Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s5.14

c11.s5.14

The wistfulness and ecstasy of the erotic-mystic devotional attitude, inspired by the frankly sensuous Vṛndāvana sports of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, as well as its intensely passionate appeal, are best exemplified by a series of fervent poems of praise and prayer composed by Raghunātha-dāsa. The twenty-nine Stotras contained in his *Stavāvali*¹ are of varying lengths, diverse metres and unequal merit; but with the exception of the first two small pieces (*Caitanyāṣṭaka* and *Gaurāṅga-stava-kalpataru*),¹ which give expression to the author's reminiscence and loving obeisance to Caitanya, all the poems are concerned with the author's vivid and impassioned realisation of the beatific sports. We can, however, at once exclude the *Rādhikāṣṭottara-śata-nāma* and the *Premāmbhoja-makaranda*, which consist of nothing more than strings of descriptive epithets, in the Śloka metre, in praise of Rādhā, meant for devout recitation. The four short poems (two on the Govardhana hill,² one on the Rādhā-kuṇḍa and one on the Dānalīlā-kuṇḍa) are concerned with worship and adoration of the holy places connected with Rādhā's sports and the author's ardent desire to live in them; while the much longer *Vraja-vilāsa-stava* (107 stanzas in various metres) is practically a systematic devotional and descriptive catalogue of everything connected with Vṛndāvana which, as the divine domicile, is said to be superior to Mathurā and Dvārakā, because of the divine sports occurring eternally therein.³ It enumerates and describes elaborately, in the form of obeisance in consecutive stanzas, the parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, associates, servants, assistants (even the nurse and the priest) of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, the Gopas and Gopīs, the cows, bulls and calves, the flute, the pet peacock, the hills, groves, rivers, birds, bees, forests, trees,