:; b

ORI CHAIT ANY A MAHAPRABHU

BY

A. A. BAKE

. MEDEDELINGEN DER KONINKLI]KE NEDERLANDSCHE AKADEMIE VAN WETENSCHAPPEN, AFD. LETTERKUNDE

NIEUWE REEKS, DEEL 11, N°.8

1948

V. NOORD-HOLLANDSCHE UITGEVERS MAATSCHAPPI] AMSTERDAM

QRI CHAIT ANY A MAHAPRABHU

BY

A. A. BAKE.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Diacritical marks have not been used in the text, except where an actual transliteration of Sanskrit or special Bengali words was intended. r;:, however, has been used to render the palatal sibilant with the sole exception of the name Shiva, which has 'been spelt with sh throughout in accordance with the generally accepted spelling.

Indications for the pronunciation of the Bengali text of the songs of the appendix:

The Bengali text has been transcribed as far as possible phonetically.

For instance the Sanskrit word smarana is represented by the transcription of the modern Bengali pronunciation "shshoron".

The vowels are pronounced as in Italian, a, e, i, 0, u; e is represented by ae, the short 0 by o.

The t and d are the soft dental consonants, not the English sounds with a cerebral tendency. The cerebral Bengali t and d are marked with a dot underneath, t and d.

The c is pronounced as the ch in cheese. The j as in joy.

The y as in yea.

The different sibilants of the Sanskrit alphabet have lost their difference in pronunciation and are all pronounced sh as in shot. Hence no differentiation has been made in the transcription of the text.

The r is slightly rolled. .

r is a cerebral r against the ridge behind the teeth.

In the consonants with aspiration like kh, the h is definitely audible after the basic consonant has been pronounced.

In the prayer "Rama Raghava" one can either use the Sanskrit pronunciation and sing "raksha" or the modern Bengali "rokhkho".

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<;RI CHAIT ANY A MAHAPRABHU

There is a tendency in the West to regard Bengal merely as a province of what we used to know until recently under the name of British India and to forget that this so-called province is really a country by itself, with round about fifty million inhabitants, with its own language, culture and history. To its inhabitants Bengal is as different and distinct from 'the neighbouring Bihar as to us Holland is from Germany. I have heard a mother in Calcutta saying that she had to send rice to her son abroad, as he could get no decent food. In the course of the conversation it became clear that the son in question was working in Bihar, only a few hours by train from his native place. His mother, however, felt this just as much "being abroad" as a Dutch mother - I am speaking of normal conditions - whose son would have found work in Cologne or Hamburg. The cultural unity 'between East and West Bengal, now in the Dominion of Pakistan and in the Dominion of India, is immeasurably greater than that between Bengal and Bihar, now both belonging to India.

It is strange to think that the separation of E. and W. Bengal, merely into two different provinces, not into two Dominions, to which Lord Curzon took the initiative at the beginning of this century, really was one of the first causes of armed opposition to England. To this opposition we owe the now so famous personality of the saint Aurobindo Ghose. He had to flee for his life to French India on account of his too intimate connection with a terrorist plot, organised as a protest against the very

eparation for which in our days the Muslim League has moved Heaven and Earth. Lord Curzon's attempt had to be abandoned after a few years as being unworkable.

In truth, from the cultural point of view (I am not speaking about economics) it is impossible to visualise W. Bengal separately from E. Bengal. The two parts are inextricably connected. All the important families have their cultural ties with both parts of the country. The Muslims of East Bengal belong to the same race and - strange to say - have largely the same traditions as the Hindus of West Bengal. Just under the surface of their Muslim religion are strains of Buddhism and even Hinduism that colour their whole being.

If there is any justification in the claims of racial difference Pakistan made, one should rather look towards the East for those foreign elements, to the peoples of Tibet, Burma and the tribes of Assam whose religion is not Islam, but Buddhism and Animism, and not towards the West, to the foreign Muslim invaders. Those may still be strongly traceable in the Panjab, but they had long lost their racial purity when they had penetrated as far East as E. Bengal.

It is a fact that Islam has had a very strong cultural influence -which I shall have occasion to mention later - but ethnologically and

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anthropologically the religion of E. Bengal has no importance whatsoever. The Muslims of East Bengal are the same people as the Hindus of West Bengal. Racially the land is one.

Of the culture of this immense country we in the West know deplorably little. We may have become conscious of its existence to some extent through the ,personality of Rabindranath Tagore whose characteristics were typically Bengali, but we hardly know anything of what preceded him.

I remember clearly how, on our way to Santiniketan in the year 1925, we spent some time in London and the late professor of Bengali at the School of Oriental Studies, Sutton Page, asked me whether I had ever heard of Ohaitanya. I had to confess my ignorance, whereupon he remarked that it was impossible to understand the culture of Bengal or even Rabindranath Tagore without Chaitanya.

The longer one stays in Bengal the more strongly one perceives the truth of that statement. Evidently one notices his influence strongest among the Vaishnavas who form a considerable percentage of the population of the province, but even among the Shaivas - not in their gory sacrifices, of course, but, for instance, in their religious literature - one repeatedly notices Chaitanya's influence.

One hears even the term "Kali-Kirtan" applied to songs in which the Goddess Kali is worshipped in a mystical way. The whole body of the Ram Prasadi songs, - belonging to this division of religious poetry, called after the poet-singer Ram Prasad - is unthinkable without the Vaishnava tradition of Kirtan.

Originally Kirtan means especially the worship of Krishna in song, and Kirtan as we know it to-day in Bengal has undoubtedly been shaped and developed under the influence of Chaitanya. His personality cannot be separated from this most important cultural and religious phenomenon. As I hope to explain to you in the course of this lecture, Kirtan is linked with the life and personality of this religious reformer- in a remarkable and inextricable way.

Chaitanya was not only a human being whose whole life was steeped in the love and the ideal of Krishna, but also a person whom his followers began to identify with Krishna, already during his life-time. It does not matter in the least how we consider his personality, his life and the historical happenings connected with him, or whether we consider that he really was mad, as some modern writers maintain. What really matters is, that for the Vaishnavas of Bengal he is identical with the central object of their worship, Krishna, that for them lie is a new incarnation of the same divine principle that former ages had known in the shape of Krishna, the shepherd, beloved of Radha, in the groves of Brindavan, and the king of Mathura. Symbolically speaking the latter

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aspect means God, t.he Ruler of the Universe, the former the beloved of the human soul, Radha.

The only thing an outsider can attempt, when coming face to face with this belief of the Vaishnavas of Bengal, a belief that has the strength of a dogma, is to try to understand it and accept it as a fact.

Since it is- widely and commonly accepted in India that in times of great misery and stress the Divine Essence takes on an incarnation to bring succour and help to humanity, there is nothing strange in a reincarnation of Krishna at a time when the world badly needed a Saviour. On the basis of this generally accepted tenet the gradual deification of Chaitanya was a natural development.

It cannot be doubted that at the time of Chaitanya's birth, towards the end of the 15th century (1486), the country was in a very unhappy state. The Muslim rule was oppressive and the authorities despised and obstructed the Hindu religion to which, in one form or another, certainly 90 % of their subjects belonged. Hinduism itself was not in a very flourishing condition in those days either. In its struggle with Buddhism for supremacy it had adopted the most rigid formalism imaginable, a system in which the Brahmins had assumed absolute power in the spiritual as well as in the worldly sense of the word. Their position was strengthened by the strictest maintainance of the rules of caste which did not leave any hope of salvation to a non-Brahmin.

On the other hand Hinduism had borrowed freely from all sorts of popular beliefs with innumerable gods and goddesses worshipped in the villages from times immemoriaL It had slightly altered those old deities, enough to fit them into the hospitable Hindu Pantheon, for instance by describing them as one or the other aspect of one of the principal Hindu Gods. T·here is little doubt that, among others, the Goddess Kali with her ritual of sanguinary offerings originally was one of those village or tribal deities.

During the later and last centuries of the existence of Buddhism in India we see furthermore the development of various rather depraved religious forms which remained alive well after the disappearance of Buddhism as such from Indian soiL

So the end of the 15th century shows on the one hand the stifling tyranny of the Brahmin class, denying progress to all other strata of society, and on the other hand a welter of popular beliefs, in which a striving soul also did not find much encouragement. Some of the schools of the so-called left-hand of Tantrism, which extolled the female energy of Shiva, often in a most realistic fashion, found a great many adherents. This does not mean to say that Tantrism as such does not contain high and great ideas and ideals, because the opposite is true, both from the philosophical and from the mystical point of view. Still, coarse and

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sensuous rites were very prominent and had a depraving influence on the spiritual life of the people.

, In the intellectual field the scholars - that is to say the Brahmins of the different schools - amused themselves with hairsplitting discussions on philosophical and grammatical questions, a real scholastic orgy. Navadvip, the birthplace of the future reformer of the religious life of Bengal, situated on the banks of the Ganges some 60 odd miles upstream from where we now find Calcutta, was a great centre of learning and especially of a very flourishing school of logic and grammar. The studies were, of course, conducted in Sanskrit, and the fame of the city was so great that students from all over India used ,to take their courses there and it was considered to be an honour to teach in one of its schools. One may thus safely say Navadvip, at the time of Chaintanya's birth, was a real cultural centre in the sense of the strictly orthodox Hinduism of the time.

From this short sketch it will be clear that there was not much hope for the ordinary man in any direction. Scholarship and the posts of honour and social importance that went with it, were the prerogative of the Brahmin caste. For the non-Brahmin there remained the choice between one of the more or less depraved popular religions, or Islam, a religion which seemed to promise at least freedom from spiritual serfdom

and liberation from social stigmata. .

I often wonder to what extent the central dogma of Islam, namely the absolute equality of each individual before the Face of God, has influenced the very widespread religious renaissance of Hinduism, especially in Northern India, in the course of the 15th and 16th century. It seems remarkable that the majority of these movements were strongly monotheistic and that all of them had a pronouncedly mystical as well as a democratic character, insofar as the human soul, indepedently from the social position of its mundane vehicle, had direct access to its Maker, to the one and only and eternal Divine Principle.

It is true, no doubt, that one finds monotheistic tendencies in Hinduism, centuries before the advent of Islam, and that, after the absolute monism of <;ankara - that definitely did not shake the supremacy of the Brahmins -, the qualified monism of Ramanuja certainly carried within itself the seeds' of the mystical development that would show such abundant fruits in the days of Mira Bai, Nanak, Ramananda, Sur Das, Kabir and Chaitanya - to mention only a few names -, in conjunction with the development of the conception of Bhakti, that is to say the surrender to God in Love, which seems to have been the strongest impulse in the teaching of all those mystics.

It is only in the North of India that we find the full realisation of this equality of each individual before the Face of God, independent

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from caste or social position. Mira Bai forgets her royal privileges in order to sing and dance with the other devotees; Guru Nanak abolishes caste distinctions in his mystical brotherhood; Kabir Das, Hindu by birth - according to the legend - but Muslim by education, cares nothing for caste; Ramananda, whom Kabir acknowledged as his preceptor, had strong lin.ks with the teachings of Ramanuja, and was originally tied hand and foot to the caste-prejudices of Southern India. Still he tears himself away from all those limitations and embraces a sweeper whom he encounters on the way back from his holy ablutions in the Ganges and accepts him as his disciple.

The reason why Chaitanya is considered as a Saviour among his followers is largely that he considered each human being unconditionally worthy of God and able to aproach Him without an intricate and unavoidable ritual with innumerable ceremonies, sacrifices and offerings. Among his followers we find men and women of high and low birth, Hindus and converted Muslims, and finally, owing to the unrelenting efforts of his most beloved disciple Nitay - or, officially, Nityananda - even the whole community of despised and destitute descendants of the former Buddhist monks and nuns, the Bhikshus and Bhikshukis.

His preaching that it is sufficient to approach God with loving surrender in one's heart - with Bhakti in short - was a blessing and a salvation to millions who never would have found God otherwise. And his words were not addressed to indifferent ears. The common man in India has a very strong religious sense. The masses felt that their way to God was barred and that the best they could hope for was that they could be saved from the miseries of this earthly existence after a long succession of future births, if they conformed to the strict injunctions of the Brahmins. Chaitanya offered them hope and support in this life and immediately: the never diminishing strength of contact with the source of Divine Energy, the source of happiness.

In the course of his life - of which I hope to give you a short outline in a minute - Chaitanya gained the conviction that the singing of the Name of Krishn.a with complete surrender, with Bhakti, was the way to Salvation. To this way of Salvation he turned with ever increasing devotion and intensity.

It seems to me that this singing has two aspects. To begin with the devotion itself and the fervour of surrender have a purifying and invigorating influence which one may call the subjective aspect. Secondly we find what one may call the objective aspect, namely the immanent power of the Name, independent of the use one makes of it, whether singing or otherwise. This power of the Name as such we do not perhaps recognise immediately, but it is abundantly present all the same in our Christian religion and in the Jewish religion in which it has its roots.

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The name is not just a word, but stands for the thing that is named, it is that thing.

Vishnu says:

"Naham vasami vaikunthe na yogihrdaye ravau madbhakta yatra gayanti tatra tisthami Narada"

"I dwell not in Vaikuntha, nor in the hearts of Yogis or in the sun, Where my bhaktas sing, there dwell I, oh Narada".

(motto of the Journal of the Music Academy of Madras)

Pronouncements in the same spirit are also put in Shiva's mouth.

When one sings the name in the right way and with the right attitude of mind, one is in the presence of the power designated by that name. There is consequently nothing strange in the fact that a man who beIieved perfectly and without hesitation in the God whose name he preached, maintained that the singing of the name of that God would bring salvation to the singers and that that was true not only for the present and the future, but that that had been the case from the -beginning of Time.

Allow me to illustrate this principle, the pivot of the teachings of Chaitanaya, with a song composed by a sadhu of our own days, who follows the footsteps of Chaitanya by preaching the singing of the Holy Name as the way to salvation.

He says:

Oh mind

Dance and spread your arms And sing the Name of God Sing Hari once.

The birds and beasts wake up and sing Once ev'ry watch

How then should. you, created human, Yet still remain unconscious?

The Gods themselves

Yea Brahma, Shiva, Narada

Ceaselessly fill their mind with Hari's Name

Of which the power heals all illness of the world. Prahlad - you know it - thus was saved from the fire And Vicvanath escaped his death

When swallowing the poison of the world If you neglect the Name

Stark danger looms

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When the great crossing comes and you stand all alone. Remember well the Name

And dance and spread your arms Sing Hari, oh, sing Hari.

(Sadhu Baba 1943)

You will have noticed that in this poem not only human beings, but also animals and birds are portrayed as having perception of the Divine power. "The birds and beasts wake up and sing once ev'ry watch". This mirrors a popular belief in Bengal that animals do not sleep uninterruptedly, even .during the night, but stir and call out at least once during every period of three hours in which the 24 hours of the day are divided.

Quite in accordance with the monotheistic trend of the faith we are treating, is the recognition of the several outward manifestations of the One Divine Principle in the different Gods of the Hindu pantheon, with the understanding that each of them is dependent on it. The adherents of this sect call the Divine Principle "Hari" (or Vishnu, or Krishna).

Shiva in his aspect of Vicvanath, the Protector of the Universe, had consequently to identify himself with this Principle (Hari) by remembering the Name, in order to escape destruction when he swallowed the poison of the world which had appeared in the process of the churning of the world-ocean by Gods and Demons to obtain the food of Immortality (Amrtamanthana).

Prahlad - or, as it is pronounced, Pralhad - was a young devotee of Hari who suffered endless persecution from his family in their attempts to deflect him from the course of his steadfast worship .

. . . . nece nece bahu tule .... see appendix, noted down as sung by S. S. Chatterji.

One should, however, not think that Chaitanya was the first to preach the worship of Krishna and Radha or the singing of the Name. His principal function was to give direction to the latent urge of the people, to' express their longings for them and, above all, to inspire them to bring forth the best that was in them.

This he achieved mainly through the strength of his personality, for, strange to say, he himself was neither poet nor author. It is almost unbelievable that he inspired his own and the subsequent generations merely through his personality and the atmosphere it created. He fructified the capacities of scholars, poets and musicians, so that they produced the very best that was in them. He could direct and change the lives of countless people in every stratum of society and all this without being

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a preacher, a law-giver or even the founder of a sect. As a matter of fact he was averse to all these activities.

Let me give you two examples of religious music attributed to Chaitanya and certainly dating back to his days.

The first is a prayer in very simple words:

"Rama Raghava raksa mam Krsna Kecava trahi mam"

"Ram a of Raghu's race protect me, Krishna with the abundant locks save me".

It could not be simpler. According to tradition these words were usually sung by the faithful when they were gathered together before starting out on a procession through the streets of Navadvip. These "nagar kirtan" processions were something new and special, inaugurated by Ohaitanya, which won many new adherents for his movement, but also excited most violent opposition.

Before starting out all the participants used to stand up and sing a prayer such as the one just mentioned. This singing when standing up is called "utthanda Kirtan" .

. . . . Rama Raghava,

see appendix, noted down as sung by S. S. Chatterji.

Another example of a tradition dating back to Chaitanya himself is a certain arrangement of the names of Krishna, Rama and Hari, frequently sung nowadays. It is, for instance, the one exclusively used by the sadhu whose song on the power of the Name you have heard. In the deepest sense the words Krishna, Rama and Hari are synonyms. Hari - as I said before - represents the Divine Principle non-incarnate. Rama and Krishna are incarnations of the same essence in this world; Rama, the ideal of manly virtue, the slayer of the demon-king Ravana and the bringer of an era of perfect justice; Krishna, of course, the divine shepherd, sporting in the groves of Brindavan whom it is easy to take in a mystical sense. Hence the importance of the combination of these three names, Hari is connected with both Rama and Krishna separately to indicate either their dependence on the Divine Principle or the fact that they are manifestations of it.

The sequence is:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

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This sequence can be sung to any raga or to any time, according to the inspiration of the singer and be continued as long as the inspiration lasts, or as long as he has undertaken to sing, which, under certain con-

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ditions, may be as long as 72 hours uninterruptedly. Great importance is attached to the singing being uninterrupted. In the case of a period of 72 hours it is, of course, done in relays, each successive group taking over without causing any hiatus at all.

.... Hare Krishna, in Raga Khambaj,

see appendix, noted down as sung by S. S. Chatterji.

It is high time now to tell you something about the life of this man who exercises such immense power over the lives of the people of Bengal, even to-day. It is not easy for an outsider to gauge how deep this influence is in the villages and also in the cities. It was a revelation to us, when we were invited, one afternoon, to a play that treated an episode of the life of Chaitanya. The performance was to he held in a dismal industrial suburb of Calcutta, called Howrah, and the play was entitled "Nodyer Nimay". Nodyer means from Navadvip and Nimay was the name the neighbours gave to the 'beautiful child Chaitanya when he played in their midst. It means "the shortlived" a name given to him proba:bly to ward off the cruel fate that had dragged his six or eight infant sisters to the grave in early childhood before he was born 1). His parents had just him and an elder brother. It is under the name Nimay that he is lovingly known among his followers.

Nodyer Nimay is of course a piece that stretches over several days, each successive episode dealing with another chapter of his life. The remarkable feature about the performance to which we were invited was, that the whole cast were amateurs for whom the performance was an act of faith. The piece was scheduled to last six or seven hours. One had the feeling of being transported back a few centuries. The performance had been arranged in the centre of a courtyard of a big house in a side-lane. The audience sat all around in the yard and in front of every window and on every scrap of balcony giving on it, certainly several thousands of men, women and children, leaving barely sufficient space in the middle for the musicians to sit and certainly not for the actors to act. There were no properties at all and the actors had to force their way through the packed spectators to reach the few square feet in the middle that had to serve as a stage. Their costumes were on traditional line's and certainly not beautiful, but the acting took one's breath away.

The chapter that was being performed treated the period of Chaitanya's life in which he says good-bye to the world and leaves his wife,

1) This is the explanation given by Melville T. Kennedy, M.A. in 'The Chaitanya Movement", Oxford Univ. Press 1925, page 14. The dictionary derives the name from the word "nim" of Persian origin which means half, and records that it was the naine .given to Chaitanyadev by his mother.

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mother and friends in order to become a sannyasi, never more to taste the comforts and the pleasure of home, - a man possessed by God, apt to fall into a religious trance at any moment.

The man who portrayed Nimay, in daily life a clerk in a Calcutta printing press, did not act his part, he lived it. After one of his trances he had to be carried away: a trembling human soul in all its nakedness.

His friend and follower Nitay, or Nityananda, the great propagator of Chaitanya's Nam Kirtan, was blessed with a strong and melodious voice and increased the emotions of the audience by his lyrical songs which fitted quite naturally into the whole structure. The audience swam in waves of emotion and ecstasy and it was then we became aware how absolutely Chaitanya embodies the inexhaustible capacity for emotion and the deeply devotional character of the people of Bengal.

The era in which he was born must have known great spiritual needs and thus it is very natural that his birth came to be considered as a divine act of Mercy, or rather as an act of mercy of God Himself in becoming incarnate to save the souls of suffering humanity.

All the incidents of the play were strictly in accordance with the legend that grew up around Chaitanya and most probably also with the real history of his life which is fairly well known, even from contemporary sources.

He was born of Brahmin parents on the day of the full moon of the month of February 1486. His father is not very prominent in the story of his life. He died when the boy was still fairly young. On the other hand, the part which his mother <;achi plays is paramount. His love for and attachment to her and her overwhelming grief when he - her second son - was also taken away from her and was lost to the world just as irrevocably as if he had died in infancy like his sisters, - a blow that struck her only a short while after her eldest son had left home to become a sannyasi, .... these are the subjects of innumerable songs. Her sorrow at the separation from her beloved son Chaitanya when he was only 25 years of age is usually compared with that of Krishna's fostermother Yacoda at the time of Krishna's departure from Brindavan to go to Mathura.

In connection with the acceptance of Chaitanya as an incarnation of Krishna, we find a strong tendency to draw parallels between his life in Navadvip and that of Krishna in Brindavan, as we find it described in the holy books of the Vaishnavas, notably the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana.

The child received the name of Vicvambar at the time of his birth but that name is practically unknown. In singing one refers usually to Nimay or Gaur or Gauranga, meaning the light-coloured one, on account of his exceptionally fair skin. It had the colour of light gold, according to the legend, as if Krishna had adopted Radha's complexion. Indeed we

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find a school of thought which accepts Chaitanya as an incarnation of both Krishna and Radha. The word Chaitanya itself means intelligence or perception, or designates God as the source of all sensation or perception. It also means knowledge. Thus it refers to the person of the reformer in his aspect of possessor of divine perception and knowledge of the essence of God.

He is always portrayed as a playful and healthy child, perhaps partly on account of the necessary parallelism with Krishna and his pranks in the house of his fostermother and the villages Gokul and Brindavan. In addition to these qualities he is said to have been possessed by a thirst for learning and to have had a more than normal intelligence. He soon acquired all that was to be learnt in the field of Sanskrit philosophy and grammar and so became a leading scholar in the city of his birth which prided itself with so much justification on its high standards of learning. He did not give signs of any special religious inclination in spite of the fact that he was in constant touch with religion and devotion in the house of his parents who were both truly religious and hospitable, keeping open house for wandering teachers and preachers of the Vaishnava school.

His education was soon complete and he opened a school of his own, in spite of his tender age: he was only fifteen years old. He also married and thus began the life of a normal householder and scholar with all the resulting honour.

About that time he undertook his first journey to Assam - Sylhet and other places - the land whence his parents had come to settle in Navadvip and where his grandfather and several other relatives were still living. During his absence his wife died, but he married again and this second wife, Vishnupriya, is very prominent in the story of his later life, when we find her 'sharing the sorrow of his mother at his becoming a sannyasi. Her unfailing devotion to the man who had been her husband and the active part she played in the subsequent forming of the sect are related in detail.

For a few years, till 1508, that is to say when he was about twenty years of age, he devoted himself entirely to what the world demanded of him, recognised as one of the most prominent scholars of the city. He was strikingly beautiful with his fair skin and his wavy long black hair. People loved him as much for his beauty as for his intelligence. Already during this period he seems to have had a great influence over people, owing to his strong personality. His parental home was - as I indicated above - always open to all kinds of religious visitors and we may safely assume that these different teachers tried hard to win the promising young man for their respective schools and to deflect him from his purely worldly and intellectual pursuits. But they had no success. It is told that a certain Vaishnava ascetic, called Icvara Puri, admonished

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him, but that he amused himself by picking holes III the grammar and syntax of the sentences of the old holy man.

His conversion, the religious shock that changed his whole life, took place in the above mentioned year 1508, during a visit to Gaya, a holy city higher up the Ganges which he visited in connection with a ceremony to the memory of his deceased father. While there he met again the same Icvara Puri, whom he had ridiculed some time previously. It is not known what exactly happened, but it is sure that he came back an entirely changed man. The "Caitanya Caritamrta" which contains a detailed biography based on contemporary data, gives the following description of him at his return from Gaya P): "He is thoroughly changed; he no longer cares to comb his beautiful curling hair; his mother follows him with wistful eyes but he talks not with her and cries "Oh God", and sees visions of Him in the clouds; he runs with his hands outstretched and eyes full of tears to catch the Unseen; despising his soft couch and white bed he sleeps on the bare earth; he no longer wears his gold chains, earrings and lockets nor the fine Krishnakeli cloth of silk with black borders; he neither takes his bath nor does he eat his usual meals; he no longer worships gods and goddesses nor does he recite the sacred hymns as prescribed by the castras, but he weeps and cries; "Oh God, do not hide your face from me". (C.C. pp 52-53)

Still it was not then that he said good-bye to the world just yet. He only took that decision two years later, in 1510. Between this sudden change and the final breaking with the world lie two short years, which, however, are of the utmost importance to the religious life of Bengal. During this period he especially cherished the singing of Kirtan, the singing of the Name during the processions through the city and during the nightly gatherings in the courtyard of a certain rich Brahmin and follower of his, Crivasa. At these gatherings it was not only the Name that was sung, but also lyrical poems composed 'by worshippers of Krishna and Radha from bygone ages, such as Jayadeva whose Gitagovinda is still one of the most famous products of the later Sanskrit literature, (If Vidyapati and Chandidas, who had lived and sung during the generations immediately preceding that of Chaintanya himself and had used the popular language for their poems, not Sanskrit. Singing the Name and these poems himself and listening to them being sung was Chaitanya's only solace and happiness in those days. Very soon songs were added that had been composed in his own immediate surroundings which marked the beginnings of the strong new life that was to flower under his inspiration.

Sometimes pieces were performed containing episodes of the love of Krishna and Radha in which he took part. He used to identify himself

2) Melville T. Kennedy, M.A. 'The Chaitanya Movement", page 19.

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to such an extent with the character he portrayed that not even his own mother could recognise him.

It seems quite certain that all these activities laid the foundation for the later development of the Lila Kirtan to which Bengal owes the best of her lyrical poems and which, even in our days, gives an outlet to a refined and intricate, but most certainly very deep, religious feeling, not equalled in any other part of India.

The compelling urge to go and visit Brindavan grew ever more strongly in the heart of Chaitanya, the urge to see and touch the soil where his God had lived and played. But the ties of family and friends. kept him back. Those ties became more and more irksome and finally he broke them all and took the vow of sannyasa, which meant a complete break with the world. He shaved his beautiful black hair and remained a wandering ascetic without home or hearth for the twenty-four years

that remained of his earthly life. .

But even then he was unable to fulfil the wish of his heart, to go and live in Brindavan. True to a promise his mother had exacted from him some time previously, he even renounced that wish and took Puri in Orissa as his headquarters, near the great temple of Krishna Jagannatha. There it was at least possible for the people of his city to come and visit him once a year and console themselves for the loss of his presence by a short contact with his radiant personality.

Brindavan, however, was never out of his thoughts. At that time it had practically disappeared from the face of the earth and the spot .where it was said to have been was covered with thick jungle. Sometime even before he had said farewell to the world, he had prevailed upon a great friend and follower of his, called Lokanath Goswami, to go there and start the great work of reclaiming the site of Brindavan itself and other holy places connected with theIegend-of Krishna and Radha. Some time later 'he gave the same command to two other devoted disciples, Rup and Sanatan, two Brahmins of Mahratta descent who had occupied very high 'positions at the court of the Muslim rulers of Bengal and had even become Muslims themselves. Then they fell under Chaitanya's spell and renounced posts, riches and their new religion, to become. wandering ascetics like their chosen Master. They, obeyed his com.mand, however, and settled in Brindavan where they were joined later by their nephew, Jiv Goswami, and some other devoted, scholarly and pious men. This small group gave their whole lives to the task that had

. been allotted to them and by dint of hard work and never failing research and zeal made Brindavan what it is now, the centre of the Vaishnava cult of the whole of North and even of South India, attracting tens of thousands of pilgrims every year, with hundreds of large and small temples and a safe haven for those who have lost everything in this life, the old and the widows, whose one hope it is to find there solace and a last resting place.

1 )

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1

Only once during his whole lifetime Chaitanya succeeded in reaching the place of his dreams. But the emotion of joy to be at last on the spot where Krishna and Radha had met, proved too much for his already weakened body and his condition became so critical that his friends finally prevailed on him to leave the place. The thought of separation was so unbearable that he fell down unconscious and his friends had to carry him away. He did not regain consciousness before they had progressed a great many miles on the way to Allahabad.

This was, however, by no means the only journey the saint undertook after he had chosen the neighbourhood of the temple of Puri as head-

- quarters. He always returned there until his death in 1534. Meanwhile, with the progress of the years" the thread that tied him to this world became thinner and thinner, until he passed the narrow line that separated him from the next world almost imperceptibly, - a being completely absorbed in heavenly visions in which he saw and heard Krishna. The journeys he undertook covered the greater part of India. It is certain that his presence exercised great influence in Malabar, and not improbable that the custom which we find even in our days, of the singing, mostly :by women, of verses from the Gitagovinda (astapadis) at the time of the evening prayer, dates from the days of his visit to that country. He also made a great impression in the Kanarese lands and he contributed materially to the Vaishnava renaissance in South India. It is also very probable that he influenced the work of the much later Mahratta saint, Tukaram, through a succession of teachers.

His influence has been strongest, however, in Bengal, Assam and Orissa. These three provinces each claim him as their own. Orissa does so in the first place on the ground of his ancestry and it is true that his grandfather came from Orissa before settling in Sylhet. In addition to this, much of Chaitanya's later life centred round Puri, Orissa's holy city, and its 'king, Pratapa Rudra, held him in the highest esteem. Bengal is, of course, the land of his 'birth and the greater proportion of his followers belonged to that country. The renaissance he inspired in the field of poetry and philosophy used mainly Bengali as its means of expression and - as I indicated above - he is before anything else the embodiment of the deepest and most characteristic traits of the people of Bengal.

Assam can claim him through the presence of his grandfather and his parents and through the fact that he visited the country at least twice. One finds many songs celebrating him, also outside the field of Kirtan proper. One of them starts:

"Gaur shonar manush, rnoner mon chura"

Oh Gaur, golden Man, crownjuwel of the innermost heart".

The song as a whole is an expression of the deification and worship

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and of the identification with Krishna which started already during his lifetime and has become a dogma among the Vaishnavas of Bengal. It would be difficult to overrate this special aspect, quite apart from the' inspiration he was in general. Chaitanya, or to give him his full name, - (:ri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu - is uppermost in the conscience of the faithful in Bengal and one refers to him in exactly the same terms as one uses in describing Krishna. For one thing it is impossible to sing Lila Kirtan without introducing the songs in praise of Krishna and Radha with a Gaurcandrika, which contains an invocation of (:ri Chaitanya, as one can see from the word Gaur, one of the loving appellations of the Saint.

I did mention the tendency to draw parallels between the life of the saint as represented 'by tradition and that of Krishna. The same tendency we find in the field of the mystical Kirtan songs. The Gaurcandrika gives expression to exactly the shade of feeling which is going to be illustrated in the subsequent Krishna songs.

Let me give you an example. There is one chapter, or pala, which one performs at one Kirtan session, called prarthana 'or prayer, in which Krishna's love is implored. One of the Gaurcandrikas one can chose to preface it starts with the words "When will, at the invocation of Gauranga the body be flooded with the feeling of bliss and when will, when calling "Hari, Hari", the tears stream from the eyes?" (this, between brackets, is no empty figure of speech, the cleansing streams of tears are very frequent when singing Kirtan) "when will Nitay take pity on me (Nitay as the shower of the way) and when will the taint of this world be washed away from me? When shall I be pure and clean? When shall I be able to understand the heavenly couple, Krishna and Radha?"

This hymn is then followed by others which demonstrate the development of the pala in which Krishna is the deity invoked and which includes prayers like the following, inspired by the consciousness of a wasted life. It closes with the singer imploring Krishna not to forsake him but show him mercy just this once. Both the Gaurcandrika I mentioned and this prayer were composed by Narottam Das, one of the most prominent and important poets of the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century 3). The middle stanza of this prayer gives in a few lines the process of identification of Chaitanya and the principal characters of his surroundings with Krishna and the persons around him. Krishna himself is, of course, Chaitanya, born in Navadvip to preach the mercy

. of the holy Name from house to house. Balarama, Krishna's elder

3) Narottam Das was instrumental in organising the famous Kheturi Mela,> a religious gathering at Kheturi in Rajshahi, in the year 1615, at which the first attempts were made at codifying the varying and sometimes conflicting traditions of the sect, also with regard to Kirtan music and the style of singing.

294

brother, is re-incarnated in Nitay, Chaitanya's disciple who did more than anyone else to lift up the poor and destitute through the power of the Name.

The last strophe contains the prayer: "0 Lord, Nanda's son, united with the daughter of Vrsabhanu, have pity this once. Narottam Das says: do not withdraw Thy lovely red feet from me. Outside Thee what is there for us?"

This example illustrates how the personality of Chaitanya, by introducing each separate performance of Kirtan, serves as a filter for the feelings of the devotees. In this way it prevents, or at least diminishes

. the danger of a sensuous explanation of the love of Krishna and Radha.

This protection against the intrusion of the senses into the field of mystical symbols and experiences we owe to Chaitanya. That this is not an imaginary danger anyone knows who has but cast an occasional eye in the poems - especially those of Chandidas and Vidyapati, Chaitanya's predecessors. The dividing Iine between sensual and mystical love becomes extremely thin from time to time. Chaitanya and his personality have the puwer to lift the ordinary human being above his senses. When the spirit approaches the material of the songs of Kirtan through Chaitanya as he is depicted in the Gaurcandrika, it prepares itself for the things that are to follow, away from the world of the senses and sensuousness.

Let me finish by giving you a short folksong which will show you how deeply he lives in the mind of the people:

"I know it is Gaur who goes there, oh my girlfriends.

I had never seen him before but I had heard his virtues described. Tell me, why has he stolen my mind?

Seeing his beauty I forgot joy and sorrow

I lost myself and I brought shame on my family I was as bereft of my senses.

I had never seen him before <but I had heard his virtues described. Tell me why has he stolen my mind?

I know it is Gaur who goes there .

. . . . oi bujhi jay Gora ....

see appendix, noted down as sung by S. S. Chatterji.

I hope this outline has given you an idea of the most remarkable figure of Chaitanya who, without ever having written anything himself, has dominated the religious life of his people for nearly fourhundred years through the compelling strength of his personality alone.

Amsterdam, 16 February 1948.

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The book mentioned in the footnotes: 'The Chaitanya Movement, a study of the Vaishnavism of Bengal" by Melville T. Kennedy, M.A. Oxford University Press, 1925, contains, apart from its impartial account of the history of the saint and the movement, a very useful bibliography which opens the way for further penetration into the field to students in the West.

TEXT OF SONGS.

nece nece bahu tule Hori bol re mon

dancing dancing arms uplifting Hari sing, oh Mind.

Hori bol re mon aek bar Hori bol re mon Hari sing, oh Mind, once, Hari sing, OhMind.

Poshu pakhi tara 0 shobe priihore prohore jage

beasts birds they too all in watch after watch wake up.

o tui manob hoye kaemon kore roile oceton

oh Thou, human having become, how wouldst remain unconscious.

Bromha Shibo Nariidadi, oi nam jope nirobodhi

Brahma, Shiva, Narada and so on, that Name recite without stopping,

bh6bo roger mohaushudhi -Hori namo dhon

Of world-illness great remedy Hari's Name's riches. ,

Jano na re namer gune Prolhad na morloti) agune

You know, dont you, through Name's virtue Prahl ad not died III fire.

Bishshonather bishopane na holo moron

at Vicvanath's poison drinking not there was death.

Name jodi koro haela thaekbi re mon parer baela

Name if you neglect you will he deluded, Oh Mind, at crossing time.

Shonger shongi keu hebe na

Of thine own with you none will be

nam koro shshoron Hori bol re mon

Name do recall in mind, Hari say, on Mind.

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Rama Ragha va raksa mam

Rama of Raghu's race protect me.

Krishna Kecava trahi marn.

Krishna with abundant locks, save me.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

Oi bujhi jay Gora 010 shokhi

There, I understand, goes Gaur, 0 my girl-friends

O tar rup daekhini gun shunechilo

Oh, his beauty not I have seen, his virtues I have heard

bol she kaeno mor mon chora Say, he how mind mine has stolen?

oi rupete noyon· diye

On his beauty eyes having set

shukho dukho pashoriye

joy and sorrow having forgotten

ami apna khaelam kul mojalam

I myself ate and family disgraced

holam go pagolpara I was indeed mad

297

21

IU ~A lion Ho- ri bol n--

~

4 fit r rD. J p r r I allPJE! !J J I .

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4 gal fmmH J J J I nemiffj I

- t 0 I'I.H 0 - rib 0 1 r e tI 0 --- n"!

299

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De-c. ni-ci bl-bl- ta-lt Ho-d bolr. aon ~~

& r J r alft r a bl4ft 10 1 r r r r 1

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_Ho-rl na-IO' dho n Ho-ri bol-r.

a J_tmiJ®l J J J J I r atc k (--

bi-sho-pa-ne-na bo-lollo-ro -~--

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_ nIp r ;; 1 had n a lor 1 0 ( i ) a-g u - 0 e B ish s h 0- nat her

4 E [0 ufr J 'F r I dYer I

300

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"":"'. Huri bol r. Ii ---. n.-c·, n.-c,

bahu -ful. Horibolre ••• hu jo-df

,...~

& a HI bWr I r P F I rt _I

k;-r,hae- la_tbae'k-bi r •• onparlrbal - - -

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roo n.Horl bolre Ie ~n

II 8 -c 8 n 8 - C 8 b'a - h u - t u ·1 8 H ~ - rib ° 1 r,

G II

'" Ion

301

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Ra-Ia Ra gha-v8--

itt'!m g D W l!.J1j n l' '" I

Ra la .Ra .gha-Y8

&J1 F en mu rn :11 r QIftt a

9 h a - - - b a - - - K r ish na - - - - It.--

(far aU ED 11] Foom ~HE~

sba.-ba tra-hila I

$ tiiW _ J1tV2 ,;1) E

Ra-- la--~Ra--ghaya--

302

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Kd shno --_ Ho-·re HO'-I'" ------

if} 11; ; 1] Elha ~ ~n 11 J J ~ ~'j"

II D - I' , R a - I 0 H 0 - r , . R a - i 0 Rrf}1 ~Q R 8 1"0 H 0 r ,

tt: 1\ Uf. JI. .2 71~ S

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- H a - r, H.o - r a H 0 - r 8 II ~ - r e K r ish no ~H -I"

6.

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Folksong; .sIJf19, by S.S.C hat 'fez) !.JtI!.J (g1/6

- 0 tal" - b 0 I -.r 11, k 81- n ; • or i' - .• -

· '~r1hmlt 1 f , Bile nth & fJ I

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it 0 Eij alUW· [iiilBf:llfr, til:

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ho -laD 9D PD-

304

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-gol ,I-r. a .I-gol pa-ra 0 tar rup d ••

dt k ~ f 1 r f Wei Fe lfJ _I

305

A. A. BAKE. c« Chaitany~Mahapr8bhr.i. 1948,26 p.

W. CALAND en A. A. FOKKER, Drie oude Portugeesche verhandelingen over het Hindoeisme toegelicht en vertesld: met toevoegsels. 1915, 216 p. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

P. V. VAN STEIN CALLENFELS. De lnscriptie van Soekeboemi. 1934,

16 p. met 1 plaat. .

R. ,H. TH. FRIEDRICH, Bemerkungen abel' Bilder des lndischen Thierkreises nach elt-ievenischen Monumenten. 1863, 7 p. . . .

J. GRONEMAN en J. P. N. LAND, De Gamelan te Jogjacartit met eene voorrede over onze kennis del' [eoeensche muziek. 1890, 125 p.

met 1 plaat . . . .

H. KERN, Over eenige Dude Senskritopschrilten van 't Meleische schiereilend. 1884, 8 p, . .

De Fidjitaal verqeleken met here ueru/enten in lndonesie en Polunesie, 1886, 242' p.

----, Over de verrnenqinq van Ciwaisme en Buddhisme op Java, naar eenleidinq van het oud-leoeensch: Sutesome: 1888, 36 p. .

Over den eenhe] eener Buddhistische inscriptie uit Bettembenq.

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N, J. KROM, Een Sumetreensche inscriptie van koning Krteneqere. 1916,

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----:," De ondergang van Criwijaya,; avec resume en fran{:ais. 1926,

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-;----, Het Karmawibhangga op Bsrebudur. 1933, 69 p.

----" De heiligdommen van Pelembenq; 1938, 27 p. . .

C. LEEMANS, Over metalen beeldies uit Java. 1857, 16 p,

Over oudheidkundige onderzoekinqen en ontdeTckingen op Java.

1865, 46 p. . . . .

----, Opmerkinqeti over de uiiqee] van het wel'k Boro-Boedoer op

het eilend Java. 1874, 11 p. . ...... .

W. H. RASSERS, lnleidinq tot een bestudeerinq van de Javaansche his. 1938\ 59 p. met 3 platen . .

J. S. SPEYER. Studies about the KatMsaritsagara. 1908, 180 p. .

W. P. STUTTERHEIM, lets over Pree-Hinduistische bijzettinqsqebtuiken op Java. 1939, 36 p. . . . . . . . .

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f 1.25

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fO.40 f1.fO.6O f 1.25

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