Saint Bhakti Rakshaka Shridhara Deva Goswami

Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar (IAST: Bhakti-rakṣaka Śrīdhara; 10 October 1895 – 12 August 1988) was an Indian guru, writer, sannyasi and spiritual leader in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, founder-president-acharya of the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. Recognised as a "profound thinker" and "learned representative of the theistic conception of Gaudiya Vaishnavism", Sridhar was a senior disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and elder "godbrother" (i.e. received initiation from the same guru) to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (the ‘Hare Krishnas’), to whose young disciples he provided spiritual guidance after Prabhupada's passing in 1977. Born Ramendra Chandra (Rāmendra Candra) into a family of a high-class Bengali brahmins (his family bore the aristocratic title, or upādhi, of Bhattacharya), Sridhar joined his guru's mission, the Gaudiya Math, in 1926, taking diksha initiation from Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati as Ramendra Sundara (Rāmendra Sundara). On the meaning of his first spiritual name, Sridhar recalled: “My original name was Ramendra Candra. When I was given initiation, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura gave me the name Ramendra Sundara. I asked him, “What is the meaning of Ramendra?” He told me, “In our consideration, Rama does not mean Dasarathi Rama or Lord Ramacandra, the son of King Dasaratha. It means Radha-ramana Rama – Krsna, the lover of Radharani.” Before being sent by Saraswati to locate the site where Chaitanya Mahaprabhu spoke with Ramananda Ray on the banks of the Godavari (Rāmānanda Saṁvāda), his guru gave him the new name Ramananda Das (Rāmānanda dāsa), meaning servant of Ramananda. He finally became Bhakti Rakshak, meaning 'Guardian of Devotion', after taking sannyasa in 1930.