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The Saints of Bengal

Dr. M. V. Kamath

My dear Gauri,

In my last letter I wrote about the saints of Maharashtra. In this letter I want to tell you about some of the great saints of Bengal.

Medieval devotionalism in Bengal differed from that in Maharashtra. Though the source was the same, the Bhagavata Purana, the stress in Bengal was on Krishna lila and prominence is given to Radha as in Jayadeva’s beautiful Gita Govinda written towards the end of the 12th century.

There is a special reason for the difference between Maharashtrian and Bengali  devotionalism. Maharashtra was far away from Buddhist influence, whereas Bengal was not. Buddhism was sedate, had no pantheon of Gods but was rooted among the people because it was opposed to caste and all that it implied. The reaction of the Hindu Establishment lay in working out a system that would divert the people away from Buddhism. Thus was inaugurated the Bengal brand of devotionalism that spoke of the passionate love of Radha for Krishna. That was something ordinary people would understand.

Chandidas (fourteenth century) is the first great name that comes in mind in connection with Bengali bhakti literature. He was undoubtedly influenced by Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda. He believed that the way to salvation was through the love of God and that love should be, in turn, directed towards an earthly person in a sublimated way. He wrote Krishna Kirtan, devoted to the love of Krishna for Radha and imagined himself, like Krishna, to be in love with woman; in his case the washerwoman Rami. One of this songs runs as follows.

Friend, what else I can tell you?

Love has captured me in my tender youth

And you leave me no peace in my home.

I will end my life, jump in the sea.

Yearning to be reborn as Krishna

And you as Radha in my next life.

Then there is Vidyapathi (14th to 15th century) who did not write in Bengali but in Maithili. He also wrote eight works in Sanskrit and nearly a thousand of his love poems have been collected. His poetry is more classical, polished and learned than the works of Chandidas.

But the saint who gathered together the various strands of Bengali Vaishnavism, became a reformer and founded a sect with enormous influence on Bengali religious life was Viswambar Misra (1485-1533) also known as Chaitanya.

Unlike others of the bhakti school, Chaitanya, who was also described as Mahaprabhu, was not known for his devotional songs but for organizing a broad-based popular cult. He was a visionary and wrote only a few devotional songs. His main contribution to Hinduism in Bengal was the elevation of Krishna to the highest aspect of the Divine. The aim of the devotee, then, was to so immerse himself in bhakti that in the end he reached the supreme state of madhurya, or sweetness, in which he emotionally indentified himself with Radha and achieved the blissful state of union with Krishna. Chaitanya expressed himself in the sankirtan, a session of hymn-singing by a group of devotees. These songs were often accompanied by ecstatic dancing to the sound of tambourines and the devotees would spill out from their homes or temples on the streets. If you have seen the Hare Krishna devotees, Gauri, dancing in the streets, you would know what I mean.

So popular did Chaitanya become that at one stage he himself became the object of popular devotion and was considered the living Krishna, or rather, the incarnation of Radha-Krishna. Chaitanya’s social reform did not militate against the existing social order; only Chaitanya refused to acknowledge caste differences when people came to sing and dance together in unison.

For almost three centuries, Krishna and Chaitanya remained the main source of inspiration of high Bengali culture. The great social and religious reformers who came later on the scene such as Keshub Chandra Sen, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore were the natural heirs of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

It is interesting to note, in passing, that while Chaitanya was indirectly to give birth to Bengali music, literature and dance, the same cannot be said about the Marathi Bhakti Movement.

In my next letter, I will write about the Bhakti Movement in the Hindu belt.

Your Loving,

Ajja