Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura prayed to Lord Caitanya to send him an assistant and a successor from the Lord’s personal staff of preachers. Answering the prayer of the Thakura, a son was born to him on February 6th, 1874 while he was serving as the government magistrate in the holy city of Jagannatha Puri in Orissa.
Through various signs the Lord showed Thakura Bhaktivinoda and his good wife that this was the great soul that had been sent by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to carry on the preaching work that Bhaktivinoda Thakura had started.
It was witnessed by all present that when the child came out of the womb, his umbilical cord was wrapped around him like the sacred thread worn by brahmanas. Everyone was very amazed by this sign. Six months later at the annual Jagannatha Puri Rathayatra festival, the Jagannatha cart, being pulled by hundreds of people, came to a stop in front of Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s house.
When all the people were trying to get the cart moving again, BhaktivinodaThakura’s wife took the opportunity to take the child, whose name then was Bimala Prasad, out to see Lord Jagannatha and because she was the wife of Thakura Bhaktivinoda, who was the manager of the Jagannatha temple then, everyone respected her and she was allowed on the cart for darshana of the Lord.
She then placed the child at the lotus feet of the Jagannatha deity and immediately one of the huge flower garlands hanging around the neck of the Lord fell down and encircled the child. Thakura Bhaktivinoda’s heart was filled with joy, for he knew beyond all doubt that this child was the answer to his prayers.
As the boy grew, the Thakura instructed him in the science of Krishna Consciousness. At the age of only seven Bimala Prasad Datta, who was later to be known as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, had memorized all seven hundred verses of the Bhagavad-gita and could explain each one.
At the age of ten, while attending the Serampore Missionary School, he was initiated by his father into the Hare Krishna mantra and a Narasimha deva mantra. In school he invented a novel kind of phonetic alphabet which he called Bikranti or Bicanto. Later on he attended a special Sanskrit college where he became expert in Sanskrit grammar, Vedic shastra and different views of philosophy.
Due to his lifelong celibacy he had such a clear memory that even in his last days he could reproduce word for word any passage of any book he had read fifty years back.
At college he read all of the books in the library and made private studies into higher mathematics, international history and philosophy and Vedic astronomy. At that time he attended a cultural association in Calcutta called August Assembly and in which the study of various philosophical and theological topics was conducted. He was such a powerful debater that no one’s arguments could stand up against his vast erudition and scholarship.
At the age of twenty-three in the year 1897 he opened a school in Calcutta which he called Sarasvata Chatuspathi. It was here that he began teaching Vedic astronomy. Many prominent and scholarly Calcutta gentlemen were among his students.
At this time he also edited two monthly journals, the Jyotirvid and the Brhaspati and published several authoritative documents on Vedic astronomy such as the Surya–siddhanta which he had written himself. He was offered a chair at the University of Calcutta by Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, but he declined thinking that it might be too much an impediment on his devotional life.
Since 1895 Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was attending the meetings of his father’s Vishva Vaishnava Raja Sabha in Calcutta. In 1899 he was editing and writing for a weekly cultural magazine, the Nivedana. In 1900 he wrote and published a book on the society and different religious sects in Bengal called Bange Sama-jikata.
In 1901 Srila Bhativinoda Thakura requested his son to become initiated in the Gayatri mantra and accept a spiritual master. The Thakura had one very beloved disciple, Srila Gaurakisora dasa Babaji Maharaja, a very renowned Vaishnava saint of Navadvipa. It was therefore he who the Thakura requested his son to take initiation from.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura then approached the babaji for getting initiated, but Gaurakisora dasa Babaji, who hadn’t any disciples, out of his infinite humbleness refused to accept such an erudite pandita as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, when he himself could not even write his own name.
So, disappointed, Sarasvati Thakura went back to his father and related to him what had happened, but Thakura Bhaktivinoda sent him out again, and again Srila Bhaktisiddhanta came back with the same news. So this time the Thakura told his son, “Unless you take initiation from Gaurakishora dasa Babaji your life is useless and no longer may you enter this house”.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati then set off with great determination, and meeting Srila Gaurakishora dasa Babaji on a bridge along the road told him that he would jump off the bridge and kill himself if the babaji did not accept him as a disciple. He said to him, “My father has told me that human life is worthless without a spiritual master, so if you refuse to accept me as your disciple I must kill myself”. Upon hearing that and seeing the young man’s sincerity of purpose, the babaji accepted him as his only disciple.
From that year, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta traveled with Thakura Bhaktivinoda in his pilgrimages to all the principle holy places in India. During this time he compiled a Vaishnava encyclopedia named Vaisnava-manjusha. In 1900 he was staying in Puri where he began to publicly preach the holy precepts of Srimad-Bhagavatam. In 1904 Srila Sarasvati Thakura traveled in East Bengal. In 1905 he travailed to the far southern provinces of India, lecturing, preaching, writing, debating, fully absorbed in the fire of propagating the message of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
In 1914 on the disappearance of Thakura Bhaktivinoda from this mortal world, the task to carry on the movement of Sri Caitanya now lay in the hands of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada. He took over as the editor of his father’s journal, the Sajjana toshani, a monthly Vaishnava paper in Bengali. Later on in 1927 he converted it into an English fortnightly called the Harmonist.
In 1918 at the age of fourty-four, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati accepted the title Gosvami Maharaja by taking the renounced order of life, sannyasa. On that same day he established his first Vaishnava monastery, the Caitanya Math at Sridhama Mayapura, which became his preaching headquarters.
One time a very important gentleman approached Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada and said that your Gaudiya Math is so nice you should open up temples in all cities of the world, and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta replied, “My real business is to establish temples in everyone’s heart”.
From the years 1919-1929 he was constantly traveling all over India lecturing to crowds of thousands, debating, destroying various bogus religious sects and performing parikrama (walks to the holy places) with his disciples to different sacred sites, seeking to improve and preserve them. During these travels he installed footprints of Lord Caitanya in one hundred and eight places where the Lord had traveled during His sannyasa life. At those spots he also recorded the date when Sri Caitanya had been there.
In 1933, eager to spread Lord Caitanya’s message beyond the borders of India, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Thakurasent some of his sannyasa disciples to England to preach and open up Gaudiya Maths in the West, but not being able to convince the Westerners to take up spiritual life, they returned to India unsuccessful.
Fortunately for the benefit of all people of the world, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhuipada’s most beloved disciple, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada carried out his Guru Maharaja’s order and has spread Lord Caitanya’s Nama-sankirtana movement to every corner of the globe, and is now being assisted by thousands of disciples in this preaching work.
In 1936 he was residing in Jagannatha Puri and on December 31st, 1936 at the age of sixty-two he left this mortal world and again re-entered the loving pastimes of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna in the sweetness of Braja Dham, the spiritual atmosphere.
By the GBC
By Indradyumna Swami
By Dhirasanta dasa Goswami
