Sri Chaitanya: His Life & Precepts

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DURING THE SAME YEARS THAT Emerson and Thoreau were yearning for Vedic wisdom, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of London (of which Bhaktivinode was a member) marked the historic occasion of this publication with the following words:

"This little volume will add to our knowledge of this remark- able reformer, and we express our thanks to Bhaktivinode for giving it to us in English, rather than in Bengali, in which language it must necessarily have remained a closed book to European students of the religious life of India."

AS WELL AS BEING one of the greatest innovators of the Vedic tradition, Bhaktivinode Thakur was highly regarded for his poetry, selections of which are presented here. His work in this regard is perhaps the most profound and extensive in the entire Gaudiya lineage. Bhaktivinode vigorously set out to touch every echelon of society with the teachings of Sri Chaitanya. He wrote numerous short stories, articles, poems, songs and spiritual novels. Although a family man and government administrator, he still man- aged to produce over a hundred books in seven different languages. His life was the perfect example of what a fully dedicated spiritualist could contribute socially, culturally and religiously.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the western world had risen to the height of power and influence. Its achievements in science, technology, and economic development seemed to know no limit. It had expanded its political power throughout the world, creating vast empires that dominated Asia and Africa, and with that came a sense of pride and conviction of the innate superiority of its civilization.

India was one of the conquered nations. Deemed back- ward, underdeveloped, poverty-stricken and bound by the superstitions of the past, it seemed to have little to offer its masters, the British, other than its natural resources and physical labor. What then could the people of this country possibly contribute to world civilization?

In 1896, an answer to that question arrived at Canada's McGill University in a brown package postmarked Calcutta, India. The package contained a small Sanskrit book, Sri- Gauranga-Lila-Smaranam-Mangala-Stotram, 104, verses summarizing the life and teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Accompanying this Sanskrit work was a 63 page booklet, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu: His Life and Precepts, which introduced the 16th century incarnation of Krishna to the English- speaking world for the first time.

The author of both these works, Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinode Thakur (1838-1914), was a saint and scholar in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. Though himself a great admirer of western thought and literature, he was confident that once the intelligent people of the West came into contact with Sri Chaitanya's teachings, they would recognize their value and embrace them to their hearts' satisfaction. As such, in this booklet he presented the quintessence of Sri Chaitanya's life and teachings in such a simple and charming way that even today, more than a hundred years later, people throughout the Western world can still find great hope and satisfaction from reading it.

The sum and substance of Sri Chaitanya's teachings is "divine love," love for God, or Krishna. This philosophy of love, wherein Krishna is the receiver and wholesale reciprocator of love with His devotee, is so charming and reassuring that no unbiased person can resist it. Love is, after all, the all-powerful force in the universe, and when it reaches its perfection in love for God, all of mankind can rejoice in peace and harmony. This was the gift of inconceivable value and good fortune that Srila Bhaktivinode was sending to the Western world.

A few years before he mailed his book to McGill University, Srila Bhaktivinode had a vision in which he saw a great spiritual city rise up at Sri Chaitanya's birth site in Mayapur, near the banks of the Ganges in West Bengal. In that vision, he saw many thousands of people from both East and West, including the world's most technologically advanced and wealthy countries, embracing the teachings of Sri Chaitanya. He saw the realization of Sri Chaitanya's own prophecy, made nearly 400 years earlier, that his gift of divine love would spread to every town and village in the world.

Kedarnath Datta, who would later come to be known as Bhaktivinode Thakur, was born at Ula, a very prosperous village in the Nadia district of Bengal, on September 2, 1838 to an aristocratic family who owned Govindapur (the present site of Fort Williams in Calcutta). His childhood was spent in the home of his maternal grandfather. At the age of fourteen he began to study under one of the literary luminaries of the time, Kashi Prasad Ghosh, the editor of the Hindu Intelligencer. The paper was famous for its literary appeal, and the editor attracted many writers eager to learn from him the correct usage of the English language. Within a short time Kedarnath was contributing articles to both the Intelligencer and the Literary Gazette, another newspaper of the day. By the time he was eighteen he had composed two books of an epic poem, The Poriade, which he intended to complete in twelve volumes. The first of these books can be found at the British Museum in London. During his stay with Kashi Prasad, Kedarnath became well known for his great talent at debate and often exchanged ideason spiritual and literary subjects with eminent men of the day, such as Devendranath Tagore and others, who found great value in their discussions.

In 1860 Kedarnath published a pamphlet entitled The Maths of Orissa, after visiting all the major maths (temples) in the state of Orissa. In it he mentions a piece of land that had been handed down to him from his ancestors: "I have a small village, Chotimangalpur, in the country of Cuttack, of which I am the proprietor. In that village is a religious house, to which was granted, by my predecessors, a holding of rent-free land. The head of the institution gave up entirely entertaining such men as chanced to seek shelter on a rainy night. This came to my notice; and I administered a severe threat to the head of the house, warning him that his lands would be cruelly resumed if, in the future, complaints of inhospitality were brought to my knowledge."

Although Kedarnath began his life as a schoolteacher, by 1866 he had accepted a position with the government as a Deputy Magistrate and was appointed Deputy Magistrate of Dinajpur. It was in Dinajpur that Kedarnath first came in contact with Vaishnavism, which had been prevalent under the patronage of Raya Seheb Kamala Lochana. This great Zamindar of Dinajpur was a descendant of Ramananda Vasu, an ardent follower of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Having become acquainted with many of the Vaishnavas there, Kedarnath secured copies of the Chaitanya Charitamrta and a Bengali translation of the Srimad Bhagavatam.

After reading the Chaitanya Charitamrta for the first time, Kedarnath formed a very high opinion of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and thus began to regard Him as God. In association with the Vaishnavas of Dinajpur, he took to serious study of Mahaprabhu's teachings. He made a comparative study of Vaishnavism with reference to other religions by studying the literature of Brahmoism, Christianity, and Islam, but found the perfect consummation of his own thought in Vaishnavism.