Gaudiya Vaishnava Tradition

Lord Shri Krishna

The Supreme Personality – the source of all creation, spiritual and material. He is the one and only God for all life-forms thriving within His creation. He alone is the fulfiller of all their wishes and all good qualities seen in them are nothing but infinitesimally small manifestations of His own superlative traits.

Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

The most munificent of all incarnations of Lord Shri Krishna. He is none other than Shri Krishna imbued with the highest loving sentiments of His dearest consort, Shrimati Radharani. He is the Hero of those who find love in the chanting of the Holy Names of Shri Shri Radha Krishna and the only refuge for those who desperately long for winning their servanthood.

The Six Goswamis

The Six Goswamis were a group of scholarly and ascetic devotees of Krishna who lived and wrote in India during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. They were the leading disciples of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

A number of the Goswamis came from aristocracy but left aside considerable wealth and influence to live as wandering mendicants, dedicating themselves to writing commentaries on the Vedas. They also uncovered many of the lost places of Krishna’s pastimes in Vrindavan, and established temples there that are visited to this day.

Under Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s direction, they showed that the essence of all Vedic teachings is devotional service to God, bhakti-yoga. The brother’s Rupa and Sanatana were formerly high-ranking ministers in the Islamic government of Bengal, India. Their nephew Jiva, is considered by some Sanskrit scholars to be the greatest philosopher of all time. Gopal Bhatta was from an aristocratic South Indian family, Raghunatha dasa’s father and uncle were the wealthiest landowners in India, and Raghunatha Bhatta studied under Rupa and later established the famous Govindaji temple In Vrindavan.

Shrila Jagannatha Dasa Babaji Maharaja (1776-1894)

Shrila Jagannatha Dasa Babaji Maharaja (1776-1894) was recognised as the most prominent scholar of his time.

He was also acknowledged as being most expert in relishing transcendental mellows (rasika) and the most perfected Vaishnava in Gauda-mandala, Vraja-mandala and Kshetra-mandala. He is therefore known as vaishnava-sarvabhauma, the topmost Vaishnava.

It was his habit to loudly chant the maha-mantra. On Shri Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s request, this great personality determined Shridhama Mayapura to be the birthplace of Shri Gaura. On his order, a grand temple was constructed in Mayapura at the birthplace of Shri Gaura, where the deities of Shri Gaura-Vishnupriya-Lakshmipriya and Pancha-tattva are presently worshipped.

Shrila Gaura Kishora Dasa Babaji (1838-1915)

Shrila Gaura Kishora Dasa Babaji (1838-1915) was the embodied form of renunciation. Completely detached, he would wash and wear discarded clothes to cover his body. He drank from a rejected clay pot. He ate parched rice mixed with Ganges water or simply some mud from the river Ganga’s bank to sustain his life.

Recognizing him to be a great devotee, many tried to serve, but he never accepted. Sitting in seclusion, he chanted 200,000 names of Lord Sri Krishna every day (128 rounds of japa). He felt a painful separation from Shri Shri Radha-Govinda and cried profusely. He saw all the Vrajavasis (residents of Vrindavana) as being the direct personal associates of Shri Shri Radha and Krishna. As a result of this vision, he would pay respects to every person, cow, animal, bird, tree, creeper, insect, ant in the holy dhama.

Constantly absorbed in bhajana, Shrila Babaji Maharaja had no desire to make disciples. Upon seeing the true humility and deep attachment of Thakura Bhaktivinoda’s son for bhajana, Shrila Gaurakishora Dasa Babaji accepted one disciple, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura.

Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura (1838-1914)

Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura (1838-1914) composed hundreds of books on Bhakti and re-established in this modern era, which is degraded by excessive sensual pleasure, the flow of pure devotion (shuddha-bhakti), which had temporarily stopped.

He is an intimate, eternal devotee of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Due to his having propagated in different ways the pure philosophy of divine love (prema-dharma) exhibited and preached by Shriman Mahaprabhu, he is famous as the Seventh Gosvami. Because he manifested Mahaprabhuís holy names (shri gaura-nama), Mahaprabhuís holy land (shri gaura-dhama), Mahaprabhuís innermost desire (shri gaura-kama) and the narrations of Mahaprabhuís pastimes (shri gaura-lila), he is considered the incarnation of Vyasa in Mahaprabhu’s pastimes.