Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati ( (Prabhupada); ; ; (6 February 1874 – 1 January 1937), born Bimala Prasad Datt (, ), was a Gaudiya Vaishnava guru (spiritual master), Ācārya, and revivalist in early twentieth-century India, known to his followers as Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Bimala Prasad was born in 1874 in Puri (then Bengal Presidency, now Odisha) in a Bengali Hindu Kayastha family as a son of Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda Thakur, a Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava philosopher and teacher. Bimala Prasad received Western and traditional Indian education from the late 1880s up until he graduated from Sanskrit College in 1895. His studies gradually gained him recognition from the bhadralok (Western-educated Hindu Bengali residents of colonial Calcutta), earning the title Siddhānta Sarasvatī ("the pinnacle of wisdom"). In 1900, Bimala Prasad was initiated into Gaudiya Vaishnavism from the Vaishnava ascetic Gaurakishora Dāsa Bābājī.
In 1918, following the death of his father in 1914 and the death of his guru Gaurakishora Dāsa Bābājī the following year, Bimala Prasad accepted the Hindu formal order of asceticism (sannyasa) from a photograph of his guru and took the name Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupada. He started the first center of his institution in Calcutta, later known as the Gaudiya Math. It developed into a missionary and educational institution with branches in India and abroad, distributing books and hosting public programs.
Bhaktisiddhanta opposed the non-dualistic interpretation of Hinduism, or Advaita, that had emerged as the prevalent strand of Hindu thought in India, seeking to promote Krishna-bhakti, which he regarded as its fulfillment and higher synthesis. He was critical of numerous Gaudiya Vaishnava lineages, describing them as apasampradayas – deviations from the original Gaudiya Vaishnavism taught in the 16th century by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his early successors. Additionally, he targeted what he alleged as casteism among "Smarta Brahmins".
The mission initiated by Bhaktivinoda Thakur and developed by Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati was referred to as "the most powerful reformist movement" of Vaishnavism in Bengal of the 19th and early 20th century. In 1966 its offshoot, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known for extensively popularizing Gaudiya Vaishnavism outside of India, was founded by Bhaktisiddhanta's disciple A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in New York City.
Early period (1874–1900): Student
Birth and childhood
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupāda was born Bimala Prasad at on 6 February 1874 in Puri – a town in the Indian state of Orissa best known for its 12th-century Jagannath Temple. He was born a few hundred meters away from the Jagannath temple on Puri's Grand Road, the traditional venue for the Hindu Ratha-yatra festival.
Bimala Prasad was the seventh of fourteen children of his father Kedarnath Datta and mother Bhagavati Devi, devout Vaishnavas of the Bengali kayastha community. At that time, Kedarnath Datta worked as a deputy magistrate and deputy collector, and spent most of his off-hours studying Vaishnava scripture under the guidance of local pandits. He translated scripture and wrote works on Vaishnava theology and practice in Bengali, Sanskrit, and English. He was also a prominent associate of the Ghosh brothers, who launched the pro-Vaishnava Amrita Bazar Patrika newspaper. His literary and spiritual achievements later earned him the honorific title Bhaktivinoda.
In 1869, after being posted to Puri as a deputy magistrate, Kedarnatha felt he needed assistance in his attempts to promote the cause of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in India and abroad. Shortly thereafter, he had a dream of Jagannath, in which the deity encouraged Kedarnatha to drop his pursuit of the law and attend to his role as a Vaishnava. After Kedarnatha expressed his difficulty in pursuing his cause alone, Jagannath requested Kedarnatha to pray for an assistant to the image of the Goddess Bimala Devi. When his wife gave birth to a new child, Kedarnatha linked the event to the divinatory dream and named his son Bimala Prasad ('"the mercy of Bimala Devi").
Education Young Bimala Prasad, often affectionately called Bimala, Bimu, or Binu, started his formal education at an English school at Ranaghat. In 1881, he was transferred to the Oriental Seminary of Calcutta, and in 1883, after Kedarnath was posted as senior deputy magistrate in Serampore of Hooghly, Bimala was enrolled in the local school there. At the age of nine, he memorised the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit. He gained a reputation for remembering passages from a book on a single reading and soon learned enough to compose his own poetry in Sanskrit. His biographers stated that Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati could verbatim recall passages from books that he had read in his childhood, earning the epithet "living encyclopedia".
In the early 1880s, Kedarnath Datta initiated him into harinama-japa, a traditional Gaudiya Vaishnava practice of meditation based on the soft recitation of the Hare Krishna mantra on tulasi beads.
In 1885, Kedarnath Datta established the Vishva Vaishnava Raj Sabha (Royal World Vaiṣṇava Association); the association, composed of leading Bengali Vaishnavas, inspired Bimala to undertake an in-depth study of Vaishnava texts, both classical and contemporary. Bimala's interest in the Vaishnava philosophy was furthered by the Vaishnava Depository, a library and a printing press established by Kedarnath (by that time respectfully addressed as Bhaktivinoda Thakur). In 1886, Bhaktivinoda began publishing a monthly magazine in Bengali, Sajjana-toshani ("The Source of Pleasure for Devotees"), where he published articles on the history and philosophy of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, along with book reviews, poetry, and novels. Twelve-year-old Bimala assisted his father as a proofreader, thus closely acquainting himself with the art of printing and publishing as well as with the intellectual discourses of the bhadralok.
In 1887, Bimala Prasad joined the Calcutta Metropolitan Institution (from 1917 – Vidyasagar College), known for its association with the bhadralok youth; there he pursued extracurricular studies of Sanskrit, mathematics, and jyotisha (traditional Indian astronomy). His proficiency in the latter was soon recognized by his tutors with an honorary title "Siddhanta Sarasvati", which he adopted as his pen name from then on. Sarasvati then attended Sanskrit College, a prominent liberal arts university, where he studied Indian philosophy and ancient history
Teaching In 1895, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati discontinued his studies at Sanskrit College due to a dispute about the astronomical calculations of the principal, Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna. An associate of his father, the King of Tripura Bir Chandra Manikya, offered him a position as secretary and historian at the royal court, which afforded him financial independence to pursue his studies independently. With access to the royal library, he studied Indian and Western works of history, philosophy, and religion and also started astronomy school in Calcutta.
After the king died in 1896, his heir, Radha Kishore Manikya, requested Sarasvati to tutor the princes, a position Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati held till 1908. Bhaktisiddhanta was eventually unsatisfied with the bhadralok lifestyle and searched for an ascetic spiritual teacher. On Bhaktivinoda's direction, he approached Gaurakishora Dasa Babaji, a Gaudiya Vaishnava ascetic and close of associate of Bhaktivinoda. In January 1901, according to his own testimony, he accepted Gaurakishora as his guru. Along with his initiation (diksha) he received a new name, Shri Varshabhanavi-devi-dayita Dasa (, "servant of Krishna, the beloved of Radha").
Middle period (1901–1918): Ascetic
Religious practice
The initiation from Gaurakishora Dasa Babaji, an illiterate yet highly respected personality, had a transformational effect on Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada. Later, reflecting on his first meeting with the guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati recalled:
After receiving the bhagarati initiation, Siddhanta Sarasvati went on a pilgrimage of India's holy places. He first stayed for a year in Jagannath Puri, and in 1904 travelled to South India, where he explored various branches of Hinduism, in particular the Vaishnava Shri and Madhva sampradayas, collecting materials for a new Vaishnava encyclopaedia. He finally settled in Mayapur, north of Calcutta, where Bhaktivinoda had acquired a plot of land at the place at which, according to Bhaktivinoda's research, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was born in 1486. At that time, Bhaktivinoda added the prefix "bhakti" (meaning "devotion") to Siddhanta Sarasvati, acknowledging his proficiency in Vaishnava studies.
Starting from 1905, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Prabhupāda began to deliver public discourses on the philosophy and practice of Chaitanya Vaishnavism, gathering a following of educated young Bengalis, some of whom became his students. While assisting Bhaktivinoda in his developing project in Mayapur, Bhaktisiddhanta vowed to recite one billion names of Radha (Hara) and Krishna – which took nearly ten years to complete – thus committing himself to the lifelong practice of meditation on the Hare Krishna mantra following the tradition of Gaurakishora Babaji and Bhaktivinoda Thakur. The aural meditation on Krishna's names, done either individually (japa) or collectively (kirtana) became a pivotal theme in Bhaktisiddhanta's teachings and personal practice.
Image and conflict The birth of Bimala Prasad concurred with the rising influence of the bhadralok community, literally "gentle or respectable people", an affluent class of Bengalis, largely Hindus, who served the British administration in occupations requiring Western education, and proficiency in English and other languages. Their attempts to integrate Hinduism with Western philosophy eventually gave rise to a historical period called the Bengali Renaissance, championed by reformists including Rammohan Roy and Swami Vivekananda. This trend gradually led to a widespread popularization, both in India and in the West, of Advaita Vedanta, a philosophy of an impersonal, non-dual ultimate reality, with philosopher Swami Vivekananda terming it "the mother of religions". Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and his peers viewed the growing popularity of Advaita Vendanta as a threat to the personal conception of god in Achintya Bheda Abheda philosophy, as taught by Chaitayna Mahaprabhu, the founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
Bhaktisiddhanta was critical of the depiction of Gaudiya Vaishnavism from his contemporaries in British Calcutta, Nabadwip brahmana communities and British viewpoints through the English Christian and Victorian sensibilities. In his essay "Real and Apparent," he described the westernized depiction of Radha-Krishna and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as "a creed which may be suspected of a partiality for sexuality, passivism, childish ceremonial and credulity and which declares all secular effort as utterly powerless". Bhaktisiddhanta attributed what he saw as the growing public disapproval of Gaudiya Vaishnavism as aggravated by the prevalently lower social status of local Gaudiya Vaishnavas, as well as by erotic practices of tantrics such as the sahajiyas, who controversially claimed close affiliation with the mainstream Gaudiya school.
On 8 September 1911, Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupāda was invited to a conference in Balighai, Midnapore, that gathered Vaishnavas to debate the eligibility of the Brahmanas and that of the non-Brahmin Vaishnavas. The debate was centred on two issues: whether those born as non-Brahmanas but initiated into Vaishnavism were eligible to worship a shalagram shila (a sacred stone representing Vishnu, Krishna or other deities), and whether they could give initiation in the sacred mantras of the Vaisnava tradition.