Indian Antiquary Vol 02

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 9

JANUARY, 1873.]
CHAITANYA.
Adwaita Acharjya fshwarer angsa barjya. his home, in the first instance, to Puri to see the The teacher Adwaita is a special portion of shrine of Jagannath. Thence for six years he god.
roamed all over India preaching Vaishnavism, And the author goes on to say that Adwaita and returned at last to Puri, where he passed was first the teacher then the pupil of Chaita- the remaining eighteen years of his life and nya. The probability is that Adwaita, like the where at length he died in the 48th year of his majority of his countrymen, was more addicted age in 1534 A.D. His Bengali followers visited to meditation than to action. The idea which him for four months in every year and some of in his mind gave rise to nothing more than them always kept watch over him, for he was indefinite longings when transfused into the now quite mad. He had starved and preached earnest fiery nature of Chaitanya, expanded and sung and raved himself quite out of his into a faith which moved and led captive the senses. On one occasion he imagined that a souls of thousands.
post in his veranda was Râdha, and embraced it His brother Nityanand was now assumed to so hard as nearly to smash his nose, and to be an incarnation of Balaram, and took his place cover himself with blood from scraping all the 28 second-in-command in consequence. The skin off his forehead ; on another he walked practice of meeting for worship and to celebrate
into the sea in a fit of abstraction, and was " Sankirtans" was now instituted ; the meet
fished up half dead in a net by a fisherman. ings took place in the house of a disciple Sribas,
His friends took it in turns to watch by his and were quite private. The new religionists
side all night lest he should do himself some met with some opposition, and a good deal of
injury. mockery. One night on leaving their rendezvous,
The leading principle that underlies the whole they found on the door-step red flowers and
of Chaitanya's system is Bhakti or devotion ; goats' blood, emblems of the worship of Durga,
and the principle is exemplified and illustrated and abominations in the eyes of a Vaishnava.
by the mutual loves of Rådhå and Kpishņ&. These were put there by a Brahman named
In adopting this illustration of his principle, Gopal. Chaitanya cursed him for his practical
Chaitanya followed the example of the Bha
gavad Gita and the Bhagavat Parâna, and he joke, and we are told that he became a leper in consequence. The opposition was to a great
was probably also influenced in the sensual tone extent, however, provoked by the Vaishnavas,
he gave to the whole by the poems of Jayadeva. who seem to have been very eccentric and
The Bhakta or devotee passes through five sucextravagant in their conduct.
cessive stages. Sánta or resigned contemplation
Everything that Krishna had done Chaitanya must do too,
of the deity is the first, and from it he passes thus we rend of his dancing on the shoulders of
into Dasya or the practice of worship and Murori Gupta, one of his adherents; and his
service, thence to Sákhya or friendship, which
warms into Batsalya, filial affection, and lastly followers, like himself, had fits, foamed at the
rises to Mádhurya or earnest, all-engrossing love, mouth, and went off into convulsions, much
Vaishnavism is singularly like Sufiism, the after the fashion of some revivalists of modern
resemblance has often been noticed, and need times. The young students at the Sanskrit
here only be briefly traced. With the latter schools in Nadiya naturally found all this very
the first degree is násút or 'humanity' in which amusing, and cracked jokes to their hearts' con
man is subject to the law shara, the second tent on the crazy enthusiasts.
tarikat, the way of spiritualism, the third In January 1510, Chaitanya suddenly took it 'arif or knowledge, and the fourth hakikat or into his head to become a Sanyasi or ascetic, and the truth. Some writers give a longer series received initiation at the hands of Keshab Bhå- of grades, thus-talab, seeking after god ;''ishk, rati of Katwa. Some say he did this to gain res- love;' m'arifat, insight;' istighndh, 'satisfacpect and credit as a religious preacher, others tion;' tauhid, 'unity;' hairat, 'ecstacy;' and lastly say it was done in consequence of a curse laid fand, absorption.' Dealing as it does with God on him by a Brahman whom he had offended. and Man as two factors of a problem, VaishBe this as it may, his craziness seems now to navism necessarily ignores the distinctions of have reached its height. He wandered off from caste, and Chaitanya was perfectly consistent in
Conf. Capt. J. W. Graham's paper On Sufism, Bombay Literary Soc. Trans. Vol. I. pp. 89 et seqq. ; Rajendralala Mittra's valuable introduction to the Chaitanya Chandrodaya (Biblioth. Ind.), pp. ii-iv and xv; also Jones' Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindus, Asiat. Res. Vol. III. pp. 165-207; and Leyden On the Rosheniah Sect, &c.,' As. Res. YOL XI. pp. 863-428.-ED.