Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s5.13

c7.s5.13

Jiva Gosvāmin was the only son of their untimely deceased brother Anupama. He must have been very young when his uncles turned hermits and his father died. After staying at home at Fatoyabad for some time, he was also filled with the same desire for ascetic life, and the story of his Vairāgya is told picturesquely in the *Bhakti-ratnākara*.¹ After a short visit to Nityānanda at Navadvīpa,² he left for Benares, where he is said to have studied under Madhusūdana Vācaspati, who appears to have been an accomplished grammarian, Smārta and Vedāntist.³ He joined his uncles at Vṛndāvana, where he lived thereafter the arduous life of a recluse and scholar. He must have been carefully instructed by them in Bhakti-śāstra, and afterwards taken in as a worthy collaborator in their literary efforts for the cause of Caitanyaism. With the exception of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja who, however, mentions Jiva only a few times⁴, other biographers of Caitanya are silent about him. Jiva's birth-date is uncertain, but he does not appear to have seen Caitanya. Towards the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, however, his reputation was well established; and it was through him and his pupils Śrinivāsa Ācārya, Narottama and Śyāmānanda, that the Bhakti-śāstra of the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins was widely propagated and established in Bengal. Jiva became the highest court of appeal in doctrinal matters so long as he lived, The Caitanyaism, as it is known to-day, is mainly the product of Sanātana, Rūpa and Jiva and their disciple Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, its metaphysics being mainly Jiva's contribution. We have already noted that, like most great religious teachers, Caitanya appears to have refrained from discussing metaphysical problems (or writing about them) with his followers, who took his metaphysics according to their own light. But the view of the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins ultimately prevailed.¹