In 1892, commenting on the words of Vrindavana Dasa Thakura’s Chaitanya-bhagavata, the Vaishnava acharya Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda Thakura (1838–1914) wrote an article called “Nityadharma Suryodaya” (“The Rising Sun of Eternal Dharma”), which appeared in his journal Sajjana-toshani. This visionary article explained that the movement of Sri Chaitanya would spread across the world, especially to the West. The pertinent part of the article, enhancing the earlier prophecy with specifics of his own, reads as follows:
The purpose behind Chaitanya’s avatara is not just to save (uddhara) a few people in India. Rather, His need is to deliver people in different countries of the world by distributing the eternal religion (nitya-dharma). Chaitanya himself says, “My name [or the names of Krishna I chant] will be spread to all towns and villages of the entire world.” . . . There is no doubt that this indisputable prediction will soon be translated into reality. I think it is true that the varieties of religions (dharmas) we find across the world will one day mature to their fruition and become the religion of congregational singing of the holy names (nama-sankirtana). . . . I have no doubt that the time is ripe for the prophecy of Sri Mahaprabhu to be fulfilled. . . . When will that day come when people in England, France, Russia, Prussia, and America will take up kholas (drums) and karatalas (cymbals) and raise the waves of sankirtana, acknowledging Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? (Nityadharma suryodaya, Sajjana-toshani 4, no. 3 (1892): 42–44. Translated by Abhishek Ghosh)
He concludes with imagery that is especially memorable:
When will that day come when fair-skinned foreigners (bilatiya shvetavarna purusha sakala) travel to Sri Mayapur-dhama and join with the Bengali Vaishnavas to chant, “Jaya Shacinandana, Jaya Shacinandana.” When will that day be? (Nityadharma suryodaya)
Thus Prabhupada’s mission is the fulfillment of Mahaprabhu and Bhaktivinoda’s prophecy, with men and women from all parts of the world engaging in harinama–sankirtana, using the traditional instruments of sixteenth-century Bengal, just as Bhaktivinoda suggests. These ”foreign Vaishnavas” also regularly visit Mayapur-dhama and chant the many names of Sri Chaitanya as well, something that would have seemed unlikely in Bhaktivinoda’s time.
Four years after his initial prediction, in his book Sri Chaitanya: His Life and Precepts, Bhaktivinoda wrote, “The religion preached by Mahaprabhu is universal and nonsectarian. . . . The church of kirtana invites all classes of people, without distinctions as to caste and clan, to engage in the highest cultivation of the spirit. This church, it appears, will extend all over the world …”6 Again, an allusion to Prabhupada’s mission, which would not take root for another seventy years.
And indeed it blossomed. While the successes of Prabhupada’s mission need not be reiterated here, one other prediction, made by Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s son Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (1874–1936) – Prabhupada’s own guru – should be mentioned as well. Sarasvati Thakura basically prophesied the very basis of Prabhupada’s mission, the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, the fruits of which could be considered the core of his movement’s success.7
In 1932, long before Prabhupada traveled west, his guru wrote an article entitled, “Madhva-Gaudiya Literature.” His prescient insights are as follows: “The Gaudiya literature will be translated into all the languages of the world by the agents of the Divine Mercy at the appointed time. . . . [Indeed] the Gaudiya literature will not long remain confined to the Bengali-speaking people. It will in a short time expand and display its full brilliance through the medium of all the languages.”8
Roughly forty years after these words were written, thanks to the hard work of Srila Prabhupada and his followers at the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Gaudiya literature exists in almost ninety languages, from Albanian to Arabic, Chinese to Croatian, Farsi to Finnish. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta would be proud.
by Satyaraja dasa