very powerfully. He was a he could not travel so much and do preaching.
So the way he created we could say a virtual network of Vaishna followers. Not through the internet but through his magazines. Now he had subscribers for his magazine and he would write articles, he would actually review books of contemporary authors, he would comment on contemporary trends in Sajjan Toshin and that way he created a whole network of followers of Vaishnavism, of Gauri Vaishnavism in Bengal and Odisha.