Wednesday, February 3rd, marks the appearance anniversary of Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, one of the foremost teachers of bhakti in the Hare Krishna tradition. On this day we fast till noon in his honour.
Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura (1874–1936), is the spiritual master of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He was extremely intelligent and excelled in math, astronomy, Sanskrit, and other languages. The University of Calcutta offered him a chair, but he declined so that he could dedicate his life to continuing the spiritual work of his father, Bhaktivinoda Thakura. Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati met with scholars, educators, and other leaders. He established 64 temples and wrote more than 108 essays and books, striving to present Bhakti as a theistic science.
He asked his disciple A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to go to the West to teach Krishna consciousness. Srila Prabhupada went to New York in 1965 and carried on his spiritual master’s mission on a grand scale through the International Society of Krishna Consciousness.