Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c5.s2.34

c5.s2.34

Advaita standpoint, and that he himself rose superior to sombre and passionless asceticism; but it is highly probable that Keśava Bhāratī (an ascetic apparently of Saṃkara's Bhāratī order),¹ who was his Saṃnyāsa Guru, and Īśvara Purī, who was his Dīkṣā Guru, formally introduced him into this tradition of emotional Saṃnyāsa, which hardly stood in the way of his practice of extreme forms of emotional Bhakti. The roots, therefore, of the Bhakti movement, which Mādhavendra Purī is said to have started in Bengal and which Caitanya carried forward and definitely shaped, must be sought in such traditions as originated from Śrīdhara's great commentary on the Śrīmad-bhāgavata, which was accepted with much veneration by the Bengal school.² Caitanya himself is said to have possessed the highest admiration for Śrīdhara Svāmin, and on one occasion he is said to have repudiated a commentary on the Śrīmad-bhāgavata by one Vallabha Bhaṭṭa on the ground that it departs from Śrīdhara Svāmin's interpretations³.