- Lived:
- 1486–1534 · born Nabadwip (Navadvīpa), Bengal → Puri, Odisha, with one great loop through the south and a pilgrimage to Vrindavan
- Field:
- Bhakti sainthood — founder, without writing a book or building an institution, of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the Bengal tradition of ecstatic Krishna devotion
- The Big Idea:
- God's name, sung aloud in public by everyone together — regardless of caste, learning or respectability — is the whole of religion for this age. Devotion is not a private discipline; it is a street festival.
- In their words:
- "Humbler than a blade of grass, more patient than a tree, giving honour to others and wanting none — sing the Name always." (Śikṣāṣṭaka 3, one of only eight verses he left us; our rendering)
- If you remember one thing:
- The sharpest young logician in Bengal's capital of logic gave up argument for singing and dancing in the street — and the eight verses he left behind grew, four centuries later, into a mantra chanted on the sidewalks of New York.