Bimala Prasad received both Western and traditional Indian education and gradually established himself as a leading intellectual among the bhadralok (Western-educated and often Hindu Bengali residents of colonial Calcutta), earning the title Siddhānta Sarasvatī ("the pinnacle of wisdom").

The Math propagated the teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnavism by means of daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals, books of the Vaishnava canon, and public programs as well as through such innovations as "theistic exhibitions" with dioramas.

Bhaktisiddhanta opposed the nondualistic interpretation of Hinduism, or advaita, that had emerged as the prevalent strand of Hindu thought in India, seeking to establish traditional personalist krishna-bhakti as its fulfillment and higher synthesis.

In 1966 its offshoot, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), was founded by Bhaktisiddhanta's disciple A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in New York City and spearheaded the spread of Gaudiya Vaisnava teachings and practice globally.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupāda was born Bimala Prasad at 3:30 pm on 6 February 1874 in Puri – a town in the Indian state of Orissa famous for its ancient temple of Jagannath.

[1] The place of his birth was a house his parents rented from a Calcutta businessman, Ramacandra Arhya, situated a few hundred meters away from the Jagannath temple on Puri's Grand Road, the traditional venue for the Hindu Ratha-yatra festival.

[3][7] The birth of Bimala Prasad concurred with the rising influence of the bhadralok community, literally "gentle or respectable people",[8] a privileged class of Bengalis, largely Hindus, who served the British administration in occupations requiring Western education, and proficiency in English and other languages.

[9] Exposed to and influenced by the Western values of the British, including their condescending attitude towards cultural and religious traditions of India, the bhadralok themselves started questioning and reassessing the tenets of their own religion and customs.

[10] Their attempts to rationalise and modernise Hinduism to reconcile it with the Western outlook eventually gave rise to a historical period called the Bengali Renaissance, championed by such prominent reformists as Rammohan Roy and Swami Vivekananda.

[11][12] This trend gradually led to a widespread perception, both in India and in the West, of modern Hinduism as being equivalent to Advaita Vedanta, a conception of the divine as devoid of form and individuality that was hailed by its proponents as the "perennial philosophy"[13] and "the mother of religions".

[14] As a result, the other schools of Hinduism, including bhakti, were gradually relegated in the minds of the Bengali Hindu middle-class to obscurity, and were often seen as a "reactionary and fossilized jumble of empty rituals and idolatrous practices.

[22] The same account mentions that at his birth, the child's umbilical cord was looped around his body like a sacred brahmana thread (upavita) that left a permanent mark on the skin, as if foretelling his future role as religious leader.

[28][27] In the early 1880s, Kedarnath Datta, out of desire to foster the child's budding interest in spirituality, initiated him into harinama-japa, a traditional Gaudiya Vaishnava practice of meditation based on the soft recitation of the Hare Krishna mantra on tulasi beads.

[3] After the king died in 1896, his heir Radha Kishore Manikya requested Sarasvati to tutor the princes at the palace and offered him full pension, which Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada accepted till 1908.

[3] Although equipped with an excellent modern and traditional education, and with an enviable social status among the intellectual and political elite of Calcutta and Tripura, along with the resources that it had brought, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada nonetheless began to question his choices at a stage that many would regard as the epitome of success.

[35][b] According to the Gaudiya mutt follower's, along with his initiation (diksha) he received a new name, Shri Varshabhanavi-devi-dayita Dasa (Śrī Vārṣabhānavī-devī-dayita Dāsa, "servant of Krishna, the beloved of Radha"), which he adopted until new titles were conferred upon him.

[43][c] As per popular stories, Gaurakishora Dasa Babaji on several occasions dissuaded Bhaktisiddhanta from visiting Calcutta, referring to the large imperial city as "the universe of Kali" (kalira brahmanda) – a standard understanding among Vaishnava ascetics.

[47] However, in 1913 Bhaktisiddhanta established a printing press in Calcutta, and called it bhagavat-yantra ("God's machine")[48] and began to publish medieval Vaishnava texts in Bengali, such as the Chaitanya Charitamrita by Krishnadasa Kaviraja, supplemented with his own commentary.

[50][d] After the death of his father Bhaktivinoda on 23 June 1914, Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupad[needs copy edit] relocated his Calcutta press to Mayapur and then to nearby Krishnanagar in the Nadia district.

[53] Relentless and uncompromising oratory and written critique of what, in Bhaktisiddhanta's words, was a contemporary religious "society of cheaters and the cheated"[53] became the underlying tone of his missionary efforts, not only earning him the title "acharya-keshari" ("lion guru")[54] but also awakening suspicion, fear, and at times hate among his opponents.

[56] Amrita Bazar Patrika's coverage of the opening states that "[h]ere ardent seekers after truth are received and listened to and solutions to their questions are advanced from a most reasonable and liberal standpoint of view.

[59] The Gaudiya Math rapidly gained a reputation as an outspoken voice on religious, philosophical and social issues via its wide range of periodical publications, targeting educated audiences in English, Bengali, Assamese, Odia, and Hindi.

[61] Bhaktisiddhanta spelled out his views, which appeared to be modern yet were firmly rooted in the early bhakti literature of the Chaitanya school, in an essay called "Gandhiji's Ten Questions" published in The Harmonist in January 1933.

[62] While emphasising the innate spirituality of all beings, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati strongly objected to representations of the sacred love between Radha and Krishna, described in the Bhagavatam and other Vaishnava texts, as erotic, which permeated the popular culture of Bengal in art, theatre, and folk songs.

In 1927, he launched a periodical in English and requested British officers to patronise his movement, which they gradually did, culminating in an official visit by the Governor of Bengal John Anderson to Bhaktisiddhanta's headquarters in Mayapur on 15 January 1935.

[70] The deep international tensions globally building up in the late 1930s made Bhaktisiddhanta more certain that solutions to the incumbent problems of humanity were to be found primarily in the realm of religion and spirituality, and not solely in the fields of science, economy, and politics.

[74] On 3 December 1936, Bhaktisiddhanta answered a letter from his disciple Bhaktivedanta, who had asked how he could best serve his guru's mission: I am fully confident that you can explain in English our thoughts and arguments to the people who are not conversant with the languages of other members.

[77] Rather than appointing a successor, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati instead instructed his leading disciples to jointly run the mission in his absence, and expected that qualified leaders would emerge naturally "on the strength of their personal merit".

[79] Modeled after the original Gaudiya Math and emulating its emphasis on dynamic mission and spiritual practice, ISKCON soon popularised Chaitanya Vaishnavism on a global scale, becoming the world's leading proponent of Hindu bhakti personalism.

[79][80] Today Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati's Gaudiya Math movement includes more than forty independent institutions, hundreds of centres and more than 500,000 practitioners globally, with scholars acknowledging its public profile as far exceeding the size of its constituency.