About Us
GORA গোରା —The Gaudiya Odia Research Association — is the Jagannath Puri branch of the Bhaktivedanta Research Center. A heritage project dedicated to finding, preserving, translating, and publishing old rare Gaudiya literature in the Odia and Bengali languages that focus on Gaudiya-Odia Jagannath culture.
GORA is both an acronym for our project as well as a name for Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. In many traditional Bengali and Odia songs one of Mahaprabhu’s names is spelled, “Gorā”. This stands for that personality who is the combined form of Govinda (“go”), and Radha (“rā).
Vision and Inspiration
The project is the fruit of inspiration we have received from His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who wanted to create a library to preserve rare important Gaudiya books. It is also due to the inspiration we have gotten from Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja, who was a lover of rare Gaudiya Odia literature and wanted to begin a Vaishnava university in Odisha. Finally, this project is also due to the inspiration and blessings we have gotten from the learned professor and devotee Sripad Dr. Fakir Mohan Das, who requested us to start a research institute in Odisha to preserve rare Odia literature. Dr. Fakir Mohan Prabhu dedicated his life to searching out, preserving and publishing these rare books.
Our four pillars:
■ Preserve
■ Publish
■ Practice
■ Teach