Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c10.s2.4

c10.s2.4

to the Gṛhya rites. That it is a Bengal Vaiṣṇava work of the Caitanya Sampradāya is made probable by the opening passages, but it is by no means clear that it may not have been composed by one of the several Vaiṣṇava Gopāla Bhaṭṭas, apparently of the Bengal school, who are known to us¹. The fact that the work was forgotten shows that, if it were a work of our Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, it never acquired any reputation or popularity. At any rate, the attribution must be corroborated by independent evidence before it can be accepted. But, whatever and however late its authorship may have been, it possesses some importance as a work of the Bengal school, which was meant to supplement the much larger *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa* of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa by dealing with the demestic rites and ceremonies, the Gṛhya ritual, which is omitted therein. Although it commences with a preliminary theological discussion on the supremacy of Kṛṣṇa as the exclusive deity, on the superiority of Vaiṣṇava practices and on the inapplicability of Smārta rules to a true Vaiṣṇava, it draws very considerably, as the opening verses also acknowledge, upon previous Smārta writers, especially upon the Bengal Smṛti-Nibandhas of Bhaṭṭa Bhavadeva (whose order and arrangement of topics in the *Karmānuṣṭhāna-paddhati* it follows) and Aniruddha Bhaṭṭa. This fact is noteworthy as showing that Caitanyaism did not altogether break away from the orthodox Smārta tradition in its social and domestic usages. It would therefore, be interesting to note the peculiarly Vaiṣṇava features of the ceremonies as detailed in this work; and it would not be out of place to give a brief survey of the work here.