Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c5.26

c5.26

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.