Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (IAST: Bhakti-siddhānta Sarasvatī Thakur (Prabhupada); Bengali: ভক্তিসিদ্ধান্ত সরস্বতী; Bengali: [bʱɔktisiddʱanto ʃɔrɔʃbɔti] ^ⓘ; (February 6, 1874 – January 1, 1937), born Bimala Prasad Datt (Bimalā Prasāda Datta, Bengali: [bimola prɔʃad dɔtto]), was a Gaudīya Vaisnava Guru (spiritual master), Ācārya, and revivalist in early twentieth-century India. To his followers, he was known as Srila Prabhupāda.

Bimala Prasad was born in 1874 in Puri (then Bengal Presidency, now Orissa) in a Bengali Hindu Kayastha family as a son of Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda Thakur, a Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava philosopher and teacher. Bimala Prasad received both Western and traditional Indian education from the late 1880s up until he graduated from Sanskrit College in 1895. His studies gradually gained him recognition from the bhadralok (Western-educated and often Hindu Bengali residents of colonial Calcutta), earning the title Siddhānta Sarasvatī ("the pinnacle of wisdom"). In 1900, Bimala Prasad took initiation into Gaudiya Vaishnavism from the Vaishnava ascetic Gaurakishora Dāsa Bābājī.

In 1918, following the death of his father in 1914 and the death of his guru Gaurakishora Dāsa Bābājī the following year, Bimala Prasad accepted the Hindu formal order of asceticism (sannyasa) from a photograph of his guru and took the name Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupada. He inaugurated the first center of his institution in Calcutta, later known as the Gaudiya Math. It soon developed into a missionary and educational institution with several branches in India and abroad, distributing books and hosting public programs.

Bhaktisiddhanta opposed the nondualistic interpretation of Hinduism, or Advaita, that had emerged as the prevalent strand of Hindu thought in India, seeking to promote krishna-bhakti, which he regarded as its fulfillment and higher synthesis. He was critical of numerous Gaudiya Vaishnava lineages, branding them as apasampradayas – deviations from the original Gaudiya Vaishnavism taught in the 16th century by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his early successors. Additionally, he targeted what he alleged as casteism among smarta brahmins.

The mission initiated by Bhaktivinoda Thakur and developed by Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati was referred to as "the most powerful reformist movement" of Vaishnavism in Bengal of the 19th and early 20th century. In 1966 its offshoot, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known for extensively popularizing Gaudiya Vaishnavism outside of India, was founded by Bhaktisiddhanta's disciple A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in New York City.