Hinduism - Who Is Sanatana Goswami?


Sanatana Goswami (ca. mid-16th c.) Along with his brother Rupa Goswami and nephew Jiva Goswami, he was a student of the Bengali saint Chaitanya and a crucial player in the creation of the Gaudiya Vaishnava society.

Despite the fact that the poet-saint Chaitanya formed the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, it was the Goswamis who gave discipline and systematic reasoning to Chaitanya's exuberant devotionalism.

According to records, the Goswamis were brahmins whose ancestors came from the Karnataka area.

Rupa and Sanatana were in the service of a local Muslim monarch in Bengal, where the family had settled.

When Rupa and Sanatana met Chaitanya, though, their lives were changed forever.

Chaitanya sent the brothers to Brindavan, the hamlet where Krishna is said to have spent his infancy, with orders to reside there and reclaim it as a sacred site.

The three Goswamis remained there for decades, recovering holy locations (tirthas), erecting temples, and, most all, establishing the Gaudiya Vaishnava community's principles and structures.

Sanatana was a bhakta (devotee) rather than a scholar.

His literary works, which tend to be devotional songs or commentaries on religious literature, reflect this.

The Hari-bhakti-vilasa (“The thrill of devotion to Hari”) is Sanatana's most renowned work, for which he also composed a commentary.

Sushil Kumar De, Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, 1961, is a good source of knowledge. 


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