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Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c6.s1.t3: Paramānanda Kavikarṇapūra

Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c6.s1.t3

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English

Paramānanda Kavikarṇapūra

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After these comes the Caitanya-caritāmṛta Mahākāvya in twenty cantos, composed nine years after Caitanya's death, by Paramānanda-sena, better known by his poetical title of Kavikarnapūra, who also wrote many years later a drama in ten acts on the same theme, entitled Caitanya candrodaya. The author was the son of Śivānanda-sena, an elderly disciple of Caitanya,¹ who used to organise and lead the annual exodus of Caitanya's followers to Puri. He belonged to the Vaidya caste, and his youngest son Paramānanda was born at Kāñcapāḍā (Kāñcanapalli), near Naihati, a few years before Caitanya's death. Śivānanda had poetical tendencies, and some of his Bengali songs are to be found in the Vaisnava anthology, Pada-kalpataru, as well as in the modern compilation, Gaura-pada-taraṅgiṇī (six Padas on Caitanya); his son appears to have inherited his father's literary gifts at an early age. When he was a boy of seven he is said to have accompanied his father to Puri, where he saw Caitanya; and the touch of the Master's feet is said to have inspired the precocious child to utter the following Sanskrit verse in the difficult Āryā metre, which praised Kṛṣṇa as the ear-ornament of the Gopis, and earned for him the title, given by Caitanya himself of Kavi-karṇapūra or "ear-ornament of poets":²

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¹ Kavikarṇapūra speaks about his father as one of the chief disciples of the Master (pārṣadāgryam mahāprabhoḥ) in his Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā, śl. 4 and 177. Śivānanda is regarded as occupying a high position among Caitanya's disciples: see Murāri, iv, 17, 6; Vṛndāvana-dāsa, Antya v and ix; Jayānanda, p. 142; Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, Antya i, 12-28; x, 139; xii, 11 and 44; xvi, 60 etc. Both in his drama and his poem, Karṇapūra mentions Śivānanda many times and records that during his return to Bengal Caitanya paid a visit to Śivānanda's house. There is also a significant passage in the drama in which Śivānanda is represented as bringing his son (apparently Kavikarṇapūra himself) before Caitanya at Puri.

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² His other name given by Caitanya is said to have been Purī-dāsa, which occurs in the colophon to the printed text of his Gaura-gaṇoddeśa; but on this alleged name see B. Majumdar, op. cit. pp. 85-86. In his work Kavikarṇapūra he never uses this name of Purī-dāsa. An Āryā-śataka, now lost, is ascribed to him; this Āryā-

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śravasoḥ kuvalayam akṣṇor añjanam uraso mahendra-maṇi-dāma|
vṛndāvana-ramaṇīnāṃ maṇḍanam akhilaṃ harir jayati||

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'Victorious is Kṛṣṇa, who is the blue water-lily in the two ears, collyrium in the two eyes, the great rope of sapphire on the breast, (in fact) the entire adornment, of the young women of Vṛndāvana!'

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Whatever value this story of an infant prodigy may possess, it is probable that it originated from the fact of his extraordinarily precocious literary gifts. His earliest sustained poetical effort appears to be his Sanskrit *Caitanya-caritāmṛta Kāvya*,¹ in which he declares himself as a "child" (*śiśu*). One of the concluding verses² gives its date of composition as Āṣāḍha, Śaka 1464=June-July, 1542 A. D. If we accept 1524 A.D. as the date of his birth,³ he would then be about eighteen when the work was completed. For a youth the poem is indeed a marvellous achievement of precocious gifts. The work consists of 20 Sargas and over 1900 verses in a variety of Sanskrit metres (excepting Āryā), and gives a poetical but complete verse may have formed its opening Namaskriyā. The verse is, however, given in Kavikarṇapūra's *Alaṃkāra-kaustubha* (Kiraṇa viii) as an example of the poetic figure Mālā-rūpaka.

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¹ Ed. Radharuman Press, Berhampur-Murshidabad 1884, in Bengali characters with a Bengali translation. In *Gaura-gaṇoddeśa*, the name of Karṇapūra's Guru occurs as Śrīnātha.

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² *vedā rasāḥ śrutava indur iti prasiddhe/ śike tathā khalu śucau subhage ca māsi/ vīre sudhā-kiraṇa-nāmanyasita-dvitīye/ tithyantare parisamāptir abhūd amusya* (xx. 49).

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³ This usually accepted date is given by Rajendralala Mitra in his Bibl. Ind. ed. of *Caitanya-candrodaya* (Preface, p. vi). This would make Karṇapūra about nine years old at the time of Caitanya's passing away, and would not conflict with Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja's account of Karṇapūra's visit to Puri. In a MS of the *Caitanya-caritāmṛta* of Karṇapūra, however, in the Dacca University Library (no. 2389) the scribe, one Viṣṇudāsa, calling himself a servant of Rūpa Gosvāmin, records the tradition that Karṇapūra was only sixteen when he composed this work (*caitanya-candra-caritāmṛtam adbhutābhair | dvyaṣṭābdikair viracitam kavikarṇapūrāḥ*). This tradition would agree more with the poet's self-description as a "child," and put his birth-date at 1526 A.D. His visit to Puri in his seventh year would then have occurred in the very year in which Caitanya passed away. But, of course, this does not entirely remove the difficulties of exact dating.

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account of forty-seven years (catvāriṃśatā saptabhājā hāyanānāṃ kramena)¹ of Caitanya’s life. The author himself admits that he based his work chiefly on the account of Murāri, who knew Caitanya in his boyhood and youth; and as it was composed nine years after Caitanya’s death, the standard Bengali biographies had not yet been written. The latter part of the life, however, is independent of Murāri’s account, but it is rather meagrely treated. Like the preceding work, Karṇapūra’s poem devotes its strength chiefly upon the poetical and devotional possibilities of the theme, indulging in frequent flights (in the regular long drawn Kāvya-style) of poetical descriptions, and presenting Caitanya as the blessed Saviour and incarnation of Kṛṣṇa, as well as the hero of a religious Kāvya. The author conceives himself as a poet and devotional writer rather than as a sober historian. His drama, *Caitanya-candrodaya*,² a more mature work composed in 1572

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¹ This enumeration does not really conflict with Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s mention of forty-eight years, for the actual number of years covered by Caitanya’s life appears to have been forty-seven years and a few months. See B. Majumdar, *op. cit.*, pp. 21-23 for a discussion of the question.

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² Ed. Kāvyamālā 87. NSP, Bombay 1917. The date of composition is given in one of concluding verses, which however has been differently interpreted, making a difference of seven years. The verse (*śake caturdaśa-śate ravi-vājī-yukte/gauro harir dharani-maṇḍala āvirāsīt/ tasmins catur-navati-bhāji tadiya-likh-grantho’yam āvirabhavat katamasya vaktrāt//*) says that Caitanya was born in Śaka 1407, and that the drama, which deals with his life, was composed in Śaka 1494=1572 A.D. (*tasmin* referring to unqualified *catur-daśa-śate śake*); but some interpret the verse so as to give Śaka 1501=1579 A.D. as the date of composition (taking *tasmin* to refer to *caturdaśa-śate* like qualified by the phrase *ravivājī-yukte*). As the drama is quoted in Kavikarṇapūra’s *Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā* which is expressly dated 1576 A.D., the date 1572 is more likely than 1579. There is nothing to throw doubt on the genuineness of this verse; but Bimanbihari Majumdar, *op. cit.*, pp. 88-94, brushes aside this explicit date and maintains, chiefly from what he considers to be internal evidence, that the drama was composed before 1540 A.D.

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A. D. at the command of Gajapati Pratāparudra of Orissa,¹ is conceived in the same strain, and introduces allegorical (e. g. Maitri, Bhakti, Adharma, Virāga, etc.) and even mythical figures (e. g. Nārada, Rādhā, Kṛṣṇa, etc.), somewhat after the manner of the well-known *Prabodha-candrodaya*, which must have been its model. If Kavikarṇapūra does not strictly follow Murāri's account in this work, and departs in many details from his earlier poem, it is perhaps due to his more mature and fuller knowledge and judgment, as well as to his desire to enlarge in the drama upon the later phase of Caitanya's life, as much as his immature poem was largely devoted (after Murāri-gupta) to its earlier phase. The work, however, is a regular drama in ten acts, as the other is a regular poem in twenty cantos. As sober historical documents both these works, which are obviously literary and devotional in form and treatment, are not of much value, but they give us an interesting glimpse into the atmosphere of Caitanyaism, and record some traditions which the poet's father, Sivānanda, who is a figure in this drama, might have handed down.²

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¹ One must, however, recognise the difficulty of this reference, for most historians are of opinion that Pratāparudra was dead by 1540 A.D. This is one of the strong reasons which leads B. Majumdar to hold that the drama was composed before 1540, that is, even before the poem, which is dated 1542 A.D.

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² The *Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā* (ed. Murshidabad, Radharaman Press, 1912) is usually regarded as Karṇapūra's third work. Its date of composition, however, is uncertain, as the concluding verse which gives the date has different readings in different manuscripts. The MSS noticed in Haraprasad Sastri's *Notices*, ii, no 60 (pp. 49-50) and in Aufrecht's *Leipzig Catalogue* no. 721, as well as the printed text, read *śake vasu-graha-mite manunaiva yukte* (Saka 1498=1576 A.D.): but the India Office MS (*Eggeling's Catalogue*, iv, no. 2510) reads *śake rāśi-rasa-mite manunaiva yukte* (Saka 1466=1544 A.D.). The work gives an elaborate account of the previous incarnations of Caitanya's disciples as associates of Kṛṣṇa in the Vṛndāvana-līlā,—an extreme logical development of the Vaiṣṇava theory of incarnation, which regards not only Caitanya as Kṛṣṇa, but also his followers as Kṛṣṇa's associates and beloved ones. It is true that hints of such a system are already found in Kavikarṇapūra's *Caitanya-caritāmṛta*

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