Goswami, Sanatana

(ca. mid-16th c.) A disciple of the
Bengali saint Chaitanya, and a pivotal
figure in the establishment of the
Gaudiya Vaishnava community, along
with his brother Rupa 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.
Sanatana was more of a devotee
(bhakta) than a scholar. This is evident
in his written works, which tend to
be either devotional songs or commentaries on religious texts. Sanatana’s most
famous text is the Hari-bhakti-vilasa
(“The delight of devotion to Hari”), for
which he wrote a commentary as well.
For further information see Sushil
Kumar De, Early History of the
Vaishnava Faith and Movement in
Bengal, 1961.