Jagad-guru nitya-līlā-praviṣṭa aṣṭottara-śata Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura preached extensively, and in a very short time spread throughout the world the pure bhakti, or prema-bhakti, as practised and promulgated by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. It is by his great endeavour that the sound of the mahā-mantra – Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare – is resounding in every part of the world today. After his entrance into the eternal pastimes of the Lord, the preaching current of pure bhakti greatly diminished. At that time, the followers of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, especially the Sārasvata Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, were attacked from all sides. Some so-called Sārasvata Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas were loudly propagating their own ideas. In this dire situation, our śrīla gurudeva, aṣṭottara-śata Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja, who was jagad-guru Śrīla Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda’s intimate associate, accepted sannyāsa by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s inspiration. He then tirelessly endeavoured until the end of his life to preach and spread his gurudeva’s inner heart’s desire. We are presenting herein a brief account of how he made the current of bhakti flow once again throughout the world and how he protected his sampradāya.
Śrīla Gurupāda-padma was a powerful and profoundly philosophical ācārya, adorned with immense genius and knowledge of tattva. He preached pure bhakti in two ways. First, he used scriptural evidence to establish the ideas practised and preached by Śrīman Mahāprabhu. Second, he refuted opinions that opposed siddhānta, such as the anti-devotional kevalādvaita-vāda, or māyāvāda (which is a hidden form of Buddhism), sahajiyā, smārta and jāti-vaiṣṇava, all of which are opposed to śuddha-bhakti.
It was Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, the Seventh Gosvāmī, who reinitiated the flow of bhakti when it had dwindled and almost disappeared. He preached in the modern world the essential aspects of Vaiṣṇava philosophy, such as bhagavat-tattva, śakti-tattva, bhakti-tattva, māyā-tattva and acintya-bhedābheda-tattva. Śrīla Gurudeva often declared that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s Daśa-mūla-tattva is the singular essence of all the literatures of the Śrī Gauḍīya sampradāya, including those of the six Gosvāmīs. Śrīla Gurudeva accepted Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam as the immaculate scriptural evidence and the natural commentary on Vedānta-sūtra. Furthermore, he said that the nāma-prema-dharma (the religion of chanting the holy name in pure love), practised and propagated by Śrīman Mahāprabhu, is the actual subject matter of Vedānta. In order to establish these three points, he expressed the desire to publish a commentary expounding the glories of śrī harināma, based on the doctrine of śabda-vāda found in Vedānta-sūtra.
Śrīla Gurudeva also wanted to publish a commentary based on the devotional conclusions of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He collected various written materials and began to prepare an outline of these two compositions, but he could not complete it because of his sudden entrance into nitya-līlā. It was observed at times that it was also his keen desire to publish commentaries on all the prominent Upaniṣads according to the viewpoints of his sampradāya.
[CC-by-ND GVP]