The Life and Times of Krishna Chaitanya

This is a concise but critical biographical sketch of Chaitanya, situating him in his social and cultural environment. The structured narrative deals at length with some of the key episodes concerning both his pre-monastic life and the monastic. These are re-examined in the light of modern critical scholarship. The first half of Chaitanya’s life was spent at Nabadwip, where he provided the inspiration and leadership to a burgeoning religious movement centred on Krishna bhakti. Following his dramatic decision to embrace the life of an ascetic, Chaitanya turned an itinerant saint, travelling through peninsular India and camping at the Vaishnav pilgrim sites of Mathura and Vrindavan. The latter half of his life was spent at Puri where he enjoyed great popularity among the local people as also among his followers from native Bengal who visited him annually at the time of the Rath Yatra celebrations. It was from Puri that Chaitanya gave directions to his followers to launch an evangelizing movement in ethnic Bengal and which was successfully carried out by his most intimate flowers and companions. Mystery surrounds the death of Chaitanya in 1533 and conflicting accounts of this have been examined in some detail.

Chaitanya’s Companions, Associates, Devotees, and Followers

This chapter deals with the way the religious faith and inspiration provided by Chaitanya turned into a successful organized movement, going beyond the frontiers of ethnic Bengal into the adjoining state of Odisha and in specific locales of north India. Broadly speaking, this was carried out over two generations. The first of these was represented by the work of Chaitanya’s most devoted and trusted companions such as Nityananda, Advaita Acharya, Haridas, Gadadhar Pandit, and the well-known ‘Shada Goswamis’ or Six Goswamis, all of whom eventually camped at Vrindavan and spent the rest of their lives in profound scholarship and devotional pursuits. Of these, some were on non-Bengali provenance which itself speaks for the far-reaching and trans-regional appeal of Chaitanya and his movement. The second generation of evangelists such as Narottam, Srinivas, and Shyamananda were post-Chaitanya figures and highly successful in converting their followers into Vaishnavism, including both peasant cultivators and local ruling families.

Introduction

This chapter raises certain fundamental theoretical questions about the relationship between Chaitanya and his message as well as the movement that developed after him. For instance, it questions the tendency often found in current literature to conflate ‘Bengal Vaishnavism’ (Gaudiya Vaishnavism) and ‘Bengali Vaishnavism’. While the Vaishnavism of Chaitanya was certainly popular in Bengal, not all Bengalis could be said to adhere to the religious ideas and practices associated with Chaitanya. The author argues that Chaitanya or Gaudiya Vaishnavism is but one of the several sub-streams of Vaishnavism known to Bengal, and that it is better described as the ‘dominant’ and not ‘quintessential’ form of Vaishnavism for this region. This chapter also undertakes a broad historiographical survey of Chaitanya studies to date and a critical study of the social and historical context in which Chaitanya’s life and work was framed by successive generations of scholars.

Chaitanya in His Times and in Ours

This is a highly critical chapter that joins the twin issues of how Chaitanya was perceived in his own life time and thereafter. Of particular interest here is how Chaitanya was invoked in post-Chaitanya Bengal for a wide variety of reasons and purposes. Dissenting and non-conformist religious cults in post-Chaitanya Bengal cited his life and work to register their protest against Brahmanical and upper-caste excesses; the educated and upper-caste followers, on the other hand, converted him into a symbol of political resistance in a manner that strengthened their own political ambitions under a colonial regime. This chapter brings back the issue of just how the lay reader and the scholar alike need to be clearer about the use of nomenclatures such as ‘Bengal Vaishnavism’ or Gaudiya Vaishnavism. The author argues how in modern Bengal, there were major cultural figures who were Vaishnava by persuasion and yet not affiliated to the Chaitanya camp. This chapter also includes interesting and original studies of Chaitanya’s religion, his approach to the question of women and sexuality, and also how Chaitanya was perceived by the most prominent religious groups in colonial Bengal such as the Brahmos.

Sources on the Life of Chaitanya

This is a detailed study of the extant sources related to the life and teachings of Chaitanya, most of which were produced shortly after Chaitanya passed away. This survey includes three key aspects connected with Chaitanya hagiographies available in manuscript form: the pressing literary and cultural quest for their discovery, the problem of their interpolation, and their printing history since the mid-19th century. This chapter studies five hagiographers in some detail, implying their intrinsic importance of their work to the reconstruction of the life and teachings of Chaitanya. This includes a critical treatment of the greatly controversial work Govindadaser Kadcha which has come to be seen in intensely polarised ways as possibly the earliest among hagiographies or else a modern forgery.