Sri Guru and His Grace: A Guide to Understanding the Genuine Spiritual Master

 His Divine Grace Sri Srila Bhakti Rakshaka Sridhara Deva Goswami Maharaja, the founder of the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Matha, was born in India in 1895, in a respected Brahmana family of the Bhattacarya order, at Hapaniya, District Burdwan, West Bengal. He received his education at Baharamapur University.

Having taken his pious birth in Sri Gauda-Mandal, the holy lands where Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu exhibited His divine pastimes on this earth, Srila Sridhara Maharaja, from his very childhood, had a natural affinity for the mission of Sri Chaitanya Sankirtana, the Grand Congregational Chanting of the Holy Names of the Supreme Lord.

In 1926, Srila Sridhara Maharaja joined the Sri Gaudiya Matha, and became an initiated disciple of its founder, the illustrious Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakura Goswami Prabhupada (1874-1937). He later accepted the holy order of Sannyasa [monkhood] in 1930.

As a prominent preacher in the Sri Gaudiya Matha mission, he travelled extensively throughout India and preached fluently in Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, and English, spreading the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu on many levels in universities, public seminars, and Sankirtana festivals.

Srila Sridhara Maharaja is the composer of numerous classical prayers and commentaries in Sanskrit and Bengali. His works are hailed as gems of pure Vaishnavism by scholars, philosophers, and devotees worldwide. He authored Sri Sri Prapanna Jivanamrtam, a Sanskrit devotional treatise on the subject of divine surrender, which has become a standard text-book for devotees everywhere.

Upon reaching his eighties, not only Indians, but persons from America, Europe, and the world over, became attracted by Srila Sridhara Maharaj's teachings and personality. He was known as a pure saint of the most simple living habits. He was respected and loved for his saintly simplicity, and his affectionate nature and dealings. He was revered by his Godbrothers, disciples, other devotees, and the general public, and was unanimously venerated for his formidable encyclopedic command of the revealed scriptures, and his unique and unprecedented style of casting newer and newer light upon the most internal philosophical and revelatory purports of pure Sri Gaudiya Vaishnava Siddhanta.


On August 12th, 1988, His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhara Deva-Goswami Maharaja departed from this world, to enter into his eternal pastimes. His departure did not herald the departure of one of the great stars of the Sri Gaudiya Vaishnava firmament, but that of the moon itself.