Baladeva Vidyabhūsana-Born in the 18th century in the Baleswar district of Orissa, he was initially a learned scholar of the Madhva-sampradaya. He was converted to Gauḍiya Vaisnavism and became the ardent follower of Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura. He is especially renowned for his commentary on Vedanta-sūtra called Govinda-bhasya; Srila Baladeva Vidyabhūsana was a highly renounced pure devotee. For the spiritual benefit of mankind, he presented many transcendental literatures to the world. The details of his early life are not known for sure, as he never mentioned his birth place or his family background. Historians have estimated that he was born sometime in the eighteenth century, most probably in Orissa (possibly near Remuna). At a very early age, Baladeva finished his studies of grammar, poetry, rhetoric and logic and then went on pilgrimage. During his travels he spent some time with the Tattvavadis in South India and thus became conversant with the teachings of Sri Madhvacarya. He became a powerful exponent of this philosophy throughout India. Later he was initiated into the Gauḍiya Vaisnava sampradaya by Radha-Damodara Deva, and went to Vrndavana to study under the great acarya Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura. Baladeva's defeat of an assembly of Ramanandi scholars is celebrated in Indian philosophical history. It was on this occasion that he composed the Govinda-bhasya commentary on the Vedanta-sūtra. Actually, it was dictated to him by the Sri Govinda Deva Deity; hence, it is named after the Lord. The commentary so astonished the scholars that they bestowed upon Baladeva the title Vidyabhūsana (ornament of learning). Bhagavad-gita-a seven-hundred-verse record of a conversation between Lord Krsna and His disciple, Arjuna, from the Bhisma Parva of the Mahabharata of Vedavyasa. The conversation took place between two armies minutes before the start of an immense fratricidal battle. Krsna teaches the science of the Absolute Truth and the importance of devotional service to the despondent Arjuna, and it contains the essence of all Vedic wisdom. Srila Prabhupada's annotated English translation is called Bhagavad-gita As It Is; This most essential text of spiritual knowledge, The Song of the Lord, contains Krsna's instructions to Arjuna at Kuruksetra. It is found in the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is classified as smrti-sastra, a supplement of the sruti-sastra. Sruti, the core Vedic literature, includes the four Vedas (Rg, Sama, Yajur and Atharva) and the Upanisads. Sruti advances the understanding of the absolute. Bhagavad-gita is also known as Gitopanisad, or a sruti text spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Therefore, Srila Pra-bhupada wrote in a letter, the Gita should be taken as sruti. But they take it as smrti because it is part of the smrti (Mahabharata). In one sense it is both sruti and smrti. In only 700 verses, the Bhagavad-gita summarizes all Vedic knowledge about the soul, God, sanatana-dharma, sacrifice, yoga, karma, reincarnation, the modes of material nature, Vedanta and pure devotion. See Arjuna, Caitanya-caritamrta, Krsna, Mahabharata, Srimad-Bhagavatam. Bhagavan-the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who possesses in full the opulences of wealth, beauty, strength, knowledge, fame, and renunciation; an epithet of the Supreme Person; The Personality of Godhead, the possessor (van) of six opulences (bhaga) in unlimited fullness: wealth (aisvarya), strength (virya), fame (yasaḥ), beauty (sriyaḥ), knowledge (jnana), and renunciation (vairagya). See Krsna. Bhakti-yoga-the system of cultivation of bhakti, or pure devotional service, which is untinged by sense gratification or philosophical speculation; The process of devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krsna. According to a famous verse in Srimad-Bhagavatam, it consists of nine ahgas or parts: sravanam kirtanam visnoḥ smaranam pada-sevanam-arcanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam atma-nivedanam 1) Hearing and 2) chanting about the transcendental holy name, form, qualities, paraphernalia and pastimes of Lord Krsna, 3) remembering them, 4) serving the lotus feet of the Lord, 5) offering the Deity of the Lord respectful worship with sixteen types of paraphernalia, 6) offering prayers to the Lord, 7) serving His mission, 8) making friends with the Lord, and 9) surrendering everything unto Him (in other words, serving Him with the body, mind and words)these nine processes are accepted as pure devotional service. (SB 7.5.23) Bhaktisiddhanta-Sarasvati Thakura Gosvami Maharaja Prabhupada (1874-1937) the spiritual master of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and thus the spiritual grandfather of the present day Krsna consciousness movement. A powerful preacher, he founded sixty four missions in India; The transcendentally empowered son of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura appeared in this world on February 6, 1874. His father was deputy magistrate of Jagannatha Puri in Orissa at this time. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura had been very concerned about unauthorized pseudo-Vaisnavas who were usurping the pure teachings of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and therefore had begun a revival of the sahkirtana mission. Though very busy with his profession, he wrote profusely about all aspects of Krsna consciousness. He prayed constantly for someone to boldly preach his writings. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura's prayers were answered in Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. When he was six months old, the Ratha-yatra festival of chariots was held in Puri. Lord Jagannatha's chariot stopped in front of Srila Bhaktivinoda's house, which was on the main road between the temple and the Gunḍica mandira. The chariot stayed there for three days. On the third day, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta's mother brought the child out to see the Lord. The pūjaris picked him up and put him on the cart. He crawled to the base of Lord Jagannatha, touching His lotus feet. Simultaneously a garland fell from the neck of the Lord and landed around the child. The pūjaris exclaimed that this child was especially blessed by the Lord. The boy grew up to be a great scholar in many fields of learning. But when he reached twenty-two, he left his studies at college, vowing to never take to householder life. For three years, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura held the post of raja-panḍita (royal scholar) of the Vaisnava king of Tripura. Thereafter he took initiation from Srila Gaurakisora dasa Babaji. Srila Gaurakisora was a Vaisnava renunciate who had fully absorbed himself in the worship of Krsna at Vrndavana for a long time. Then he settled at the holy city of Navadvipa on the bank of the Ganges. By this time Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura had retired from his government work and was worshiping Lord Krsna in a small house near Navadvipa, at Godruma. Every day he gave Srimad-Bhagavatam class there. Srila Gaurakisora used to attend these classes. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura told his son, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, to accept Srila Gaurakisora as his initiating spiritual master. He received the name Varsabhanavi-devi-dayitaya dasa. Thereafter Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura gave up all other activities to chant 194 rounds daily for seven years. He stayed in a kutira (hut) but did not take time to repair the roof; if it rained, he just used an umbrella. In 1918 he opened the first center of the Gauḍiya Mission in Ultadanga Road in Calcutta. He was then forty-four. All across India he established Lord Caitanya's teachings as the most excellent spiritual philosophy. He started his mission in the midst of war and political agitation for national liberation. He was uncompromising in his disregard of such mundane concerns. The most important thing is to invoke the spirit of devotion to the Supreme Lord; this concern lies far above any material consideration. Many leaders objected that he was diverting too many young men from India's national interests, but he paid them no heed. In this period, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visited Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura on the rooftop at Ultadanga Road. Srila Prabhupada, at that time known as Abhay Caran De, was an adherent of Gandhi's svaraja movement. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura convinced him in just one sitting of the vital necessity of Lord Caitanya's mission over everything else. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura departed this world in 1936. Two weeks before leaving his body, he instructed Srila Prabhupada to introduce the sahkirtana mission to the Western world. See Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Krsna. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the foremost Vaisnava acarya in the modern age. In 1896, he appeared in this world as Abhay Caran De in Calcutta, where he received an English-language education. He first met his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, in 1922. At their first meeting, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura requested Srila Prabhupada to broadcast Vedic knowledge through the English language. In 1933, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura initiated Srila Prabhupada as Abhaya Caranaravinda dasa. In the years that followed, he wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-gita, assisted the Gauḍiya Mission in its work, and in 1944 started Back to Godhead, an English fortnightly magazine, still continued by his disciples today. He received the title Bhaktivedanta in 1947 from the Gauḍiya Vaisnava Society. In the 1950's, Srila Prabhupada retired from family life, accepting the vanaprastha order. Thus he was able to devote more time to his studies and writing. He came to Vrndavana to live humbly at the historic medieval temple of Radha-Damodara. After several years of deep absorption in Krsna consciousness, Srila Prabhupada accepted the order of sannyasa from his Godbrother Kesava Prajna Maharaja, in 1959. It was then that he began to work on his life's masterpiece: a multivolume translation of and commentary on the eighteen-thousand verse Srimad-Bhagavatam. After publishing three volumes of the Bhagavatam in India, Srila Prabhupada came to the United States in 1965. After great difficulty, with no initial financial resources, he established the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in New York in July, 1966. The residents of that great metropolis of materialism were astounded as the youthful American followers of Srila Prabhupada danced and chanted the Hare Krsna maha-mantra in their midst, that eternal Vedic sound echoing between the glass and steel skyscraper canyon walls. The Krsna consciousness movement soon spread to San Francisco, where the Ratha-yatra festival of the chariots was held for the first time outside of India. A group of American disciples started a branch in London, where George Harrison of the Beatles became a life-long follower of Srila Prabhupada. From England the movement went to Germany, Holland, France, and other European countries. It likewise flourished in Canada, Latin America, Australia and Africa. Simultaneously, Srila Prabhupada personally established several multi-million-dollar ISKCON temple and guesthouse projects in India at Bombay, Vrndavana, Mayapur and Hyderabad. But Srila Prabhupada considered his most significant contribution to be his books, which form a veritable library of Vedic philosophy, religion, culture and literature. Highly respected by the academic community for their authority, depth and clarity, they serve as standard textbooks in numerous college courses. His writings have been translated into more than eighty languages. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, established in 1972 to publish his works, is the world's largest publisher in the field of Vedic studies. In the twelve years after his first arrival in America up to his departure from this world in 1977, Srila Prabhupada circled the globe fourteen times on lecture tours that took him to six continents. Even in his physical absence, his great mission continues to move forward. With the collapse of the Soviet Empire that Srila Prabhupada predicted during his 1972 visit to Moscow, Krsna consciousness is vigorously blossoming throughout Eastern Europe, Russia, a Bhaktivinoda Thakura-(1838-1915) the great-grandfather of the present-day Krsna consciousness movement, the spiritual master of Srila Gaura-kisora dasa Babaji, the father of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, and the grand-spiritual master of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura was a responsible officer and a householder, yet his service to the cause of expanding the mission of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu is unique. He has written many books on the philosophy of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu; Appearing in this world in 1838 and departing it in 1914, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura is one of the great teachers of Krsna consciousness in the disciplic succession of spiritual masters. He is famous in Bengal for having located the exact site of the birthplace of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. This site at Sridhama Mayapur, near the city of Navadvipa about 90 miles north of Calcutta, had been lost for centuries due to the shifting course of the Ganges river. The Thakura's discovery rapidly transformed Mayapur into an important place of pilgimage for Krsna devotees. The Gaura-Visnupriya temple he founded in 1891 was the first of many holy places of worship now visible at Mayapur. In 1896, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura announced the sahkirtana mission to the Western world by sending a copy of one of his small books Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu: His Life and Precepts to McGill University in Canada. Many of his Bengali songs are available in Songs of the Vaisnava acaryas, published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura predicted that the sahkirtana movement would spread from India to the great cities of the Western world. See Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Bhaktivedanta Swami Pra-bhupada, Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Krsna. Brahmajyoti-the impersonal bodily effulgence emanating from the transcendental body of the Supreme Lord Krsna, which constitutes the brilliant illumination of the spiritual sky; From Krsna's transcendental personal form of eternity, knowledge and bliss emanates a shining effulgence called the brahma-jyoti (light of Brahman). The material prakrti, the jivas who desire to enjoy matter, and kala (time), are situated within this brahma-jyoti, which is pure existence devoid of difference and activity. It is the impersonal Brahman of the Mayavadis, and the Clear Light of some Buddhist sects. For many mystics and philosophers the world over, the brahma-jyoti is the indefinable One from which all things emerge in the beginning and merge into at the end. The brahma-jyoti is Krsna's feature of sat (eternality) separated from cit (knowledge) and ananda (bliss). See Brahman, Buddhism, Impersonalism, Life after death, Mayavada philosophy, Modes of nature, Mysticism, Sac-cid-ananda, Vedanta. Brahman-(1) the infinitesimal spiritual individual soul; (2) the impersonal, all-pervasive aspect of the Supreme; (3) the Supreme Personality of Godhead; (4) the mahat-tattva, or total material substance; This Sanskrit term comes from the root brh, which means to grow or to evolve. In the Chandogya Upanisad 3.14, Brahman is described as tajjalan, as that (tat) from which the world arises (ja), into which it returns (la), and by which it is supported and lives (an). Impersonalists equate Brahman with the brahma-jyoti. But in its fullest sense, Brahman is the vastu, the actual substance of the world: 1) Visnu as the Supreme Soul (param brahman), 2) the individual self as the subordinate soul (jiva-brahman), and 3) matter as creative nature (mahad-brahman). Visnu is accepted by all schools of Vaisnava Vedanta as the transcendental, unlimited Purusottama (Supreme Person), while the individual souls and matter are His conscious and unconscious energies (cid-acid-sakti). See Absolute, Brahmajyoti, Four Vaisnava Sampradayas and Siddhantas, Krsna, Life after death, Modes of nature, Supersoul, Vedanta, Visnu. Brahma-the first created living being and secondary creator of the material universe. Directed by Lord Visnu, he creates all life forms in the universes. He also rules the mode of passion. Twelve of his hours equals 4,320,000,000 earth-years, and his life span is more than 311 trillion of our years; The first living being in the universe, Brahma was born not of a womb but the lotus that grows from Lord Visnu's navel. He is the forefather and guru of the demigods, the giver of the Vedas, and the director of the vaikrta or secondary phase of cosmic creation by which all species of plants, animals, human beings and demigods come into existence. Thus he takes charge of the creative rajo-guna, just as Siva takes charge of the destructive tamo-guna. Brahma is usually a jiva, though rarely, when there is no qualified jiva to assume this post, the Supreme Lord expands Himself as Brahma. See Demigods, Modes of nature. Buddha-incarnation of Krsna, the founder of Buddhism who lived during the 5th century B.C., and appeared to bewilder atheists and dissuade them from performing unnecessary animal sacrifices; Two thousand five hundred years ago, Lord Visnu sent forth an empowered jiva known as the Buddha (the Enlightened One). Assuming the guise of Siddhartha Gautama, he took birth in Kapilavastu (present-day Nepal) as the son of King Suddhodana. At age twenty-nine he renounced the world and embarked upon a mission to preach ahimsa (nonviolence) and sūnyata (extinction of the self). He especially opposed the prevailing Karma-mimamsa philosophy of his time, which distorted Vedic knowledge and promoted unnecessary animal sacrifice. The Buddha's teaching rests on four principles: 1) material existence is duḥkha, miserable. 2) There is samudaya, a cause of material existence. 3) Because there is a cause, there is also nirodha, a way to remove material existence. 4) That way is marga, the path of righteousness that the Buddha himself exemplified. But as he circumvented the distortion of Vedic sacrifice in leading people away from the sin of animal slaughter, he denied the Vedas, the soul, and God. After the Buddha's disappearance, many schools of Buddhism came into being. See Avatara (Saktyavesa), Buddhism. Buddhism-Vaisnava Vedantist acaryas such as Ramanuja, Madhva and Baladeva have analyzed four types of Buddhist doctrine. These four are held, respectively, by schools known as the Sautrantikas, Vaibhasikas, Yogacaras and Madhyamikas. The first doctrine views mind and matter as having real but momentary existencei.e. with each moment, the reality of mind and matter changes. The second views matter as being knowable only through the mind; mind and the matter known through it are momentarily real. The third views matter as unreal, mind as absolute, and the perception of matter as momentary imagination. The fourth, known as Sūnyavada, views the previous three doctrines as useless attempts at explaining what cannot be put into words. See Buddha, Mayavada philosophy, Nirvana, Scepticism, Six systems, Voidism.