Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Minor Religious Systems v2.c13.41.3

v2.c13.41.3

The doings of these devotees met with scorn and ridicule, especially at the hands of the worshippers of Kālī, one of whom put red flowers and goat's blood on the steps of the door of the house in which the Vaiṣṇava meetings were held. The fervour displayed at these Kīrtanas, or singing of the name of Hari, gradually increased in intensity, until the loud singers and principally Caitanya himself swooned away and dropped senseless on the ground. In the year 1510 Caitanya became a Saṃnyāsin, or an ascetic, and was initiated into the order by Keśab Bhāratī of Katva. After this he first went to Purī to visit the shrine of Jagannātha, and thence wandered about the country for six years preaching his new faith ¹). On one occasion he went to Benares, where he is reported to have held a disputation with Prakāśānanda, a teacher of the monistic Vedānta of Saṃkarācārya. Caitanya condemned Saṃkara's commentary on the Vedāntasūtras and said that it mystified the sense of the original. Saṃkarācārya did not give the plain ordinary sense of the words of Bādarāyaṇa, but forced his own views into them. The doctrine of development (Pariṇāmavāda) was held by the author of the Sūtras, while Saṃkarācārya rejects it and brings in his doctrine of illusion (Vivartavāda). The former alone is true according to Caitanya. After these wanderings he returned to Purī, where he spent the last eighteen years of his life, and died in Śaka 1455, corresponding to 1533 A. D.