Vedic, Vaisnava and Gaudiya

Due to the varieties of worship prescribed within the ‘Vedic house’ we find an array of practitioners who have a different focus of worship. In the modern world, the historical identifier ‘Hinduism,’ is used as an umbrella term to group together all such practitioners under one banner. Ironically, the word Hindu is itself a misnomer. It’s not mentioned anywhere in the Bhagavad-gita (the principle scripture for Hindus) or any other Vedic scripture for that matter. For conventional usage (vyavaharika) we may employ the term, but in the ultimate sense (paramarthika), followers of the Bhagavad-gita would avoid such an identifier.

Under the umbrella term of Hinduism, we have worshippers of the Goddess (saktas), worshippers of Siva (saivites), worshippers of Vishnu or Krishna (vaisnavas) and followers of advaita-vada, which propounds the impersonal oneness of everything (smartas). Despite their diverse ideologies, they all reference the Bhagavad-gita as a common book of wisdom.

Under the Vaisnava lineage, we also find four principle groups. The Vaisnava lineages descend from Laksmi, Brahma, Siva and the Four Kumaras. From these sources we find the broad traditions of the Sri sampradaya, Gaudiya sampradaya and Pusti Marg sampradaya prominent even today. Amongst all such Vaisnava lines, the Srimad-Bhagavatam, which illuminates the glories of Sri Krishna, is accepted as common.

The Gaudiya lineage, which is connected to the Brahma-Madhva sampradaya, stems from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the 15th Century incarnation of Sri Krishna. When Krishna appeared as Sri Chaitanya, He communicated the most confidential understandings, offered the simplest means of realising such truths, and made it accessible and open to every person without any distinction. In fact, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took two essential principles from each of the Vaisnava sampradayas, and combined and synthesised all the various teachings. In the last 500 years, various groups have emerged to represent this tradition. The most prominent is ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), which has spread to every major town and city in the world. All Gaudiyas accept Chaitanya-Charitamrita, the authoritative biography written by Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami, as a common literature.