Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c6.s2.88

c6.s2.88

They are also considerably overlaid by curious legends, and present a somewhat exaggerated and frankly incomplete picture¹ which cannot be accepted too literally. If the notes of the tour left by Govinda Karmakāra, who as a personal servant is said to have accompanied his Master,² be genuine, they perhaps offer a more unvarnished record, in which excessive sectarian bias has not entirely obscured the facts. It is not necessary for our purpose to trace the course of his wanderings in detail and describe the places and temples he visited, his various acts of devotion and miracle, his preachings and his theological discourses, and the extraordinary effects which his visit is said to have instantly produced on temple-crowds, on whole villages and cities and entire communities. If we are to accept these orthodox accounts as they stand, we are to believe in a wholesale conversion of the South at the mere sight and sound of Caitanya. It is highly probable that the striking religious personality of the young Saṃnyāsin drew large crowds at every place he went and received willing and enthusiastic homage. But the impression of his visit could not have been so very deep and lasting as his naturally credulous biographers appear to imagine. The later history of the sect does not testify to an extensive following of Caitanyaism in Southern, and Western India; and if Caitanya's visit actually produced such tremendous effect as his faithful followers claim, it must have died out very quickly. One important result, however, of Caitanya's visit might have been that at many points, his living faith touched, stimulated and left its general impress upon Southern and Western Vaiṣṇavism, in its tendency towards a more emotional form of worship. A reference is sometimes made to the almost contemporaneous outburst of Kanarese hymnology, for which credit is given to the alleged Southern visit of Mādhavendra and his disciple Īśvara Purī; and emotional singing in the South, obtaining from the time of the Tamil Alvars, may have received a fresh impetus from the personal example of Caitanya.¹ It is probable also that he left behind some general influence in the Maratha country, which survived, as it did, through a century to the days of Tukārām, who acknowledges his debt to "Caitanya teachers."²