Sanatana Goswami (ca. mid-16th c.) Along with his brother
Rupa Goswami and nephew Jiva Goswami, he was a student of the Bengali saint
Chaitanya and a crucial player in the creation of the Gaudiya Vaishnava
society.
Despite the fact that the poet-saint Chaitanya formed the
Gaudiya Vaishnavas, it was the Goswamis who gave discipline and systematic
reasoning to Chaitanya's exuberant devotionalism.
According to records, the Goswamis were brahmins whose
ancestors came from the Karnataka area.
Rupa and Sanatana were in the service of a local Muslim
monarch in Bengal, where the family had settled.
When Rupa and Sanatana met Chaitanya, though, their lives
were changed forever.
Chaitanya sent the brothers to Brindavan, the hamlet where
Krishna is said to have spent his infancy, with orders to reside there and
reclaim it as a sacred site.
The three Goswamis remained there for decades, recovering
holy locations (tirthas), erecting temples, and, most all, establishing the
Gaudiya Vaishnava community's principles and structures.
Sanatana was a bhakta (devotee) rather than a scholar.
His literary works, which tend to be devotional songs or
commentaries on religious literature, reflect this.
The Hari-bhakti-vilasa (“The thrill of devotion to Hari”) is
Sanatana's most renowned work, for which he also composed a commentary.
Sushil Kumar De, Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and
Movement in Bengal, 1961, is a good source of knowledge.
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