Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s2.30

c11.s2.30

It will be seen at once from this brief summary of the contents of the poem that while ten cantos are devoted to the depiction of Caitanya's life before Saṃnyāsa, the remainder of his life takes up an equal number of cantos. The treatment of the two parts of the theme, therefore, is not disproportionate. Apart from the paucity of incidents which is inevitable in a life of pure religious rapture, the narrative interest is not entirely sacrificed to luxurious poetic descriptions; but Karṇapūra, in accordance with the established convention of the Kāvya, cannot resist the temptation of introducing long descriptive cantos; as, for instance, Śrīvāsa's description of Vṛndāvana-līlā in two cantos and the topic of Guṇḍicā-mārjana or of Caitanya's ecstacies, dancing and Kīrtana at various festivals at Puri in several cantos. These would seem to take up disproportionate space, but they are essential in any account of Caitanya's life of religious Bhāva, and they are not badly or prosaically depicted. For a boy in his teens, who calls himself a Śiśu, the work is indeed a notable literary achievement; but its immaturity is obvious, and cannot assign to it high poetic merit. Kavikarṇapūra possesses indeed a sufficient command of conventional poetic vocabulary, enough rhetorical and verbal skill and considerable metrical facility, and one must admit that his practice, comparatively speaking, is not altogether devoid of moderation: but of higher flights or rarer touches of poetry there is not much in his elaborate production. On the other hand, he succumbs very often, in his youthful enthusiasm, to the temptation of rhetorical display in general and of committing the verbal atrocities of Citra-bandha in particular, while his conscious employment of varied metres¹ is an aspect of the prevailing tendency of his time towards laboured artificiality. Nevertheless, the poem, in spite of its length and not inexcusable enthusiasm, is simple enough to be readable; the diction is conventional, but not heavily ornamented; and there is not much intrusion of theological or doctrinal matter to hamper its fairly smooth and pleasant progress.