Why is the Gaudiya sampradaya a branch of the Brahma-Madhva sampradaya and not its straight continuation?

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So the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition is a branching from the Madhava Sampradaya, so why was a branch needed? So yes this is a technical subject and I’ll try to answer as simply as possible All the four Sampradayas come from God, ultimately through his exalted representation So Krishna, Vishnu, they give knowledge to various persons whether it is Brahma, the Brahma-Madhava Gaudiya Sampradaya or we have Lakshmi Devi as a Sri Sampradaya like that there are the four Sampradayas So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is himself God so in that sense when he gives knowledge he can start his own Sampradaya if he wants But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he came in the mood of a devotee So that’s why he conformed with the tradition to a large extent and he himself took initiation and he himself connected his teachings with the tradition So in principle Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not require any tradition because he is God But in practice he respected the tradition So at that time Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he took initiation from the Madhava Sampradaya which is called as the Tattvavadi Sampradaya It’s called Dwaitavad or Tattvavad Why? Tattvavad because that is the opposite of Mayavad Mayavad means that actually everything that we see is Maya and that our forms are Maya, even God’s form is Maya So this was strongly opposed by Madhavacharyas Tattvavadis. So if you see historically it’s when there was a lot of, there’s a plan of the Lord that the original Vedic scriptures have multi-level spirituality So even people who are say, who can’t avoid meat-eating, they are not told that you are exiled from spiritual circles You can be on the slow path by which you can come to spiritual level gradually. There is some concession for meat-eating in the Vedic literature.
But a concession is not a recommendation If a person has diabetes the doctor says, avoid sugar He says, I can’t live without sugar I must eat sweets How will I live? The doctor says, okay take one sweet once a week Now if the patient goes and says, a doctor told me to take one sweet once a week That is not the instruction, that is not the recommendation That is a concession. So like that meat-eating is a concession given in the Vedic scriptures It’s not a recommendation or instruction But some people put that concession and made that as a instruction And they said, no sacrifice can be performed without killing animals, without animal sacrifice. And animal sacrifice became rampant and the spiritual aspect was lost.
So at that time Buddha came and Buddha said, can’t you see you are killing life? The law of Vishnu himself came as Buddha And he said, can’t you see that you are killing life? What kind of spirituality is this? But the Vedas say this, use your common sense Forget the Vedas, can’t you see that you are causing pain, you are killing Avoid that. So Buddha basically taught basic morals such as non-violence detachment, simplicity And because people had so misunderstood the Vedic scriptures that they could not have been explained at that time the correct understanding. So he just put aside the Vedas and therefore he did not talk about spiritual subject matter at all.
Buddha’s teachings are primarily non-theistic He neither talks about God nor does he talk about the soul also much So for 2500 years, Buddhists are even now puzzled that Buddha accepted reincarnation but Buddha did not accept the soul So how can you have reincarnation without soul? So actually this is the paradox that Buddhism accepts reincarnation without soul Christianity accepts soul without reincarnation So anyway the point is that there is a plan of the Lord. So after Buddha, the Lord arranged Shiva to come as Shankaracharya And Buddha had talked about Nirvana, Buddha had talked about Shunya And Shankaracharya taught you are looking for Shunya, you are looking for peace you are looking for silence All that is taught in the Vedic literature also And that is taught as the conception of Brahman So in a sense Buddha’s Buddhism’s Shunya and Advaitavad’s Brahman They are intellectual clones. They are conceptually the same but the nomenclature is different And in that way Shankaracharya got people back into the Vedic fold And then there is so much worship talked about Don’t bother about it.
Ultimately there is one truth There is one Brahman. Focus on that Brahman So the philosophy that he taught was called Advaitavad And after that Ramanacharya came. So if you see within the Vedic teachings, there is the pendulum moving towards one extreme that is oneness.
Advaitavad And then Ramanacharya came and he taught what is called Vishishtadvaitavad He came in the 11th century and said, yes everything is one but there is a difference Everything is not God There is God and there is things connected with God. So his defining metaphor was that there is soul and there is a body So similarly God is the soul and the whole world is the body That was his defining metaphor And so he says, yes there is oneness but there is difference also Then after that we have Madhvacharya coming. Madhvacharya took the pendulum.
So pendulum had gone towards oneness. It came to a slightly balanced state in Vishishtadvaitavad And Madhvacharya took it to the other extreme His philosophy is Dvaitavad What oneness? So there are basically, Upanishads talk about three tattvas. That is Jagdish Jeeva and Jagat This is alliteration of Jagdish is God Jeeva is the soul and Jagat is the universe Jagat is material world So he said, where is oneness? He says, Jeeva and Jagdish are different Jagat and Jagdish are different Jagat and Jeeva is different One Jeeva and other Jeeva is different And the elements in Jagat are also different So he talked about Pancham Veda.
He said, there is no Advaita There is Dvaita And he strongly refuted Advaitavad And when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came, he talked about, yes, there is Achintya Bheda Bhed There is oneness and there is difference So Jeeva and Jagat, they are one with the Lord in the sense that they are His energies But they are not absolutely one with Him There is Bheda and Abhed There is difference and oneness So in that sense, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu brought the pendulum back to the central point in a more evolved understanding At the same time, the influence of Advaitavad was very strong even in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s times And the Sampradaya that most strongly refuted Advaitavad was Dvaitavad So in terms of institutional affiliation Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took initiation in the Tattvavad Sampradaya so that he could strongly refute Advaitavad But in terms of doctrine, see there is an institution and there is its doctrine So in terms of institution, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu affiliated with the Madhva Sampradaya But in terms of doctrine there is a program of historical evolution that was happening And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu wanted to give the highest revelation So therefore he affiliated with the Advaita Sampradaya but he gave a higher understanding So in that sense this is what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is related with Madhavacharya’s teachings but it’s the further development on his teachings, further revelation And so in that sense you could say it’s a branch of the Madhva Sampradaya But it’s not just like any other branch that might be there because it is in this branch, it was started by the Supreme Lord himself descending and Supreme Lord who came and gave a higher revelation So there are differences subtly between the various Sampradayas but on defining defining truths all the Sampradayas agree. Srila Prabhupada writes in a purport that on three things The eternality of Ishwar, that God is the eternal supreme being The eternal subordination of the Jiva The soul is eternally a servant and devotee of God. The soul will never become God And the eternality of Bhakti.
It is not that we practice Bhakti now so that we will go to Mukti and we will give up Bhakti So God is eternal, Jiva is eternal and Bhakti between Jiva and God is eternal. On these three truths all the folks of Sampradaya agree But on the various levels within Bhakti on the various rasas that are revealed within Bhakti, on the special mood that God manifests In this there are some differences. In these things Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition gives a deeper revelation So that is in that sense, not a branch that is a rupture but a branch that is a development.
Gaudiya Vaishnavism is in that way. The Gaudiya Sampradaya is a branch which is a further evolution or development of the basic teachings that are given in the Madhva Sampradaya Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions?