Goswami, Rupa

(ca. mid-16th c.) A disciple of the
Bengali saint Chaitanya, a pivotal figure
in the establishment of the Gaudiya
Vaishnava community, along with his
brother Sanatana Goswami, and his
nephew Jiva Goswami. Although the
Gaudiya Vaishnavas were founded by
the poet-saint Chaitanya, it was the
Goswamis who brought order and systematic thinking to Chaitanya’s ecstatic
devotionalism. Records indicate that the
Goswamis were brahmins whose families originally hailed from the
Karnataka region. The family had settled in Bengal, where Rupa and
Sanatana were in the service of a local
Muslim ruler. However, their lives were
transformed when Rupa and Sanatana
met Chaitanya. Chaitanya dispatched
the brothers to Brindavan, the village
where the god Krishna is believed to
have spent his childhood, with instructions to settle there and reclaim it as a
holy place. The three Goswamis lived
there for several decades, reclaiming the
sacred sites (tirthas), having temples
built, and above all providing the ideas
and institutions that defined the
Gaudiya Vaishnava community. Rupa
was a passionate devotee (bhakta) of
Krishna, but also had interests as a
dramatist and a scholar. In addition to
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Gosala Maskariputra
writing poetry as a vehicle for expressing
devotion to Krishna, he also focused on
analyzing bhakti as an emotional experience. He is most famous for enumerating
the five modes of devotion, explaining
the different possible ways to experience the love of God. For further information see Sushil Kumar De, Early
History of the Vaishnava Faith and
Movement in Bengal, 1961; and
Shrivatsa Goswami, “Radha” in John
Stratton Hawley and Donna Wulff (eds.),
The Divine Consort, 1982.