Gopal Bhatt

Shrivatsa Goswami examines the ways in which Gopāl Bhaṭṭ, interacting with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and being a southerner by birth, played a key role in establishing the philosophical perspectives and ritual practices that characterized the new Gaudiya sampradaya being formed at Vrindavan in the first half of the sixteenth century. In doing so, he analyses important features of Gopal Bhatt’s two major works, the Ṣat-Sandarbha (Six Treatises) often mistakenly attributed to Jīva Gosvāmī, and the Haribhaktivilāsa (The Pleasure of Worshiping Hari). It emerges, among other things, that there is an element of mystery as to how Gopāl Bhaṭṭ’s philosophical statements relate to his pronouncements on devotional practice.