Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume II Part 26

[Footnote 602: Brih. Ar. Upan. III. 7. 2.]

[Footnote 603: Among them are the Man?imanjari, the Madhvavijaya and the Vayustuti, all attributed to a disciple of Madhva and his son.]

CHAPTER x.x.x

LATER VISHNUISM IN NORTH INDIA

1

With the fifteenth century Hinduism enters on a new phase. Sects arise which show the influence of Mohammedanism, sometimes to such an extent that it is hard to say whether they should be cla.s.sed as Hindu or Moslim, and many teachers repudiate caste. Also, whereas in the previous centuries the centre of religious feeling lay in the south, it now shifts to the north. Hinduism had been buffeted but not seriously menaced there: the teachers of the south had not failed to recognize by their pilgrimages the sanct.i.ty and authority of the northern seats of learning: such works as the Gita-govinda testify to the existence there of fervent Vishnuism. But the country had been hara.s.sed by Moslim invasions and unsettled by the vicissitudes of transitory dynasties. The Jains were powerful in Gujarat and Rajputana. In Bengal Saktism and moribund Buddhism were not likely to engender new enthusiasms. But in a few centuries the movements inaugurated in the south increased in extension and strength. Hindus and Mohammedans began to know more of each other, and in the sixteenth century under the tolerant rule of Akbar and his successors the new sects which had been growing were able to consolidate themselves.

After Ramanuja and Madhva, the next great name in the history of Vishnuism, and indeed of Hinduism, is Ramanand. His date is uncertain.[604] He was posterior to Ramanuja, from whose sect he detached himself, and Kabir was his disciple, apparently his immediate disciple. Some traditions give Prayaga as his birthplace, others Melucote, but the north was the scene of his activity. He went on a lengthy pilgrimage, and on his return was accused of having infringed the rules of his sect as to eating, etc., and was excommunicated, but received permission from his Guru to found a new sect. He then settled in Benares and taught there. He wrote no treatise but various hymns ascribed to him are still popular.[605] Though he is not a.s.sociated with any special dogma, yet his teaching is of great importance as marking the origin of a popular religious movement characterized by the use of the vernacular languages instead of Sanskrit, and by a laxity in caste rules culminating in a readiness to admit as equals all worshippers of the true G.o.d.[606] This G.o.d is Rama rather than Kr?ishn?a. I have already pointed out that the worship of Rama as the Supreme Being (to be distinguished from respect for him as a hero) is not early: in fact it appears to begin in the period which we are considering. Of the human forms of the deity Kr?ishn?a was clearly the most popular but the school of Ramanuja, while admitting both Rama and Kr?ishn?a as incarnations, preferred to adore G.o.d under less mythological and more philosophic names such as Narayan?a. Ramanand, who addressed himself to all cla.s.ses and not merely to the Brahman aristocracy, selected as the divine name Rama. It was more human than Narayan?a, less sensuous than Kr?ishn?a. Every Hindu was familiar with the poetry which sings of Rama as a chivalrous and G.o.dlike hero. But he was not, like Kr?ishn?a, the lover of the soul, and when Ramaism was divested of mythology by successive reformers it became a monotheism in which Hindu and Moslim elements could blend. Ramanand had twelve disciples, among whom were Kabir, a Raja called Pipa, Rai Das, a leather-seller (and therefore an outcast according to Hindu ideas) as well as Brahmans. The Ramats, as his followers were called, are a numerous and respectable body in north India, using the same sectarian mark as the Vadagalais from whom they do not differ materially, although a Hindu might consider that their small regard for caste is a vital distinction. They often call themselves Avadhutas, that is, those who have shaken off worldly restrictions, and the more devout among them belong to an order divided into four cla.s.ses of which only the highest is reserved to Brahmans and the others are open to all castes. They own numerous and wealthy mat?hs, but it is said that in some of these celibacy is not required and that monks and nuns live openly as man and wife.[607]

An important aspect of the Ramat movement is its effect on the popular literature of Hindustan which in the fifteenth and even more in the sixteenth century blossoms into flowers of religious poetry. Many of these writings possess real merit and are still a moral and spiritual force. European scholars are only beginning to pay sufficient attention to this mighty flood of hymns which gushed forth in nearly all the vernaculars of India[608] and appealed directly to the people.

The phenomenon was not really new. The psalms of the Buddhists and even the hymns of the R?ig Veda were vernacular literature in their day, and in the south the songs of the Devaram and Nalayiram are of some antiquity. But in the north, though some Prakrit literature has been preserved, Sanskrit was long considered the only proper language for religion. We can hardly doubt that vernacular hymns existed, but they did not receive the imprimatur of any teacher, and have not survived. But about 1400 all this changes. Though Ramanand was not much of a writer he gave his authority to the use of the vernacular: he did not, like Ramanuja, either employ or enjoin Sanskrit and the meagre details which we have of his circle lead us to imagine him surrounded by men of homely speech.

One current in this sea of poetry was Krishnaite and as such not directly connected with Ramanand. Vidyapati[609] sang of the loves of Kr?ishn?a and Radha in the Maithili dialect and also in a form of Bengali. In the early fifteenth century (c. 1420) we have the poetess Mira Bai, wife of the Raja of Chitore who gained celebrity and domestic unhappiness by her pa.s.sionate devotion to the form of Kr?ishn?a known as Ranchor. According to one legend the image came to life in answer to her fervent prayers, and throwing his arms round her allowed her to meet a rapturous death in his embrace. This is precisely the sentiment which we find later in the teaching of Vallabhacarya and Caitanya. The hymns of the Bengali poets have been collected in the _Padakalpataru_, one of the chief sacred books of the Bengali Vaishn?avas. From Vallabhacarya spring the group of poets who adorned Braj or the Muttra district. Pre-eminent among them is the blind Sur Das who flourished about 1550 and wrote such sweet lyrics that Kr?ishn?a himself came down and acted as his amanuensis. A somewhat later member of the same group is Nabha Das, the author of the Bhakta Mala or Legends of the Saints, which is still one of the most popular religious works of northern India.[610] Almost contemporary with Sur Das was the great Tulsi Das and Grierson[611]

enumerated thirteen subsequent writers who composed Ramayan?as in some dialect of Hindi. A little later came the Mahratta poet Tukaram (born about 1600) who gave utterance to Krishnaism in another language.

Tulsi Das is too important to be merely mentioned as one in a list of poets. He is a great figure in Indian religion, and the saying that his Ramayan?a is more popular and more honoured in the North-western Provinces than the Bible in England is no exaggeration.[612] He came into the world in 1532 but was exposed by his parents as born under an unlucky star and was adopted by a wandering Sadhu. He married but his son died and after this loss he himself became a Sadhu. He began to write his Ramayan?a in Oudh at the age of forty-three, but moved to Benares where he completed it and died in 1623. On the Tulsi Ghat, near the river Asi, may still be seen the rooms which he occupied.

They are at the top of a lofty building and command a beautiful view over the river[4].

His Ramayana which is an original composition and not a translation of Valmiki's work is one of the great religious poems of the world and not unworthy to be set beside _Paradise Lost_. The sustained majesty of diction and exuberance of ornament are accompanied by a spontaneity and vigour rare in any literature, especially in Asia. The poet is not embellishing a laboured theme: he goes on and on because his emotion bursts forth again and again, diversifying the same topic with an inexhaustible variety of style and metaphor. As in some forest a stream flows among flowers and trees, but pours forth a flood of pure water uncoloured by the plants on its bank, so in the heart of Tulsi Das the love of G.o.d welled up in a mighty fountain ornamented by the mythology and legends with which he bedecked it, yet unaffected by them. He founded no sect, which is one reason of his popularity, for nearly all sects can read him with edification, and he is primarily a poet not a theologian. But though he allows himself a poet's licence to state great truths in various ways, he still enunciates a definite belief. This is theism, connected with the name Rama. Since in the north he is the author most esteemed by the Vishnuites, it would be a paradox to refuse him that designation, but his teaching is not so much that Vishn?u is the Supreme Being who becomes incarnate in Rama, as that Rama, and more rarely Hari and Vasudeva, are names of the All-G.o.d who manifests himself in human form. Vishn?u is mentioned as a celestial being in the company of Brahma,[613] and so far as any G.o.d other than Rama receives attention it is Siva, not indeed as Rama's equal, but as a being at once very powerful and very devout, who acts as a mediator or guide. "Without prayer to Siva no one can attain to the faith which I require."[614] "Rama is G.o.d, the totality of good, imperishable, invisible, uncreated, incomparable, void of all change, indivisible, whom the Veda declares that it cannot define."[615] And yet, "He whom scripture and philosophy have sung and whom the saints love to contemplate, even the Lord G.o.d, he is the son of Dasarath, King of Kosala."[616] By the power of Rama exist Brahma, Vishn?u and Siva, as also Maya, the illusion which brings about the world. His "delusive power is a vast fig-tree, its cl.u.s.tering fruit the countless mult.i.tude of worlds, while all things animate and inanimate are like the insects that dwell inside and think their own particular fig the only one in existence."[617] G.o.d has made all things: pain and pleasure, sin and merit, saints and sinners, Brahmans and butchers, pa.s.sion and asceticism. It is the Veda that distinguishes good and evil among them.[618] The love of G.o.d and faith are the only road to happiness. "The worship of Hari is real and all the world is a dream."[619] Tulsi Das often uses the language of the Advaita philosophy and even calls G.o.d the annihilator of duality, but though he admits the possibility of absorption and identification with the deity, he holds that the double relation of a loving G.o.d and a loving soul const.i.tutes greater bliss. "The saint was not absorbed into the divinity for this reason that he had already received the gift of faith."[620] And in a similar spirit he says, "Let those preach in their wisdom who contemplate Thee as the supreme spirit, the uncreate, inseparable from the universe, recognizable only by inference and beyond the understanding; but we, O Lord, will ever hymn the glories of thy incarnation." Like most Hindus he is little disposed to enquire what is the purpose of creation, but he comes very near to saying that G.o.d has evolved the world by the power of Maya because the bliss which G.o.d and his beloved feel is greater than the bliss of impersonal undifferentiated divinity. It will be seen that Tulsi Das is thoroughly Hindu: neither his fundamental ideas nor his mythological embellishments owe anything to Islam or Christianity. He accepts unreservedly such principles as Maya, transmigration, Karma and release. But his sentiments, more than those of any other Indian writer, bear a striking resemblance to the New Testament. Though he holds that the whole world is of G.o.d, he none the less bids men shun evil and choose the good, and the singular purity of his thoughts and style contrasts strongly with other Vishnuite works. He does not conceive of the love which may exist between the soul and G.o.d as a form of s.e.xual pa.s.sion.

2

The beginning of the sixteenth century was a time of religious upheaval in India for it witnessed the careers not only of Vallabhacarya and Caitanya, but also of Nanak, the founder of the Sikhs. In the west it was the epoch of Luther and as in Europe so in India no great religious movement has taken place since that time. The sects then founded have swollen into extravagance and been reformed: other sects have arisen from a mixture of Hinduism with Moslem and Christian elements, but no new and original current of thought or devotion has been started.

Though the two great sects a.s.sociated with the names of Caitanya and Vallabhacarya have different geographical spheres and also present some differences in doctrinal details, both are emotional and even erotic and both adore Kr?ishn?a as a child or young man. Their almost simultaneous appearance in eastern and western India and their rapid growth show that they represent an unusually potent current of ideas and sentiments. But the worship of Kr?ishn?a was, as we have seen, nothing new in northern India. Even that relatively late phase in which the sports of the divine herdsman are made to typify the love of G.o.d for human souls is at least as early as the Gita-govinda written about 1170. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the history of Kr?ishn?a worship is not clear,[621] but it persisted and about 1400 found speech in Bengal and in Rajputana.

According to Vaishn?ava theologians the followers of Vallabhacarya[622] are a section of the Rudra-sampradaya founded in the early part of the fifteenth century by Vishn?usvami, an emigrant from southern India, who preached chiefly in Gujarat. The doctrines of the sect are supposed to have been delivered by the Almighty to Siva from whom Vishn?usvami was fifteenth in spiritual descent, and are known by the name of _Suddhadvaita_ or pure non-duality. They teach that G.o.d has three attributes--_sac-cid-ananda_--existence, consciousness and bliss. In the human or animal soul bliss is suppressed and in matter consciousness is suppressed too. But when the soul attains release it recovers bliss and becomes identical in nature with G.o.d. For practical purposes the Vallabhacaris may be regarded as a sect founded by Vallabha, said to have been born in 1470. He was the son of a Telinga Brahman, who had migrated with Vishn?usvami to the north.

Such was the pious precocity of Vallabha that at the age of twelve he had already discovered a new religion and started on a pilgrimage to preach it. He was well received at the Court of Vijayanagar, and was so successful in disputation that he was recognized as chief doctor of the Vaishn?ava school. He subsequently spent nine years in travelling twice round India and at Brindaban received a visit from Kr?ishn?a in person, who bade him promulgate his worship in the form of the divine child known as Bala Gopala. Vallabha settled in Benares and is said to have composed a number of works which are still extant.[623] He gained further victories as a successful disputant and also married and became the father of two sons. At the age of fifty-two he took to the life of a Sannyasi, but died forty-two days afterwards.

Though Vallabha died as an ascetic, his doctrines are currently known as the Pusht?i Marga, the road of well-being or comfort. His philosophy was more decidedly monistic than is usual among Vishnuites, and Indian monism has generally taught that, as the soul and G.o.d are one in essence, the soul should realize this ident.i.ty and renounce the pleasures of the senses. But with Vallabhacarya it may be said that the vision which is generally directed G.o.dwards and forgets the flesh, turned earthwards and forgot G.o.d, for his teaching is that since the individual and the deity are one, the body should be reverenced and indulged. Pusht?i[624] or well-being is the special grace of G.o.d and the elect are called Pusht?i-jiva. They depend entirely on G.o.d's grace and are contrasted with Maryada-jivas, or those who submit to moral discipline. The highest felicity is not _mukti_ or liberation but the eternal service of Kr?ishn?a and eternal partic.i.p.ation in his sports.

These doctrines have led to deplorable results, but so strong is the Indian instinct towards self-denial and asceticism that it is the priests rather than the worshippers who profit by this permission to indulge the body, and the chief feature of the sect is the extravagant respect paid to the descendants of Vallabhacarya. They are known as Maharajas or Great Kings and their followers, especially women, dedicate to them _tan_, _dhan_, _man_: body, purse and spirit, for it is a condition of the road of well-being that before the devotee enjoys anything himself he must dedicate it to the deity and the Maharaj represents the deity. The daily prayer of the sect is "Om.

Kr?ishn?a is my refuge. I who suffer the infinite pain and torment of enduring for a thousand years separation from Kr?ishn?a, consecrate to Kr?ishn?a my body, senses, life, heart and faculties, my wife, house, family, property and my own self. I am thy slave, O Kr?ishn?a."[625]

This formula is recited to the Maharaj with peculiar solemnity by each male as he comes of age and is admitted as a full member of the sect.

The words in which this dedication of self and family is made are not in themselves open to criticism and a parallel may be found in Christian hymns. But the literature of the Vallabhis unequivocally states that the Guru is the same as the deity[626] and there can be little doubt that even now the Maharajas are adored by their followers, especially by the women, as representatives of Kr?ishn?a in his character of the lover of the Gopis and that the worship is often licentious.[627] Many Hindus denounce the sect and in 1862 one of the Maharajas brought an action for libel in the supreme court of Bombay on account of the serious charges of immorality brought against him in the native press. The trial became a _cause celebre_. Judgment was delivered against the Maharaj, the Judge declaring the charges to be fully substantiated. Yet in spite of these proceedings the sect still flourishes, apparently unchanged in doctrine and practice, and has a large following among the mercantile castes of western India. The Radha-Vallabhis, an a.n.a.logous sect founded by Harivam?sa in the sixteenth century, give the pre-eminence to Radha, the wife of Kr?ishn?a, and in their secret ceremonies are said to dress as women.

The worship of Radha is a late phase of Vishnuism and is not known even to the Bhagavata Puran?a.[628]

Vallabhism owes much of its success to the family of the founder. They had evidently a strong dynastic sentiment as well as a love of missionary conquest--a powerful combination. Vallabhacarya left behind him eighty-four princ.i.p.al disciples whose lives are recorded in the work called the _Stories of the Eighty-four Vaishn?avas_, and his authority descended to his son Vithalnath. Like his father, Vithalnath was active as a proselytizer and pilgrim and propagated his doctrines extensively in many parts of western India such as Cutch, Malwa, and Bij.a.pur. His converts came chiefly from the mercantile cla.s.ses but also included some Brahmans and Mussulmans. He is said to have abolished caste distinctions but the sect has not preserved this feature. In his later years he resided at Muttra or the neighbouring town of Gokul, whence he is known as Gokul Gosainji. This t.i.tle of Gosain, which is still borne by his male descendants, is derived from Kr?ishn?a's name Gosvamin, the lord of cattle.[629] He had seven sons, in each of whom Kr?ishn?a is said to have been incarnate for five years. They exercised spiritual authority in separate districts--as we might say in different dioceses--but the fourth son, Gokulnathji and his descendants claimed and still claim a special pre-eminence. The family is at present represented by about a hundred males who are accepted as incarnations and receive the t.i.tle of Maharaja. About twenty reside at Gokul[630] or near Muttra: there are a few in Bombay and in all the great cities of western India, but the Maharaj of Nath Dwara in Rajputana is esteemed the chief. This place is not an ancient seat of Kr?ishn?a worship, but during the persecution of Aurungzeb a peculiarly holy image was brought thither from Muttra and placed in the shrine where it still remains.

A protest against the immorality of the Vallabhi sect was made by Swaminarayan?a, a Brahman who was born in the district of Lucknow about 1780.[631] He settled in Ahmedabad and gained so large a following that the authorities became alarmed and imprisoned him. But his popularity only increased: he became the centre of a great religious movement: hymns descriptive of his virtues and sufferings were sung by his followers and when he was released he found himself at the head of a band which was almost an army. He erected a temple in the village of Wartal in Baroda, which he made the centre of his sect, and recruited followers by means of periodical tours throughout Gujarat. His doctrines are embodied in an anthology called the Sikshapatri consisting of 212 precepts, some borrowed from accepted Hindu scriptures and some original and in a catechism called Vacanamritam. His teaching was summed up in the phrase "Devotion to Kr?ishn?a with observance of duty and purity of life" and in practice took the form of a laudable polemic against the licentiousness of the Vallabhis. As in most of the purer sects of Vishnuism, Kr?ishn?a is regarded merely as a name of the Supreme Deity. Thus the Sikshapatri says "Narayan?a and Siva should be equally recognized as parts of one and the same supreme spirit, since both have been declared in the Vedas to be forms of Brahma. On no account let it be thought that difference in form or name makes any difference in the ident.i.ty of the deity." The followers of Swaminarayan?a still number about 200,000 in western India and are divided into the laity and a body of celibate clergy. I have visited their religious establishments in Ahmedabad. It consists of a temple with a large and well-kept monastery in which are housed about 300 monks who wear costumes of reddish grey. Except in a.s.sam I have not seen in India any parallel to this monastery either in size or discipline. It is provided with a library and hospital. In the temple are images of Nara and Narayan?a (explained as Kr?ishn?a and Arjuna), Kr?ishn?a and Radha, Gan?esa and Hanuman.[632]

3

The sect founded by Caitanya is connected with eastern India as the Vallabhis are with the west. Bengal is perhaps the native land of the worship of Kr?ishn?a as the G.o.d of love. It was there that Jayadeva flourished in the last days of the Sena dynasty and the lyrical poet Chandidas at the end of the fourteenth century. About the same time the still greater poet Vidyapati was singing in Durbhanga. For these writers, as for Caitanya, religion is the bond of love which unites the soul and G.o.d, as typified by the pa.s.sion[633] that drew together Radha and Kr?ishn?a. The idea that G.o.d loves and seeks out human souls is familiar to Christianity and receives very emotional expression in well-known hymns, but the bold humanity of these Indian lyrics seems to Europeans unsuitable. I will let a distinguished Indian apologize for it in his own words:

"The paradox that has to be understood is that Kr?ishn?a means G.o.d.

Yet he is represented as a youth, standing at a gate, trying to waylay the beloved maiden, attempting to entrap the soul, as it were, into a clandestine meeting. This, which is so inconceivable to a purely modern mind, presents no difficulty at all to the Vaishn?ava devotee.

To him G.o.d is the lover himself: the sweet flowers, the fresh gra.s.s, the gay sound heard in the woods are direct messages and tokens of love to his soul, bringing to his mind at every instant that loving G.o.d whom he pictures as ever anxious to win the human heart."[634]

Caitanya[635] was born at Nadia in 1485 and came under the influence of the Madhva sect. In youth he was a prodigy of learning,[636] but at the age of about seventeen while on a pilgrimage to Gaya began to display that emotional and even hysterical religious feeling which marked all his teaching. He swooned at the mention of Kr?ishn?a's name and pa.s.sed his time in dancing and singing hymns. At twenty-five he became a Sannyasi, and at the request of his mother, who did not wish him to wander too far, settled in Puri near the temple of Jagannath.

Here he spent the rest of his life in preaching, worship and ecstatic meditation, but found time to make a tour in southern India and another to Brindaban and Benares. He appears to have left the management of his sect largely to his disciples, Advaita, Nityananda and Haridas, and to have written nothing himself. But he evidently possessed a gift of religious magnetism and exercised an extraordinary influence on those who heard him preach or sing. He died or disappeared before the age of fifty but apparently none of the stories about his end merit credence.

Although the teaching of Caitanya is not so objectionable morally as the doctrines of the Vallabhis, it follows the same line of making religion easy and emotional and it is not difficult to understand how his preaching, set forth with the eloquence which he possessed, won converts from the lower cla.s.ses by thousands. He laid no stress on asceticism, approved of marriage and rejected all difficult rites and ceremonies. The form of worship which he specially enjoined was the singing of Kirtans or hymns consisting chiefly in a repet.i.tion of the divine names accompanied by music and dancing. Swaying the body and repet.i.tion of the same formula or hymn are features of emotional religion found in the most diverse regions, for instance among the Rufais or Howling Dervishes, at Welsh revival meetings and in negro churches in the Southern States. It is therefore unnecessary to seek any special explanation in India but perhaps there is some connection between the religious ecstasies of Vaishn?avas and Dervishes. Within Caitanya's sect, caste was not observed. He is said to have admitted many Moslims to membership and to have regarded all worshippers of Kr?ishn?a as equal. Though caste has grown up again, yet the old regulation is still in force inside the temple of Jagannath at Puri.

Within the sacred enclosure all are treated as of one caste and eat the same sacred food. In Caitanya's words "the mercy of G.o.d regards neither tribe nor family."

His theology[637] shows little originality. The deity is called Bhagavan or more frequently Hari. His majesty and omnipotence are personified as Narayan?a, his beauty and ecstasy as Kr?ishn?a. The material world is defined as _bhedabhedaprakasa_, a manifestation of the deity as separate and yet not separate from him, and the soul is _vibhinnam?sa_ or a detached portion of him. Some souls are in bondage to Prakr?iti or Maya, others through faith and love attain deliverance. Reason is useless in religious matters, but _ruci_ or spiritual feeling has a quick intuition of the divine.

Salvation is obtained by Bhakti, faith or devotion, which embraces and supersedes all other duties. This devotion means absolute self-surrender to the deity and love for him which asks for no return but is its own reward. "He who expects remuneration for his love acts as a trader." In this devotion there are five degrees: (_a_) santi, calm meditation, (_b_) dasya, servitude, (_c_) sakhya, friendship, (_d_) vatsalya, love like that of a child for its parent, (_e_) madhurya, love like that of a woman for a lover. All these sentiments are found in G.o.d and this combined ecstasy is an eternal principle identified with Hari himself, just as in the language of the Gospels, G.o.d is love. Though Caitanya makes love the crown and culmination of religion, the worship of his followers is not licentious, and it is held that the right frame of mind is best attained by the recitation of Kr?ishn?a's names especially Hari.

The earlier centre of Caitanya's sect was his birthplace, Nadia, but both during his life and afterwards his disciples frequented Brindaban and sought out the old sacred sites which were at that time neglected.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Lala Baba, a wealthy Bengali merchant, became a mendicant and visited Muttra. Though he had renounced the world, he still retained his business instincts and bought up the villages which contained the most celebrated shrines and were most frequented by pilgrims. The result was a most profitable speculation and the establishment of Caitanya's Church in the district of Braj, which thus became the holy land of both the great Krishnaite sects. The followers of Caitanya at the present day are said to be divided into Gosains, or ecclesiastics, who are the descendants of the founder's original disciples, the Vrikats or celibates, and the laity.

Besides the celibates there are several semi-monastic orders who adopt the dress of monks but marry. They have numerous mat?hs at Nadia and elsewhere. Like the Vallabhis, this sect deifies its leaders.

Caitanya, Nityananda and Advaita are called the three masters (Prabhu) and believed to be a joint incarnation of Kr?ishn?a, though according to some only the first two shared the divine essence. Six of Caitanya's disciples known as the six Gosains are also greatly venerated and even ordinary religious teachers still receive an almost idolatrous respect.

Though Caitanya was not a writer himself he exercised a great influence on the literature of Bengal. In the opinion of so competent a judge as Dinesh Chandra Sen, Bengali was raised to the status of a literary language by the Vishnuite hymn-writers just as Pali was by the Buddhists. Such hymns were written before the time of Caitanya but after him they became extremely numerous[638] and their tone and style are said to change. The ecstasies and visions of which they tell are those described in his biographies and this emotional poetry has profoundly influenced all cla.s.ses in Bengal. But there was and still is a considerable hostility between the Saktas and Vishnuites.

4

A form of Vishnuism, possessing a special local flavour, is connected with the Maratha country and with the names of Namdev, Tukaram[639]

and Ramdas, the spiritual preceptor of Sivaji. The centre of this worship is the town of Pandharpur and I have not found it described as a branch of any of the four Vishnuite Churches: but the facts that Namdev wrote in Hindi as well as in Marathi, that many of his hymns are included in the Granth, and that his sentiments show affinities to the teaching of Nanak, suggest that he belonged to the school of Ramanand. There is however a difficulty about his date. Native tradition gives 1270 as the year of his birth but the language of his poems both in Marathi and Hindi is said to be too modern for this period and to indicate that he lived about 1400,[640] when he might easily have felt the influence of Ramanand, for he travelled in the north.

Most of his poetry however has for its centre the temple of Pandharpur where was worshipped a deity called Vit?t?hala, Vit?t?oba or Pan?d?urang. It is said that the first two names are dialectic variations of Vishn?u, but that Pan?d?urang is an epithet of Siva.[641] There is no doubt that the deity of Pandharpur has for many centuries been identified with Kr?ishn?a, who, as in Bengal, is G.o.d the lover of the soul. But the hymns of the Marathas are less sensuous and Kr?ishn?a is coupled not with his mistress Radha, but with his wife Rukmin?i. In fact Rukmin?ipati or husband of Rukmin?i is one of his commonest t.i.tles. Namdev's opinions varied at different times and perhaps in different moods: like most religious poets he cannot be judged by logic or theology. Sometimes he inveighs against idolatry--understood as an attempt to limit G.o.d to an image--but in other verses he sings the praises of Pan?d?urang, the local deity, as the lord and creator of all. His great message is that G.o.d--by whatever name he is called--is everywhere and accessible to all, accessible without ceremonial or philosophy. "Vows, fasts and austerities are not needful, nor need you go on pilgrimage. Be watchful in your heart and always sing the name of Hari. Yoga, sacrifices and renunciation are not needful. Love the feet of Hari.

Neither need you contemplate the absolute. Hold fast to the love of Hari's name. Says Nama, be steadfast in singing the name and then Hari will appear to you."[642]

Tukaram is better known than Namdev and his poetry which was part of the intellectual awakening that accompanied the rise of the Maratha power is still a living force wherever Marathi is spoken. He lived from 1607 to 1649 and was born in a family of merchants near Poona.

But he was too generous to succeed in trade and a famine, in which one of his two wives died, brought him to poverty. Thenceforth he devoted himself to praying and preaching. He developed a great apt.i.tude for composing rhyming songs in irregular metre,[643] and like Caitanya he held services consisting of discourses interspersed with such songs, prepared or extempore. In spite of persecution by the Brahmans, these meetings became very popular and were even attended by the great Sivaji.

His creed is the same as that of Namdev and finds expression in verses such as these. "This thy nature is beyond the grasp of mind or words, and therefore I have made love a measure. I measure the Endless by the measure of love: he is not to be truly measured otherwise. Thou art not to be found by Yoga, sacrifice, fasting, bodily exertions or knowledge. O Kesava, accept the service which we render."

But if he had no use for asceticism he also feared the pa.s.sions. "The Endless is beyond; between him and me are the lofty mountains of desire and anger. I cannot ascend them and find no pa.s.s." In poems which are apparently later, his tone is more peaceful. He speaks much of the death of self, of purity of heart, and of self-dedication to G.o.d. "Dedicate all you do to G.o.d and have done with it: Tuka says, do not ask me again and again: nothing else is to be taught but this."

Maratha critics have discussed whether Tukaram followed the monistic philosophy of San?kara or not and it must be confessed that his utterances are contradictory. But the gist of the matter is that he disliked not so much monism as philosophy. Hence he says "For me there is no use in the Advaita. Sweet to me is the service of thy feet. The relation between G.o.d and his devotee is a source of high joy. Make me feel this, keeping me distinct from thee." But he can also say almost in the language of the Upanishads. "When salt is dissolved in water, what remains distinct? I have thus become one in joy with thee and have lost myself in thee. When fire and camphor are brought together, is there any black remnant? Tuka says, thou and I were one light."