The Bhāgavata Purāṇa has endured for centuries as one of the most important Sanskrit texts of living Hinduism. During the second half of the twentieth century it migrated beyond the shores of India and is today not only translated and read in over twenty different languages, but also highly revered by a worldwide population of both Indic and non-Indic Hindu practitioners. Considering this, it is interesting to note that from the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century—the specific period of British rule—the Bhāgavata was attacked by Western missionaries and intellectuals and consciously neglected or held in low esteem by most members of India’s Hindu elite. The key to understanding this somewhat puzzling contradiction lies in exploring the reasons for its negative reception in Bengal during that time, and in examining the contributions of the three historical figures that were responsible for its migration, first to Western Europe and the United States, and then to most other regions of the world. But the story of the Bhāgavata’s migration is more than just a history of the events and individuals that were responsible for the twentieth-century transplantation of a particular religious work. It is also the latest chapter in a chronicle of discourse between two schools of Indic thought that have long maintained differing views about the nature of ultimate reality. This history of ideas is threaded throughout our narrative and briefly rounded out at its close. We begin by providing some historical background.THE NONDUALIST AND PERSONALIST SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
In the eighth century the Indic philosopher Shankara penned the Śārīrakabhāṣya, a highly influential commentary on the Vedānta Sūtra that challenged Buddhism’s outright denial of a perennial metaphysical substance and argued instead for the existence of a nondual absolute (Brahman), claiming this to be the ontological foundation of Vedāntic thought.1 Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, however, Shankara’s advaita monism (hereinafter nondualism) was itself challenged by two of the most prominent figures in the Vaiṣṇava personalist tradition, who claimed that metaphysical personhood was the foundation of Vedāntic thought: Rāmānuja (ca. 1017–1137), whose ontology relied to some degree on the authority of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (similar in content to the Bhāgavata), and Madhva (1238–1317), who not only studied the Bhāgavata, but also commented on it in his Bhāgavata-tatparya. Thus began a thousand-year philosophical disputation between the nondualist followers of Shankara on the one hand and those who ascribe to various schools of Vaiṣṇava personalism on the other.
The nondualist school posits that the transitory world of sense and form, with its multiplicity of knowing selves and known objects, is ultimately unreal, whereas reality consists of a nonpersonal, formless, and all-pervading substance known as Brahman (the highest ontological truth). When the veil of illusion is removed through proper knowledge, all differences of name, form, quality, and activity cease to exist, and the artificially individualized self merges with Brahman, just as the air within a container merges with the totality of air when the container is smashed. Vaiṣṇava personalists, however, argue that this perspective leads to the foundational question of how ultimate oneness became veiled by illusion to begin with, and why that illusion manifests as so many varieties of specific identities, forms, relationships, and activities.
The crux of the difference between the two schools lies in their different understandings of the phenomenal world and its relationship to ultimate reality, producing two rather divergent worldviews. For nondualists, the phenomenal world is illusory not only because it is temporary, but also because its appearances are not reflective of something that is ultimately real. For Vaiṣṇava personalists, on the other contrary, the phenomenal world is illusory only in the sense that it is temporary, since its appearances are thought to reflect something that is ultimately real, namely, an original reality of eternal forms, personalities, relationships, and activities, all centered upon a metaphysical supreme person, the origin of all existences. When the veil of illusion is removed through spiritual knowledge, and, more importantly, devotional practice (bhakti), one does not cease to be as an individual person, but rather rediscovers her permanent identity and loving relationship with the supreme. This brings us back to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, in as much as the tenth volume of this work claims to contain a detailed description of the nature, form, and activities of that supreme person, identified there as Krishna, and the original reality in which he and his associates are said to reside. The centerpiece of this description concerns Krishna’s amorous pastimes with the beautiful cowherd maidens of Vraja, of whom one particular maiden is considered most dear; later tradition identifies this maiden (or Gopī) as Rādhā.
THE SACRED LOVE STORY OF RĀDHĀ-KRISHNA AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF CAITANYA
Interest in the Bhāgavata’s sacred love story of Rādhā-Krishna can be traced in South Asia to at least the tenth century, the same period in which Rāmānuja had developed his personalist challenge to Shankara’s nondualism. As the narration of their esoteric erotic play grew in popularity over the next several centuries, it received not only serious exegetical attention from Vaiṣṇava personalist schools of Vedānta (Flood 1996:15), but also widespread cultural expression in South Asian literary, pictorial, and performing arts.2 The Bhāgavata asserts that far from being an ordinary human lover, Krishna is bhagavan svayam (BhP 1.3.28), the supreme person himself. The text, at its core, eulogizes Krishna’s youthful dalliances with the maidens of Vraja (known as the Gopīs; BhP 1.1.20),3 and especially with an unnamed heroine, described as his “best worshipper” (i.e., Rādhā; BhP 10.30.28).4 The narrative culminates with the mystical rāsa-līlā, Krishna’s nocturnal circle dance with the Gopīs, who are said to have abandoned homes, husbands, and children just to unite with their most intimate friend and lover.5 The Bhāgavata extols the rāsa-līlā as embodying the most complete qualitative manifestation of our potential relationship with the absolute and describes the selfless, unconditional devotion of the Gopīs as the pinnacle of religious love (Schweig 2005:152–72; see also Schweig’s chapter in this volume). Here Krishna is described as the supreme cause, appearing in his original form of imperishable youth for the purpose of reciprocating love; the Bhāgavata further indicates (according to Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava interpretation)6 that the other Upaniṣad conceptions of divinity, namely impersonal Brahman (described earlier) and localized paramatman (the omnipresent divine form within), are subordinate, if real, aspects of that supreme personal form (BhP 1.2.11).
It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the Bhāgavata’s description of Krishna became a prominent feature of Bengali Vaiṣṇava thought; this was largely due to the efforts of Krishna Caitanya (1486–1533), considered by his followers to be the combined avatāra of Rādhā and Krishna (see Caitanya Caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja 1999). A primary aim of Caitanya’s mission was to enable ordinary persons to transcend temporal attachments by developing unconditional love for the supreme person, the highest expression of which he found in the mood of the Gopīs, as described earlier. For this reason, Caitanya emphasized three forms of religious practice: (1) publicly singing the various names of Krishna while dancing rythmically (saṅkīrtana); (2) quietly chanting those names in a more concentrative mode (japa); and (3) constantly meditating upon the Bhāgavata’s sacred narrations (smaraṇam).7 In Caitanya’s view, anyone who participated in these practices would experience ecstatic love for Krishna and eventually achieve the highest liberation: entry into the timeless realm of Vraja.
Here it is important to note that, according to tradition, Caitanya was more than a charismatic leader; he is also said to have been an astute scholar who was versed in the Bhāgavata, considering it the most direct and natural explanation of the Vedānta Sūtra, the key philosophical text of brahmanical Hinduism. And although he never produced his own Bhāgavata commentary or authored a thorough explanation of his thought, the biographical work Caitanya Caritāmṛta (completed ca. 1615) provides detailed accounts of discussions that he is said to have held with several intimate followers (Caitanya Caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja 1999:29–32). It also elaborates on the arguments and logic purportedly used by Caitanya to convince two of the most prominent nondualists of his time: the Vedāntic scholar Sarvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya and the renunciate Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī (Caitanya Caritāmṛta 1999:68, 239). It is moreover known that Caitanya directly charged disciples such as Rūpa, Sanātana, and Jīva Gosvāmī to write books on the ontology, philosophy, and practice of Vaiṣṇava bhakti as taught by him. Collectively named “the Gosvāmīs of Vrindavan,” these individuals produced some forty works that represent the philosophical and conceptual foundation of standard Caitanyaite Vaiṣṇava thought.
Beyond this, most available sources indicate that during the years that Caitanya functioned as a renounced monk, he set a consistent moral example by remaining celibate and avoiding the association of women—and this, despite the fact that he was continuously worshipping and meditating upon the amorous play of Rādhā and Krishna. Indeed, he is said to have been so stern in this regard that he once rejected an ascetic follower for committing a minor infraction of the rule of chastity (Caitanya Caritāmṛta 1999:490).
THE BHADRALOK RESPONSE TO NINETEENTH-CENTURY CAITANYA VAIṢṆAVISM
Over the next several centuries, Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism continued to grow in popularity until, by the end of the eighteenth century, it had become the preferred religion of a significant number of Bengalis (Chakravarti 1985:384).8 By then Caitanya’s contribution had become further acknowledged and the Bhāgavata’s Krishna narrative had become further embedded in the cultural and religious fiber of eastern Indian regions including Manipur, Tripura, Orissa, and Bengal.
During this period of growth, however, a certain bifurcation occurred, and Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism came to be represented by two divergent orientations, each of which claimed millions of adherents: (1) a textual-brahmanic form that followed the authority of the previously mentioned Gosvāmīs of Vrindavan and was headed by pious members of the higher castes, and (2) a popular form that was largely peopled by members of the lower castes and often influenced by the erotic practices of certain goddess-oriented sects, among others. The former of these orientations continued to produce significant Vaiṣṇava philosophical works up to the end of the eighteenth century, such as Baladeva Vidyabhushana’s commentary on the Vedānta, thought to have been completed shortly before the British East India Company’s final conquest of Bengal (ca. 1764; Keay 2001:381). As for the latter orientation, its practice continued into the colonial period, but with a widening disconnect from Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism’s more philosophical and morally restrained lineage—that is, from the classical devotional literature that provided the rationale for a decorous interpretation of the Bhāgavata’s “erotic” chapters.
Such was the nineteenth-century situation that confronted a newly created and highly educated indigenous middle-class known as the bhadralok,9 which soon came to regard the Bhāgavata’s account of Krishna’s amorous affairs as an illustration of moral misconduct. This negative perception was strengthened by the fact that the Bhāgavata was linked in their minds with the previously described popular forms of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism, which were reputed to indulge in secret erotic rituals based upon the physical reenactment of Krishna’s rāsa-līlā as well as in widespread prostitution. Because of this, not only the Bhāgavata but also Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism came under criticism from both Westerners and the Western-educated Bengali elite, becoming one among the conflicting factors involved in the cultural tensions and religious transformations of the time. Arguably, this outcome was predictable since Bengal—and especially Calcutta (the capital of the South Asian Empire until 1911)—was the foremost locus of India’s involvement with Britain and was thus heavily exposed to processes of modernization that profoundly affected the economic and religious foundation of its indigenous society and culture.
Bengal in the nineteenth century had been influenced by the Victorian period’s contempt for sexual expression as well as its esteem for science and rationality—attitudes that were largely accepted by the bhadralok. Most bhadralok had been educated in Christian- or government-run institutions, or both, and many were employed in the colonial administration, exposures that, along with their unique sense of indigenous modernity, had inclined them to challenge traditional beliefs and practices in unprecedented ways. As a result, many came to regard the traditional narratives of Krishna’s dealings with the Gopīs as morally flawed. The role of colonial influence, however, must not be overstated, since Krishna’s relations with these married maidens had already been a source of ethical questioning within Hinduism for centuries. The concern is even addressed in the Bhāgavata itself, where the narrator Śuka suggests an answer that has been elaborated by subsequent Vaiṣṇava commentators as follows: the strength of the element fire is such that it is never contaminated by the consumption of impure things, but rather purifies all that it touches; similarly, the strength of Krishna (here understood as the supreme person) is such that he is never contaminated by the performance of outwardly “immoral” deeds, but rather sanctifies all that he touches. In keeping with this understanding, Śuka warns that those who attempt to imitate the activities of Krishna, even in their imaginations, do so at their own peril (BhP 10.33.26–30).
This explanation notwithstanding, the bhadralok considered Krishna’s conjugal līlā to be a source of embarrassment, particularly as depicted in popular culture and amorous Tantric poetry. Moreover, although in its traditional dress Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism may have had a philosophical basis, during the colonial period it appeared in three basic forms, none of which were appealing to the Bengali intelligentsia: (1) the popularized form earlier described, which they considered to be sentimental, morally weak, licentious, and mostly the religion of the ignorant and illiterate; (2) a caste-oriented form, which they considered to be elitist, nepotistic, socially callous, and out of step with modern times; and (3) a mystical-ascetic form, which they considered to be too otherworldly.
The alleged self-righteous behavior of caste brāhmaṇas, the general exploitation of women, the lack of learning among lower caste Vaiṣṇavas, and the tendency toward sexual rites and practices—all these and more were thoroughly condemned by the bhadralok. Many among them even called for radical reforms, being in fundamental agreement with Western educators and public officials, who often characterized “Hindooism” as the home of deviant practices and debauchery.
The flavor of these times is well captured in the following account of a widely publicized 1860s libel case that had attracted the reform-spirited sympathies of the Bengali bhadralok:
The cause of morality, it was expected, could not but gain by the trial … [and] [t]he eyes of India were riveted on the proceedings. The disclosures in court startled the outside world. They were revelations of a theology the most hateful, a morality the most outrageous and filthy Some watched the proceedings with anxiety … lest by some mischance the work of reform may be indefinitely postponed. (Bombay Presidency Supreme Court 1862:6)10
Sir Joseph Arnould, in his lengthy Supreme Court judgment against the plaintiff (the Vallabhācārya Vaiṣṇava sect), declared: “It is Krishna the darling of 16,000 Gopees (or shepherdesses); Krishna the love-hero—the husband of 16,000 princesses, who is the paramount object of Vallabhacharya worship. This tinges the whole system [of Hinduism] with the strain of carnal sensualism, of strange, transcendental lewdness” (Bombay Presidency Supreme Court 1862:213). Like the judge in this case, a section of Christian missionaries were among those who viewed the worship of Krishna as an evil that needed to be checked and replaced with “Christian values, English education and Western ideas” (Shukavak Dasa 1999:26). Major sections of the bhadralok, for their part, became interested in developing rational interpretations of Hinduism that carefully avoided any tinge of erotic mysticism and assured that this understanding would find no place in the teachings and practices of their religious institutions.
Although the response of bhadralok was varied, it most prominently entailed a return to the classical Upaniṣadic texts and the portrayal of Shankara’s nondualism as Hinduism’s essential core. This provided them with a sense of self-respect and standing relative to the local European population. To this end, they researched nondualist Vedānta’s exegetical tradition, discovering elements that were both applicable and adaptable to nineteenth-century conditions. For many of them this new identification provided not only a means of explaining the essential oneness of the plethora of Hindu traditions, but also an opportunity to sidestep controversial matters such as Krishna’s eroticism, which they now could characterize as deviations from Hinduism’s core. Nondualism also had important practical implications for the spread of humanistic and egalitarian ideologies because of its emphasis on the equality of all human beings. It supplied, in other words, the rationale needed to justify various types of social, political, and cultural reform.11
BHĀGAVATA CRITICS: RAMMOHUN ROY, BANKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJEE, AND SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
To further illuminate the manner in which the Bhāgavata was received by the bhadralok, we here briefly explore the contributions of three major reformers from this period: (1) Rammohun Roy (1772–1833), who inaugurated the religious modernization of India; (2) Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838–1894), who significantly contributed to the rise of India’s nationalist movement; and (3) Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), whose nondualist interpretation largely remains the standard understanding of the Hindu tradition among most Indian and Western intellectuals.
Rammohun Roy is generally credited with having inaugurated what has come to be known as the Bengal Renaissance, a movement from the late-eighteenth to the early twentieth century that was pivotal in shaping the direction and nature of modern Hinduism. Although Roy himself was raised in a devout Vaiṣṇava family, his study of both Hindu and Muslim thought, his association with missionaries such as William Carey and the Unitarians, and his sustained involvement with the East India Company gradually led him to reject the religion of his youth.
After retiring from the company’s service at the age of forty-two, Roy dedicated himself to social, political, and religious reform, challenging key tenets of traditional Hinduism through various publications and letters. In these he argued against aspects of traditional Hinduism such as image worship, the performance of temple rituals, and the practice of sati (a widow’s self-immolation on the funeral pyre of her husband). He also openly criticized the Bhāgavata’s presentation of Krishna’s amorous dealings in Vraja, which he considered to be misleading, anti-intellectual, and depraved—a narrative that in his view had damaged Hindu society by advancing an ethically unsound prototype of God to millions that delighted in its descriptions (Rammohun 1818).
It was here that Roy’s critique naturally extended to Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism, the movement that he viewed as being largely responsible for the degradation of the Hindu population in Bengal through its propagation of the Bhāgavata narrative, its promotion of the iconic worship of Krishna, and its practice of erotic reenactment. For Roy, Hinduism would improve only when such modes of worship and immoral performances were stopped, along with the scriptural narrative that sustained them—that is, the Bhāgavata’s depictions of Krishna.
To achieve this, and primarily to unite Hinduism under one conceptual banner, Roy encouraged his contemporaries to look back to the non-dualist interpretation of Vedānta: Shankara’s advaitic understanding of Brahman. Over the course of time, several prominent bhadralok also came to view this advaitic interpretation as the essential core of Hinduism, having been either directly or indirectly inspired by Roy; among these was Swami Vivekananda. Others, such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, were influenced by Roy’s rationalism and moral ideals instead (Sardella 2010:60–64).
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
Like Roy and other bhadralok, Bankim Chandra was an advocate of Hindu reform. An accomplished novelist, essayist, and journalist, he rose to prominence in the nationalist movement, and his poem “Vande Mataram” became first a source of inspiration and later one of the national songs of India. Of importance here, however, is the position he adopted relative to the Bhāgavata’s description of Vrindavan (Vraja) Krishna, which, while close to Roy’s, had one notable difference: whereas Roy aimed to purge Hinduism of Krishna bhakti in its entirety, Bankim Chandra aimed to construct a new heroic image—a new source of nationalist inspiration—by replacing the “false” Krishna of the Bhāgavata with the “real” ethically superior Krishna of the Bhagavad Gītā and Mahabharata (Chattapadhaya 1886:1). This latter image of Krishna fit well with the aspirations of both the middle class and the evolving Indian National Congress. Beyond this, he regarded the depictions of amorous Krishna found in the Bhāgavata and other Vaiṣṇava literatures to be mere interpolations, or, at best, sensual poetic imaginings, among which the rāsa-līlā was one (Chattapadhaya 1888:94–95). He thus interpreted these depictions from a philosophical perspective that denied both their historical and ontological reality.12
Swami Vivekananda
Among the historically relevant bhadralok discussed thus far, Vivekananda is the one best known to the West. He, perhaps more than any other, promoted a modern form of nondualism that rose in the early twentieth century to become the standard understanding of Hinduism among most Indian and Western intellectuals, remaining so even today. Known popularly as “neo-Vedānta,” it is a modified version of Shankara’s classical nondualism that stresses the ontological oneness of humanity and divinity and thus sees service (seva) to the human community as service to the divine.13
Although Vivekananda had an appreciation for the Bhāgavata and its various depictions of Krishna, he was nonetheless critical of the erotic orientation of certain popular Vaiṣṇava sects. His perception of the situation, however, appears to have been more nuanced than Roy’s, in that he drew a distinction between these forms and the one he believed to have been practiced by Caitanya himself: “Shri Chaitanya was a man of tremendous renunciation and had nothing to do with women and carnal appetites. But, in later times, his disciples admitted women into their order, mixed indiscriminately with them in his name, and made an awful mess of the whole thing” (Vivekananda 1955: vol. 3, p. 344). Moreover, unlike Bankim Chandra, Vivekananda saw no contradiction between the naughty, erotic Krishna of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s Vrindavan pastimes and the ethical Krishna of the Bhāgavad Gītā. For him, these were merely different aspects of the same personality, with the former being an expression of mischievous, boyish youth and the latter of dedicated, responsible adulthood. Indeed, he indicated that for him the Vrindavan aspect of Krishna constitutes the highest conceptualization of love as compared to the message of the Gītā, which he assigned to a “lower stratum” (Vivekananda 1955: vol. 3, p. 260). The following passage summarizes his attitude in this regard:
When the whole world will vanish, when all other considerations will have died out, when you will become pure-hearted with no other aim, not even the search after truth, then and then alone will come to you the madness of that love, the strength and the power of that infinite love which the Gopis had [for Krishna], that love for love’s sake. That is the goal. (Vivekananda 1955: vol. 3, p. 260)
Although it may be tempting to characterize this tribute to the erotic love of the Gopīs as a departure from the thinking of Roy and Bankim Chandra, to be properly understood it must be viewed in the light of Vivekananda’s nondualism. For Vivekananda, there can be no ultimate distinction between Krishna (or Brahman) and the individual self, since all differentiation is external. In keeping with this logic, meditation on Krishna’s pastimes with his associates and devotees must also be ultimately abandoned—a view that is confirmed as follows in Vivekananda’s Parabhakti (The highest devotion):
We all have to begin as dualists in the religion of love. God is to us a separate Being, and we feel ourselves to be separate beings also. & At last, however, comes the full blaze of light, in which this little self is seen to have become one with the Infinite. Man himself is transfigured in the presence of this Light of Love, and he realises at last the beautiful and inspiring truth that Love, the Lover, and the Beloved are One.14
BHAKTIVINODA AND BHAKTISIDDHANTA: VAIṢṆAVA PERSONALISTS, REVIVALISTS, AND REFORMERS
We now arrive at a point in our narrative where it is appropriate to discuss the two historical figures that laid the groundwork for the Bhāgavata’s eventual migration: Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda (1838–1914) and his son Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvatī (1874–1937), both of whom studied the Bhāgavata and promoted its relevance in a modern context. At the outset it is important to stress that, like Roy, Bankim Chandra, and Vivekananda, both these individuals were Bengali bhadralok living in metropolitan Calcutta and both were critical of much that passed for Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism as practiced and understood in their time. What distinguished Bhaktivinoda and Bhaktisiddhanta from most others was their particular response, which involved not a dismissal of the Caitanya tradition, the Bhāgavata, and the worship of Vrindavan Krishna, but an attempt to reestablish the philosophical and moral underpinnings of what they viewed as a forgotten tradition.
Although raised in a non-Vaiṣṇava family of Shakta (or goddess) worshippers, Bhaktivinoda adopted Vaiṣṇavism when in his mid thirties. By the time of his death in 1914 he had become an accomplished and original Vaiṣṇava theologian, had established his own organization for the recovery and reform of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism, had written numerous poetic, philosophical and religious works, and had risen to the rank of deputy magistrate in the judiciary of the British Raj. He had also become a close colleague of such bhadralok notables as Dvijendranath Tagore, the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, and Chatterjee, who referred to Bhaktivinoda as a “Vaisnava and [scholar] of the highest order” in the introduction to his own Gītā commentary (Harder 2001:19). Moreover, Bhaktivinoda made some of the first attempts to introduce Caitanya’s teachings to the West, particularly by sending a small Sanskrit account, with an English introduction, to various universities and intellectuals in North America and Europe (Shukavak Dasa 1999:89, 115).15
Bhaktivinoda, like most of his contemporaries, condemned the erotic reenactment of Krishna’s rāsa-līlā as practiced by secretive Caitanya sects, considering the criticisms of the bhadralok and some of the Christian missionaries to be both justified and legitimate. Indeed he himself considered this type of Vaiṣṇavism to be injurious and antisocial, believing that the erotic aspects of the Bhāgavata were not to be understood in gross physical terms (Shukavak Dasa 1999:241–42). Having studied the writings of Caitanya’s early followers as well as various Vaiṣṇava commentaries on the Bhāgavata and Bhagavad Gītā, Bhaktivinoda considered that he had come in touch with the tradition as originally taught by Caitanya himself and became involved in its modern recovery (Bhatia 2008). He also had become inspired by Caitanya’s anticipatory remark about the name of Krishna (and, by implication, the content of the Bhāgavata) being someday known around the world (Brndabanadasa, Dasadhikari, and Dasa 2007:414, 4.126). As a result, he committed himself not only to the restoration of what he viewed as the original thought of the tradition, but also to the re-articulation of its understandings in modern universalist and egalitarian terms.
Being the seventh son of Bhaktivinoda, Bhaktisiddhanta was surrounded from early childhood by the culture, theology, and practices of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism. And like his father, perhaps the greatest influence in his life, Bhaktisiddhanta made an independent study of the original Sanskrit and Bengali writings of Caitanya’s immediate and most significant followers. From this he also concluded that both popularized and caste-oriented forms of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism were misunderstandings of a lost tradition. Eventually Bhaktisiddhanta came to embrace what he regarded as the original tradition and dedicated his life to the propagation of its teachings. He did this largely through the pan-Indian establishment of the Gaudiya Math institution (1919), the publication of newspapers and journals, the printing and distribution of classical and medieval texts, and the writing of original Vaiṣṇava commentaries. In the course of his life, Bhaktisiddhanta traveled widely throughout India, lecturing and initiating disciples, several of whom he sent outside of India to present the philosophy of Vaiṣṇava personalism. While his outlook was profoundly traditionalist and frankly conservative in many respects, he was also an outspoken Hindu reformer who worked to eliminate caste barriers, ordinary gender roles, and the dominance of certain of the “Gosvāmīs” (the Vaiṣṇava caste elite). He was also among the first to make Vaiṣṇava brāhmaṇa initiation available to candidates of lower castes and non-Hindu background, so long as they were eligible in terms of knowledge, practice, and moral behavior (Sardella 2010:143–44).
In summary, Bhaktivinoda helped to recover important practical, philosophical, and esoteric elements of a sixteenth-century religious tradition that had been largely forgotten. He was also one of the first to articulate those elements to modern colonial audiences in numerous publications and to make his writings available to English-speaking peoples outside of India. Bhaktisiddhanta then carried forward the mission of his father, primarily through the founding of a Caitanya Vaiṣṇava institution that, among other things, facilitated the distribution of thousands of periodicals and books—including a Bengali version of the Bhāgavata itself (at the time, the press was a key medium both for the nationalist movement and for various religious institutions). Finally, and most significantly relative to our narrative, Bhaktisiddhānta facilitated the establishment of Gaudiya Math centers in London (1933), Berlin (1934), and Rangoon (1936).
For purposes of our ongoing discourse, however, it is here important to briefly describe the content of the Bhāgavata-based teachings that these two individuals propagated, which harked back to the writings of Rāmānuja, Madhva, and particularly the Six Gosvāmīs of Vrindavan, and thus stood in stark contrast to the nondualism of their time. These teachings were deeply theistic, presenting the ultimate truth as personal rather than nonpersonal, with form rather than formless, and qualitatively rich rather than lacking in attributes. In this regard, both father and son upheld Vaiṣṇavism’s widely popular image-worship practices as well as the ultimate reality of the form, abode, and activities of a supreme person. They did this, however, not on the basis of religious emotionalism, but in terms of a sophisticated philosophical presentation that posed a direct challenge to the thinking of Vivekananda and others (see Valpey 2006: chap. 3).
According to this understanding, Krishna, the ultimate object of devotion, is possessed of a divine form and personality, with the full range of attributes that make reciprocal loving relationships possible; here both the finite and the infinite are considered to be eternal loving persons, capable of active emotional exchange. As to the Bhāgavata’s descriptions of Krishna’s abode and activities, these were viewed as depictions of a metaphysical reality that a person is incapable of perceiving so long as he or she remains in an unenlightened state. Moreover, because they considered it impossible to properly comprehend divine loving exchange by comparisons to this world, the innocent nature of Krishna’s erotic pastimes were thought to be beyond the grasp of those who had not undergone a systematic process of spiritual training. Both Bhaktivinoda and Bhaktisiddhanta thus advised that before delving into the Bhāgavata’s intimate tenth volume descriptions of Krishna and the rāsa-līlā, one had to first imbibe the knowledge of the earlier nine volumes, which address such themes as the nature of matter, material illusion, and material time as well as the ontological relationship between God and the finite living beings. They further advised that in order to obtain a realized understanding of the subject persons should engage in the process of bhakti, as outlined by Caitanya.16
THE BHĀGAVATA’S MIGRATION BEGINS: THE EFFORTS OF BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI
History often becomes more interesting when a difficult task is undertaken by an unlikely actor who yet achieves an unexpected result; such was the case with Bhaktivedanta Swami (1896–1977), without whose efforts, it could be argued, this chapter would have been quite differently written. Born Abhay Charan De, Bhaktivedanta was raised in a devout Vaiṣṇava family, received higher education at the Christian-run Scottish Churches’ College (as did Vivekananda and other bhadralok contemporaries), and first met Bhaktisiddhanta in 1922. At that time, being touched by the acumen of this spiritual teacher, Bhaktivedanta made an internal commitment to the Caitanya tradition, which was formalized by initiation in 1932 and would last for the remainder of his life. However, like Bhaktivinoda before him, Bhaktivedanta was both a husband and a father, and thus he spent most of his life on the periphery of Bhaktisiddhanta’s movement, raising a family and earning a livelihood through the sale of natural pharmaceuticals.
On the occasion of their first meeting, Bhaktisiddhanta specifically suggested that as an educated bhadralok, Bhaktivedanta should help present Caitanya’s teachings to the West—a suggestion that he repeated in a letter written shortly before his death in 1937 (Satsvarupa Goswami 1980). Not long after Bhaktisiddhanta passed away, however, his institution disintegrated due to a crisis of succession and much of its achieved momentum was lost, making it appear as though the Bhāgavata’s migration would remain a mere footnote in the annals of India’s religious history.
In 1954, at age fifty-eight, Bhaktivedanta retired from family life (customary for his tradition), and some five years later, at age sixty-three, he formally adopted the vows of a renounced monk. During the period between 1937 and this initiation in 1959, he had labored in various ways to present Caitanya’s teachings, but the fruits of his sporadic efforts were meager. Then between 1962 and 1965, while living without means in the small room of a temple in Vrindavan, Bhaktivedanta managed to achieve a milestone relative to our narration: he produced a three-volume English-language translation of the Bhāgavata’s first book, which included his own English commentaries and explanations largely based on the earlier commentarial tradition (it should be mentioned in this connection that this was not the first translation of the Bhāgavata into a European tongue; the earliest was written in French by Eugène Burnouf).17
With these English copies in hand, Bhaktivedanta considered himself prepared to encounter the West. His aim, however, was more ambitious than simply placing the Bhāgavata in the hands of a select group of public figures. Encouraged by the anticipatory statement of Caitanya, the vision of Bhaktivinoda and the request of Bhaktisiddhanta, his goal was to introduce the thought of the Bhāgavata and the practice of Caitanya bhakti, first in the United States and then around the world—a venture that would ultimately create an indigenous counterflow to the Christian mission that had provided his education.
At this juncture an important distinction must be drawn between the approach of Bhaktivinoda/Bhaktisiddhanta and that of Bhaktivedanta: whereas the former pair largely focused on the life and teachings of Caitanya, Bhaktivedanta placed greater emphasis on the Bhāgavata’s account of Krishna. In the case of Bhaktivinoda, Krishna bhakti was largely presented to the West within the context of Caitanya’s life, possibly because he regarded this as more concordant with modern sensibilities and less susceptible to external criticism. Along similar lines, Bhaktisiddhanta considered the teachings of the Bhāgavata to be embodied in the virtuous ascetic life of Caitanya. This is exemplified by the fact that in preparation for his disciples’ 1930s venture to Britain and Germany, he arranged for the publication of a lengthy introduction to the life of Caitanya rather than the life of Krishna (i.e., an introduction based on the previously mentioned Caitanya Caritāmṛta rather than the Bhāgavata).
In contrast to this approach, Bhaktivedanta decided to make Krishna and the Bhāgavata the focal point of his presentation, and he even named his soon to be established institution the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (or ISKCON). In this and other ways, Bhaktivedanta’s presentation would be far more direct and authentically “Indian” in appearance, custom, and manner than either Bhaktivinoda or Bhaktisiddhanta had ever envisioned, his aim being to transplant the entirety of a religiocultural tradition.
By the time he had completed his English edition of the Bhāgavata, Bhaktivedanta was sixty-nine years of age and had never traveled outside the Indian subcontinent, which also meant that in many respects his cultural and religious frame was quite firmly “Indian.” These drawbacks notwithstanding, he accepted free passage on a cargo ship headed for the United States, and on 13 August 1965 departed India alone, carrying two hundred sets of English Bhāgavatas (Satsvarupa Goswami 1980:279, 87). Thirty-seven days later, on 19 September, Bhaktivedanta arrived in New York City with uncertain plans, almost no contacts, and modest expectations. We conclude this section with a brief account of what he was able to accomplish in the period between this arrival and his demise some twelve years later at age eighty-one.
Most noteworthy, perhaps, is the fact that through the vehicle of ISK-CON, the institution that he founded in 1966, Bhaktivedanta was able to globalize the practice of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism, as recovered and reformulated by Bhaktivinoda and Bhaktisiddhanta, with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Bhagavad Gītā, and the worship of Rādhā-Krishna at the forefront of his movement. In more specific terms, beginning in 1966 with a handful of youthful East Village followers, by 1977 Bhaktivedanta had established Caitanya Vaiṣṇava temples and āśrama communities in most regions of the world, welcoming men and, most importantly, women and children of all racial, ethnic, and personal backgrounds (an innovation of his own). He had also managed to initiate thousands of disciples and publish some fifty volumes of books in twenty-eight different languages, millions of which had been circulated throughout the world prior to his death; most prominent among these were the first ten books of the Bhāgavata itself.18
The Bhaktivedanta chapter of the Bhāgavata’s migration also entails an interesting historical twist: as ISKCON grew and his Western disciples matured, Bhaktivedanta returned with them to India to reorganize and fund the spread of the Caitanya tradition there. Eventually they were able to establish major temples in Mayapur, Vrindavan, and Bombay, and today, India is ISKCON’s most receptive and expansive field—a turn of events that is perhaps not too surprising since Vaiṣṇavism is widely popular in India and ISKCON’s Western adherents attract the educated middle class. Perhaps more unprecedented, however, is the fact that some of Bhaktivedanta’s Western disciples have gone on to become gurus themselves and have initiated tens of thousands of indigenous Indians as their disciples.
After Bhaktivedanta passed away, the global movement that he inaugurated continued to develop, if at a slower and less consequential pace. Moreover, other disciples and grand-disciples of Bhaktisiddhanta have since founded their own institutions, with similar teachings, practices, and aims. Today ISKCON is the largest among a number of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava organizations, all of which hark back to Bhaktivinoda and Bhaktisiddhanta’s perspective and mode of presentation. Recently, there has been an attempt by certain members of these various organizations to form alliances and coordinate efforts, resulting in the incorporation of a private initiative known as the World Vaiṣṇava Association.19
The Caitanyaite Bhāgavata tradition, for all of its relative achievements, however, remains an understandably marginal and often controversial element in all of the societies and cultures it has penetrated—with the possible exception of India itself. Moreover, ISKCON, the tradition’s best known modern institution, has been periodically beset by a variety of vexing internal and public relations problems, especially since Bhaktivedanta’s demise. This topic will be discussed in greater detail at the conclusion of our chapter, as will the question of whether the Bhagavata has found a place outside of India despite the problems we hinted at earlier. The following section will address the manner in which Bhaktivedanta’s Bhāgavata translation attempted to facilitate the reception of this religious work.
THE TRANSLATIONS AND COMMENTARIES OF BHAKTIVEDANTA
Although the translation of a scriptural text generally requires a high degree of fidelity in order to be accepted as authoritative by a religious community, South Asian religions have traditionally given ample space to hermeneutics, with new commentaries emerging over time to address the perceptions, concerns, and sensibilities of new audiences. Presumed in this approach is the understanding that the transmission of a work via translation entails more than the mere transposition of words from one language to another, and that linguistic domains often appropriate words in ways that do not correspond to their immediate literal sense. With this the translator is called upon to pay close attention to the grammar, form, and idiomatic expressions of the receiving language, to interpret the text in the light of present circumstances, and to rely upon his or her own sensibilities. In other words, the translator-commentator must retain a healthy respect for previous commentaries while simultaneously displaying a high degree of sensitivity to the special needs of the target audience. Fidelity to one’s predecessors, while essential, must also be tempered by the personal realization needed to “creatively appropriate scriptural authority” (Tamal Krishna Goswami 1998:65).
Bhaktivedanta describes his own attempt to balance these requirements as follows:
Personal realization does not mean that one should, out of vanity, attempt to show one’s own learning by trying to surpass the previous [gurus]. He must have full confidence in the previous [gurus], and at the same time he must realize the subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner. The original purpose of the text must be maintained. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it, yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1982:1.4.1, purport; italics in original)
To lend traditional authority to his Bhāgavata translations and commentaries, as well as to aid in their study, Bhaktivedanta arranged his texts as follows: each Sanskrit verse first appears in its original Devanagari script (standard since the nineteenth century); below this is a full Roman transliteration and then a transliteration of each word followed by its English counterpart; after this comes a complete English translation and, finally, a commentary or “purport” that explicates the verse’s meanings. This particular approach appears to roughly incorporate the five basic features of a traditional Sanskrit commentary, as described by Gary Tubb (2008).20
Bhaktivedanta’s presentation of the Bhāgavata can be generally viewed as traditional in the sense that he more often than not relies upon the thought of earlier commentators such as Vishvanatha Cakravarti, Shridhara Swami, and his guru Bhaktisiddhanta. His aim is thus to provide more than a mere translation; it is to grant access to the classical, centuries-long tradition of Vaiṣṇava textual commentaries and to make the texts intelligible to a readership that is likely to be unfamiliar with the cultural, philosophical, and historical background of the work. In doing so, Bhaktivedanta is careful to avoid novel interpretations and instead suggests new applications to readers across different cultural domains—a primary aim of commentaries within living religious traditions.
Here it is necessary to point out an aspect of Bhaktivedanta’s approach that has been noticed by a number of scholars. It concerns the fact that his English reconstruction of a verse does not always correspond to the standard dictionary meaning of the words in question and thus produces a translation that goes beyond that which the original Sanskrit provides. From a strict scholarly vantage point, this amounts to the transgression of adding commentary to the original text; yet, from the vantage point of the tradition itself, it is considered authentic (Hopkins 1983:140–45). While a thorough discussion regarding this anomaly is beyond the scope of the present chapter, it can be said that it is largely due to the fact that Bhaktivedanta’s translations often incorporate word meanings or ideas derived from previous Vaiṣṇava commentaries—for example, the fourteenth-century commentary of Śrīdhara Swami, which reads less like prose and more like an alternate dictionary of specialized meanings (a typical feature of Sanskrit commentaries). Thus while the construction of Bhaktivedanta’s English translations do appear to involve free paraphrasing, they were designed to include the gloss of previous canonical commentators.
For purposes of this chapter, however, the more relevant question concerns the thematic content and presentational style of the “purports” themselves: what was it about Bhaktivedanta’s rendition, as conveyed in his Bhāgavata commentaries, that made it appealing, first to certain Westerners and then to certain persons throughout the world? Obviously, this question can be answered in any number of ways. Religious and social scholars, for example, have noted that the countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s involved Western youths who were particularly susceptible to the message of the East, especially those youths who perceived Western consumer-based culture as empty, superficial, and corrupt and were thus looking elsewhere for meaning. There is certainly much truth in this assessment, which is confirmed by the fact that ISKCON was not the only Eastern-oriented institution to gain popularity at that time. The milieu was definitely a factor; but, again, how did this rather obscure and culturally circumscribed text come to be studied and cherished by peoples from such a variety of cultures in so short a period of time?
On the one hand, and especially to an unfamiliar contemporary reader, the Bhāgavata appears to be a book of inexplicable prayers, otherworldly descriptions, convoluted discussions, and fantastical tales rivaling those found in fictional works such as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. On the other hand, those who have dedicated themselves to the systematic study of its content claim that it contains a vast trove of philosophical, theological, and spiritual insights. Bhaktivedanta appears to have had the ability to present the material in a way that bridged this gap, making the meanings of this antiquated text not only accessible, but also relevant to modern circumstances. He also constructed his presentation in a way that, while markedly traditional, nonetheless struck a fresh tone that resonated with countercultural youths, many of whom had become disenchanted with the assertions of their own mainstream religious institutions. With the aim of providing some direct sense of this without protracted explanation, we here present three brief samples of Bhaktivedanta’s commentarial style:
The great ocean of material nature is tossing with the waves of time, and the so-called living conditions are something like foaming bubbles, which appear before us as bodily self, wife, children, society, countrymen, etc. Due to a lack of knowledge of self, we become victimized by the force of ignorance and thus spoil the valuable energy of human life in a vain search after permanent living conditions, which are impossible in this material world. (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1982:2.1.4, purport)
The self… is the potent active principle of the body and mind. Without knowing the need of the dormant soul, one cannot be happy simply with emolument of the body and mind. & Simply by cleansing the cage of the bird, one does not satisfy the bird. One must actually know the needs of the bird himself…. There is a dormant affection for God within everyone Therefore we have to engage ourselves in occupational engagements that will evoke our divine consciousness. (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1982:1.2.8, purport)
Time and tide wait for no man. So the time indicated by the sunrise and the sunset will be uselessly wasted if such time is not properly utilized for realizing identification of spiritual values…. A living being is constitutionally a spiritual spark of the complete whole, and his happiness can be perfectly perceived in spiritual activities. The Lord is the complete spirit whole, and His name, form, quality, pastimes, entourage and personality are all identical with Him. Once a person comes into contact with & the Lord through the proper channel of devotional service, the door to perfection is immediately opened. (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1982:2.3.17, purport)
As a contemporary translator of Sanskrit and Bengali texts, Bhaktivedanta lacked classical, formal training in his tradition but was well acquainted with the works of his learned guru and, through self-study, with the works of earlier commentators as well. His aim was to mediate between the distant authorities of his tradition and a modern Western readership, and regardless of his somewhat archaic early twentieth-century English, his success seems to have hinged on his ability to explain complex philosophical ideas in a simple way. But Bhaktivedanta was more than an interpreter of bygone texts; he was also the founder of a new religious movement who viewed his commentaries as blueprints for global spiritual change (Tamal Krishna Goswami 1998:62). His aim became the transplantation of an entire cultural and philosophical tradition into alien soil. To this end, he conveyed the knowledge of that tradition to the contemporary world with the explicit intent of not compromising its foundational elements—that is, he aimed to effect change at the periphery while remaining true to the particular core that he and his predecessors had identified.21 The degree to which he factually succeeded in this regard will be briefly discussed next.
CONCLUSION: CRITIQUE, ANALYSIS, AND CONCEPTUAL FRAME
Because the Bhāgavata’s migration has developed into more than the mere transposition of a particular religious text from one locale to another, making it available to readers outside of India, and because the impact of that migration has been so closely tied to the character, dynamics, and fate of Bhaktivedanta’s ISKCON, it is here necessary to place the effect of the institution, and hence the migration, into proper perspective. Perhaps the most intriguing result of this linkage has been that the literature, culture, and praxis of a relatively obscure and somewhat archaic sixteenth-century religious tradition has been transplanted over the last half-century to almost every region of the world—and that its presence will in some form likely endure.
Having said this, however, it must also be noted that when judged strictly in terms of parameters like degree of public interest, depth of religiocultural penetration, and number of adherents, centers, and circulated texts, after an almost dazzling period of progress between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s, ISKCON has experienced a clear loss of momentum in Western Europe and North America. As such, the overall impact of the migration, although impressive on one level, has remained relatively modest and has even dwindled in various respects. This has been largely due to changes in the cultural climate of the West, the challenging nature of Bhaktivedanta’s project, and certain variances in the institution itself, caused by a number of leadership, public relations, and general membership problems; these have mostly occurred in the years since Bhaktivedanta passed away (1977 to present). Put more concretely, since approximately 1985, ISKCON has endured its share of schisms, scandals, doctrinal disputes, ethical missteps, and ecclesiastical power abuses, as well as a decline in full-time membership (Rochford 2007)—challenges that are more or less endemic to all types of institutions, especially those that have been newly formed. And as might be expected, these sorts of factors have to some degree affected the worldwide dissemination and reception of the Bhāgavata and its teachings.
But the larger question relative to this chapter concerns whether measuring the quantitative success of ISKCON, or for that matter any other Vaiṣṇava institution, is the only, or even the best, way of measuring the impact of the Bhāgavata’s migration. Stated a bit differently, the question concerns whether institutions, in and of themselves, constitute the migration’s greatest contribution. Here we would argue that whereas institutional development has clearly helped to make the religious thought of the Bhāgavata more available to the world, over the course of time, the factual content of that thought, and its conceptual contribution to the history of ideas and philosophy of religion, could prove even more relevant. At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned that at its close we would provide a more detailed account of this conceptual contribution as expressed in the Caitanyaite Bhāgavata response to the nondualistic interpretation of Hinduism that has been several times mentioned herein. Known in Sanskrit as achintya bhedabheda tattva (inconceivable simultaneous oneness and distinction), this understanding of ultimate reality is briefly described next.
The basic ontological question that the Caitanya school attempts to answer is as follows: how can the ultimate truth, the origin of all existences, manifest as the impersonal all-pervading oneness, the omnipresent deity within, the metaphysical world, the material world, and all categories of living beings while simultaneously retaining a personal form and identity?
In answer, it posits that the supreme person possesses unlimited potency whereby all contradictions are naturally resolved and all impossibilities are effortlessly achieved. All metaphysical and material existences are said to arise from transformations of this potency, and not from a transformation of the supreme person himself, who is said to eternally maintain his position as both the distant, independent well-spring and proximate, intimate knower of all things. In other words, the supreme person is said to be all things and yet one particular thing, spread everywhere and yet specifically located, within all and yet outside of all, one with all and yet distinct from all, the repository of all and yet a wholly individual being. The idea is that the supreme person subsumes these types of categories and completely supersedes them as well; hence the term “inconceivable.” In a prominent verse from the Bhāgavata, the notion of inconceivability is expressed as follows by the demiurge cosmic creator Brahmā:
In time, learned philosophers or scientists might be able to count all the atoms of the earth, the particles of snow, or perhaps even the shining molecules radiating from the sun, the stars and other luminaries. But among these learned men, who could possibly count the unlimited transcendental qualities possessed by You, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who have descended onto the surface of the earth for the benefit of all living entities? (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1982:10.14.7)22
In original form, the supreme person is said to be Krishna, the all-attractive person, and Bhāgavan, the possessor of infinite beauty, knowledge, wealth, strength, fame, and renunciation. And by expanding his inconceivable being and transforming his unlimited potency, he is said to also be everything and (perhaps most remarkably) everyone else—all while retaining his own original form, his own personal relationships, and his own timeless abode. Moreover, whereas Krishna is considered to be the ultimate origin (or masculine principle), Rādhā (the feminine principle) is conceived as the personification of all divine potencies. As such, the combination Rādhā-Krishna is thought to embody the two essential aspects of the one infinite reality.
This conception of the absolute as a supreme person who is one with and distinct from all existences, and who can be known through devotional practice, derives from the original writings of the Six Gosvāmīs of Vrindavan. It was brought forward via a close traditional reading of the Bhāgavata and its commentaries by three generations of Bengali middle-class revivalists and came along with the Bhāgavata’s migration. Al though extant in the modern world for the last half-century, it remains a largely unknown ideational development that, of late, has begun to attract new scholarly attention.
Given the religious and intellectual influence of thinkers like Roy, Chatterjee, and Vivekananda up to the first half of the twentieth century, and the relative obscurity of individuals like Bhaktivinoda, Bhaktisiddhanta, and Bhaktivedanta during that same period, what happened in the second half of the twentieth century is generally quite intriguing—a striking convergence of diverse historical contingencies. Vivekananda’s nondualism largely defined Hinduism both for India and for the West, and although that definition may yet remain fixed somewhere in the Western scholarly and popular psyche, the alternative of Bhāgavata personalism, and its potential to problematize Hindu nondualism, constitutes an interesting addition to the history and philosophy of religion.
NOTES
1. This approach is referred to in Sanskrit as advaita, which is often translated as “monism” in scholarly texts. In this chapter, the terms “nondualist” and “nondualism” are used rather than “monist” and “monism.”
2. For some recent discussion on the pan-Indian nature of Krishna since the tenth century, see Beck 2005 and Bryant 2007.
3. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1983:15. Vraja or Vrindavan is a town about 100 miles south of Delhi, where Vaiṣṇavas traditionally believe that Krishna enacted his childhood and adolescent play (līlā); see Haberman 1994b.
4. The commentarial tradition identifies her as Rādhā, but the text itself containes only the words anayā ārādhitaḥ (i.e., [Krishna’s] lover/worshipper) and characterizes her, without elaboration, as the most prominent among the Gopīs.
5. The rāsa-līlā is a circular dance. For a translation of the section of the Bhāgavata dealing with the rāsa-līlā, see Schweig 2005 and Bryant 2003.
6. Gauḍīya is a geographical term that in ancient times corresponded to the area of Bengal and nearby regions of eastern India and Bangladesh.
7. Although this form of meditation, specifically as applied to the pastimes of Rādhā and Krishna, had been previously introduced in lyrical works such as Jayadeva’s Gīta Govinda, it was Caitanya’s efforts that actually popularized Krishna in the eastern regions of India. See De 1961:26–77 and Chakravarti 1985:52–121.
8. To corroborate this statement, Ghosh quotes census figures from 1881 and 1901.
9. The bhadralok emerged as a new, mainly Hindu, Western-educated class that flourished in the wake of the British East India Company’s expanding rule of the Indian subcontinent. Broomfield describes them as
a socially privileged and consciously superior group, economically dependent upon landed rents and professional and clerical employment, keeping its distance from the masses by its acceptance of high caste prescriptions and its command of education: sharing a pride in its language, its literature culture, and its history; and maintaining its communal integration through a fairly complex institutional structure that it had proved remarkably able to adapt and augment to extend its social power and political opportunities. (Broom-field 1968:12–13)
The bhadralok provided the basis for the efficient running of the colonial administration by interpreting indigenous texts and culture, thus collectively becoming the administration’s hermeneutical authority. In the process of translating and reformulating local religious, cultural, and social systems, the bhadralok became pioneers of Hindu reform and revival and also frequently responded to European criticism of Indic religions.
10. Although this case was tried in Bombay, it was representative of the situation in Bengal.
11. This section and the following one are largely the contribution of Abhishek Ghosh.
12. Chatterjee, in his Kṛṣṇa-Caritra, initiated a search for the historical Krishna. For further discussion, see Kosambi 1962:12–41.
13. In Vivekananda’s view, bhakti, although subordinate to jñāna (knowledge), had its own prominent place. Vivekananda’s own guru, the mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836–1886), was hailed as a great bhakta of the goddess Kali.
15. The work, titled Śrī Gaurāṅga-līlā-smaraṇa-maṅgala-stotram, is a short collection of Sanskrit verses summarizing Caitanya’s teachings.
16. These arguments are further discussed in two pamphlets published in the 1930s. The first, Rai Ramananda, was written by Bhaktisiddhanta himself, and the second, The Erotic Principle and Unalloyed Devotion, was written by his disciple Nishi Kanta Sanyal.
17. See Burnouf 1840. Two more volumes appeared later through a collaboration among Burnouf, Hauvette-Besnault, and Roussel. Another early translation of a section of the Bhāgavata is found in Hauvette-Besnault 1865.
18. Various disciples from around the world assisted Bhaktivedanta by translating his books from English into their own languages.
20. Although an elaborate description of these five functions, known in Sanskrit as padaccheda, padārhokti, vigraha, vākyayojanā, and ākṣepādhāna, is beyond the scope of this chapter, interested readers are encouraged to explore Tubb’s article. Bhaktivedanta also attempted to establish his authority by providing a chronological list of preceptors in the introduction to his edition of the Bhagavad Gītā.
21. Regarding the use of the analytical model “core versus periphery,” see, for example, Tariq Ramadan, “Europeanization of Islam or Islamization of Europe?,” in Hunter 2012:212–13. See also Ramadan 2004.
22. This translation is from the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust edition (1982). We may note that before passing away in 1977, Bhaktivedanta Swami had translated up to and including chapter thirteen of the Bhagavata’s tenth book, leaving the remainder of the tenth—as well as the eleventh and twelfth books—to be translated by his disciples Hridayananda Das Goswami and Gopiparanadana Das Adhikari, who are responsible for the translation that appears herein.