Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s5.111

c11.s5.111

A brief reference in this connexion may be made to Rūpa Gosvāmin's *Padyāvali*,¹ which gives an anthological survey of Vaiṣṇava devotional verses, new and old, and is meant to illustrate the many nuances of the Bhakti-devoutness of Caitanyaism. Its content and arrangement are somewhat different from those ordinarily found in Sanskrit anthologies. All the verses are devoted to Kṛṣṇa-līlā; and they are arranged in sections in accordance with the different doctrinarian aspects of Kṛṣṇa-Bhakti and different episodes in the erotic career of the deity. The whole arrangement conforms generally to the rhetorical classification of the Bengal Vaiṣṇava Rasa-śāstra, to which the compilation may be regarded as an illustrative compendium. It gives us a selection of 386 verses from over 125 authors, including verses taken from the works of the compiler himself and his associates and contemporaries, as well as freely drawing upon Vaiṣṇava verses from the earlier Bengal anthology, the Sadukti-karṇāmṛta, of Śrīdhara-dāsa. Rūpa, however, does not confine himself to Bengal nor to Vaiṣṇava authors alone. He selects older verses from Amaru, Bhavabhūti and others and places them in a Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa context, sometimes even making changes in the text in order to make non-sectarian verses applicable to a sectarian purpose! The Padyāvalī, therefore, is a unique anthology in bringing together in one context a large variety of Kṛṣṇaite verses to explain the many aspects of the devotional emotionalism connected with Kṛṣṇa-Bhakti; but it is also important as bearing witness to a phase of literary activity in mediaeval Bengal which produced in Sanskrit a remarkable lyric literature peculiar to itself. The merit of this repository of single stanzas lies not so much in the selection of really great poems, but in its special object of preserving against oblivion a large number of fleeting, but fine, pieces of obscure and well-nigh dateless poets. Most of the verses reflect a charming quality of emotional directness, which one rarely finds in the more elaborate masterpieces; and they can be appreciated as much from the point of view of religious expression as from the standpoint of literary effort of a fervent lyrical character, which the emotional religious movement inspired. The purely poetic merit of the detached stanzas is unequal, and perhaps may not be high; but we often come across lines, phrases and even whole stanzas of undoubted charm, which fact indicates a general diffusion of the poetic spirit, capable of making even inferior songsters beautifully and passionately articulate.