How did the Gaudiya tradition become deviated by the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakura?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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So, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu clearly told Jagad Mata, I sin no more and then Goswami's continued on the legacy so, how is it that by the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakur, the holy name was being misappropriated and was there a breakage in the parampara? Not exactly a breakage in the sense that there were no Gaudiya Vaishnavas, but there was a there was a major disconnect that happened. See, broadly speaking in any religious group that is there, there are the leaders and there are the followers. So, the followers are the, what in Christianity they call the laity, the general people, but for them they have their lives, they have their careers and along with that, they also have their bhakti, they also have their religion as a part of their life and there are the leaders who are actually the systematizers of the tradition.
They make sure that the tradition is understood properly, taught properly and the other people also live the tradition. Now, if you look at Gaudiya history, this is a little elaborate subject. I'll try to keep it as short as possible.
See, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had two different kinds of followers, two different kinds of followers. Most of his followers in Bengal were Dhristas and his followers in Vrindavan were Sanyasis. And the Bengalis, if you look at the post Chaitanya Mahaprabhu legacy, most of the Bengali books that were written, they were about Gaur Nila, philosophical books, Chaitanya Bhavya, Chaitanya Mangal.
There were actually, after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed, 27 biographies were written and Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was the last biography. But what was written in Bengal was mostly Bengali books about Gaur Nila. And then there were bhajans and all that, but it was largely the legacy that continued on of Vaishnavism was not all that theological or philosophical.
It is more centered on chanting and on the glory of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Now, when the Goswamis went to Vrindavan, at that time, they were not in a place where people knew Chaitanya Mahaprabhu so well also. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had come and created a sensation for the two months that he was there, but it was just two months and he was gone after that.
So if you see the Goswamis, all the books that they wrote were in Sanskrit. Because in Vrindavan, who is going to know Bengali? They wrote the books in Sanskrit and the books that the Goswamis wrote, they were not so much about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. They were about Krishna.
Because in Vrindavan, again, who is going to know Chaitanya Mahaprabhu so much? So almost all the books that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu wrote, that the Goswamis wrote, were in Sanskrit and about Krishna. And Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami was the person who actually brought these two traditions together. Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami was born and brought up in Bengal and then he went to Vrindavan and he studied in Vrindavan.
So Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit is actually a book of theology in the format of biography. So now he was in Vrindavan, but he wrote a book in Bengali. You wonder, in Vrindavan, who is going to read Bengali? But he was actually in Vrindavan and he was integrating the Gauri Lila that people had known, people, their new general with the Gauri Siddhanta which had been systematized by the Goswamis.
And then that book was brought back and that book became like a standard book for Gauri Vaishnavism to understand both the Lila and the Siddhanta of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So this way things did go on, but there was the popular cultural practice of Gaura Bhakti or Bhakti as taught by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and then there were, so there were the Grahastas and other so the Rajvasis, Vrindavan Goswamis were Sanyasis. The Bengali followers were Grahastas.
So now what happened is the Grahastas, gradually, they developed into Jati Goswamis. There was the Tyananda Vamsha and the Gadadhara Vamsha, Advaita Vamsha and they, to some extent, some of them were great souls, but many of them, they developed an elitist mentality. So they had monopoly on whom they could give initiation to and then they started, they had their, they themselves were practicing, but they were not so much like missionaries.
As long as, see the overall, no movement can stay isolated from broader culture. So the broader culture in India at that time, the caste system was very strong. The Brahmanas had powers and that sort of mentality came in here also.
And then there were the Sanyasis who were the renunciates, the Babajis. They were very otherworldly. They would just go from place to place.
They would stay on the trees. They were not really concerned with creating a systematic legacy. So broadly at that time, when initiations were there, the standard way would be, if somebody has to take initiation, they would take initiation from the caste Goswamis.
Occasionally, some people would take initiation from the travelling Babajis. Some Babaji would come along and you take initiation from them. That was rare.
But overall, so the Babajis were not so much involved in, they just do Katha and they would keep travelling. They were not so involved in creating system. And the caste Goswamis who were there, they started focusing more on maintaining their own power.
And now what happens when we have to maintain power, then they want followers. And therefore, they started speaking only those sections which would attract followers. So there is the sections about the glory of how merciful the holy name is, how powerful the chanting of the holy name is.
They would just speak that. And the regulating aspect which had the potential to alienate people. I have to follow all this? Forget it.
I will not do this. They started downplaying that. So it was there in the tradition, but they started downplaying that.
And that's why when Bhaktivinod Thakur came, see in one sense, Bhaktivinod Thakur was an outsider. Outsider in the sense that Bhaktivinod Thakur was not born in the Gaudiya Vaishnava family. He was born in the Shakta family.
And through his search, we can just imagine how much the Gaudiya tradition must have been actually lost that he had to search for several years just to find a copy of Chaitanya Charita Amrit. So what happened is that because Chaitanya Charita Amrit has so much philosophy that it was not such a widely read book. This Gaudiya line was Chaitanya Bhagavaya, Chaitanya Mangala.
They were widely read. Chaitanya Charita Amrit was also available, but not that widely available. So Bhaktivinod Thakur grew up in a time when he had heard about Gaudiya and he read about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also.
He knew about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. But this book which gives a systematic understanding of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's teachings and shows his life in the light of his teachings, that was not available. So then what did he do? He actually realized this is such a glorious legacy.
Such a glorious message Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is giving. But how do I share it? How do I understand it? How do I share it? So he actually took initiation. So at that time, we have the vision of the Acharyas as great people who behaved in extraordinary ways and they were very saintly.
That is true. At the same time, the Acharyas lived at a particular time and they had to work in particular ways to actually affect the changes. So what he did was that he, because he was an outsider and he needs some kind of authorization.
Otherwise, who will hear him when he speaks? So he took initiation from Bipin Bihari Goswami. Bipin Bihari Goswami was a Jati Goswami. And then, I talked that the two sources of initiation were the Jati Goswamis and there were the renounced Babajis.
So he took initiation from Bipin Bihari Goswami. That's how he became legitimized to teach Gaudiya Vishwanath Swami. But then his primary inspiration did not come from Bipin Bihari Goswami.
It came from Jagannath Das Babaji, who was like a renounced Babaji. So he took primary, that's why when Bhaktisandh Swami talk about the shiksha, the parampara, he connects Bhaktivinoda Thakur with Jagannath Das Babaji, not so much with Bipin Bihari Goswami. So he got primary inspiration from him.
So what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did was, he got the position in the eyes of the tradition through his connection with Bipin Bihari Goswami. And of course, he had a position in the British government by which he had credibility in the eyes of the general people. Because at that time, to be an officer in the British government, that had a lot of respect.
So that way, he used the position from both the, at that time, the contemporary government structure and the position from the traditional power structure and he used it both and he reformed the tradition. So basically, sakaleneha mata yogon ashta parantaka. That by the power of time, things do get deteriorated.
And the acharyas often have to be very resourceful in making sure that they bring things back on track. Did I answer the question? Yes, thank you.