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Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c5: Introduction

Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c5

Language
English

Introduction

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The origin and growth of the modern Indian literatures (we mean the modern Indo-Aryan literatures) are closely associated with the origin and growth of some religious sects, which began to stir the life of the people from about the tenth century onwards. Up till the advent of the nineteenth century with a new outlook on life and literature, none of the Indo-Aryan literatures seem to have had the capacity to stand erect without the prop of some religious view, and this again seems to be particularly the case with Bengali. We have no type of literature in Bengali even corresponding to the *Rāsau* literature (literature based on the annals of heroic episodes) of Hindi, and poets like Cānd Bardāi or Bhūṣaṇ and Lāl are almost unknown in old and mediaeval Bengali. In our old and mediaeval¹ literature man's glory is seldom depicted in its own grandeur and eulogised independently of divine glory. The versions of the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* that we have in our literature possess a vein more religious than human; the heroes and heroines of the various Maṅgala-kāvyas are depicted more as toys in the hands of the gods and goddesses than as dignified figures glowing with the heroic grandeur of their personality. Lāusen of the Dharma-maṅgalas is a mere agent of the Dharma-ṭhākura, Kālaketu of the Caṇḍī-maṅgalas is originally a god, being the son of Indra, and is dragged down from heaven on earth only to glorify the almighty power of goddess Caṇḍī and to establish her worship on earth. The human interest of the life-long struggle of Cānd Sadāgar of the Manasā-maṅgalas has been minimised by the undercurrent of the religious tone—by the fact that it really represents the struggle of decaying Śaivism of Bengal against the growth and spread of Śāktaism represented by the Manasā cult. During the long period, beginning with the Caryā-padas of the tenth, eleventh or twelfth century, the only type of literature that may be said to be free from the influence of religion, is the ballad literature of Bengal dealing purely and simply with the diversified life of rural Bengal and pastoral love-episodes.¹

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¹ The word ‘mediaeval’ will mean throughout our discussions as belonging to the middle period of the Modern Indo-Aryan literatures, *i.e.* belonging to the period roughly between the thirteenth and the eighteenth century A.D.

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¹ It should be noted that the authenticity of many of the East Bengal ballads, as compiled by Dr. D. C. Sen, D. Litt., in collaboration with Candra Kumar De and some other assistants and published by the University of Calcutta, has been questioned. We have no scope here to enter into the details of the controversy; but our considered opinion on the point is that though the ballads may not belong to a hoary past (as Dr. Sen holds), and though there may be some handling of the verses at the time of collection and compilation, at least the skeleton of some of these verses surely belongs to the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries and some go even earlier.

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Apart from the general relation of literature with religion and apart from the fact that Bengal is a province of India, which is specially noted as a land of religion and philosophy, there seems to be some historical reason for such predominance of religion in Bengali literature. It is through the social and political vicissitudes of a nation that there comes deep unrest in the life and mind of man and man comes more face to face with the world of stern realities which help the growth and development of the potential Man. It is through the continual struggle for existence, fight against the adverse circumstances, conflict with the external powers that a nation becomes conscious of her real worth and learns to hold in high esteem the glories of terrestrial life. The paucity of such noteworthy social or political events happening in the life of Bengal may account for the fact that the history of Bengali literature during its old and mediaeval period is practically the same as the history of the different religious movements that flourished in the province for about a decade of centuries.¹ Even in the nineteenth century the general practice was to borrow stories either from the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* or from the annals of the Rājputs, Sikhs and Mārhaṭṭās to introduce heroic grandeur in the epics, novels and dramas.

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¹ Of course, in the *Caitanya-bhāgavata* of Vṛndāvan-dās we find reference to the songs of Yogī-pāl, Bhogī-pāl and Mahī-pāl (*cf.* yogipāl bhogīpāl mahīpāl gīta | ihā śunite sav lok ānandita || Some are of opinion that these songs deal with the life and glory of the Pāla Kings,—but we cannot say anything about them as long as the songs are not discovered.

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There is a striking uniformity in the historical development of the different literatures of the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars. The reason behind this fact is that the literary history of almost all the vernaculars is moulded essentially by the religious movements in the different parts of India, which, during the old and the mediaeval periods were strikingly similar.

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Bengali, along with other modern Indo-Aryan languages, grew up with the tenets of some minor religious sects, which rose mostly outside the circle of the high class people and were characterised by a general tendency of protest against current orthodox religious systems. These religious movements were sponsored by people who had no aristocracy of descent or advantage of culture and education; they rose from among the most common run of people and preached their doctrines among the masses in their own tongue. The modern Indo-Aryan literatures, as we have indicated in the preface, are, therefore, essentially mass-literature, and the religions preached through them represent the mass-religions of India. But this religious zeal of the masses has been responsible for the copious growth of the vernacular literature in spite of the derision and opposition of the higher communities, who sometimes threatened these revolutionaries with curses of hell.

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The history of Bengali language and literature, so far as it has been explored, begins with the religious doctrines and practices of the Sahajiyā Buddhists. Sahajiyā Buddhism is a particular development of a phase of later Buddhism, widely known as Tāntric Buddhism. Investigation reveals that during the reign of the Pāla dynasty Buddhism in various Tāntric forms gained popularity in Bengal and many Tāntric texts and commentaries were written in the different Buddhist monasteries that were established in Bengal. The authors of the Sahajiyā Buddhistic songs were mostly inhabitants of Bengal or of the vicinities of Bengal.¹

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¹ Vide infra, Ch. I.

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But though an offshoot of popular Buddhism, the real origin of the Buddhist Sahajiyā cult is not to be sought exclusively or even mainly in any of the theories and practices of Buddhism proper either in its Hinayāna or Mahāyāna aspect. The real origin of the cult lies more outside Buddhism than inside it. The Buddhist Sahajiyā cult, notwithstanding the Buddhistic tone and colour which it assumes, is essentially an esoteric yogic cult. Side by side with the commonly known theological speculations and religious practices there has been flowing in India an important religious undercurrent of esoteric yogic practices from a pretty old time; these esoteric practices, when associated with the theological speculations of the Śaivas and the Śāktas, have given rise to Śaiva and Śākta Tāntricism; when associated with the Buddhistic speculations, have given rise to the composite religious system of Buddhist Tāntricism; and again, when associated with the speculations of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism the same esoteric practices have been responsible for the growth of the esoteric Vaiṣṇavite cult, known as the the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā movement.

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It will not be out of place to give here just an idea of the speculations and practices, round which grew all the esoteric

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schools either within Hinduism or Buddhism. All kinds of esoteric Sādhanā (i.e., religious endeavours) of India have a common background. In all the esoteric schools the absolute reality is conceived of possessing in its nature the potency of two aspects or attributes. These two aspects or attributes are, again, conceived as the negative and the positive, the static and the dynamic, rest (nivṛtti) and activity (pravṛtti),—the principle of pure consciousness and the principle of activity;—one represents subjectivity and the other objectivity; and, again, the one is conceived as the enjoyer and the other as the enjoyed. In the absolute Being these two aspects lie unified together in a state of absolute non-duality; but in the process of becoming or phenomenalisation there comes separation and duality. This process of change or becoming through a state of duality is bondage and suffering,—and the final escape from it is liberation. The secret of all esoteric Sādhanā is to destroy all principles of dualism and to attain the final state of non-duality. This ultimate state of non-duality is variously called in the different esoteric systems as the state of Advaya, Maithuna, Yuganaddha, Yāmala, Sama-rasa, Yugala, or the Sahaja-samādhi or Śūnya-samādhi, or simply the final state of Samādhi.

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In Hindu Tāntricism these two aspects of the absolute reality have been conceived as the Śiva and the Śakti, or the primordial male and the female. Again, one of the fundamental tenets of all the esoteric schools is to hold that the human body is the epitome of the universe, all ‘truth’ (tattva) is contained within the body. Consistent with this view it has been held that Śiva resides in the Sahasrāra (the lotus of thousand petals situated in the cerebrum region) as the principle of pure consciousness and Śakti as the principle of world-force resides in the other pole of the Mūlādhāra-cakra in the form of the coiled serpent. Now, the Sādhanā consists in raising the coiled force from the one pole to the other and to unite her there with Śiva,—and this union of the Śiva and the Śakti produces the state of the absolute. Thus the principles of Śiva-Śakti or the male and the female are contained within the person of every man and woman.

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Again it has been held that the principles of the male and the female are contained within the body of a man in the right and the left respectively,—the right half being the masculine part and the left half the feminine part. This will explain the conception of Mahādeva or Śiva as Ardhanārīśvara or the half-female and half-male deity, and in the sculptural or pictorial representation of the Ardhanārīśvara the deity is always depicted as having the left half as the female and the right half as the male.¹ Thus, there are principles of masculinity and femineity contained in every man and woman,—a man is a man because of the predominance in him of the principle of masculinity, whereas a woman is a woman because of the predominance of the principle of femininity in her. Now as the left and the right represent two aspects of the absolute reality, the two important nerves in the left and the right, *viz.*, Iḍā and Piṅgalā, and the two courses of the vital wind, Prāṇa and Apāna, associated with the two nerves, are also associated with these two aspects of the ultimate reality. From this theory follows the Sādhanā of controlling the courses of the vital wind in the two nerves and of making them flow together through the middle nerve Suṣumnā. Thus the union of the right and the left through the union of the two courses of the vital wind within the middle nerve Suṣumnā, is the vital part of the Sādhanā of Haṭha-yoga, and the state that is attainable through such a process is the state of final non-duality.

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¹ It may be pointed out that in the Sahajiyā school of Vaiṣṇavism also Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are said to reside in the left and the right respectively; Rādhā is often said to reside in the left eye and Kṛṣṇa in the right. Cf. *bāme rādhā ḍāhine kṛṣṇa dekha rasik jan | . . . . . dui netre birājamān | rādhā-kuṇḍa śyāma-kuṇḍa dui netra hay | sajal nayan dvāre bhāve preme āsvāday ||* Sahaja-tattva of Rādhāvallabh Dās, Vaṅga-sāhitya-paricay, Vol. II, p. 1658.

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Again it has been held, particularly in the Tāntric and the Sahajiyā schools, that the division of the creatures of the world into the male and the female has an ontological reason behind it. The male and the female represent in the visible world the division which is present in the nature of the absolute as Śiva and Śakti, and the perfect union of the Śiva and the Śakti is the highest reality. Within the physical body of man and woman reside the ontological principles of Śiva and Śakti¹; therefore to realise the absolute truth, or in other words, to obtain the highest spiritual experience, man and woman must first of all realise themselves as manifestation of Śiva and Śakti and unite together physically, mentally and spiritually, and the supreme bliss that proceeds from such union is the highest religious gain. Such a view is the *raison d'être* of all the esoteric Sādhanā which are carried on by the male and the female together.

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¹ Vide infra, Ch. V.

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As a school of esoteric yoga the Buddhist Sahajiyā school is fundamentally based on the speculations explained above. The Absolute is the Sahaja—it is the ultimate reality behind the self and the not-self. The realisation of this Sahaja in and through the self and the not-self is the ultimate aim of the Sahajiyās. Now, in Sahajiyā Buddhism Śūnyatā (voidness) and Karuṇā (compassion), transformed as the Prajñā and the Upāya, are held to be the two primary attributes of the ultimate reality which is Sahaja. As two aspects of the ultimate reality Prajñā and Upāya are conceived in the Buddhist Tantras and in Sahajiyā Buddhism just as Śakti and Śiva of the Hindu Tāntric school. Prajñā and Upāya thus represent the principles of dualism and the unification of the two in a supreme non-dual state is the final aim of the Buddhist Sahajiyās. The practical yogic method for the realisation of the Sahaja is, therefore, fundamentally based on the principle of the union of Prajñā and Upāya. The union of Prajñā means, in the first place, the union of the female and the male, who are considered to be the manifestations of Prajñā and Upāya respectively. Again, we have seen that the two important nerves in the left and the right also represent the principle of Prajñā and Upāya in the microcosm of the human body; therefore the union of Prajñā implies the perfect control over these two nerves and the vital process associated with them and to make them function unitedly through the middle nerve which represents the principle of non-duality. The yogic practice involving this physical and physiological union of the Prajñā and the Upāya will lead the yogin to the inner union of the Prajñā and the Upāya. Upāya as the Lord (called Vajra-sattva, or the principle of immutable adamantine existence) resides in the highest pole of the cerebrum region and Prajñā as the world-force¹ resides in the lowest pole (which is the plexus in the navel according to the esoteric Buddhists); the inner union consists in the raising of the Goddess from the navel region and in making her unite with the Lord of the cerebrum region.

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¹ We may notice here a great anomaly. In Tāntric Buddhism the Lord as Upāya always represents the principle of phenomenalism and the consort Prajñā is generally depicted as the principle of rest or void; but in the conception of the world-force, we shall see later on, the order was reversed and Prajñā or Nairātmā herself, as associated with the principle of defilement, was conceived as the Śakti or the world-force.

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In the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā school the two aspects of Sahaja or the absolute reality are explained as the eternal enjoyer and the enjoyed, as Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā; and it is further held that all men and women are physical manifestations of the ontological principles of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. When men and women can, therefore, realise themselves as the manifestations of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā through a process of attribution (*Āropa*), the love of any human couple becomes transformed into the divine love that is eternally flowing on between Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā; when the union of a human couple thus becomes the union of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, the highest spiritual realisation dawns in the state of union or *Yugala*. The element of love is the innovation of the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā school; but this element of love is essentially based on the element of yoga in the form of physical and psychological discipline.

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In the Nāth cult, which seems to be synchronous with the Buddhist Sahajiyā movement (though the origin of the cult may be much earlier), the two aspects of the absolute reality are represented by the Sun and the Moon, where the Sun represents the principle of destruction (*kālāgni*) through the process of change and decay,—and the Moon represents the principle of immutability. The final aim of the Nāth Siddhas is the attainment of a non-dual state through the attainment of immortality in a perfect or divine body. This non-dual state of immortality can be attained only through the union or rather the commingling of the Sun and the Moon. In its speculations on the attainment of an immutable and divine body through psycho-chemical process of Haṭha-yoga involving the theory of the Sun and the Moon, the Nāth cult seems to be akin to the Rasāyana school of Indian thought, the main difference being that the medical and chemical science of the Rasāyana school became transformed into a psycho-chemical yogic science with the Nāth Siddhas.

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It may, however, be noted in this connection that though the culture of the body (*kāya-sādhana*) through processes of Haṭha-yoga for the attainment of physical perfection, was of paramount importance in the Nāth cult, it was more or less common to all the esoteric schools including the school of Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā which laid emphasis on love. The realisation of Sahaja either of the nature of ‘supreme bliss’

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(Māha-sukha) as is conceived by the Buddhist Sahajiyās, or of the nature of ‘supreme love’ (as is conceived by the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās), presupposes the strength of the physical organism to stand such a supreme realisation. It is for this reason that we shall find that all the esoteric schools spoke of the culture of body through some Haṭha-yogic practice.

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Thus it is clear from the above that all the esoteric schools of India are fundamentally based on the speculation on the two aspects in which the ultimate reality functions and manifests itself,—and that the religious creed is based on the final aim of the attainment of a state of non-duality. It is to be noticed that this idea of unity of the esoteric systems implies no process of negation; it, on the other hand, implies a process of supreme position through a regressive process of transformation and transubstantiation. It is for this reason that all the schools of Tantra speak of the final state as a state where enjoyment and liberation have become one and the same. The process of Āropa which makes the ultimate union possible is not peculiar to the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās only,—it is a process common to all the Tāntric and Sahajiyā schools, either Hindu or Buddhist. We shall see later on that this process of Āropa implies no negation; it implies a change of perspective where the physical existence is not denied, but replaced by a permanent spiritual existence, where the gulf between the physical and the ontological is bridged over in an absolute existence. The Tāntric Buddhists have also repeatedly emphasised that the final state is not a state of Nirvāṇa as it is not also a state of Bhava (existence); but neither the Bhava nor the Nirvāṇa is denied of it,—it is a state where Bhava and Nirvāṇa become united together in the realisation of the absolute.

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Closely associated with the religious literature of the different Sahajiyā movements of Bengal is the literature of the Bāuls. The Bāuls as a relegious sect are characterised by their peculiarly unconventional manners and customs in social as well as religious life. From this point of view the followers of the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā school and religious people much akin to such an order bear the general name of Bāul. But the Baul songs, which are composed by illiterate masses from both the Hindu and the Muslim communities, and which are familiar to us with the theory of the ‘Man of the heart’ and man’s love towards him, have a distinctive feature of their own. This ‘Man of the heart’ is the Divine in man and stands as the eternal Beloved in relation to the human personality, who is the crazy lover. Such songs of the Bāuls and similar songs of the mediæval saints of Northern, Central and Upper India, represent the spirit of Sūfi-ism against the background of Indian thoughts.

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The Dharma cult of Bengal and of some parts of Orissa is, as we have said in the preface, a local cult having no element of esoterism in it; as a religion it consists of extremely popular rites and ceremonies. The literature belonging to the cult embodies the infiltration and transformation of various religious ideas in the untrained mind of the masses. The cosmogonical and cosmological theories also represent popular jumbling of various older ideas received through various sources.

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As all the above-mentioned obscure religious cults will come directly within the purview of our present study, we need not enter into any further details here. It will not be out of place, we think, to add here a brief outline of the other religious movements which have been strong factors in the evolution of Bengali literature as a whole and which will not directly come within the province of our present study because of the reasons adduced in the preface.

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The devotional movement in Bengal, as is the case in other provinces also, has given great impetus to our literature, and the beautiful literary fragments, which are extant, can be found abundantly in the love-lyrics of the Vaiṣṇava poets. Caṇḍi-dās, Govinda-dās, Jñāna-dās, among the host of Vaiṣṇava poets, undoubtedly deserve world-wide recognition as first-rate poets. Though we have a fair amount of Rāmāyaṇic literature in Bengali and though a deep religious vein runs through many of them, the Rāma cult could not gain sufficient ground as a religious faith in Bengal, it being pushed to the corner by the Kṛṣṇa cult. The Vaiṣṇava movement of Bengal, in the line of the Kṛṣṇa cult, grew along with the traditions of the Purāṇas like the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, Viṣṇu-purāṇa, Brahma-vaivarta-purāṇa, etc., and there was perhaps, through the life of Caitanya and some renowned Gosvāmīs, some influence also of the devotional movement of the South.¹ The first literary record of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism is to be found in the famous lyrical poem the Gita-govinda of Jaya-deva. After him Caṇḍi-dās and Vidyāpati (who, though a Maithili poet, was more popular in Bengal than in his native province) sang the immortal songs of the eternal love of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, and were precursors, as some scholars are disposed to think, of Śrī-Caitanya, who flourished about a century later and brought with him a devotional movement, which for a long time overflooded Bengal and some of the neighbouring Provinces. Vaiṣṇavite apostles like Mādhavendra-purī, Advaitācārya, Śrīvāsa and others, of course, flourished just before the advent of Caitanya,—but the advent of Caitanya was something like a fruition of all their devotional penances, and it was an event which was really epoch-making in the religion and literature of Bengal. Caitanya, as he is interpreted by his followers, embodies in him the quintessence of both Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, is the realiser and the realised in the same personality.

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¹ See an article, Bhakti-dharmer Vivartan, by the present writer in the Bhārata-varṣa, Caitra, B S., 1343. See also an article, Prem-dharma, by K. N. Mitra, Udayan, B.S., 1341, Agrahāyaṇ.

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Through his life and teachings Caitanya preached a doctrine of divine love, which was philosophically systematised and theologically codified by the six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana, viz., Rupa, Sanātana, Raghunāth Dās, Raghunāth Bhaṭṭa, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Jiva Gosvāmī. The philosophical and theological system known as Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism (i.e., the Vaiṣṇavism of Bengal) is really the contribution of these six Gosvāmīs, who were all religious apostles inspired by the life and teachings of Caitanya. Pre-Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism of Bengal generally flourished with the legends of Kṛṣṇa and his dalliances with the cowherd girls of Vṛndāvana and particularly with Rādhā ; but in Post-Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism the divinity of Caitanya as the synthesis of the two aspects of the same reality as the lover and the beloved was recognised and emphasised, and as a result thereof Post-Caitanya Vaiṣṇava literature laid the same stress, if not more, on the life and teachings of Caitanya as on the legends of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.

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The other two important cults that have influenced Bengali literature almost from the beginning are the Śaiva and the Śākta cults. So far as the religious history of Bengal is concerned, of the two, Śaivism seems to be the older and the Śākta cults, which are more often indigenous than Purāṇic, sprang up later in strong opposition to the former. In our literary records we find the Śākta cults often at daggers drawn with the cults that centred round the male deities. In this conflict with the other systems, particularly with the Śākta systems, Śaivism, the religion centring round the most indifferent and inactive god, had to give way and the Śākta cults gradually gained ground. This conflict seems to have resolved itself in another way in a synthetic transformation in the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa cult of Bengal.

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If we take a bird's eye view of the religious history of Bengal as a whole it will appear that among the Hindu deities Śiva enjoyed wide popularity in the early and mediaeval period. In the preliminary chapter of some of the Dharma-maṅgalas, which belong to the seventeenth and the eighteenth century, we find salutation to all the male and female deities of Bengal and also an enumeration of the localities where they were popular.¹ A general consideration of these lists of the gods and goddesses of Bengal will reveal the extent of the popularity that Lord Śiva enjoyed in Bengal even up to the eighteenth century. It is also to be noticed that though in the Dharma-maṅgala literature we find Dharma-ṭhākura identified more with Kṛṣṇa and Rāma, yet in religious practice the Dharma cult has got itself amalgamated more with Śaivism. It will also appear from a perusal of the different kinds of Bengali Maṅgala-kāvyas (which are practically propaganda literature belonging to the different religious schools) that the different Śākta cults of Bengal presuppose a Śaivite background, against which they thrived, though their origin might have been earlier.

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¹ See Dharma Vandanā, MS, preserved in the Bengali Manuscript Library of the Calcutta University, No. 2470. Also see the first chapter of the Dharma-maṅgalas by Mānik Gāṅguli, Rām-dās Adak and others.

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Śiva of Bengal, at least as found depicted in Bengali literature, is not exactly the same Śiva with whom we are acquainted in the Brahminical literature, particularly in the Purāṇas. The indigenous elements of Bengalee life and culture have supplied flesh and blood to his Brahminic skeleton and made him a Bengalee through and through. Śiva of the period between the tenth and the fourteenth century really represents much of the Lord Supreme of Tāntric Buddhism as indiscriminately mixed up with the ancient Lord of India. Śiva of the later period, as depicted in relation to his troublesome family, composed of two sons, two daughters and a wife, represents, through his wild mode of life and unscrupulous activities, a vivid picture of some of the aspects of the social life of mediaeval Bengal. In almost all the literatures belonging to this religious school, human interest of the family-life of Śiva far outweighs the interest of his divine nature, and in this indigenous character of Śiva the Purāṇic elements have been set here and there with the avowed purpose of giving it a Purāṇic colouring. The literature of the Śaivite cult consists chiefly of the Śivāyaṇas, which deal with the peculiar life and activities of lord Śiva, particularly in relation to his family. Like the Śaivite devotional lyrics of the South or even like the few songs on Hara-Gaurī (i.e., Śiva and his wife) composed by Vidyāpati of Mithilā, we have no Śaivite devotional lyric in Bengali. A large portion of fragmentary literature concerning Śiva is, however, to be culled from the Maṅgala-kāvyas belonging to the Dharma cult and particularly to the Caṇḍī and the Manasā cults.

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The Śākta cults of Bengal represent a particularly distinctive feature of the religious life of Bengal and the extent of literature which flourished under the direct influence of those cults is also fairly large. We do not know of any such Śākta influence in the religion and literature of any other province of India excepting Malabar. The Śākta literature of Bengal generally belongs to the type of Maṅgala literature, which, as we have said, is the literature of religious propaganda. Among the Śākta cults, the more important are the cults of Caṇḍī (or Kālī or Kālikā), the consort of Lord Śiva, and the cult of Manasā, the serpent goddess. We have also Maṅgala-kāvyas belonging to the cult of goddess Śitalā (the goddess of the direful disease of pox), Kamalā or Lakṣmī (the goddess of wealth), Ṣaṣṭhī (the goddess believed to be in charge of the welfare of children) and others, but the literature belonging to such cults is comparatively negligible both in quality and in quantity.

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The Maṅgala literature of Bengal is a continuation in vernacular of the religious literature in Sanskrit, generally known as the Purāṇic literature. The Sanskrit Purāṇas are sometimes infused with a spirit of propaganda on behalf of some half-indigenous and half-traditional religious cult and there is the spirit of glorifying some of the gods and goddesses with the help of a huge network of stories which bear testimony to their irresistible divine power and thus make them acceptable to the Brahminical people. The same spirit is found in the Maṅgala-kāvyas of Bengal, which launched vigorous and continual propaganda on behalf of some god or goddess in question with reference to various episodes where he or she had the supreme power to save the devotee from all sorts of dangers and difficulties and to bring destruction to all who opposed his or her supremacy. These gods and goddesses of the Maṅgala-kāvyas, in spite of their Purāṇic garb, are often indigenous in nature. Naturally, therefore, when the worship of these gods and goddesses began to be introduced in the society at large their divinity was questioned and the move for the introduction of their worship was strongly resisted by different sections of people. The followers of these gods and goddesses had, therefore, to justify, in keen competition with their rivals, the divinity of the deity in question and the legitimacy of his or her claim for worship on earth; and this will explain the origin of our Maṅgala literature. But it is to be observed that, after once this literary form could gain sufficient currency and popularity, it became ere long more or less a literary convention. It cannot be said with a sufficient degree of certainty that Mukunda-rām, the greatest among the poets of the Caṇḍī-maṅgalas, was a devotee of Caṇḍī or that Bhārata-candra, practically the last and most secular of the poets of the Maṅgala literature, was a sincere devotee of Annadā religious garb was rather a device in mediaeval literature to make literature acceptable to the masses, who were prompted to listen to these literary works more with a religious fervour than with a literary taste.

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Mangala literature may be said to have its origin in the fourteenth century, but it developed in the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, after which the old literary convention fell into disuse and literature began to flourish with a new spirit and form. Up till the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Śākta literature consisted exclusively of the different Mangala-kāvyas; but by the last quarter of the eighteenth century a new type of Śākta literature flourished in the form of fine devotional lyrics mainly on Śyāmā or Kālī (popularly known as Śyāmā-saṅgit or songs on Śyāmā, the universal Mother of dark-blue colour) and sometimes also on Umā, or Gaurī, the daughter of the mountain Himalaya, and the young wife of the old, wild and indifferent husband Śiva. Rāmprasād Sen of the eighteenth century, the greatest devotee of the Mother, a devotee of the most unassuming and non-sectarian type, may be taken to be the representative poet of this school. About a century later Rām-kṛṣṇa Parama-haṃsa of Dakṣiṇesvara, through his most devoted life and his sweet and simple teachings, gave a new impetus to this cult, and the literature of the Rām-kṛṣṇa cult should never go unnoticed in the history of our literature. Śrī Aurabindo of Pondicherry is at present giving a new orientation to the Mother cult and is also inspiring occasional lyrics on the line.

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In surveying the general trends of the religious history of Bengal in particular relation to the history of Bengali literature, we cannot neglect the influence which the great religion of Islam exerted on the religion and literature of Bengal. The Mahomedans first came to the land as a conquering nation; but after they had settled here and became natives of the land and succeeded in making a large number of converts, their religious thoughts and ideas began to influence those of their neighbours ; and at the same time the thoughts and ideas of their neighbours also began to affect and modify theirs in their turn. Some sort of a compromise between the religious ideas and practices of popular Islam and popular Hinduism continued in the rank and file of the two communities through a slow and gradual process of cultural reciprocation. Islam of Bengal is rather Sūfī-istic Islam and the influence of this Sūfī-ism on the Indian religious movements is best exhibited in the songs of the Bāuls. Besides these, the divinities like Satya-pīr, Māṇik-pīr, Gāji and others of popular Islam represent the continuity of the process of a happy admixture of elements both from Islam and Hinduism. About the influence of Islam on the Dharma cult we shall have detailed discussion in our study of the Dharma cult.

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The popular religious ceremonies of women-folk, particularly of the maidens, have also supplied us with nice pieces of folk literature. The ceremonies, of which there are a good number of varieties, are generally known as the Vratas (vows) and are accompanied by the recitation of rhymed or unrhymed rhythmic verses (generally known as the Vrata-kathā) which contain fine touches of rural poetry. In the performance of these ceremonies there is always an element of art,—either the art of poetry or the art of painting. These Vratas are still adding a subconscious aesthetic pleasure to the conscious religious sentiment of the women-folk of Bengal.

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The nineteenth century dawned with a new ideal of life, religion and literature. The spirit, form and technique of the old and mediaeval literature, flourishing up to the end of the eighteenth century, grew hopelessly monotonous and roused a subconscious feeling of dissatisfaction in the mind of the people and also an inward demand for a change; and a change was inevitable in the course of nature. The most important factor, that intensified this demand for a change and accelerated its speed, was the influence of Western thoughts and ideals on our political, cultural and religious life. From the beginning of the seventeenth century Bengalees began to come in contact with the European merchants, and clergies and as time went on, the contact began to be more and more intensified. This began to bring about a slow and gradual change in our general outlook. This was much more accelerated by the consolidation of British power in Bengal, and the political conquest soon brought with it a cultural conquest. Through the propaganda of the European clergies, whose principal business was to point out the illogicality, absurdity and immorality of the mythological Hindu faith, and through the easy accessibility of the theological and philosophical works embodying the spirit of the Western religion and culture, there actually dawned a great change in the mental horizon of the Bengalees. Western education and culture roused a spirit of revolution in the mind of youths and the revolution found expression first through the life and activities of Rājā Rām Mohan Roy, who by the first quarter of the nineteenth century had, at the very prime of his youth, the courage of standing against the prevalent religious beliefs of the Hindus, which he called superstitious and mythological. His call for revolution was responded to instantaneously by a section of the educated Bengalees and he did succeed in establishing a new religious school which was fundamentally based on Upaniṣadic monism, supplemented by cognate thoughts of Islam and Christianity. This newly reformed religion soon developed into the religious school known as Brāhmoism, which broke asunder the barriers of the caste-system and the orthodox canons of the Hindu Smṛtis (canonical texts) and stood against all formalities in life and religion. Through the life and activities of Maharṣi Devendranāth Tagore, Brahmānanda Keśav Chandra Sen, Vijay-kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī and a host of other staunch followers of this new faith this religion soon gained a strong footing among an educated and cultured section of the Bengalees and it cannot be gainsaid that this new faith of rationalism has been exerting a reformative influence on orthodox Hinduism for more than a century, and that it exerted an appreciable influence also on the literature of the nineteenth century.

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Among the important literary figures of the last half of the nineteenth century Bankim Chandra Chatterjee had a religious conception of his own, and the importance of this conception in the history of our literature lies in the fact that many of his novels and essays distinctly presuppose this religious background. Bankim Chandra was essentially a Hindu,—but he was a staunch rationalist at the same time, and this rationalism of Bankim was to a great extent roused in him through his intimate contact with the thoughts and ideas of the European scientists and philosophers of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century. Though Bankim Chandra had a fair acquaintance with the leading philosophical views of Europe, the two systems that exerted the greatest influence on the formation of his new religious faith are the Positivism of Comte and the Utilitarianism of Mill. Bankim Chandra's religion is fundamentally based on Positivism and Utilitarianism; but he thought that Hinduism, as represented by the most popular scripture, the Gītā (the Divine Song), ascribed to the authorship of Lord Śrī-Kṛṣṇa, can very well be reconciled with the principles of Positivism and Utilitarianism. He, therefore, interpreted the ideals of the Gītā in the light of Positivism and Utilitarianism and tried to construct a new system of thought by a mixture of the ideas from the East and the West. How far Bankim Chandra succeeded in amalgamating the religious views of the East and the West and how far his new system was placed on a sound basis is a matter of controversy; but what concerns us here is that not only his essays but many of his novels also were infused with this new ideal of religion,—characterised by a distinct humanitarian tone, much too in keeping with the general tone of the time.

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It has sometimes been said that the religious attitude and the aesthetic attitude coincide together in their ultimate nature. There is no antagonism or even a relation of contrariety between truth and beauty; on the other hand truth, beauty and goodness are sometimes viewed as the three attributes of the ultimate reality. This relation of truth with beauty, or of religion with art, has best been illustrated in the art-creation of Rabindranath Tagore. There are many songs among the poetical works of Tagore, which keep us in a fix as to whether we should eulogise them as masterpieces of art or as the best expressions of religious experiences. Tagore made no distinction between his aesthetic vision and his spiritual realisation, and he has repeatedly declared that as essentially a poet he could never make any distinction between the poet in him and the spiritual aspirer. As a matter of fact, rarely have we seen another poet sink so deep in the unfathomable mysteries of nature, life and mind and come out with the priceless gems of his intuitional realisation, and at the same time give them the best artistic expression.

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Tagore sings of an infinite supreme Being underlying the whole cosmic process of finite creation. The world-process is an eternal process of self-realisation through self-manifestation of that supreme Being. The Infinite is becoming self-conscious through the eternal art-creation of all finitude,—and the truth of the Finite lies in the ideal of unity which it finds in the deeper relatedness with the Infinite. The Finite and the Infinite have embraced each other in the personality of man and the religion of man, which consists of his realisation of the ultimate truth in him, lies in the perfect evolution of his personality or the extension of it into infinity through the increase of knowledge, love and disinterested activities. There is an ideal unity underlying the diversity of the world-process, and the world of inanimate objects is evolving with the same rhythm with which the biological, the psychological and the spiritual processes of man are moving; and the world-process as a whole is moving towards an ideal end—the ideal of perfection, which is to be attained by the realisation of our deeper relatedness with the Infinite Being. In speaking of a vision of his childhood Tagore says in his work, *Religion of Man*, “The rhythmic picture of the tremulous leaves beaten by the rain opened before my mind the world which does not merely carry information, but a harmony with my being. The unmeaning fragments lost their individual isolation and my mind revelled in the unity of a vision. In a similar manner, on that morning in the village the facts of my life suddenly appeared to me in a luminous unity of truth. All things that had seemed like vagrant waves were revealed to my mind in relation to a boundless sea. I felt sure that some Being who comprehended me and my world was seeking his best expression in all my experiences, uniting them to an ever-widening individuality which is a spiritual work of art.” When this ever-widening individuality or personality approximates infinity, we realise the divinity in man and that is the ideal realisation of truth.

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This conception of religion propagated by Tagore, both through speculative essays and through his art-creations, much akin though it may be to the Hegelian and the neo-Hegelian thoughts in striking points, is, however, fundamentally based on the teachings of the Upaniṣads, which were ingrained in the heart of poet Tagore from the early days of his childhood. On the Upaniṣadic canvas the Vaiṣṇava love-poets and the mystic Bāuls of Bengal and other mystic poets of upper and northern India, viz., Kabīr, Dādū, Rajjab and others, have supplied lines and colours of different shades. But this background and the other probable influences do in no way minimise the individual contribution of Tagore, and it has to be admitted that Tagore, as the seer of truth, has realised something new and given something substantial to the religious thought and literature of the world.

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The world has changed a good deal in this twentieth century of ours. Through the materialistic and positivistic tendencies of centuries we have now learnt to care more for our material life than for anything higher and spiritual. The advancement of positive sciences, the growing keenness in the struggle for existence,—the sternly acute problems of the grossly real life have turned the mind of the general mass away from the problems of the supra-mental reality. This life of flesh and blood, the apparently repulsive naked truths of the mysterious sphere, commonly known as the mind, the real weal and woe with which we are beset in our ordinary daily life,—the suppressed pangs of depressed humanity—the injustice of the powerful, the suffering of the weak—inequity of the social machine, crashing of the innocent heart,—triumph of the bourgeoisie and the cry of the proletariat—these are the things that are engaging our whole attention,—and these are the things which we think and feel, and the mysteries of which we try to give expression to. The influence of the Continental literature and the closer contact of our life with the rapidly progressive life of the rising powers of the world around are rousing in us almost a craze for realism, and history must have its course.

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The *fraternities* of the Middle Ages, which were so numerous and so varied in their objects, were not all of the same origin. Some were religious, some social, some charitable, and some industrial. The religious guilds, or *gilds*, as they were often called, were associations of laymen for the purpose of performing religious duties, such as the maintenance of a chaplain, the celebration of masses, or the support of a hospital. The social guilds were formed for the purpose of mutual aid and good fellowship, and often included in their objects the relief of the poor, the sick, and the aged. The charitable guilds were established for the purpose of supporting hospitals, almshouses, and other institutions of mercy. The industrial guilds, or *craft guilds*, were associations of men engaged in the same trade or industry, and were formed for the purpose of regulating the trade, protecting the interests of the members, and maintaining the quality of their work.

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The craft guilds, which became so powerful in the later Middle Ages, were the successors of the earlier *collegia* of the Roman Empire. The *collegia* were associations of artisans and tradesmen, which were recognized by the state and had a legal existence. When the Roman Empire fell, these associations were largely destroyed, but the idea of association for mutual protection and the regulation of trade survived. In the early Middle Ages, the *gilds* began to reappear, and by the twelfth century they were firmly established in many of the cities of Europe.

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The craft guilds were organized on a democratic basis, and every member had a voice in the management of the guild's affairs. The officers were elected by the members, and the rules and regulations were made by the guild as a whole. The guilds had the power to fix prices, to regulate the hours of labor, and to determine the conditions of apprenticeship. They also had the power to punish members who violated the rules, and to expel those who were guilty of serious offenses. The guilds were thus a powerful force in the economic life of the Middle Ages, and they played an important part in the development of the modern industrial system.

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The decline of the craft guilds began in the sixteenth century, when the rise of the factory system and the growth of international trade made it difficult for the small, local guilds to compete with the larger and more efficient industrial organizations. The guilds were also weakened by the growth of the power of the state, which began to regulate trade and industry directly, and by the rise of the capitalist class, which sought to break the power of the guilds and to establish a system of free competition. By the end of the eighteenth century, the craft guilds had largely disappeared, but their influence lived on in the trade unions and other labor organizations of the modern world.

Cites (9)