Krishna is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme God in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is widely revered among Hindu divinities. Krishna's birthday is celebrated every year by Hindus on Krishna Janmashtami according to the lunisolar Hindu calendar, which falls in late August or early September of the Gregorian calendar.
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) was a spiritual, philosophical, and religious teacher from India who spread the Hare Krishna mantra and the teachings of “Krishna consciousness” to the world. Born as Abhay Charan De and later legally named Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami, he is often referred to as “Bhaktivedanta Swami”, "Srila Prabhupada", or simply “Prabhupada”.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, born Bimala Prasad Datt, was an Indian Gaudīya Vaisnava Hindu guru, ācārya, and revivalist in early twentieth-century India. To his followers, he was known as Srila Prabhupāda.
Gaudiya Vaishnavism, also known as Chaitanya Vaishnavism, is a Vaishnava Hindu religious movement inspired by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534) in India. "Gaudiya" refers to the Gaura or Gauḍa region of Bengal, with Vaishnavism meaning "the worship of Vishnu". Specifically, it is part of Krishnaism—Krishna-centric Vaishnavite traditions.
The standard problem of evil found in monotheistic religions does not apply to almost all traditions of Hinduism because it does not posit an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator.
Ravindra Svarupa Dasa is a religious studies scholar and a Hare Krishna religious leader. He was initiated by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1971. He has been a member of ISKCON's Governing Body Commission since 1987, Chairman of that Commission's North American GBC Continental Committee, is the president of ISKCON of Philadelphia, and an ISKCON Guru. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion from Temple University and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. He has written extensively on Vaishnava philosophy and used his education to further the discourse of Gaudiya Vaishnava Theology within the context of ISKCON. He is the author of Encounter with the Lord of the Universe: Collected Essays 1978-1983. He also is featured on Shelter's Attaining the Supreme, where he gives a lecture on a hidden track.
Graham M. Schweig is an American scholar of comparative theology of religion, philosophy, and the history of Yoga and Bhakti. He was born in Manhattan, New York and raised in Washington, DC. He joined the faculty at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, in August, 2000, and is currently Professor of Religion and Director of Studies in Religion there. He is also Distinguished Teaching and Research Faculty at The Center for Dharma Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, beginning June, 2017.
Edwin Francis Bryant is an American Indologist. Currently, he is professor of religions of India at Rutgers University. He published seven books and authored a number of articles on Vedic history, yoga, and the Krishna tradition. In his research engagements, he lived several years in India where he studied Sanskrit and was trained with several Indian pundits.
Parameshvara is an epithet used in Hindu literature. The term usually indicates the Supreme Being and Supreme Reality in Hinduism. Vaishnavas consider Vishnu and his avatars such as Rama and Krishna as Parameshvara, while Shaivas consider Shiva as Parameshvara. Parameshvara is the ultimate and highest reality that eternally pervades all matter for Hindus. He is regarded by devotees to be totality itself, controlling the triple forces of creation, preservation, and destruction.
Steven J. Rosen, also known as Satyaraja Das, is an American writer. He is the founding editor of The Journal of Vaishnava Studies and an associate editor of Back to Godhead, the magazine of the Hare Krishna movement. He has authored more than 30 books on Vaishnavism and related subjects, including Black Lotus: The Spiritual Journey of an Urban Mystic (2007), which is the life story of Bhakti Tirtha Swami.
The Kali-Santarana Upanishad, also called Kalisantaraṇopaniṣad, is a Sanskrit text. It is a minor Upanishad of Hinduism.
In Hinduism, the concept of God varies in its diverse religio-philosophical traditions. Hinduism comprises a wide range of beliefs about God and Divinity, such as henotheism, monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, agnosticism, atheism, and nontheism.
Radha-Krishna is the combined form of the Hindu god Krishna with his chief consort and shakti Radha. They are regarded as the feminine as well as the masculine realities of God, in several Krishnaite traditions of Vaishnavism.
Vaishnavism is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. It is also called Vishnuism since it considers Vishnu as the sole supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, Mahavishnu. Its followers are called Vaishnavites or Vaishnavas, and it includes sub-sects like Krishnaism and Ramaism, which consider Krishna and Rama as the supreme beings respectively. According to a 2010 estimate by Johnson and Grim, Vaishnavism is the largest Hindu sect, constituting about 641 million or 67.6% of Hindus.
Shaunaka Rishi Das is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS), a position he has held since the centre's foundation in 1997. He is a lecturer, a broadcaster, and Hindu Chaplain to Oxford University. His interests include education, comparative theology, communication, and leadership. He is a member of The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, convened in 2013 by the Woolf Institute, Cambridge. In 2013 the Indian government appointed him to sit on the International Advisory Council of the Auroville Foundation. Keshava, Rishi Das's wife of 27 years, died in December 2013.
Krishnaism is a term used in scholarly circles to describe large group of independent Hindu traditions—sampradayas related to Vaishnavism—that center on the devotion to Krishna as Svayam Bhagavan, Ishvara, Para Brahman, who is the source of all reality, not an avatar of Vishnu. This is its difference from such Vaishnavite groupings as Sri Vaishnavism, Sadh Vaishnavism, Ramaism, Radhaism, Sitaism etc. There is also a personal Krishnaism, that is devotion to Krishna outside of any tradition and community, as in the case of the saint-poet Meera Bai. Leading scholars do not define Krishnaism as a suborder or offshoot of Vaishnavism, considering it at least a parallel and no less ancient current of Hinduism.
Sadh Vaishnavism, , is a denomination within the Vaishnavism—Bhagavata tradition of Hinduism. Sadh Vaishnavism was founded by thirteenth century philosopher-saint Madhvacharya, who developed the Tattvavada (dvaita) Vedanta sub-school of Hindu philosophy.
Bhakti Prajnan Keshava, addressed by the honorific Mahārāja, was a Gaudiya Vaishnava guru, disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and the founder-acharya of the religious organisation "Sri Gaudiya Vedanta Samiti", formed in Calcutta in 1940, and its headquarters, monastery Sri Devananda Gaudiya Math in Nabadwip.
Dr. Satyanarayana Dasa is an Indian Gaudiya Vaisnava scholar and practitioner. Dasa is a polymath, holding a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from Agra University, a degree in Indian law from Agra University, a Bachelors of Technology in Mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and a Masters of Technology in Industrial Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. Currently based in India at the Jiva Institute, which he founded, Dasa has published numerous books and original papers in the field of Gaudiya Vaisnavism including translations and commentaries on the Sat Sandarbhas. His honors include an award from the President of India in 2012. Dasa has been called a leading living practitioner-scholar of Jīva Gosvāmin.
Shrivatsa Goswami is an Indian Indologist scholar as well as Gaudiya Vaishnava religious leader.
