Ashram · six kutirs
The Goswamis
of Vrindavan
Associates of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, great acharyas and protectors of the devotees.
- 6 kutirsmade of Vraja earth
- 7 murtisthe Six Goswamis and Srila Prabhupada
- Morningthe Goswamis are woken and offered puja
- Eveningbhajans are sung and the Goswamis put to rest
vande rūpa-sanātanau raghu-yugau
śrī-jīva-gopālakau
“I bow to Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatana, to Sri Raghunatha Dasa and Sri Raghunatha Bhatta, to Sri Jiva and Sri Gopal Bhatta.”
The Goswamis of Vrindavan are associates of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, whom He entrusted with revealing the science of Vraja-bhakti to the world. Meditating on their forms, qualities and deeds is an authentic practice, recommended by the scriptures and by our teachers.
Audio biographies
Kutirs of
the Goswamis
We would like to help everyone build a personal relationship with each of these great Vaishnavas. So we built six kutirs of Vraja earth and invited one of the Goswamis, in murti form, to reside in each.
In each kutir you can hear an audio biography of its Goswami. Now you can listen to them here too.
Srila Prabhupada also has his own kutir with us — a recording about him is on its way.
Now playingRupa Goswami0:00 / 0:00How the murtis manifested
A long road
to the Goswamis’ forms
The journey was a long one. It began with discussing every murti and making sketch after sketch.
It helped that one of our team’s projects is “Shad Goswami”, a documentary series that tells the lives of the Goswamis of Vrindavan in detail. But while much is known about what they did, how could we know what they looked like?
Some believe this to be the only surviving portrait of Srila Rupa Goswami made in his lifetime. But in fact it depicts Jadrup, an ascetic from Ujjain and a confidant of Emperor Jahangir — and Jahangir was born only after Srila Rupa Goswami had left this world. So we have no authentic image of any of the Six Goswamis.
What followed was fascinating work with a team of sculptors whose workshop is in the ISKCON temple in the holy city of Ujjain. For many months we worked together to bring these forms to light, praying that the Goswamis would accept our efforts and manifest in these murtis.
We paid close attention to detail. The lines on the Goswamis’ hands, for example, exactly match the marks of maha-purushas (great personalities) described in books on samudrika-shastra, Vedic palmistry.
