sampradayas

There are four Vaisnava sampradayas (systems) of disciplic succession. One sampradaya comes from Lord Brahma, one from the goddess of fortune, one from the Kumaras, headed by Sanat-kumara, and one from Lord Siva. These four systems of disciplic succession are still going on. As King Prthu has illustrated, one who is serious about receiving transcendental Vedic knowledge must accept a guru, or spiritual master, in one of these four disciplic successions. It is said that unless one accepts a mantra from one of these sampradayas, the so-called mantra will not act in Kali-yuga. Many sampradayas have sprung up without authority, and they are misleading the people by giving unauthorized mantras. The rascals of these so-called sampradayas do not observe the Vedic rules and regulations. Although they are addicted to all kinds of sinful activities, they still offer the people mantras and thus mislead them. Intelligent persons, however, know that such mantras will never be successful, and as such they never patronize such upstart spiritual groups. People should be very careful of these nonsensical sampradayas. To get some facility for sense gratification, unfortunate people in this age receive mantras from these so-called sampradayas. Prthu Maharaja, however, showed by his example that one should receive knowledge from a bona fide sampradaya. Therefore Maharaja Prthu accepted Sanat-kumara as his spiritual master.    (More...)

The four Kumaras are parampara spiritual masters of the Vaisnava sampradaya. Out of the four sampradayas, namely Brahma-sampradaya, Sri-sampradaya, Kumara-sampradaya and Rudra-sampradaya, the disciplic succession of spiritual master to disciple known as the Kumara-sampradaya is coming down from the four Kumaras. So Prthu Maharaja was very respectful to the sampradaya-acaryas. As it is said by Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, saksad-dharitvena samasta-sastrair: a spiritual master or the parampara-acarya, should be respected exactly like the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The word vidhivat is significant in this verse. This means that Prthu Maharaja also strictly followed the injunctions of the sastra in receiving a spiritual master or acarya of the transcendental disciplic succession. Whenever an acarya is seen, one should immediately bow down before him. Prthu Maharaja did this properly; therefore the words used here are prasrayanata-kandharah. Out of humility, he bowed down before the Kumaras.    (More...)

Lord Siva is known as the greatest devotee of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is also known as vaisnavanam yatha sambhuh, the best of all types of Vaisnavas. Consequently Lord Siva has a Vaisnava sampradaya, the disciplic succession known as Rudra-sampradaya. Just as there is a Brahma-sampradaya coming directly from Lord Brahma, the Rudra-sampradaya comes directly from Lord Siva. As stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam, Lord Siva is one of the twelve great personalities. This refers to the twelve great authorities who preach God consciousness. The name Sambhu means Lord Siva. His disciplic succession is also known as the Visnusvami-sampradaya, and the current Visnusvami-sampradaya is also known as the Vallabha-sampradaya. The current Brahma-sampradaya is known as the Madhva-Gaudiya-sampradaya. Even though Lord Siva appeared to preach Mayavada philosophy, at the end of his pastime in the form of Saṅkaracarya, he preached the Vaisnava philosophy: bhaja govindam bhaja govindam bhaja govindam mudha-mate. He stressed worshiping Lord Krsna or Govinda three times in this verse and especially warned his followers that they could not possibly achieve deliverance or mukti simply by word jugglery and grammatical puzzles. If one is actually serious to attain mukti, he must worship Lord Krsna. That is Sripada Saṅkaracarya's last instruction.    (More...)