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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Vaisnava Saints of ....
705
nature and his true relation to God. Krsņa is to be approached and attained by Bhakti alone. It is difficult to make any decidedly conclusive statement about the philosophic system of Caitanya. His philosophy oscillates from one extreme of monism to the other of dualism. Only his leanings in partial forms can be pointed out. However, Carpenter also shares Bhandarkar's view. Carpenter says about Caitanya -"His metaphysic seems to have approxi. mated most nearly to Nimbărka's though a modern interpreter has ranged him with Madhva. His protests against worldliness remind us of Kabīr. But his attitude to traditional pieties is less austere. He can worship before an image, and bathe in the holy waters. He is as devout in a temple of S'iva as in one of Vişzu. Whatever form or emblem had acquired sanctity served to remind him of the object of his love. This was not the result of crude pantheism. It was the recognition of the value conferred by the devotion of others on objects which had aided them to approach the Deity. A flower, a cloud, the light upon the ripple of the sea, displayed to Caitanya the love of God, and threw him into ecstacy. For him there was only one object of adoration known under different names as Brahman, Paramātman." Caitanya had no objection against other gods, however, the Supreme God or the God of gods was Srikışıa, according to him. He subordinates the other
1 Bhandarkar R. G. : Vaisnavism, S'aivism and Minor Religious Systems, p. 85.
2 Carpenter J. E. : Theism in Medieval India, p. 445,
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