Internal lineage · sampradāya
Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava
गौड़ीय वैष्णवGauḍīya VaiṣṇavaFounder / origin — Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu (1486–1534 CE)
Acintya-bheda-abheda — inconceivable oneness and difference; devotion to Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa through kīrtan.
The Bengal-born Gauḍīya tradition centres on Śrī Caitanya's ecstatic bhakti to Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. Its philosophy — acintya-bheda-abheda — holds that self and Brahman are simultaneously one and different in a way beyond thought. Its Vṛndāvana theologians, the Six Goswāmīs, gave the movement its Sanskrit backbone; its congregational kīrtan carried it worldwide through ISKCON in the twentieth century.
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