Tradition
Gaudiya Vaishnavism
Overview
Gaudiya Vaishnavism (IAST: Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavasampradāyaḥ), also known as Chaitanya Vaishnavism, is a Vaishnava religious movement inspired by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534) in India. "Gaudiya" refers to the Gaura or Gauḍa region of Bengal (present-day Malda district of West Bengal and Rajshahi district of Bangladesh), while Vaishnavism means "the worship of Vishnu". The tradition is part of Krishnaism, a Krishna-centric branch of Vaishnavism.
The theological basis of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is primarily the Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavata Purana, and it was systemetized by the Six Goswamis of Vrindavan and others.
The focus of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is the devotional worship (known as bhakti yoga) of the deities Radha and Krishna, and their divine incarnations, regarded as the supreme forms of God (Svayam Bhagavan). This worship commonly takes the form of singing the holy names of Radha and Krishna,including "Hare", "Krishna" and "Rama", most often in the Hare Krishna mantra, accompained by kirtan and dancing.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Bengal became the center of a Hindu religious revival. Gaudiya Vaishnavism influenced or served as the basis for several new religious movements, such as the Gaudiya Math, from which international active institutions were later emerged. These include the Gaudiya Mission and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, often called the "Hare Krishna Movement". Scholar Ferdinando Sardella estimates the number of Gaudiya Vaishnavism adherents at between 30 to 50 million, concentrated primarily in the regions of Orissa, Manipur, West Bengal and Bangladesh.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Other methods of deliverance from evil are in the excessive acts of penance performed by the Indians, to which a retreat within themselves is added. Now when the Indian thus internally collects himself, and retreats within his own thoughts, the moment of such pure concentration is called Brahma, the one and the clearly supersensuous state, which the understanding calls the highest possible existence. When this is so…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Gaudiya Vaishnavism is.
The Hindus worship the serpent, and have set apart a day in the year (_Nagapanchami_) for that purpose. They suppose that the earth is supported by the great serpent Sesha. God Vishnu is called _Seshasayee_, as he is supposed to sleep on the Serpent-God; and God Siva is supposed to have a garland of serpents round his neck! We say that such and such a thing cannot be described even by the thousand-tongued Adisesha…
Mahatma Gandhi, A Guide to Health
States what Gaudiya Vaishnavism is.
The first Brahmins must either have experienced violent discords, or at least have seen them in heaven. It is a very astonishing phenomenon for a society of men who have never made war to have invented a species of war made in the imaginary spaces, or in a globe distant from ours, or in what is called the "firmament," the "empyrean." But it must be carefully observed that in this revolt of celestial beings against…
Voltaire, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
States what Gaudiya Vaishnavism is.
Philosophers who discussed Gaudiya Vaishnavism
Related ideas
- Lakshmi
- Avatar
- Bhagavata Purana
- Dvaita Vedanta
- Vishishtadvaita
- Ramanuja
- Madhvacharya
- Brahma Sutras
- Hinduism
- Jainism
- Infinitesimal
- Karma
- Svayam Bhagavan
- Bhagavan
- International Society for Krishna Consciousness
- Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
- Saṃsāra
- Bhakti
- Moksha
- London
- Adi Shankara
- Monism
- Vishnu
- Rama
Place in the tradition
Part of Fundamentalism.