Gaudiya Math (est. 1930s)
The Gaudiya Math (monastery) is an organiza-
tion founded in the 1930s to promote Chaitanya
VAISHNAVISM in India, and later around the world.
The modern revival of the BHAKTI (devotional)
yoga tradition of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
(1486–1534) is generally attributed to the efforts
of Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur (born Kedarnath
Dutta, 1838–1914). A lifelong follower of the
devotion to Lord KRISHNA, he concentrated his last
decades on creating various programs to spread
the devotion, especially the Nama Hatta program
designed to promote the chanting of the holy
name. Among his accomplishments, along with
his colleague Srila Jagannath das Babaji, was the
rediscovery of the birthplace of Sri Chaitanya.
Bhaktivinode Thakur’s work was carried for-
ward by his son, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati
Thakur (1874–1937). Bhaktisiddhanta, together
with Kuñja Babu and other devotees, founded
the Gaudiya Math in the 1930s. He emphasized
the personal nature of the godhead, in distinc-
tion to the view that had become dominant
in eastern India, that the divine was basically
impersonal. He also worked to build the preach-
ing centers established by his father into full
ashrams. Most importantly, he tried to put into
effect the desire of his father to send Vaishnavite
disciples to the West.
The first center of bhakti yoga in England
opened in 1933 as the Gaudiya Mission Society of
London; on July 20, representatives of the Gaud-
iya Math had an official meeting with the king. A
second European preaching center was opened in
Berlin. Meanwhile, additional centers were being
established across India, with a concentration in
Bengal and along the route of the GANGES River
to BRINDAVAN. A conscious effort was made to
establish centers in the places known to have been
visited by Chaitanya. An active publishing pro-
gram was developed. Besides its own accomplish-
ments, the rise of the Gaudiya Math was seen as
a stimulus to other organizations that continued
Chaitanya’s teachings.
The math has become best known through
the Western Mission started by one of his former
members, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
(1896–1977), a disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta. The
later told Prabhupada in 1936 to prepare himself
for a mission in the West. In 1965, already of
advanced years, he moved to the United States
and began the INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KRISHNA
CONSCIOUSNESS (ISKCON). Though independent
of the math, ISKCON would become the most
effective instrument in carrying out the goals of
the math’s founder. In the last decades of the 20th
century, in spite of numerous ups and downs, it
was still teaching devotion to Krishna in many
countries of the world.
ISKCON’s success spawned more than 20
new organizations that follow Krishna devotion.
In the 1990s, most of these organizations joined
with the surviving Gaudiya Math in India to
create the World Vaisnava Association, as part
of an attempt to coordinate and unify the global
mission.Further reading: Shukavak N. Dasa, Hindu Encounter
with Modernity: Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda Vaish-
nava Theologian (Los Angeles: Sri, 1999); Swami B.
A. Paramadvaiti, “Our Family the Gaudiya Math: A
Study of the Expansion of Gaudiya Vaisnavism and
the Many Branches Developing around the Gaudiya
Math.” Vrindavan Institute for Vaisnava Culture and
Studies. Available online. URL: http://www.vrindavan.
org/English/Books/GMconded.html. Accessed August
15, 2005; Steven Rosen, Contemporary Scholars Discuss
the Gaudiya Tradition (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Folk Books,
1992); Sri Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura, The Bhagavat: Its
Philosophy, Its Ethics and Its Theology (Navadwip: Shri
Goudiya Samiti, 1986); ———, Jaiva Dharma (Mad: Sri
Gaudiya Math, 1975).Gaudiya Vaishnavite Society
The Gaudiya Vaishnavite Society developed in
the 1980s. It arose in part as a result of differ-
ences among followers of the late Swami A.C.Gaudiya Vaishnavite Society 165 J