Over five hundred years ago, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in West Bengal, India, and preached the message of pure love of God. He was the founder of the Vedanta school called Acintya-bhedabheda, popularly known as Gaudiya Vaishnava Vedanta. Among his many followers, the six Gosvamis of Vrindavan were the most prominent.

Sri Jiva Gosvami was the junior-most among these six saints. He was one of the greatest scholars of Vedic theology and philosophy that India has ever produced. He wrote many books on philosophy, theology, aesthetics, poetics, and grammar.

Jiva Institute of Vedic Studies derives its name from Jiva Gosvami. The word “jiva” also means a living entity. Appropriately, Jiva Institute caters to the most important need of a human being, which is life-long happiness. In his writings such as the Sandarbhas, Sri Jiva Gosvami shows on the authority of Vedic scriptures how an individual, as well as society, can be cured of all the problems of life. But his writings are in Sanskrit, and so the knowledge which he propagated is not easily accessible. Dr. Satyanarayana Dasa, a scholar of Vedic philosophy, founded Jiva Institute of Vedic Studies to make these available to modern society.  He and his team of scholars are engaged in teaching, translating, commenting on and publishing the works of Jiva Gosvami and other acharyas of the Gaudiya school.

The Jiva Institute of Vedic Studies aims to present Vedic knowledge in a modern context so that those who do not have the time and facility to delve into the original literature can also benefit from it.