Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami
From the book “Sri Vraja-maṇḍala-parikramā”:
The temple of Śrī Śyāmasundara is situated near the Śrī Rādhā-Dāmodara Temple. Śrī Rādhā-Śyāmasundara, the deities established and worshipped by gauḍīya-vedānta-ācārya Śrī Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, are very beautiful. Opposite the entrance door of the temple is the samādhi of Śrī Śyāmānanda Prabhu.
Śrī Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa was born in a village near the famous Remunā in Orissa. He studied grammar, rhetoric and logic in an academic village on the bank of Cilkā-hrada. After this, he went to Mysore to study the Vedas. In Uḍupī, he deeply studied Madhva-bhāṣya along with Śaṅkara-bhāṣya, Pārijāta-bhāṣya and other commentaries (bhāṣyas) on the Vedānta. After some time, he studied in Śrī Dhāma Jagannātha Purī the Ṣaṭ-sandarbhas under Śrī Rādhā-Dāmodara, a disciple of Śrī Rasikānanda Prabhu. At this time, he came to know of Śrī Rādhā-Dāmodara’s profound scholarship and devout life and became his disciple. Later on, in Vṛndāvana, he studied Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and the books of the Gosvāmīs from the famous gauḍīya rasikācārya Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura and, on his instruction, went to Jaipura. At the well-known Galtā in Jaipura, he defeated the scholars of the Śrī sampradāya and other opponents to the Gauḍīya line, and established the deity of Śrī Vijaya-gopāla. To increase the faith of the local scholars, he composed Śrī Govinda-bhāṣya on Brahma- sūtra there, and re-installed Śrī Rādhājī beside Śrī Govindadeva in the famous Govinda Temple. Some of the books he composed, which have enlarged the treasure house of Śrī Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava literature, are Govinda-bhāṣya, Siddhānta-ratnam, Vedānta- syāmantaka, Prameya-ratnāvalī, Siddhānt a-darpaṇ a and a commentary on Ṣaṭ-sandarbha.
Rajashekhara Dasa
From the book “Chaurasi-kosa Vraja Mandala Parikrama”:
The temple of Radha Shyamasundara is one of the ‘Seven Goswami Temples’ of Vrindavana and was established by Shyamananda Pandita Goswami during his second visit to Vrindavana. Although he was not one of the Six Goswamis of Vrindavana, he is counted amongst the famous Gaudiya Goswamis who were important followers of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Because the Deities were very small, Baladeva Vidyabhushana installed the large Deity of Lord Shyamasundara in 1719 during the period of his stay in Vrindavana, when he reorganized the temple’s Deity worship in accordance with the standards of archana-marga instituted by the Six Goswamis. The smaller Deity of Lord Shyamasundara is said to be the Deity given as a gift to Shyamananda Pandita by Shrimati Radharani Herself, although some historians say that this small Deity is not the one given by Radharani, but a Deity Shyamasundara carried with him from Oddisha (Orrisa) on his second visit to Vrindavana.
