Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c4.6

c4.6

The songs and Dohās of the Buddhist Sahajiyās have important bearing in spirit as well as in form and language on the songs and Dohās of many of the mediaeval saints, who flourished abundantly in many parts of India, and who, for reasons to be discussed later on, were mostly Sahajiyās in a wider sense. In a chapter on the Bāul-songs of Bengal the writer has dealt with the question of the relation between the earlier and the mediaeval Sahajiyās. He has also tried to show how on the spirit of a section of the Bāuls, who have stressed the conception of the ‘Man of the heart,’ Sūfi-istic Islam acted conjointly with the Upaniṣadic spirit ingrained in the different Sahajiyā movements as also with the Vaiṣṇavite spirit of love. In an appendix he has dealt at some length with the religious tenets of the non-Bengalee mediaeval saints of India in relation to those of the earlier Sahajiyās.