Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha and his writings on the avatars
Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha was for almost four decades the head of the Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math, one of the institutions descended from Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati's mission. His English books on the avatars of Vishnu and on Chaitanya's companions were widely circulated.
A section of the domain once grouped texts associated with him. This page is a new profile and an index to our own articles on the same subjects.
Life
He was born Kamakhya Charan Guharay in April 1924 in Goalpara, Assam. He took a master's degree in philosophy at Calcutta University in 1946 and the following year received initiation from Bhakti Dayita Madhava (1904–1979), a disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and founder of the Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math. He took sannyasa in 1961.
After his teacher's death in 1979 he became the president and acharya of the math, which had more than twenty branches in India. He also served as president of the World Vaisnava Association, a body founded in the 1990s to bring together Vaishnava institutions, and travelled widely abroad. He died in Kolkata in April 2017.
Books
His published works in English include Sri Chaitanya: His Life and Associates, Dasavatara (on the ten avatars), Sages of Ancient India, Sudha Bhakti and collections of letters and talks. Many first appeared as articles in the Gaudiya periodicals before being gathered into books.
Themes and our articles
The essays associated with his name fall into two groups. The first deals with the avatars, the descents of Vishnu listed in the Bhagavata Purana and in Jayadeva's Gita Govinda. We cover two of them, chosen because they are the most often discussed outside the tradition:
- The Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu: how a figure from a rival tradition entered the Vaishnava list.
- Kalki, the avatar of the end of the age: the texts, the iconography and modern interpretations.
The second group deals with the parishads, the associates of Chaitanya. One of them, Gopal Guru Gosvami of Puri, has his own page.
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia, "Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha" (orientation): en.wikipedia.org.
- Ferdinando Sardella, Modern Hindu Personalism, Oxford University Press, 2013, on the institutions that followed the Gaudiya Math.
- Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha, Sri Chaitanya: His Life and Associates, Mandala Publishing, 2001.
