2 Gaudiya Vaishnava history – Vishvanath C & Baldeva V as protectors
Thank you very much. Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, Hare Krishna.
Thank you very much for joining today once again. And today, we continue our discussion on the history of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. And we move forward into the second phase in this history.
The first phase, the way we are discussing the Gaudiya Vaishnav history, the first phase was Afshaytani Mahaprabhu, the Goswamis. And we discussed how for the Acharyas to move forward and share Krishna consciousness, what is required was they were part of a tradition and they are also a part of the contemporary society. So, how do they stay connected with the tradition and also stay connected with the contemporary society? That’s what we discussed yesterday.
In the Goswamis, we discussed the cultural context where the Raksha tradition was talked about. Then we talked about the political context where they connected with the Rajputs and the Mughal rulers like Akbar and others at Delhi, which was very close by. Then we also discussed the ritual, the ecclesiastical context.
We also discussed the philosophical context. So, like that, we discussed multiple contexts. Now, we are going to talk about the time of Vishwanath Chakravarthy Thakur and Baladeva Vidya Bhushan.
So, we especially talked about the connecting with the insiders also, the theological context where Krishnadaswamy Rajgoswami brought the books of the Goswamis back to Bengal. That’s where the main followers, the scholars and the followers were brought together by the first group of devotees who travelled with the books of the Goswamis when Vrindavan was likely to be devastated by the attacks of the aggressors. So, every time, every age brings with it its own challenges.
Sometimes when we look back at the past, we think, oh, today, now it’s Kali Yuga and things are so difficult. Well, Krishna doesn’t say that the world is Dukkhalaya only in Kali Yuga. The world is always Dukkhalaya.
That means that when the word Dukkhalaya is used, it is not a pessimistic statement. Oh, this world is a place of distress, live in distress. It’s not a pessimistic statement.
It is a realistic statement. It is a realistic statement means recognise that distress, trouble, problems are always going to be there. And we need to find a purpose, a meaning that raises us above the problems.
Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna that because I have spoken the Bhagavad Gita to you, now the difficult situation you have of fighting against your relatives, against Bhishma and Arjuna, I’ll magically remove that. No, I’m giving you the vision of a higher purpose that you can fulfil. And with that vision, you can fight.
So, when we study history, this is one of the most important things which we can learn among many. Life in this world has never been easy. Yes, in today’s world, there are a particular set of challenges which may not have been there in the past, but there’s another set of challenges in the past.
And when the Acharyas, they were great transcendentalists who are unaffected by the world. But the Acharyas, they were both transcendentalists in that their connection with Krishna personally was not affected by any of the circumstances. But the Acharyas were also what can be called pragmatists.
Pragmatists means that they were very pragmatic, they had practical wisdom how to deal with the challenges of their particular times. So, like I mentioned now that Akbar was more or less a congenial ruler, not only congenial but more or less congenial. And after Shah Jahan was okay, but Aurangzeb was, to the extent he was devoted to his own religion, to that extent he was intolerant of other religions.
And anything that reeked of any challenge to the supremacy of his religion, directly of him, he wanted to destroy. So, Vrindavan experienced an extremely great difficulty at that time. And Bengal had its own challenges.
And we’ll focus on Bengal when we talk about Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Bhaktivinoda Thakur also. Bengal was the place where the Indian independence struggle began. And we will see how the interface between those two things happened, the independence struggle and the consciousness movement and all that.
But here, let’s focus on Vrindavan. So, when we focus on Vrindavan, what happened was that there were multiple kinds of challenges. But interestingly now, challenges that were faced were different at different times.
When Aurangzeb devastated Vrindavan, among many other places of sacred significance, for the followers of Sanatana Dharma, had a terrible impact. And while unfortunately, whatever it is, he lived for a very long time. And he eventually, he needed the greatest tyranny, was also the face of the fall of the Mughal Empire.
In his persecuting various leaders of Sanatana Dharma, he destroyed his own kingdom, basically. He destroyed many other kingdoms, but he destroyed his own kingdom also. So, after Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire became just a shadow of its former self.
So, later on, in 1857, the Indian mutiny, what they call it, the first battle of independence or whatever you want to call it, that happened. At that time, the Mughal king was just a figurehead. Although he was appointed by the Indian independence leaders as the leader, but he was just a figurehead.
So, Aurangzeb did the consequences of his desecration of the Vedic tradition, was that eventually, he was the person who led the downfall of his own kingdom. And that was unavoidable, as a matter of time would happen. But let’s see.
So, Vishwaracharya Thakur and Baldevidya Bhishma. Chakravarti Path was also from Bengal. And from Bengal, he came to Vrindavan.
Now, Bengal and Vrindavan were far away, and going on that journey was a very difficult journey. It was not easy. And that’s why when Madhavendra Puri was told to go and get Chandan, for him to go from Vrindavan all the way to Uttkar, to get Chandan, all the way to Orissa, that was not an easy task.
So, still between Bengal and Vrindavan, there was some exchange going on. And as a part of that exchange, many things happened. So, the news of all the devastation that had happened in Vrindavan, that was very much there.
So, from Vrindavan, many of the sacred deities of the Goswamis were moved. Jaipur and many other places. And there, there was safety.
Now, Aurangzeb, he had some kind of mutual agreement with the detainees. You live and let live kind of arrangement with the Rajputs. The Rajputs were also heroic, powerful.
And some of them, they agreed to pay tribute to Aurangzeb and that’s how they stayed on over there. So, they had some kind of mutual agreement of peace. So, in fact, when initially Shivaji Maharaj was arrested, Shivaji Maharaj was a very powerful protector of Kshatriya, of the Sanatan Dharma in Maharashtra.
He was arrested. He was, Aurangzeb sent two of his Muslim generals and they could not succeed. They did not succeed.
But eventually, he sent a Rajput king. And that Rajput king eventually Shivaji Maharaj was arrested. He let himself be arrested instead of having a fight.
And he came. He was planning to be killed, but he escaped from there. So, the point I was making is the Rajputs had a complicated relationship with Aurangzeb.
Sometimes they fought against him. Sometimes they worked for him. And they had their own internal politics also.
But the centre of Gaudiya Vaishnavism or at least a very significant influence of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, place of influence became the Jaipur court. Jaipur was always a politically influential place, historically influential place. But for the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, because Aurangzeb was a tyrannical person, gradually the focus shifted from Vrindavan to Jaipur.
Vrindavan was undoubtedly a holy place and Rishwanath Chakraborty came there. And we know Rishwanath Chakraborty as a Rasik Acharya, he is called. He is considered the person who revealed the Rasa in all the texts.
He revealed in the Gita how there is so much sweetness. He revealed that. Of course, the Bhagavatam himself says that just like there is a churning of the milk ocean to bring out the nectar, similarly he sees the commentators are like the churners and they bring out the nectar of the Bhagavatam.
So if we look at him, as I said earlier about the Acharya, a transcendentalist and pragmatist, both are there. So he was very grounded. He saw Vrindavan in the ruins and he slowly set about re-establishing it.
He was a great saint and he didn’t have political influence, but by saintly purity, he attracted people. Slowly the temple started being rebuilt and Vrindavan started being rejuvenated. Now while this was happening, it’s remarkable that in his books there is not even the least mention of the Islamic invaders and how terrible they are and how terribly they have acted.
It’s almost as if in his writing books, he’s existing on a different domain of existence and he could very easily have weaponised the Gita. Weaponising the Gita means sometimes scriptures are weaponised. Weaponising of scripture is a very common phenomenon across religious traditions.
So some statements of scripture can be used to inspire those who believe in the scriptures to attack somebody who we consider as the enemy. So this is used by religious extremists in Islam. This has been used by religious extremists in Judaism, in Christianity also.
Weaponising of scripture does happen, but Chakravarti Path does not do that. Nowhere in his Gita commentary does he say, just as Krishna to attack this Adharmika Kauravas, told Arjuna to fight against the Adharmika Kauravas. So all these Islamic invaders are Adharmik and we should all rise and fight against them.
It’s no mention at all over there. Then we wonder why? There is no weaponising of scripture at all. So was he not concerned about the situation? Of course, he was concerned.
He was working to restore the damage that had been done over there. Therefore, there was a particular context in which he was operating. So in the past, before the industrial revolution, before the development of technology and of the printing press, books were primarily for the scholars.
And so the written books comprise the written tradition. The written tradition was primarily for the scholars. So books were written by scholars for scholars.
Books were very difficult to possess, to have. To write a book was very difficult. You had to get leaves that would be preserved and in particular, write it down and every single word has to be written down carefully.
And then before whatever leaves, palm leaves or whatever we have written it on, before it gets destroyed or deteriorated or damaged by time, it has to be transferred and everything has to be written manually and meticulously. So it was very difficult to have books. So books were rare and they were written by scholars for scholars.
For the masses, for the people in general, there was the oral tradition. The oral tradition was where most of the practical, lived, applied wisdom was given. So in the books, there’s no need to emphasise practical things like, say, we should chant the holy names of the Lord and mention of that.
But that was told in the oral tradition. Scholars, when they’re writing for scholars, they don’t have to tell these practical things. Now, it is Shri Prabhupada who was quite distinctive.
This started from Bhaktivinoda Thakur, but social commentary, practical instructions, all of that to be given within scripture explanation, that was something which is normally not done in the tradition. Whereas, when he saw all the devastation, he was not going to let that bitterness come within him. He was not going to let that affect the way he was writing scriptures.
So in many ways, if we look at Acharyas within history, at the time they were, they are remarkable figures. There’s one way to be inspired by them when we see how ecstatically they’re absorbed in Krishna. But there’s quite another quality of inspiration that comes when we see that they were ecstatically absorbed in Krishna while functioning in such difficult situations.
When you see the ruins of the temples that he grew up hearing about, the Goswamis had become iconic characters in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. And everybody would want to hear about the glory of the Goswamis, the glory of the temples that they had built. That’s what he had grown up hearing.
And then it caused immense pain to hear these temples have been devastated. He came and he saw the ruins and he had to repair it. He had to fix it all and he did it all.
At the same time, there was a challenge. So he is a huge challenge, but he did not let himself get affected by it. So for all of us in our lives, there are things that give strength and there are things that need strength.
So it could be like people, some people, it’s a joy to be with them. But by being with them, we feel enlivened, we feel thrilled, we look forward to being with them more and more. But there are some people, it’s a burden to be with them.
But then maybe it’s a service to guide them, to support them, to work with them. When we have to do that, we need to be careful that we don’t let that negative energy, that exhaustion completely suffers. So he was writing the scriptural commentary and at that time, there were not many Gaudiya Vishnu followers available.
So there were, of course, but there were not many. He was writing his books. Sometimes when we give a class, there is a Bhusa audience over there.
He was writing his books because that was his karma, he was going to glorify the Lord. And he wrote it. And yes, in future, people may read it.
Same with the Goswamis also. So Dharmasya Glani keeps happening and then there is restoration. Again Glani, again restoration.
So he managed this and his books, they gave his contributions both in terms of what he did practically in Vrindavan as well as his books that gave new life to the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition once again. Now, by this time, many things had happened in the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition. We will talk about various aspects of the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition as we move onwards.
But basically, how does the tradition continue? Like I mentioned, there are in tradition, there are the leaders. The leaders could be most important, the saints. Then there are the priests.
And then there are the scholars. Now, we could say there are also the preachers, the teachers. And these categories could be overlapping.
Traditionally, in the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition, there was no organisation. Organisation came at the time of Bhaktivedanta Thakur itself. So in that sense, one prominent genre which we have today, managers.
That was not there at that time. In today’s world, in a spiritual movement, the managers sometimes become the most important leaders. And sometimes one person may have to play more than one of these roles.
But there are the leaders and then there are the followers. So now followers may also become one of these and followers may also do various roles. But the idea is that for a period of time, what is remembered the most is those who, by their saintliness, by their purity, by their devotion, they shared many, many things.
In the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition, if you consider, primarily two kinds of leaders were there. There were the priests. And then there were the saints.
Others were also there. Scholars were there and others were there. But when the time of initiation came, Viksha came.
Viksha is a very multifaceted subject. There have been many different kinds of gurus. There were family elders who were gurus at times.
There were the local priests who became gurus. There were travelling saints who became gurus. So Advaita Acharya, he took initiation from Madhavendra Puri.
So there was no meeting. He came and he went. He took initiation.
But most people would take initiation more or less from the local priests in their particular village or town. And those priests would come to name their children, would be there to appreciate their marriages. And these people were carrying on the tradition.
And in the past, the temple was the centre of the entire community. It was like if you go to Jaipur, the temple of the Lord is taller than even the palace of the king. The temple was the centre of the community.
Chakravarthy was doing his rejuvenation work in Vrindavan. And then the centre at that time, in one sense, one centre was Jaipur. Now, why is the Gauri Avishnu as the Radha Govindji deities? The prominent deities from Vrindavan were moved to Jaipur.
So the Govindji deities won the hearts of the kings. The kings, they, while they would have their devotion, their spirituality, they would learn it from their family. The parents would be worshipping someone and then their children would start worshipping and the subsequent king would worship.
It would be like that. But quite often, there were changes. And most often, these changes did not lead to any kind of polarisation or violence.
That means that sometimes a king might be a Vaishnavite. Like if you look at Krishnadevaraya, who was in South India, he built what is called a Vijayanagara, which is called the forgotten or the lost city. Many times, it was extraordinary cement to Vedic resilience.
He stood firm against all the invaders from various sides and he built an immensely prosperous kingdom. Now, in his succession of kings, some of them, one of Krishnadevaraya himself was a Vaishnava. Later on, some subsequent kings, he went from a Sri Vaishnava to a Madhava Vaishnava, from Madhava Vaishnava to Sri Vaishnava.
The Advaitins were also respected. So there were, while the kings would be devoted to one particular deity, with one particular guru, but the kings would respect saints of various denominations. They would respect the various traditions that were there.
However, which tradition would get the maximum influence? Sometimes there would be some political tussle even among the religious groups at that. So traditionally in Jaipur, there were the Ramanandis. Now, the Ramanandis have a complex history.
They are in some ways followers of Ramanuja. So Ramanujacharya, he travelled all over the country and he lived a remarkably long time. He lived more than a hundred years and he did extraordinary contribution for rejuvenating bhakti across the country.
So Ramanandis are followers of Ramanuja. Of course, every tradition with time gets certain conceptions which may or may not be in alignment with the ritual teachings. So there is some issue with the Ramanandis that sometimes they consider their primary saint to be like the reincarnation of Ram.
There were some issues with that. But the Ramanandis were the primary priests and because the Jaipur kings would worship in the temple that they used to worship, that was their temple. And when Govindji came at that time, Govindji won the heart of the king and then the king started worshipping Govindji.
And the royal patronage, while it was going to all the kings, the royal support, it started going more to Govindji and some of the Ramanandis started feeling insecure because of that. And then they wanted to regain their position. And then the one way was sometimes you want spiritual power, you can get spiritual power by spiritual purity.
If somebody is a great saint and they have such purity, they attract people, they attract followers. But it’s not possible by spiritual purity. Then there are material means.
Material means could be intellectual. We try to prove how the other people are wrong. It could be political.
It could be we try to get more followers and we try to establish how we are more influential. You have to listen to us. Methods have to be used.
So what the Ramanandis did was that they started using, they launched an intellectual attack on the Gaudiya Vaishyas. And they started questioning many things. But one of the things they started questioning was the very authenticity of the Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya.
They also started questioning the worship of Radharani. So their question was that, yes, Krishna is worshipped with Rukmini. If you see, Rajasthan is not very far from Gujarat.
And Gujarat primarily it is Rukmini Dwarkadhik that is worshipped. And generally Krishna, especially in the eastern part of the world, was generally worshipped at those times with Rukmini. So they said, what is the basis for this worship of Radharani? Now, there is a complex history behind this.
But now we can say that Radha Krishna has been worshipped. Well, yes, it depends. Krishna has always been worshipped.
And along with Krishna, like if you look at the Goswami’s history also, the Krishna deity appeared first and then gradually later the Radha deity would appear in different places. So it is not that Radha Krishna worship was always going on together. Many temples were just Krishna temples.
Now, most of the temples, now practically we have very few Krishna temples around. There is always Krishna with Radharani. So that has become almost standard now.
But this was not always the standard. And what Baldev Diyabhushan did, what the Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya did, it played a significant role in making this happen. So they questioned that, what is the basis for this? The king is attracted to the worship of Radha Govindji.
What is the worship of Radha and Krishna? And then they said, who are these people? What is the authenticity of the Sampradaya? This Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya, who are these Sampradaya? And they said, what is the authority? There are four Sampradayas mentioned. The Pandava Purana mentions the four Sampradayas. The Puranas mention them.
So which is Gaudiya Vaishya? That’s not mentioned in any of them. So they started questioning. And then we didn’t have many of the things which would mark somebody as a Sampradaya.
And this is where Baldev Diyabhushan’s huge role comes in. Prabhupada dedicates his Gita commentary to Baldev Diyabhushan. And it’s because Baldev Diyabhushan played such a vital role in preserving and protecting our tradition.
Not just protecting, but establishing the authority and authenticity of our tradition. So now, in every situation, a person has to establish their credibility. So, for example, if in today’s world, we want to go for a talk.
I don’t know, okay, the credibility can be established, you want to go for a talk. The credibility can be from the organisers. Oh, you know, this particular, the Ted is organising a talk.
That can bring credibility. And place can bring credibility. Oh, this talk is going to be held at Cambridge.
Sometimes the person itself, XYZ is coming to speak. Even that person is coming to a place which is not very well known. That person is coming.
Credibility can come from that. Sometimes credibility can come from a book. A book can become very famous.
Sometimes book credibility can come from qualification. This person has this degree. I never heard about this person.
But this person has this degree from this college. Must be something worthwhile. So, credibility has to be established according to what the audience considers credible.
Now, so in those times, the credibility of a tradition, especially within the Vedantic school of thought, there are six systems of philosophy. And all of them have had that influence. After both Shankaracharya and Ramacharya, Vedanta as one of the schools of philosophy within the Vedic tradition became very influential.
And within Vedanta, the authority for a tradition was established through commentaries. That you should be able to write your own commentary on what was called as the Asthanatray. The three sources of authority, Prasthanatray.
So this was the Gita, the Upanishads, and most importantly in those times was the Vedanta Sutra. So depending on how a particular tradition wrote commentaries on this and how solid, how sound those commentaries were. Sound means, okay, when you’re writing a commentary, do you actually know the book? Are you explaining the book in a rational way? Are you quoting Shastra? Are you explaining the way that makes the sense of the whole book? So these commentaries would determine the authority of the tradition.
The Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, so it was like a catch-22 situation for our tradition at that. The catch-22 is this way you go, you fall into a trap. This way you go, you fall into a trap.
So what was that? Now, there was a claim that we are affiliated with the Madhava tradition. And then if we are, if we focus on the point that we are affiliated with Madhava tradition and that’s the base of authority. Then the Ramanandis were saying, but the Madhavas don’t worship Radha.
So therefore, your worship of Radha Krishna, Radha Govinda is questionable. And he said, oh yeah, we are followers of Madhava, but we also follow the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave us the worship of Radha Rani, this special V. And then the question, okay, then if you have over anything, then you have become like a different Sampradaya, at least a different group within the Sampradaya.
Then if you are doing something as distinctive as worshipping a different deity, then you need to have your own commentary. Without your commentary, what is your authenticity? So it was, the dilemma was that if we try to gain credibility, the dilemma was of how do we gain credibility? That how, when we criticise, how do we gain credibility? We can gain credibility by affiliation with Madhava Sampradaya. But if we do that, the problem was no Radha worship.
Because that’s not there over there. On the other hand, if we focus on our affiliation with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or affiliation like the special origin from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, then the problem is, okay, if his teachings are being emphasised so much, what are his teachings? Then there is, the problem is no commentary. You don’t have any commentaries.
And therefore, our whole Sampradaya’s credibility was being questioned. Now, how was this credibility going to be established? So it’s like, say, suppose somebody claims this, the idea of a soul is scientific. But then there’s no mention of this in any scientific journals.
There is, but I’m just giving a hypothetical situation. Then you cannot accept the idea of the soul. If you say that you are scientific.
But then, you know, okay. But we have our own scientists. We have done our own research.
But then this is not published in these journals any of them. So how can you say it’s authority? But we have our own scientific institute. We have published these books and evaluate these books.
See how credible our arguments are. But if we say, okay, this is not published in mainstream journals. We accept the idea of the soul.
But we don’t have our own books explaining the idea of the soul in a scientific way. You would really lose credibility. So Prabhupada started the Bhaktivinoda Institute because he wanted that people should see that our wisdom, our traditional wisdom also makes scientific sense, not just scriptural sense.
So when this credibility dilemma was there, this is where enter Baldevidya Mission. It’s like when there is a big crisis, a hero comes in a movie. And that hero then saves the situation.
Now Baldevidya Mission has a remarkable history. Baldevidya Mission himself was a part of the Madhava Sampradaya. Now our Sampradaya is a Sampradaya more or less of Shiksha rather than Diksha.
So he was a part of the Madhava Sampradaya. And he became extremely learned in the teaching of the Madhava Sampradaya. And then he was travelling and he was teaching and he was learning in the holy places.
That’s when he encountered the Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya. And when he encountered the Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya, he felt that his attachment to this is a depth of devotion over here. He kept looking at me like this and his heart was captured.
And he was already a Greek. He was a Madhava tradition. He was a scholar.
And then he became a devotee scholar. When he became a devotee scholar at this particular time, he came to Vrindavan. And in Vrindavan, he met Krishnacharya Thakur.
That was initiated by someone else. But Krishnacharya Thakur became like his Shiksha Guru. Became primarily inspired by him.
When this crisis came in Jaipur, at this time, Chakravarthi Path had become quite underwhelming. The Vaishnavas were there in Jaipur. They were learned in their own way.
They were also very devoted. But they were just not equal to this challenge. How do we defend our tradition? What do we do for defending our tradition? They came rushing to Chakravarthi Path.
They came rushing to Vrindavan. Chakravarthi Path said that. And then he suggested, recommended, instructed Baldevidya Bhushan Gauri.
And that’s when Baldevidya Bhushan Gauri came to Jaipur. And there in Jaipur, he had to confront this challenge. And he gave very sound scripture-based arguments to defend the worship of Radha Rani, to talk about, to establish the special position of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and how the teachings of Mahaprabhu are the sound foundation for the tradition that he was a part of.
Now, because he was, he had been a part of the Madhva tradition, he brought a certain level of credibility. If we are having some debate in some college, between some scientific evidence for the existence of a stone, and say some devotee is talking, some devotee is making good arguments, but then we have a devotee who is a scientist. And the devotee is a scientist who has a degree from a prominent university.
And that credibility that he brings, that itself is significant. So like that, Baldevidya Bhushan brought credibility over. Baldevidya Bhushan made sound arguments.
At the same time, the Ramanandis realised that we cannot defeat him. This person is a formidable challenge. So they decided, okay, so are the Mahaprabhu’s teachings the same as Madhva’s teachings? Now, it was, I’m very, this was a very complex scholarly debate and confrontation.
I’m explaining it in very simple bare bone terms. But so now Baldevidya Bhushan knew, yes or no, both will be problematic answers. Yes would mean that Radha worship would be questioned.
No would mean that the authenticity of the tradition would be questioned. And then, so he explained again the same point. Yes, we are in the Madhva tradition.
But Mahaprabhu has given his own flavour, his own distinctive controversy. But then if you are different from the Madhva’s, then where is your commentary? And this is where Baldevidya Bhushan had to make a decision. There are, in our tradition described that there are more followers.
The followers can be of many different levels. The followers can be first level, second level, and third level. So what is third level? So that basically when the teacher’s instruction is there and the intent is there.
So third level follower follows neither the instruction nor the intent. The second level follower follows the instruction but may not even understand the intent. The first level follower follows the instruction and follows the intent.
And sometimes in following the intent, so emphasise that it may appear as if the instruction itself is not being followed. So what does this mean? That in our tradition, the Goswamis were great scholars. The Goswamis, they were establishing the philosophical foundation of our tradition.
They could have commented on the Prasthanatray. They did not, especially Gita and Upanishads are important, but Vedanta Sutra was especially important. And now they did not comment on it.
And there was a reason for it. The reason for it was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had said that the Bhagavatam is the natural commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. So he said because the same author Vyasadev has commented on the book and his maturity is the Bhagavatam is encomposed.
So there is no need for any further comment. And because Mahaprabhu had given this instruction that the Goswamis realise that we cannot make a commentary on this. There’s no need for it.
In fact, we know that when Vallabha came, his commentary and he said that I have proven how Siddhaswami’s commentary is wrong. After all, Mahaprabhu spoke very strongly to him. So now Mahaprabhu had said that the Bhagavatam makes any commentary on the Vedanta Sutra unnecessary.
However, you know, there is this natural commentary is a it’s a it’s a unusual, if not unprecedented genre. It is natural commentary is definitely not it’s different from. It’s it’s not the same as a systematic commentary.
Systematic commentary could be in various ways. Could be a thematic commentary. We take the various themes and we explain those things one by one.
It could be a words by words commentary. Traditionally, commentaries were words by words. And my thematic commentaries are also there.
But now I feel commentary means, say, for example, a speaker gives a class one evening. And then the class is good, but the audience has a lot of questions. So the speaker, the audience tells the speaker, you know, we’ll come tomorrow morning.
Can you explain what you said more systematically? Can you explain it in more detail? Can you explain it so that we understand it? Now, when that happens, the speaker may speak the same class. And you can speak the same topic and start speaking. But it’s not the speaker is not likely to say that, OK, yesterday this was my first sentence.
And this was the first sentence. This is what we second sentence. This is what it meant.
Third sentence. This is what it means. Fourth sentence.
This is what it means. So it won’t be like that. It’s like the second class to explain the first class will be a natural commentary.
That means broadly the same things are taken and they are explained over here. But if you try to make a one to one foreign correlation between exact statements in that class and this class, that may not work. So like that, it is not that the Bhagavatam, like this Sutra, Vedanta Sutra and this Sutra is explained by this particular verse of the Bhagavatam or this particular pastime of the Bhagavatam, this particular chapter of the Bhagavatam.
But we can make some claims like that. And some devotees have tried to show some connections like that. But that does not really comprise a systematic commentary.
So the Vedanta Sutra is a part of the Vedantic tradition. The Bhagavatam was a book which is a part of the Vaishnava Bhakti tradition. And these were significantly distinct traditions.
So when Mahaprabhu said that this is a natural commentary, the Goswamis could not write any commentary on it. So the Goswami tried to find a way around it. And he took the first four Sutras of the Vedanta Sutra, the Dushrutipika, he wrote a book.
And he took the first four Sutras of the Vedanta Sutra and he explained them in his Sandarbhas. And he tried to show how the key concepts of the Vedanta Sutra, at least in those four Sutras, are explained in the Bhagavatam. The Tattva Sandarbha itself is a book which is like a weaving of the Bhagavatam into a systematic buildup of arguments to establish a worldview.
But the point was, despite all this, there was no commentary available. The Goswamis could not write because Mahaprabhu said it was unnecessary. However, now Baldevdaya Bhushan is in a situation that those who accept Mahaprabhu’s authority may accept Bhagavatam as a natural commentary.
But those who don’t accept Mahaprabhu’s authority, they are not going to accept the Bhagavatam as a natural commentary. They are going to say, saying that Bhagavatam is a natural commentary is just your excuse for not having a commentary. And that only shows that you are inauthentic.
You claim to be authentic, but you are not authentic. So what does he do now? Sometimes to fulfil the intent, that the intent of Mahaprabhu was it that for all time, forbid the writing of any commentary on Vedanta Sutra. His intent was that the Priyatacharyas, Vyasadeva himself, should not be disrespected.
The Bhagavatam should not be disrespected. Mahaprabhu’s emphasis, if we look at his teachings, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s emphasis was more on establishing the glory of the Bhagavatam. But the Bhagavatam is a natural commentary.
That’s what we should focus on. So in one sense, what he was trying to do was, people at those times, in theological circles, were considering Vedanta Sutra to be a very important book. Mahaprabhu wanted to emphasise that the Bhagavatam is far, far more important.
And in that sense, he said, okay, you consider Vedanta Sutra to be important, but the Bhagavatam is there as a natural commentary. Focus on that. And the Bhagavatam is a book which is actually understandable for many more people than the Vedanta Sutra is.
It has beautiful stories. It has inspiring narratives of how Krishna protects his devotees, and how devotees remain faithful to Krishna in all difficult times. That was much, much likely to be more nourishing for people.
It was definitely a book for bhakti for those who were interested in bhaktas, who were bhaktas. But he wanted to establish it as a philosophical, theological authority also. So his emphasis was the glory of the Bhagavatam.
It was not forbidding forever a commentary, a Vedanta Sutra commentary. That was not his point at all. So this heart, that once we understand the intent, sometimes the instruction may have to be put aside, not rejected, but the instruction may have to be subordinated to the intent.
Instruction is important, no doubt. This is what has to be done. But the instruction is less important than the intent.
So this was what Baldev Daya Bhushan, as a responsible follower of the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition, understood. And he understood, and then he decided to write a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. He went to the Govindji temple, and he prayed to Govindji for blessings.
Now for most people in those times, the Vedanta Sutra is an extremely complicated book. So Bhanu Maharaj has translated Govinda Bhashya, which is Baldev Daya Bhushan’s commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. And I did the editing of that book.
It is by far the most difficult book that I have read till now. It requires so much effort. Because what happens is many levels of complexity are there.
First of all, the Vedanta Sutra is a book which is trying to analyse and ascertain the meaning of the Upanishads. So it presumes a very deep knowledge of the Upanishads. It almost assumes from the Vedanta Sutra, we may not even understand what is being discussed.
But those who were reading the Vedanta Sutra, those who were analysing the Vedanta Sutra, they already knew. They are so immersed in the Upanishads. Okay, this section, this discussion is about that particular verse from the Upanishads.
This is about that particular verse from the Upanishads. This is about that section. Then what does that section mean? It is a debate going on.
So it’s like if there are two brain surgeons who are very advanced, very specialised, very expert brain surgeons. And they want to do a brain surgery on a patient. And they are discussing about some new method of treatment of brain diseases, which has been published in certain journals.
Now both of them know about those journals. You know, this journal is said like this, this journal is said like that. And both of them are discussing.
They don’t need to explain the context to each other. Why? Because they both know it. If they explain the context to their audience or to the other person over there, it will be like insulting the intelligence of the other person.
You think I don’t know this? I already know it. The issue is what does it mean, not what it is. So the Vedanta Sutra is a very complicated book overall.
The point is, the point I’m making is that it takes years upon years upon decades. The person’s life’s greatest contribution written over decades is generally the Vedanta Sutra commentary. And Baldevindra Bhushan faced this challenge.
The Ramanandis were becoming more and more insistent. Their domination was becoming more and more. So there was a threat that they said that our worship of Govindaji is authentic, but the worship of Radharani is not.
And therefore, you should be stopping this worship. You cannot continue this worship. Then thought that how could Krishna be separated from Radharani? How could Radharani be removed from the altar? This immense pain to the Gauri Vaishnavas.
The Ramanandis were having more and more influence in the king. But the king’s heart was with Govindji. But Ramananda’s arguments were having its effects.
And he wanted Radha to be worshipped. It’s a big deal if you remove Radha from Krishna, whatever. The king was also becoming, it seemed as if he was becoming a little ambivalent, undecided about these things.
So it was an extremely urgent thing. And Baldevindra Bhushan prayed to Govindji. And he brought all the learning, all the tapasya, all the ability that he had developed from here.
Govindji blessed him and he took the prayers, the garland of the deity’s spell, the pujari gave him the garland. And he said that he sat in the Govindji temple itself, or nearby, near the Govindji temple. And he took the blessings of Govindji, started writing, writing.
Even in a very short while, I’m saying just a couple of months, he wrote what later on has become one of the final commentaries on the Vedanta Sutra. Now, he had both an advantage and a disadvantage. There’s a rich commentary on the Vedanta Sutra.
Ramamuji had commented, Madhava had commented, Shankaracharya had commented. And Baldevindra Bhushan, in one sense, was the, he could draw on the wisdom of all these commentaries, draw insights from them in presenting his commentary on it. But at the same time, because all this commentary tradition was there, he had to address it all.
He had to incorporate it all. And it was a formidable intellectual challenge. It was an awesome achievement when he completed the commentary.
And just when the threat of removing Radharani from the altar was about to become real, we had gone into complete seclusion. Nobody knew what happened. What was going on? He was so immersed.
Just like in the Jagannath Puri, Jagannath Manifestation pastime, the architecture, the architect, Vidyapati who was supposed to be a Vishwakarma manifested, the architect, he said, I want to be in this room and nobody should come into this room. Nobody should disturb me. I want to be completely immersed in sculpting the deity.
So like that, he was completely immersed. And when he came with the commentary, he presented it to the Ramanandis and he presented it in the royal court. They were first sceptical.
How can anyone write a commentary in two months? He wrote it right down there. They took it and they started reading it. Started reading it.
It is serious stuff. He’s not just writing for the sake of writing. He made a serious argument.
And then that’s how the impact of the Ramanandis increased. Now, it is not that in his Vedanta sutra commentary, he is talking about the virtue of Radharani. The Vedanta sutra’s subject is very different.
It’s Upanishads. The Upanishads don’t even talk about Krishna much. They talk primarily about the nature of the ultimate reality.
They talk about Krishna, but not so much. But what he was doing was, by writing a commentary in the Vedanta sutra, he was establishing the authenticity of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya. And if the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya’s authenticity is established, then the teachings of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, including the worship of Radharani, also get a foundation for it.
And then thereafter, once he had embarked on this task of writing a commentary on the Vedanta sutra, he went on and wrote on the Prasthanatraya. He wrote a commentary on the Gita and he wrote a commentary on the Upanishads also. So now, if you consider his Gita commentary, it is very strikingly different than the Baldev Daya Bhushan’s commentary, the predecessor for him was Vishwanath Chakradhakur.
Now, Baldev Daya Bhushan is a disciple, not formally a Diksha disciple, but a Siksha disciple of Vishwanath Chakradhakur. And yet, in Baldev Daya Bhushan’s Gita commentary, there is no reference to Chakravarti Path’s commentary. How can a disciple write a commentary without referring to the Guru’s commentary? Well, again, this is the diversity of the tradition.
And who are we trying to address? If we are addressing an assembly of scientists, and we try to establish the existence of the soul, say, how do you know the soul exists? Because the Bhagavad Gita 2.7 or 2.13 states it. Get lost, what are you doing in a scientific conference? Go and speak this in your religious meetings. If we are speaking to a particular audience, we need to quote whatever will be accepted as authority by that audience.
So Chakravarti Path was an Acharya in the Gauriya Vaishya Sampradaya. But when Baldev Daya Bhushan was writing his books, he was not writing for followers of the Gauriya Vaishya Sampradaya. He was writing for the followers of broader Vedantic tradition.
And if they are not accepting the authority of our tradition itself, how or why would they accept the authority of an Acharya from that tradition? And therefore, what needed to be done was Baldev Daya Bhushan had to write quoting those sources which his intended audience would respect. And thus he quoted the Upanishads. He quoted to some extent the Bhagavatam, but not so much the Bhagavatam.
He quoted the Upanishads and he showed the internal logic in the flow of the Gita. So his commentary is a very significant commentary in terms of establishing the philosophical authenticity of our tradition. So Chakravarti Path’s commentary was more about Ratha, understanding the inner dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna and relishing the sweetness of Bhakti.
That was the focus of Chakravarti Path’s commentary. Baldev Daya Bhushan’s commentary, its focus was quite different. His commentary was to show how our Gauriya Vaishya Sampradaya tradition is authentic.
Now, it is not that he has to teach Gauriya Vaishnavism through the Bhagavad Gita. That is not what he’s doing. Gauriya Vaishnavism is taught through different books.
But the Gauriya Vaishnav tradition also has commentaries on these books. That’s very important. So he, in this way, did something foundational for our tradition based on the challenges that were faced at that particular time.
And as Baldev Daya Bhushan ensured that the worship of Radha Govind go on without any interruption. And after this, there was a seismic shift. No, seismic is like an earthquake.
An earthquake-like shift in the entire climate, intellectual, cultural, social climate of India. And while in the past, the challenges for the Gauriya Vaishnav tradition were often from within the tradition itself, within the broad Vedic tradition. Now the challenges came from outside the Vedic tradition.
It was primarily Christianity and especially Western rationality that would become a challenge. And that is where, you know, Thakur and his incredible contribution in re-establishing or rediscovering and bringing about respectability for the Gauriya Vaishnav tradition that came about. Prabhupada called Bhaktivinoda Thakur the father of the modern Vishwa Panchayatist movement.
So what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did, that we will discuss in our next session. I’ll summarise today what we discussed. Our focus on Gauriya Vaishnav history with a special focus on Sivacharitra Thakur and Baldevidya Motion.
So with respect to Sivacharitra Thakur, we discussed that how he did restoration. Restoration after the political devastation of Vrindavan. And he came from Nayapur to Vrindavan, restored it.
At the same time, we also discussed how he was purely transcendental and also pragmatist. He was transcendentalist and a pragmatist. He was working for restoring Vrindavan, but he was absorbed in Rassai, this commentary.
There was no bitterness that came in, no anger or hatefulness that came in. So we discussed how the books, they are a part of the written tradition. And most of the written tradition was by scholars for scholars.
The most of the general instruction was given by the oral tradition to the masses. The books were by the scholars for the scholars. The oral tradition was by the various teachers.
The teachers could be scholars, it could be just wise elders in the city, in the village, in the town, and they would teach the masses. So whatever concerns he had at those times at a practical level, they did not figure in his books. Now Baldevidya Motion, when he came, he had a long journey.
He was from the Madhva Sampradaya. There, his affiliation, he eventually became a Gaudiya Vaishnava. And he became a follower of Chakravarthi Parth, specifically.
So then we, the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, we discussed elaborately the politics by which from Vrindavan, the shift went to Jaipur. So there the existing sources of religious authority, the Ramanandis, they pose a serious challenge, a two-part challenge. One is the authenticity of Radha worship and the authenticity of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya itself.
So Baldevidya Motion had to deal with it. And he dealt with it by writing a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. With writing the commentary on the Vedanta Sutra, Mahaprabhu’s intent protected, which was more important than Mahaprabhu’s instruction.
So the actual commentary is not the same as a systematic or a verse-by-verse commentary. And Mahaprabhu wanted to emphasise the glory of the Bhagavatam. So he did that.
But when the very authenticity of the tradition that Mahaprabhu had started was questioned, then Chakravarthi Parth had to write the commentary. Baldevidya Motion, sorry not Chakravarthi Parth. Chakravarthi Parth instructed Baldevidya Motion to defend the tradition.
Baldevidya Motion did what was required. So it was he who in two months or so wrote a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra, which is a stupendous intellectual achievement. And then he wrote on the Gita, the Upanishad also.
And thus by commenting on the Prasthanatraya, he brought credibility and authenticity and authority to our tradition in the eyes of the leaders of those times. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Are there any questions or comments? Why was Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu initiated? Because he wanted to set an example for everyone. And moreover, Mahaprabhu, during his times himself, he never claimed to be Krishna. He claimed to be, he only said that he’s a devotee of Krishna.
So his not claiming his divinity meant that he was playing the role of a devotee. Now, as far as the worship of Radharani now is concerned, well, it has become a part of the mainstream worship across the country and across the world. So I don’t think that is a major point of debate.
Some people might have some debates, but there is much more Shastric foundation that over the years has been found and established. So I don’t think Radha worship is now a major point of concern. Now, does the Madhva Sampradaya accept ISKCON? Well, because ISKCON has become so big now, so generally most of the Madhva leaders, they accept it.
They feel it’s to their credit. They feel that their Sampradaya gets glorified if ISKCON affiliates with it. So most of them, they don’t object to it.
They’re quite okay with it. Sometimes they emphasise the difference between us and them over some areas. Some of them have had some concerns because some devotees were from Madhva Sampradaya and they have become devotees, preachers, brahmacharis in our movement.
And sometimes they feel a little threatened by that. But it’s only a small group of people in the Madhva Sampradaya. Overall, it’s not a strained relationship.
It’s quite a warm and cordial relationship. As far as the initiation of Karam Maharaj is concerned, we have to recognise the difference between historical fact and a religious ideal. What that means is that every tradition has certain saints who are considered to be ideals, who are considered to be extraordinary.
And those who are extraordinary in that way, they do a lot of things which are very easy for those who accept the authority of those saints to believe. But for others, it’s very difficult to accept that authority. And it’s not unreasonable if others question that.
So basically, Mahaprabhu’s coming to Mahaprabhu’s initiation to Karam Maharaj, I think that’s not something which can be established historically in a way that a sceptic will accept. There’s some argument that can be made in his favour. But I think we should not come off as trying to do religious appropriation or misappropriation.
Like there are Muslim preachers who say that Allah is mentioned in the Vedas. You can quote some words from and read it in a twisted way to try to quote that Allah is there. But only those who accept that Muslim preacher are going to accept it.
Nobody else is going to accept that. Christians have written the Krishnopanishad. They claim, oh, this is undiscovered hypnosis that was discovered later.
Only people who convert to Christianity or are thinking of converting to Christianity, they’ll consider Krishnopanishad actually one of the hundred Hindu preachers. Nobody else will do that. So my point is that if you look at the teachings of the Karam Maharaj, and if you look at the teachings of Mahaprabhu, there’s a remarkable similarity in their emphasis on bhakti.
Not just on bhakti, but Ramakrishna, Hari and Hare Krishna mantra. They have remarkable similarities in the teachings, in the wordings themselves. So from that similarity, there could be a reasonable case that could be made for the possibility of some historical overlap or other some kind of influence or historical overlaps, some kind of influence.
But beyond that, the times of Bhaitani Mahaprabhu and Tukaram Maharaj, they don’t match when Mahaprabhu came there, Tukaram Maharaj. So historically, it’s very difficult to defend that. Now we can say that in a mystic trance, Mahaprabhu initiated him and he came later.
But these are claims only those who are insiders, those who accept Mahaprabhu’s authority will accept those. And we should not make this into an issue of debate or confrontation. There is Abhed and Bhed, both are aspects of our tradition.
So we should know when to focus on the Abhed part and when to focus on the Bhed part. Both are there as a part of our tradition. So now, intelligence means to know when to emphasise what.
So we can emphasise to insiders the fact that, as is claimed in our tradition, that Mahaprabhu initiated Tukaram Maharaj. So there we can focus on the Abhed. But on the outsiders, they don’t accept that.
Now, there are verses which say that Chaitanya Baba was this person who is like my guru, Tukaram Maharaj says that. Who is that Chaitanya Baba? That’s still a question. I don’t think we can make a foolproof or irrefutable intellectual case.
And we don’t need to. Just focus on the similarity of the teachings and move forward from there. And we focus on the fact that there is the emphasis on Bhakti.
That’s wonderful. Now, as far as Gyaneshwara Maharaj is concerned, Gyandev, well, Gyaneshwari is, from an intellectual literary perspective, a beautiful book. It is his retelling of what he thought the Bhagavad Gita taught.
It’s a beautiful book and it’s like Shankaracharya was also a brilliant writer. But a brilliant writer does not in itself mean that the writing that he did was an accurate explanation of the book that he was writing. The Sannidhika Bhashya of Shankaracharya is a classic book of literature.
But it’s a questionable book of philosophy in terms of it explaining actually the question book of comment, not philosophy. In terms of it actually explain the Vedanta Sutta. And that’s why it has been substantially challenged and countered by subsequent Acharyas.
So now Gyaneshwara, he wrote in Sanskrit or in Marathi, a language of those times, which is very difficult to understand now. Most of the commentators who have commented on it or who have translated it or rendered it a contemporary language, they tend to be impersonalists. So it does seem that only people think of him as an impersonalist.
But now he also has talked about Bhakti. So let’s focus on the Bhakti teachings and take that inspiration. And move onwards.
Because the same teacher can make different statements at different times. And followers can prioritise one statement or another depending on their particular focus or their particular agenda or their particular conceptions. I think getting into these polemical discussions is sometimes not very productive.
Now there are a few other questions. Let me look at the comments. Shashikant Prabhu, you have some questions Shashikant Prabhu? No, there was no commentary given by the six Goswamis.
So as I said, Bahaprabhu didn’t want it to be and he felt that Vedanta Sutra’s natural commentary was not required. So now Bhagavatam has passed in Vedanta Sutra in the form of codes. How can Bhagavatam be natural commentary? Well, natural commentary has a different meaning over there.
What natural commentary means is that this book is explaining the themes of that book but in a very different way. So the idea is the Vedic texts that were written, the Vedanta Sutra is the conclusive analysis. The Vedic texts, they give six different schools of philosophy, systems of philosophy.
All those systems of philosophy are analysed and Vedanta is established as the highest. So in that sense, from that perspective, all the teachings of Vyasadev, they have been explaining the six systems of philosophy and all of those are analysed and Vedanta Sutra is explaining that. So we could say the Vedic teachings, they come from Vyasadev or rather they are put in writing by Vyasadev.
Now they have been understood in terms of the six systems of philosophy. Now, those six systems of philosophy, they are analysed and critiqued in the Vedanta Sutra to establish Vedanta as the conclusion. Now, the same way it is in Vyasadev, what happened was in his maturity, after he wrote everything and still felt discontented, then after his discussion with Narada Muni, he wrote the Bhagavatam, what he considered to be the highest.
So in that sense, those are both considered a summit from different perspectives. So what he analytically established as the highest of the Vedanta Sutra, that through his experience and realisation and his samadhi, he explained the Bhagavatam. In that sense, they are two different things.
But they are similarly in the sense that they are summits of the Chakravarti Path’s books. There are many books. This is Sarvartha Darshan is there.
The Sarvartha Darshan uses Bhagavatam commentary. Bhavartha Darshan is there. It uses Gita commentary.
So like that, the names of books are very easy to find out. You can just Google the Wikipedia page of Chandrik Thakur is not a bad resource. Generally, Wikipedia and online resources, they are useful for getting some basic facts.
The interpretation of the facts, those are often questionable. Now the kings specifically, the question about the kings and how the Rajput kings, the Ramanandis, they were influential in the court. Now, whether majority of the people were followers of Ramanandis, the India has always had a mixed religious demographic.
Even in the Mahabharata, we have Drupada, whose family deity was Shiva. He was a part of the Pandava camp. So there have always been people who followed many things and worship many different things.
So when majority following Ramanandis, Ramanandis certainly didn’t have, they certainly did have influence in the court. And now how that came about and how much that translated to mass following, these are not questions which you can have like black and white answers. It depends on whom you ask or which books you read.
History is often like a permanently disputed territory. It’s different people analysing from different perspectives, they come up with different conclusions. But definitely, they did seem to have some significant influence in the court.
And they were significant in terms of what was being worshipped. So it’s quite likely that the people who were worshipping would go to the temples, which were prominent. So it seemed that it’s reasonable to infer that there was a significant following also.
How did some particular king come under the influence of particular saints? I think that’s a specific detail. You could go into the specific stories. But as you have seen here, I’m focussing not so much on the stories of what happened.
I’m talking about the principles of how the Acharyas addressed the connections or presented and represented the tradition. So let’s not get into the stories at this point. The philosophies of the other traditions are authentic.
Well, the Sampradayas are considered authentic. Now, there will be variations in the conclusions. But in terms of worship of Krishna, worship of Vishnu, worship of Ram, that’s definitely authentic.
The specifics of the interpretation of the commentary on the specific verses of specific books, that’s something which is a matter of debate. But those are details. So there’s bhed and abhed.
So the abhed in terms of the inspiring bhakti and inspiring people to attain the ultimate reality, that abhed is so important. And the bhed, that need not be taken to be so important. So see, now the Vallabh Sampradaya may not be having a commentary, then how are they considered authentic? Religious history is quite complicated.
And what is considered a source of authority at one time may not necessarily be considered to be a source of authority after some time. What do I mean by that? See Prabhupada didn’t write a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. Neither did Bhakti Sastra, neither did Bhakti Note Thakur.
Why? Because the times changed. And in today’s world, or in the modern world broadly speaking, that to establish our authenticity, we don’t need to establish that we have a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. Because whom are we trying to reach? In whose eyes are we trying to establish our authenticity? So it was, is the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition rational? Are the teachings, is it rational? Is it relevant? Is it intelligible? So does it make sense? Does it add value to people’s lives? From the vast teachings, which are the peak of the Vedic scriptures, of the tradition itself, which are the teachings that are relevant for audiences today? So Prabhupada, we’ll talk about Bhakti Sastra and Bhakti Note Thakur, and then Prabhupada also in our next sessions.
See, Bhakti Sastra and Thakur did not feel the need to write a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. But Prabhupada made a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita the basis of his speech. Because by the time of the independence, the Bhagavad Gita had become a very important book in India.
And by commenting on the Bhagavad Gita, not in India, abroad also. The Bhagavad Gita was always important, but especially the importance became much, much more. So for it, there is no… What we call in the Hindu tradition, Sadhana, Sanatana Dharma, never had one central authority who would declare, and you’re authentic, you’re not authentic.
At different times, different ways were required to establish the authenticity of the tradition. So Sampradaya, like the Vallabha Sampradaya, they gained enormous following. They get enormous, significant following among significantly influential people.
And they definitely have very diligent actions of devotion, not necessarily in the way we do it, in chanting a particular number of rounds. But there is a diligence in the way they serve the deities. So there is a manifestation of bhakti over there.
And bhakti is ahaitukya pratyahata. Bhakti cannot be interrupted by anything material. So bhakti is Swaraat, like Krishna.
Bhakti can manifest anywhere. And wherever bhakti is manifest, people offer respect over there. It’s those who are spiritually influential.
And that’s how Sampradaya becomes respectable. So now, with respect to history, yeah, now, like I said, Sanjay Bhattacharya, Gyaneshwar Maharaj initiated Tukaram Maharaj. Well, that’s also questionable.
Tukaram Maharaj is considered such a great saint in Maharashtra. And there is so much debate over his guru. So his saintly stature did not come from the fact that he was initiated in authentic Sampradaya and he had a guru.
He was such a great saint. Yeah, people appreciated that. And people admired that.
And his poetic compositions were there. His teachings were there. His example was there.
So he established his authenticity and his authority by the way he lived. So, you know, people accept Tukaram Maharaj because of who he was. Not, or they respect him because of who he was.
Not because of who he was initiated by. That’s why when we try to prove that he was initiated by our tradition, then we’re just getting into a debate that is historically complex and that just doesn’t really help much. So is it that people will respect our tradition more because we initiated Tukaram Maharaj? It’s unlikely.
Tukaram Maharaj’s respect does not come because he was initiated by him. It comes because he was such a great saint. Now, of course he initiated, of course he was initiated.
But this greatness is, why do people consider him so great? It’s not because of who he was initiated by. It was because of who he was. So to most people, when we claim that he was initiated by our tradition, to them it just seems like a very self-serving way of claiming that we are superior to Tukaram Maharaj.
That does not go well with anyone, especially with the followers of Tukaram Maharaj. So a lot of verses cannot be found in the Puranas. Well, Hariparshit Prabhu has done a good amount of research that if you look on his Facebook or contact him, he can give you.
I think I have put that on my website also. Many of the verses which are claimed to be not found in the current versions of the Puranas, they are there in other versions of the Puranas. So with the Puranas themselves, they are vast books and if the Puranas were not commented on, generally if an Acharya of a tradition, which has a lot of followers, comments on a book, then the followers preserve the commentary and with the commentary in the book, original book’s verses also get preserved.
But if a book is not commented on, then what happens is the commentaries are preserved and the book also is not precisely preserved. And sometimes there’s interpolation and sometimes there’s addition, sometimes there’s deletion. So it’s quite possible that certain verses were quoted, they were available at that time in the Puranas, but those particular versions of the books, recensions of the books are not available.
Now, if the Goswamis were just concocting things, then they were living in a period of great intellectual scholarship. The Gaudiya Vaishna Sampradaya has not been criticised and by the peers of the Goswamis or other peers of Baldev Daya Bhushan, either Ramanand is for that matter, that, oh, you just concocted verses. So if that had been the case, then it would have been a problem.
But there is no historical evidence of any extensive criticism, Baldev Daya Bhushan or the Goswamis for quoting words that are not found in the Puranas. That means that either we have to say all the scholars who were there at that time, they were so foolish that they didn’t think of this and we are clever enough to think about this. Or, which is quite presumptuous and ridiculous, I would say, a more reasonable conclusion is that it was there at that time, but somehow those Puranas are not there now, or those versions of the Puranas are not there.
And it’s not just our tradition. In Madhvacharya quotes lots of verses which are not found in those particular books right now. Because Madhvacharya quotes verses from books that we don’t even know about the existence of those books, what to speak of verses from known books.
But there is no extensive criticism of Madhvacharya by his peers at that time about his sources. I think that’s something which we can also use to defend this point. So, is it the same today that books were for scholars? Is it same today? Well, it depends.
Now, there is a culture of reading that has come up because books are available. In the past, when people would go to schools also, Gurukuls, it was not that people were reading from books, they were hearing from the teacher. So now, the culture of education itself has changed.
And in schools, people read books and everybody reads books quite a bit. We read a lot. So, I think that tradition also has to, that tradition also adapts and presents itself in ways in which it’s accessible.
Having said that, the number of people who will learn from the oral tradition will always be much more the number of people who will learn from the written tradition. So, the best is where the written and the oral come together. We read a book and then we hear classes based on the books and then together we get a very systematic understanding.
We will continue tomorrow. Are there any further questions? Let’s discuss them at that time. Thank you very much.
Prakrupada Ki Jai. Gauri Vaishya Kanta Dayaki Jai. Gauri Vaishya Navacharya Ki Jai.
Jai Gauri Premanand. Hari Hari Jai. Thank you.