An Active Preacher

Bhaktivinoda Thakura preached devotional service, which is the real message of the Gita and all the Vedic scriptures. A devotee surrenders everything to Krsna by using everything in the Lord's service. Srila Bhaktivinoda wrote in one song: "My mind, my household affairs, my body-whatever is mine-I offer to You, my dear Lord, for Your service. Now You can do with them as You like. You are the supreme master of everything, so if You like You may kill me, or if You like You may give me protection. All authority belongs to You. I have nothing to claim as my own." This illustrates the surrendered attitude of a pure devotee.

For Bhaktivinoda, just to perform devotional service was not enough. As a truly realized soul, he yearned for the day when the entire world would taste the nectar of devotion. Each night the Thakura would rest for only four hours, from eight until midnight, and then he would write until morning, when he would go to the courthouse for his judicial duties. In this way he wrote more than one hundred books while still a magistrate. Bhaktivinoda maintained a respectable position in society, but at the same time explained in detail how to get out of this material world. The result was that people listened to him more respectfully than had he been a hirsute hermit.

Bhaktivinoda wrote his books mostly in Bengali but also in Sanskrit and Urdu, and to make the teachings of Lord Caitanya appreciable to those outside Bengal and India, he also wrote in English. He wrote his first work, Hari-katha, a book of Bengali verses, in 1850. At a meeting in Calcutta in 1869 he delivered a remarkable speech in English entitled "The Bhagavata: Its Philosophy, Its Ethics, and Its Theology." Other works he wrote in English during this time include "Speech on Gautama," "Reflections" (poems), "Jagannatha Temple of Puri," "Slokas on the Samadhi of Thakura Haridasa," and "Akhaḍas [Monasteries] of Puri." Srila Bhaktivinoda started Sri Sajjana-tosani, a unique monthly journal that continued through seventeen volumes. He composed Kalyana-kalpataru, a collection of Bengali songs, and wrote many other books, among them Sri Caitanya-siksamrta, Saranagati, Jaiva-dharma and Prema-pradipa (a fiction showing the excellence of bhakti-yoga). Furthermore, he published numerous Bengali translations of important Sanskrit works, such as Srimad Bhagavad-gita (one edition with Sanskrit commentary by Sri Visvanatha Cakravarti and a second with commentary by Sri Baladeva Vidyabhūsana), Sri Siksastaka, Manaḥ-siksa, Sri Visnu-sahasra-nama, Sri Caitanya Upanisad and Sri Īsopanisad (with a commentary by Sri Baladeva Vidyabhūsana).