Twilight of the Sultanate c18.s4.6

c18.s4.6

In essence Vallabh's teachings were good, in practice they became "wordly". Eliot thinks that with Vallabh the vision which is generally directed Godwards and forgets the flesh, turned earthwards and forgot God. The literature of the Vallabhacharīs repeatedly states that the Gurū is the same as the deity, and often the worship tended to be licentious when women worshipped the deity in the form of the priest. In the sixteenth century the Rādhā-Vallabhīs, who gave pre-eminence to Rādhā, made the worship a farce bordering on TXobscenity. In the words of Monier Williams,⁴⁵ "Vallabhacharyaism became in its degenerate form the Epicureanism of the East".⁴⁶