Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja

Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja took birth on January 31st, 1916. His father’s name was Śrīyuta Āśutoṣa Kumāra Ghoṣa, and his mother’s name was Śrīyuta Kātyāyanī-devī. They were both truly religious and virtuous followers of the truth. They did not even accept water in the morning until they had served Śrī Nārāyaṇa, their household deity. They were very much honoured among the general public in their district.

In his childhood Śrīpāda Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Mahārāja was known as Śrī rādhānātha Kumāra. His religious parents had a very great influence on his life. In his childhood, he was a particularly sharp student. Besides reading and writing, he was keen on all the subjects he was taught, and he had a special interest in music, art and medical science (homeopathy). He was the second child amongst six brothers and three sisters, and he was so expert in all matters that his older brother, father and family members rarely performed tasks without his counsel. When he passed the examination of the tenth grade, he was appointed as a teacher in primary school.

One day he was going to visit his sister in a village on the eastern bank of the Gaṅgā, adjacent to Śrīdhāma Māyāpura. On the way, he saw the huge temple with nine domes at Śrī Yogapīṭha. He walked all around the temple to look at it thoroughly. Later he asked the elderly people in his brother-in-law’s house about the temple, and they told him that it was the appearance place of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and that Śrī Vinoda-bihārī Brahmacārī (the brahmacārī name of Parama-gurudeva Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī) had manifested and spread its glory.

By good fortune, mahopadeśaka pūjyapāda Narottamānanda Brahmacārī from Śrī Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti was there at the time, preaching Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s viśuddha-bhakti with a travelling party. When Śrī rādhānātha heard the brahmacārī’s discouse on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, he developed in his heart a strong desire to renounce the material world and to perform bhagavad-bhajana.

The young man Śrī rādhānātha Kumāra did not know the full glory of Śrī Mandira, or the glory of tulasī or the benefit of doing such sacred circumambulation. Yet, as he himself related, hearing hari-kathā in the association of sādhus, and performing parikramā of Śrī Tulasī and the temple of Śrī Hari had the wonderful effect of enabling him to quickly renounce everything, including mother, father, wife, friends and the wealth of the home, and to devote himself to bhagavad-bhakti.

In 1942 Śrī rādhānātha Kumāra came to the head office of the Śrī Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti, and accepted harināma from the founder-ācārya of the Samiti, oṃ viṣṇupāda Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja. In 1944 he completely renounced his home and became engaged in the service of śrī guru and Śrī Bhagavān. Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja entrusted him to the care of paramapujya mahāmahopadeśaka Śrī Narottamānanda Brahmacārī. Together, they travelled all over Bengal and India, preaching bhagavad-bhakti. After some time, his gurudeva sent him to preach bhakti independently in various places.

In 1952 on Śrī Gaura Pūrṇimā, Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja kindly gave him tridaṇḍa-sannyāsa in Śrīdhāma Navadvīpa, and he became Tridaṇḍī-svāmī Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Mahārāja. Due to his proficiency in Bengali, his gurudeva appointed him as the assistant editor of Śrī Gauḍīya Patrikā. Sometimes, in the absence of Śrīla Vāmana Gosvāmī Mahārāja, he was given the entire responsibility for the office of Śrī Gauḍīya Patrikā. His authoritative writing and mystical poetry was published in that magazine. After accepting sannyāsa, he travelled to different places in India to preach śuddha-bhakti under Parama-gurudeva’s guidance.

After Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja’s disappearance, Śrīpāda Trivikrama Mahārāja accepted the post of general secretary of Śrī Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti. After repeated appeals to the members, he retired from this post and became absorbed in bhajana, though he remained attentive to all kinds of services to the Samiti.

In an article that he wrote for Śrī Gauḍīya Patrikā, he succinctly explained the real importance of sādhu-saṅga:

Prema is inherent within Mahāprabhu’s preaching of the holy name. The glory of His līlā is that each and every aspect of it is imbued with prema–His wanderings, His conversations, His study of the scriptures, His going on pilgrimage and so forth. He thus distributed the holy name throughout India. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu moved like an uncontrolled and intoxicated lion.

It is to be noted that when Mahāprabhu told someone, “Say Hari, Hari,” that person would do as He said and become maddened with prema. However, when an ordinary, unqualified person instructs someone to say “Hari, Hari,” the person he instructs does not achieve even a shadow of prema, what to speak of becoming maddened by prema. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.14.3) advises, “sanmukharitāṃ bhavadīya-vārtām–One should hear from self-realized devotees about Śrī Bhagavān’s holy name and transcendental pastimes.” If someone attempts to distribute the holy name, but prema has not arisen in his heart because he maintains separate interests (anyābhilāṣa), then the name that he utters will have no power to bestow prema upon others.

Therefore, it is prohibited even to hear descriptions of Hari from the lips of such an unqualified person:

अवैष्णव मुखोद्गीर्णम् पूतम् हरिकथामृतम्
श्रवणम् नैव कर्तव्यम् सर्पोच्छिष्टम् यथा पयह्

avaiṣṇava mukhodgīrṇam pūtam harikathāmṛtam
śravaṇam naiva kartavyam sarpocchiṣṭam yathā payah

Padma Purāṇa

The nectarean topics of Śrī Hari are always purifying, but if they emanate from the mouth of a non-Vaiṣṇava, it is prohibited to hear them, for they become as poisonous as the milk touched by the lips of a serpent.

The scriptures warn us that one becomes imbued with the qualities of the person one associates with. unfortunate people become attracted by the preaching of those who do not desire to please Śrī Kṛṣṇa, or anyābhilāṣīs. That preaching, although full of variegated cleverness cannot rightfully be termed ‘the propagation of prema-dharma’.

In 2002, on Gaura Tṛtīya of Kārtika month, at around half past noon, Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja entered nitya-līlā.

Śrīla Gurudeva said to the assembled devotees on that day:

“We have lost one of the pillars of the Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti today, but I feel some relief knowing that he left during this Kārtika month, during niyama-sevā-vrata, and that he was in Navadvīpadhāma. Also, he left at the time of amṛta-yoga, an auspicious time of the day according to the movement of the sun and moon and it was also tṛtīya-tithi, one of the most auspicious days of the month.

Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja was extremely qualified. Our Guru Mahārāja was in charge of publications, and he put Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja in charge of organizing all the preaching, and his services included sending other preachers to various districts of Bengal. Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja would personally go collecting and preaching, especially in the district of Bardavan (Burdwan), while Guru Mahārāja did a great deal of preaching in Midnapura, Chaubis Parganas and other places.

Our Guru Mahārāja placed me in his hands and we became very close. It was Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja who taught me how to perform kīrtana, how to preach, and how to collect donations. Sometimes, in a very loving way, he would also rebuke me. My Guru Mahārāja never rebuked me, but Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja would do so with so much love and affection. We had such a close connection that sometimes our discussions would become very heated. Śrīla Trivikrama Mahārāja used to preach all over India, and when he would go to preach with our Guru Mahārāja, I would go with them as Guru Mahārāja’s sevaka. I would massage him, cook for him, wash his cloths, and carry a lantern for him because there was no electricity at that time; I also performed many other services. Sometimes I made mistakes, and then Śrīla Trivikrama Mahārāja would protect me.”^[1]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The full transcript of Śrīla Gurudeva’s puṣpāñjali appeared in the report by Śrīpāda B. V. Mādhava Mahārāja entitled Disappearance of Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja–7 November 2002 in the Kartik 2002 issue of Rays of The Harmonist.