Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c6.s3.5

c6.s3.5

We are concerned here not so much with the practical organisation of the sect as with the crystallisation of its dogmas and doctrines; and for our purpose it is not necessary to refer to the later history of the sect and its creed. We are not sure, however, if there was at any time any systematic organisation of the sect. When the movement started at the courtyard of Śrīvāsa after Caitanya's return from Gayā, it started, without any premeditation or previous preparation, among a small band of men in the city who cherished religious aspirations, and who instantly hailed him as the very embodiment of these aspirations. The new and spontaneous enthusiasm proved contagious, and the ranks were quickly filled; but there was as yet hardly any definite idea of establishing a cult or a sect. Nor was the very brief interval between Caitanya's return from Gayā and his Saṃnyāsa enough for a movement to establish itself firmly. When he left Bengal immediately after his Saṃnyāsa, he commended the growing group of his followers at Navadvīpa to the care of the venerable Advaita, as well as to Nityānanda, but the intimate personal contact of the Master, which was essential to its solidarity, was gone. So completely had he been the very life and soul of its activities, that his sudden renunciation and departure from Bengal must have proved a great blow to an incipient movement. No doubt, the annual reunion at Purī and its common enthusiasm and adoration of Caitanya afforded an inspiration and a bond of unity, but the movement grew and expanded somewhat haphazardly in Bengal; and there was no one on the spot who had the same power of personality and influence. Advaita was growing old, and the energy necessary for controlling the movement could not be expected of him. It is also said in the Prema-vilāsa that for a time Advaita gave up the way of Bhakti and reverted to the doctrine of Jñāna. No one else, not even Nityānanda, could effectively replace Caitanya in the leadership of the sect. After Caitanya's death this became even more patent. Although they were a kind of church fathers of the faith, the six Gosvāmins of Vṛndāvana were in fact scholars and recluses, living, as they did, far away from Bengal, and engaged in the absorbing task of preparing the authoritative books of the cult. Their theology was a matter of later deliberate development; and except in their Stotras or Namaskriyās in their dramas and poems, they seldom refer to Caitanya, and speak little of his life and his teaching. If they were devotees they were also theologians; and the disciples of the Vṛndāvana circle, as evidenced also by Kṛṣṇadāsa's biography, looked at Caitanya somewhat differently from the followers of the Navadvīpa circle whose faith was naive, simple and direct. It is true that Rūpa and Sanātana (but seldom their associate Gosvāmins) are mentioned with respect in the earlier biographical records of Caitanya, inspired by the Navadvīpa circle; but it is at the same time noteworthy that, before Kṛṣṇadāsa produced his biography at the inspiration of the Gosvāmins of Vṛndāvana themselves, not much is recorded of them by the Bengal writers, and they do not appear to have received as yet exclusive homage and ascendancy as the acknowledged law-givers of the faith. The phrase 'Six Gosvāmins' (ṣaḍ gosvāminaḥ) is not used before Kṛṣṇadāsa. It was the later effort of Jīva Gosvāmin's pupil Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, and Lokanātha's disciple, Narottama-dāsa Ṭhākura, as well as that of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, which propagated the views of the Gosvāmins in Bengal; but these were different from the original ideas of the Bengal devotees and biographers, who mention Sanātana and Rūpa indeed but never speak collectively of the Six Gosvāmins.