How Krishna bhakti flourished in the shadow of

Islam
Story by Devdutt Pattanaik • Yesterday 8:02 am

C haitanya, known to his followers as Mahaprabhu (great lord, incarnation of

Krishna), popularised the worship of Krishna with Radha and the circular dance of
Raas Leela in India.

He lived five centuries ago in the 15-16th century. This period was an extremely
violent one. To the north, from Gujarat through Delhi and Bengal were Muslim
sultanates. To the south, in Odisha and Deccan, were the Hindu kingdoms of the
Gajapatis and Vijaynagar.

The temple in Puri, built by Chodaganga kings in the 12th century, was attacked
repeatedly by Muslim warlords from Bengal. In the 15th century, the Chodaganga
kings were replaced by Gajapati Suryavamsi kings, who carried on the fight.

The fight was not just with the Muslim kings in the north but also with the Hindu
kings of the south. All this must be considered when we want to appreciate the
rise of both the geographical Vrindavan near Mathura in the 16th century and the
mystical Vrindavan in Rajasthan and Bengal in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Ecstasy in midst of conflict

It all began at Jagannath temple in Puri, during the rath yatra festivities. Every
year giant chariots would take the deity Jagannath up a road to the garden-
temple of Gundicha. He would be taken without his consort, Lakshmi. At the
garden-temple he would participate in the Raas Leela celebrations with
milkmaids and return home, after a ritual mock fight with his official consort.

During the ritual, the temple priests would sing the Sanskrit song of Jayadev,
composed in the Puri temple in the 12th century. Known as "Gitagovinda", this
song describes the clandestine erotically charged relationship of Krishna and
Radha. It takes place in secret, at night. The song marks the transition from
magical Tantrik occult rituals to emotional Bhakti poetry which happened in the
Puri region.

Before Chaitanya, there was Vidyapati, in the Mithila region, in the 14th century,
who perhaps also inspired by "Gitagovinda", began writing love songs of Krishna
and Radha, in the local vernacular Maithili language, not for devotional reasons,
but for the entertainment of his royal patron Sivasimha and his queens.

Sivasimha referred to Vidyapati as "second Jayadeva". But when Sivasimha lost

his life in a battle against Muslim kings, Vidyapati could no longer write such
romantic poetry. Instead, he composed poetry praising and seeking refuge in
Hindu gods like Shiva and Durga.

Vidyapati’s songs would inspire Chandidas, a Bengali poet, who wrote devotional
songs on the love of Krishna and Radha. These songs of Vidyapati and
Chandidas, along with "Gitagovinda" poetry and rath yatra rituals stimulated
Chaitanya so powerfully that he began seeing visions of Radha and Krishna
dancing in the Raas Leela in Vrindavan.

It led him to institute the practice of public singing and dancing (bhajan and
kirtan) in divine ecstasy in public to the horror of the conservative establishment.
He even travelled to Vrindavan and located spots where encounters of Krishna
and Radha occurred on the banks of the Yamuna.

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As per local legend, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told Gajapati kings of Odisha not to
attack Bengal so the king focussed his attention on his southern rivals. Sadly, in
1512 Kalinga was defeated by the Vijayanagara kings. Fifty years later,
Vijayanagar was itself wiped out by a confederacy of Deccan sultanates.

Soon after Puri was attacked by the northern Afghan kings led by the infamous
Kalapahada (black mountain) and the temple was desecrated. But the temple
managed to survive with innovative rituals such as Nabakalebara, where the
wooden images are recreated every 12-19 years, and the deity’s ‘soul’ is moved
from the old image to the new.
This continues till today. By the 17th century, the Mughals controlled the
highways from Mathura through Bengal to Odisha, enabling pilgrim travel from
Puri to Vrindavan, popularising the worship of Krishna, Radha and the idea of
Raas Leela.

Identifying geographical Vrindavan

While Hindutva ‘historians’ use political tools to convince people that Krishna
lived 5,000 years ago, historical evidence of the Bhagavata cult and early images
of Krishna in Mathura region come only from about 2,000 years ago, where we
are introduced to Krishna and his brother, cowherd-wrestlers, fighting tyrants like
Kansa and Jarasandha. This idea is found in Buddhist and Jain lore too. The idea
of Krishna dancing with milkmaids emerges clearly in the Bhagavat Purana of
10th century. But curiously Vedanta guru Ramanuja who popularised worship of
Vishnu in temples does not refer to it.

About 1,200 years ago, at Prambanan temple in Indonesia, there is an entire

panel telling the story of Krishna, where he is shown as a warrior and hero-god,
with hardly any indication of his relationship to milkmaids (described in Vishnu
Purana) and to Pandavas (described in Mahabharat). This means the idea of the
romantic cowherd Krishna we know today emerged much later, perhaps as late as
the 15th century. Here, Chaitanya played a major role.

The Raas Leela circuit in Vrindavan today, the many gardens and orchards and
sites by the Yamuna, identified with Krishna, were located only by Chaitanya, on
his visit there. He was guided by a mystical vision.

Later, his followers also found images of Krishna that were lost until then. These
images were given names like Govind (lord of cows), Gopala (caretaker of cows),
Radha Raman (one who finds joy in Radha), Madan Mohan (the enchanting
beloved), Banke Bihari (the resident of the forest), Vanamali (who loves garlands
of forest flowers).

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They were worshipped in a new kind of temple that did not have the
characteristic shikhar (spire) in order to avoid the attention of idol-breaking
Muslim warlords. Instead, they had courtyards, where people could gather, sing
and dance.

Chaitanya did not write any scriptures. The intellectual side of his devotion was
composed by his companions and followers who insisted he was a form of
Krishna on earth and that in his body Radha and Krishna merged. This legitimised
the pilgrim spots that Chaitanya had identified as well as his unique form of
worship based on song and dance, which was (theoretically) open to all castes
and communities. It spread beyond Bengal as far as Manipur.

Over time, the popular movement, often at odds with the fish-eating Shakta cults
of Bengal, became highly sanitised and shaped by purity-conscious Brahmin
codes. In Assam, Shankardev popularised Krishna worship but it shunned Radha
and the Raas Leela theme.

Migrating to mystical Vrindavan

As Muslim hostility in the Vrindavan regions increased, in the 18th century, we

find two migrations happening out of the Gangetic heartland. One towards
Rajputana and other towards Bengal.

Many images of Krishna were taken from Vrindavan to the homes of Rajput
chieftains in cities like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota and Udaipur. Here Krishna bhakti was
already powerful.

The 15th century Gujarati poet Narsi Mehta and the 16th century Rajput princess,
Mirabai, had travelled to Vrindavan and experienced the joy of Raas-Leela, and
brought the idea back to Maru-Gurjara regions.

This love-based devotion was quite different from the stark monasticism of Jain
practices that dominated this region. Jains were rivals of Gujarati Vaishnavas in
the royal courts and in mercantile communities. Their Rajput patrons were
worshippers of Shiva and Shakti.

Many Rajputs had given their daughters to Mughal courts for political and
economic reasons and this caused much tension in the land. The Rajput kings
reclaimed their purity by becoming protectors of Krishna temples.
They became patrons of Vitthalnathji who introduced the Pushti-marga bhakti of
Krishna to the Western part of India, where pleasure (music, dance, food, fashion)
was seen as a divine blessing.

This drew many Rajput kings away from the austere Jain communities. To protect
themselves from charges of hedonism, the Vaishnavas established their
superiority through ‘purity’.

Hence, in Udaipur’s Nathdwara, we see images of Krishna but not Radha. In the
local region, we find more songs of Krishna as a child, like Navnitpriya (lover of
buttermilk) and Ladu Gopal (lover of butter balls), than Krishna as a lover.

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Srinivasa took the Chaitanya movement to Bengal where it was patronised by the
Malla kings. Malla kings claimed to be Rajputs. A Rajput king on the way to Puri
abandoned his pregnant wife in Bengal.

The newborn child was discovered by a Brahmin and seemed to have all royal
signs and was declared king in the local region. In the 17th and 18th century,
they built special temples of brick and terracotta which are unique to the Bengali
landscape.

These temples are unique because they are an amalgamation of Muslim and
Hindu ideas. Like a Muslim mosque. It has a courtyard, where people can
congregate and pray and unusual phenomenon, which was not there in earlier
Hindu temples.

The temples have two layers. The lower pillared storey with a corridor around it is
where Krishna is worshipped every day, but there is an upper room called the
ratna, where Krishna images would be perhaps taken a few times a year to
perform certain ceremonies associated with Radha and Krishna.

It must be kept in mind that all through this time, since the 13th century, the
Bengal region was dominated by Muslim kings, first the local sultans, then the
Mughals and eventually the nawabs, before the arrival of the East India Company.
Odisha’s resistance to Muslim rule crumbled in the 16th century. So, when we talk
about Krishna bhakti today, we must remember that much of Krishna bhakti
emerged in the shadow of Muslim rulers, some friendly, many hostile.

How Krishna bhakti flourished in the shadow of Islam (msn.com)