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Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7: Chapter III. The Six Gosvāmins of Vṛndāvana

Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7

Language
English

Contents

Chapter III. The Six Gosvāmins of Vṛndāvana

1. General Remarks

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If Caitanya did not concern himself actively in the work of organising his followers, still less did he take upon himself the work of a thinker or writer. However much intellectual pride he is reported to have possessed in his youth, he gave up his scholastic pursuits almost entirely after his return from Gayā. A man of his great emotional capacity was hardly ever fit for serious or sustained intellectual effort, for which he never showed any particular bent, and which became more and more impossible as years went on. To him spiritual realisation was not a matter of speculative discussion; and on one occasion he confessed to Raghunātha-dāsa¹ that his follower Svarūpa Dāmodara knew more about theology than he himself did. In spite of the fact that some of his scholastic biographers delight in depicting Caitanya as a trained theorist expounding with precision² a whole theological system, we are not sure that he had any settled system in his mind, or ever relished mere theological discourses. The theology that is attributed to him by Kṛṣṇadāsa is clearly the theology of a later day, in which Kṛṣṇadāsa himself was severely trained. This is, however, not the impression given by Murāri-gupta, Vṛndāvana-dāsa and other biographers of the Navadvīpa circle, who avoid the exaggerated scholastic colouring and enlarge more upon Caitanya's ecstatic devotion and power of working miracles. It must not also be forgotten that the significance of Caitanya's teaching lies not so much in his special interpretation of this or that text, but in the reality and force of his inner spiritual experience, which gave him an extraordinary power over the minds of men. The whole trend, indeed, of Caitanya's life was against his being an exact scholar or thinker, and his practice of a highly wrought emotionalism stood in the way of serious intellectual pursuits. When Caitanya closed his *tol* after his return from Gayā, he shut up his books and said to his pupils that for him lessons were finished from that day.¹ The words became almost literally prophetic, for in after-years he hardly ever opened a book for serious study, and hardly ever wrote anything. The scholarly pursuits of a Pandit, the pride of learning, the zest for dialectic disputations—all passed out of his life, which now began to move in a new atmosphere of entirely different interests. Outside the *Śrīmad-bhāgavata*, the newly discovered *Brahma-saṃhitā*, the *Saṃgita-nāṭaka* of Rāmānanda, and the devotional lyrics of Līlāśuka, Jayadeva, Vidyāpati and Caṇḍīdāsa,² he appears to have relished next to nothing.³ It is misdirected zeal which invests him with the false glory of scholastic eminence; his true greatness lies in other directions, and his power over men came from other sources.

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¹ C-C, Antya vi. 233-34.

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² In one place he is represented as explaining a text in 61 different ways. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, no doubt, loves to invest Caitanya with the omniscience of a Śāstric Paṇḍita, but he also indicates that in his ecstatic absorption Caitanya was careless of mere Śāstric knowledge.

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¹ तोमा सभास्थाने मोर एइ परिहार । आज हइते आर पाठ नाहिक आमार ॥...एइ बोल महाप्रभु सभारे कहिया । दिलेन पुथिर डोर अश्रुसिक्त हइया ॥ (C-bh, Madhya i).

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² चण्डीदास विद्यापति रायेर नाटकगीति कर्णामृत श्रीगीतगोविन्द । स्वरूप रामानंद सने महाप्रभु रात्रिसिने गाय शुने परम आनन्द ॥ (C-C, Madhya ii. 77)- विद्यापति चण्डीदास श्रीगीतगोविन्द । एइ तिन गीते करे प्रभुर आनन्द ॥ (C-C, Madhya x. 115). विद्यापति चण्डीदास श्रीगीतगोविन्द । भावानुरूप श्लोक पड़े राय रामानंद ॥ मध्ये मध्ये प्रभु आपने श्लोक पड़िया । श्लोकेर अर्थ करेन प्रभु प्रलाप करिया ॥ (C-C, Antya xvii. 6-7).

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³ It should be recognised that the extremely emotional mode of Caitanya's religious devotion never made any demand upon the intellect, nor wanted the nourishment of any other interest. There was no study, and no production. He lived in and for mystic ecstasies and trances;

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It is not surprising, therefore, that Caitanya wrote nothing with the exception perhaps of eight Sanskrit verses which are given as the Śikṣāṣṭaka, and which are nothing more than expressions of his simple and passionate faith.¹ Kavikarṇapūra in his *Caitanya-candrodaya*² appears to negative the idea that Caitanya ever wrote anything about his doctrines. Ānandin, in his commentary on Prabodhānanda's *Caitanya-candrāmṛta*, distinctly states that Caitanya never composed any work; but he meets the objection of those, who maintain the impossibility of propagating any devotional doctrine without such means, by stating that even if Caitanya wrote

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¹ These verses are given as the Śikṣāṣṭaka in the last chapter of the C-C where Caitanya himself is represented as uttering and explaining them. All these verses are to be found under Caitanya's name (as Śrī-bhagavān) Rūpa Gosvāmin's *Padyāvalī* (ed. S. K. De, Dacca 1934) nos. 22, 31, 32, 71, 93, 94, 324, 337. For a discussion of their authorship and of other doubtful works ascribed to Caitanya, see S. K. De in *IHQ*, 1934, pp. 310-17.

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² Pāripārśvikah: *Bhāva, kim teneha tene hariṇā svābhimatas vyañjako granthah.* Sūtradhārah: *Yadyapi ko na veda veda-kartṛtvam bhagavata-tathāpi khalvantaryāmīti yām ihate preranām na khalu sā bāhyopadeśato delato vā kālataś ca paricchinna bhavitum arhati* (Act i, Prastāvanā).

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they consumed all his energies. Questions of social or ethical import, the welfare of society, seldom impinge upon his ecstatic consciousness; nor does intellectual consideration guide his practice. Although Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja would make an attempt to figure Caitanya as a subtle logician, he would also admit to Caitanya's life of 'divine madness' in later years. The other biographical records, however, clearly indicate that as days went Caitanya's life became marked by progressive nervous instability; and in proportion to the excess of frenzied emotional there was steady deterioration of his intellectual gifts. It is not surprising, therefore, that Caitanyaism itself, which was inspired by and modelled on Caitanya's life, there is a great deal of intellectual subtlety, but intellectual virility is never a marked feature.

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nothing, he transferred his own energy into his disciples like Rūpa and inspired them to reveal the doctrines.¹ The attribution to him, therefore, of any specific work or specific doctrine is more a matter of pious belief than a positive historical fact. It is indeed difficult to say how much of the elaborate theologising, which is piously put in his mouth, was actually uttered by him; for his reported utterances are in fact faithful summaries of the highly scholastic texts of the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins themselves, who, as leisured recluses, could devote their keenly trained minds to the construction of elaborate system. In chapter after chapter of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa, Caitanya is credited with stupendous Śāstric learning, highly philosophical discourses, great scholastic ingenuity, marvels of interpretation in expounding finely finished theological and rhetorical systems of Bhakti; but the general impression, given by the orthodox accounts themselves, of Caitanya's life of continuous and absorbing devotional ecstasies, as well as his own disclaimer (explained as the result of his humility) of all such pretensions, certainly throw considerable doubt upon his personal responsibility in such scholastic pursuits. It is not clear, therefore, how far these tenets of a later time actually represent Caitanya's own views. No doubt, Caitanya is represented as commissioning Rūpa and Sanātana to prepare these learned texts as the doctrinal foundations of the faith, and suggesting to them elaborate outlines and schemes; but these outlines and schemes are so suspiciously faithful to the actual and much later products of the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins themselves that they take away whatever truth there might have been in the representation. That some such relation existed between Caitanya and his Vṛndāvana followers is highly probable, but excessive zeal has represented it in a distorted perspective. It is also noteworthy in this connexion that the actual personal contact of Rūpa and Sanātana with Caitanya was indeed very brief,¹ while there is no evidence to show that Jīva ever had this good fortune. It is almost unbelievable that within the period of a few months at most they could have been instructed in the whole range and depth of the Bhakti-śāstra and in every such detail of doctrine as they set it forth in their elaborate and voluminous works. It is certainly true that Caitanya inspired these men of great talent with a life-long zeal for the task, which made them scorn delight and live laborious days; he might have also suggested to them his own ideas of devotion, born out of his own religious realisation; and above all, his life itself must have furnished them a vivid text to enlarge and comment upon,² But to hold him

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¹ Nanu granthādi-racanām vinā līlādi-vistāraṇam na syāt, granthādiḥ ko'pi na kṛtaḥ Śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanyena, katham tad vastu-prathanam iti vācyam| bhagavatā sākṣād grantha-karaṇābhāvad hṛdā brahmani brahma-prakāśitavac chri-rūpādiṣu sveṣu hṛdi śaktim samcārya tat-tad-dvāreṇa sarvam prakāśitam iti. (pp. 107-8).

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¹ Rūpa was sent by Caitanya to Vṛndāvana immediately after meeting him at Prayāga (Allahabad), but he came to Puri later on and stayed only for ten months (C-C, Antya i and iv, 26). Sanātana met Caitanya at Benares and later on came to Puri for a short while. Locana-dāsa is not supported by any other biographer in the statement that Sanātana was present at the time of Caitanya's passing away. Kavikarṇapūra's account, in his poem, that all the three brothers (including Vallabha) came to Puri together and adored Caitanya lacks corroboration, for it is not accepted by Kṛṣṇadāsa who otherwise draws liberally upon Kavikarṇapūra's account. It is Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, as their disciple and associate at Vṛndāvana, who supplies the longest and best information about Sanātana and Rūpa, the other Bengal biographers knowing little of them at first hand.

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² We have seen that, according to the Bhakti-ratnākara, Sanātana and Rūpa were already well versed in śāstric learning as well as predisposed towards Vaiṣṇavism when Caitanya met them; and this must have been one of the reasons why Caitanya selected them for the special task of systematising the theology of the sect. It is noteworthy that Sanātana Gosvāmin in the 11th verse of his Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta states:

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bhagavad-bhakti-śāstrāṇām ayaṃ sārasya saṃgrahah |
anubhūtasya caitanya-deve tat-priya-rūpataḥ ||

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The word anubhūtasya here is significant. Sanātana does not say that responsible for every fine point of dogma and doctrine elaborated by the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins would indicate an undoubtedly pious, but entirely unhistorical, imagination.

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Whatever might have been the case, the fact remains that Caitanya never thought it necessary to emulate the founders of other Vaiṣṇava sects in the writing of religious or speculative works himself, nor did he care much about putting together all that he taught and practised. He left his own life and personality as an inspiring example of devotion, and as his best legacy to his faithful followers. On his immediate and intimate disciples, therefore, fell the laborious task of systematising the doctrines and practices of the faith and defining

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he actually received any direct instruction in these matters, but that he is compiling what he has felt about the character of Bhakti in Caitanya himself. Again, at the end of the *Digdarśanī* commentary to the same work, Sanātana states:

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*svayaṃ pravartitaiḥ kṛtsnair mamaitāl likhana-śramaḥ / śrīmac-caitanya-rūpo'sau bhagavān priyatam sadā ||*,

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which speaks indeed of inspiration received from Caitanya, but not of direct instruction by him. This is perhaps what is meant by the reference to Rūpa in the well known line: *Śrī-caitanya-mano'bhiṣṭam sthāpitam yena bhūtale*. Rūpa himself similarly speaks of inspiration from Caitanya (*hṛdi yasya preranayā pravartito'ham varāka-rūpo'pi*). But in the works of the Gosvāmins there is nowhere any acknowledgment of direct instruction by Caitanya, as alleged by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja. Had it been a fact, they must have prominently mentioned it. Nor is this fact mentioned in any other biography of Caitanya than that of Kṛṣṇadāsa. It is also noteworthy that, with the exception of the usual Namaskriyā in their various works and of a few hymns by Raghunātha-dāsa and Rūpa which we shall discuss below, the Gosvāmins nowhere speak directly of Caitanya nor give expression to their views about Caitanya. They are chiefly concerned with the exposition of Kṛṣṇa-līlā and never describe Caitanya-līlā. No doubt, they accept the divinity of Caitanya (*e.g.* in the Namaskriyā in Sanātana's *Vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī*: *vande śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanyam bhagavantam kṛpārṇavam | prema-bhakti-vitānārtham gauḍeṣvavatatāra yaḥ ||*; verse 2 of *Bhakti-rasāmṛta*: *tasya hareḥ pada-kamalam vande caitanya-devasya*); but beyond this they hardly ever speak directly about his life and personality. Caitanya-worship does not appear to have been a creed with them.

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its creed. This his Navadvīpa followers had not done; perhaps they had not the training and capacity to do it properly. Caitanya, therefore, chose Sanātana and Rūpa for the highly technical and difficult task for which they appeared fully competent. How much of these teachings is Caitanya's and how much their own will never be definitely known; but it is probable that much of them, written within a few years after his death, was directly inspired by his personal example and teaching. Upon the two brothers Rūpa and Sanātana, Caitanya himself is said to have imposed the special task of expressing its theology and its Rasa-śāstra, in which they were very materially reinforced by the mystical-metaphysical scholarship of their nephew Jīva. They were men of great literary capacity, acute theologians and passionate poets, as well as ascetic devotees. Their authoritative position as the fit and chosen disciples especially instructed and commissioned for the exacting task, their austere and saintly character, their selfless devotion to the cause, and their laborious and life-long scholarship gave them a unique influence as the three authoritative Gosvāmins or teachers of the cult. As such, they had been held in the highest veneration in the later history of the sect. With these was closely associated Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, alleged to have been a South Indian Brahman, whose name and attainments are held with almost equal veneration. His chief task appears to have been the codification, probably in collaboration with Sanātana, of the Vaiṣṇava social and religious practices in a voluminous compilation, which forms the most authoritative ritualistic text of the cult. To these four Gosvāmins were added Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa, who does not appear to have written much, and Raghunātha-dāsa, whose passionate devotional sensibilities produced a Sanskrit poetical work of the Campū type on Kṛṣṇa-līlā and a series of fervent Sanskrit poems and panegyrics, as well as Bengali lyrics on the same erotic-mystic theme.

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These were the six Gosvāmins to whom belongs the credit of working out and defining the whole system of tenets peculiar to Bengal Vaiṣṇavism. The works of the Navadvīpa and Vṛndāvana circles of followers respectively were produced at about the same time, but the 'Six Gosvāmins' as such are never, for obvious reason, spoken of by Murāri, Karṇapūra, Vṛndāvana, Jayānanda and Locana, although individually Sanātana and Rūpa are mentioned, as well as Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Raghunātha-dāsa.¹ By the middle of the 17th century, however, the learned Bengali biography of Caitanya by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, as well as the zeal of Śrinivāsa Ācārya and Narottama-dāsa, made the views of the Six Gosvāmins accepted as authoritative in Bengal, so much so that they came almost to eclipse every other point of view. It was the inspiration and teaching of the six pious and scholarly Gosvāmins which came to determine finally the doctrinal trend of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism which, however modified and supplemented in later times, dominated throughout its subsequent history. To them was due the building up of modern Vṛndāvana as the chief intellectual and religious centre of the sect, where its philosophy, its theology, its ritualism and its Rasa-śāstra were created. They reclaimed the sacred sites, identified them, and gave to each a distinctive name; they made their wealthy disciples and admirers build the great temples, groves, and bathing places, and thus laid the foundations of its modern glory and sanctity. It was indeed their eminence and influence which gave a marked primacy to the Bengal school over other rival schools in the holy city associated with the name of Kṛṣṇa.²

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¹ Before Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja's *Caitanya-caritāmṛta* (i.e. before 1615 A.D.), the term 'Six Gosvāmins' is never used in the previous biographies of Caitanya. The name of Jīva does not appear at all. Murāri mentions Gopāla Bhaṭṭa (iii. 15, 15-16), Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa (iv. 1. 17), Raghunātha-dāsa (iv. 17-21), and Sanātana and Rūpa (iii. 18. 1-2; iv. 13. 6, 11 f). Vṛndāvana-dāsa only mentions Rūpa and Sanātana. Kavikarṇapūra in his poem (xvii. 7-24) and drama (ix. 28, 29, 34, 37) refers to Rūpa, Sanātana and Raghunātha-dāsa.

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² Growse in his *History of Mathura* (p. 241) relates a story of Emperor Akbar's visit to these Gosvāmins at Vṛndāvana in 1573 A.D.

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Not much is known about the details of their life, but most of their works have survived.¹ Without exception they adopted Sanskrit as their medium of expression. The adoption of the almost obsolete and pedantic classical language was probably prompted by the idea of the sanctity and authority attached to the learned Deva-bhāṣā as befitting their classical works. But perhaps there was also the temptation of appealing to a larger learned public, as well as of emulating the standard Sanskrit texts of other schools and obtaining equal recognition.

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¹ Most of these works have been published in Bengali characters at Berhampur-Murshidabad by the Radharaman Press. In the lists given below, these have been marked with an asterisk. Those printed at Vṛndāvana and elsewhere are separately indicated.

2. Raghunātha-dāsa

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Of Raghunātha-dāsa, who lived with Caitanya for many years at Puri, a great deal is known from Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja (Antya vi), who was his intimate friend and disciple at Vṛndāvana, and who must have made a considerable use of the personal reminiscences of this venerable Gosvāmin in his account of the last phase of Caitanya's career. Raghunātha-dāsa's life presents yet another example, not rare in this period of religious revival, of the renunciation of worldly eminence and fortune for the sake of spiritual advancement. He was the son of a rich Kāyastha, named Govardhana, a zamindar of Saptagrāma in the district of Hooghly, who is said to have enjoyed a princely income of twelve lakhs of rupees; but the heir to this immense fortune evinced deep religious tendencies from his boyhood, which proved disquieting to his father. On the occasion of Caitanya's visit to Śāntipur on his way to Rāmakeli, Raghunātha is said to have met Caitanya for the first time. Raghunātha's meeting with and of his recognition of their spiritual activities. The wealthy Rajas of the West, who were their disciples, contributed towards the building of the fine temples, seven of the oldest and finest of which are ascribed to these Gosvāmins. See Growse, *op. cit.*, for details.

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Nityānanda later on¹ at Pānihāṭi, near Calcutta, stimulated his spiritual longings further, and very soon he escaped the vigilance of his apprehensive father and left, as Kṛṣṇadāsa tells us, wealth befitting Indra and a wife like an Apsaras (इन्द्रसम ऐश्वर्य स्त्री अप्सरासम). This is confirmed by Raghunātha's own statement in his *Gaurāṅga-stava-kalpataru* that Caitanya saved him from the influence of wealth and wife (*mahāsampad-dārād api*).² After an arduous journey, he reached Caitanya at Puri, where he was handed over for spiritual training to Svarūpa Dāmodara. The extreme austerities which Raghunātha practised was a thing of wonder even to the devout Vaiṣṇavas, and Caitanya himself is said to have acknowledged their depth and sincerity.³ According to Kavikarṇapūra (*Caitanya-candrodaya*, x. 3), Raghunātha's Dīkṣā-guru was Yadunandana Ācārya; but Raghunātha himself in some of his poems⁴ pays homage to Rūpa Gosvāmin.

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¹ This meeting is commemorated by an annual festivity, called Daṇḍa-mahotsava. The origin of the festivity and its quaint name are thus explained. Perceiving that Raghunātha was filled with a desire for ascetic life, but outwardly engrossed in worldly concern, Nityānanda laughingly called him a "dissembler" and pronounced a punishment (*daṇḍa*) on him that he should feed all the assembled Vaiṣṇavas. The rich young man, in obedience, gave a sumptuous feast and distributed large sums of money among the Vaiṣṇava guests. The account is to be found in *C-C.* Antya vi. It is curious, however, that Raghunātha nowhere mentions Nityānanda in his works, although in his *Caitanyāṣṭaka* and *Gaurāṅga-stava-kalpataru*, he refers to Īśvara Purī, Govinda, Kāśī Miśra and Svarūpa. It is also noteworthy that, with the exception of Murāri, Kavikarṇapūra and Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, Raghunātha is not mentioned by the other biographers of Caitanya.

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² The alternative reading is *mahāsampad-dāvād api* ("from the consuming fire of great wealth").

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³ रघुनाथेर वैराग्य (v.l. नियम) हय पापाशेर रेखा (*C-C.* Antya vi. 309).

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⁴ *Abhīṣṭa-sūcana*, Śl. 2; *Manaḥ-śikṣā*, Śl. 11, 12; *Sva-niyama-daśaka* Śl. 10; *Rādhā-kṛṣṇojjvala-kusuma-keli*, Śl. 44; *Vilākhānanda-stotra*, Śl. 134; *Dāna-keli-cintāmaṇi*, Śl. 174-175. But *Abhīṣṭa-sūcana* Śl. 13 says: मां पुनरहो श्रीमान् स्वरूपोऽवतु, but the commentator apparently reads स रूपोऽवतु।

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as his Śikṣā-guru. After Caitanya's death he is said to have left Puri for Vṛndāvana, where he joined Rūpa and Sanātana and lived a self-imposed life of hard asceticism near Rādhā-kuṇḍa till his death. Caitanya had entrusted him with a Govardhana-śilā, a dark-coloured stone used as an emblem of Kṛṣṇa, which he nourished and tended with deep devotion, daily bathing it, feeding it and worshipping it with elaborate service. From his Vraja-vilāsa-stava (Śl. 2), it appears that he became blind in his old age; and his Dānakeli-cintāmaṇi (Śl. 2 and 173) was composed after he had become blind. He was the only non-Brahman (Kāyastha) disciple among the Six Gosvāmins, but the honour paid to him is no less on that account.

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His literary works,¹ which deal in impassioned Sanskrit verse and prose, with the mystic-erotic aspects of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa worship, are not very extensive. They are mostly in the nature of fervent lyrical hymns, Stavas or Stotras, which have been collected together and published under the title *Stavāvali*.² They are either devout praises of Caitanya (e. g. Caitanyāṣṭaka, nine stanzas in Śikhariṇī; Gaurāṅga-stava-kalpataru, twelve stanzas also in Śikhariṇī), but most of them give an emotional treatment in highly erotic imagery of the various aspects of Kṛṣṇa-līlā. The total number of these hymns is twenty-nine, and they are of varying lengths and are composed in a variety of metres, although Śikhariṇī and Mālinī appear to have been the author's favourite metres. Some of the longest and best known are: the Vilāpa-kusumāñjali (104 stanzas in diverse metres), Rādhā-kṛṣṇojjvala-kusumakeli (44 stanzas in Śikhariṇī), Viśākhānanda-stotra (134 verses in Śloka metre) and Vraja-vilāsa-stava (107 stanzas in various metres¹). The purely poetic merit of these Stavas cannot be estimated very highly, but their evident erotic mysticism, consisting of a deeply emotional spiritualisation of sensuous forms, gives them a rich and luscious charm and a sweet ring of passion, which bear a striking testimony to an interesting feature of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism. The original inspiration of these poems comes, of course, from the Śrīmad-bhāgavata, and from Jayadeva's highly finished lyrical Gita-govinda, which, we are told, were the constant sources of the ecstatic emotions of Caitanya himself; but the Śrī-kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta of Līlāśuka, which Caitanya is said to have discovered in his Southern tour and commended in superlative terms to his disciples, must have had a great deal of influence on this type of writing in Bengal. Raghunātha's only sustained composition, however, was his *Muktā-caritra*,¹ a Sanskrit Kāvya of the Campū type written in prose and occasional verse, but interspersed with witty dialogues. The theme is Kṛṣṇa's early sports at Vṛndāvana, its object being to show the superiority of his free love for Rādhā over his wedded love for Satyabhāmā. On Satyabhāmā's somewhat naïve enquiry as to whether pearls grew on trees, Kṛṣṇa himself relates a fanciful story of his sowing pearls at Vṛndāvana and producing pearl-creepers, which bore pearls as fruits, of the failure of Rādhā and her companions at a similar effort, of their offer to buy Kṛṣṇa's pearls, of their subsequent raillery, of the witty repartee, amorous dialogues and adventures following upon the incident. In this work, as well as in some of the Stotras mentioned above, Raghunātha pays homage to the kindness and affection shown to him by Rūpa, Sanātana and Jīva, and in the last verse of the *Muktā-caritra* he speaks of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja in whose company at Rādhā-kuṇḍa he passed his last days in Vṛndāvana. Raghunātha probably wrote some other poetical works, for the three verses cited with his name in the *Padyāvali* are not traceable in the poems mentioned above. A work called *Dāna-carita*,² is ascribed to him in the Bhakti-ratnākara (ch. i, p. 59). This appears to be the Dāna-keli-cintāmaṇi,¹ which in 175 highly erotic stanzas in different metres, gives an imaginary account of the Dāna-līlā of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, a theme which is also treated under the caption Dāna-khaṇḍa by Baḍu Caṇḍīdāsa² in a somewhat different strain and which finds another expression in Rūpa’s Dāna-keli-kaumudī. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja tells us (C-C Antya xiv. 7) that like Svarūpa Dāmodara, Raghunātha also wrote some biographical account of Caitanya in the Kaḍacā form,³ but of this there is no information. There are also three Bengali Padas assigned to him in the Bengali Vaiṣṇava anthology, Pada-kalpataru of Vaiṣṇava-dāsa.⁴

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¹ For the literary works of Raghunātha see below under ch. vii.—Yadunandana Ācārya is mentioned in C.C, Antya vi. 161 as Advaita's disciple and Raghunātha's Guru.

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² As already indicated above, works marked with an asterisk (as here) have been published at Murshidabad (Berhampur) by the Radharaman Press, in Bengali characters and generally with a Bengali translation. The Stavāvali has been printed with a Sanskrit commentary by Vangeśvara (or Vaṅgavihārī) whose title is differently given in the work itself as Vidyābhūṣaṇa and Vidyālaṅkāra. A commentary, or rather gloss, ascribed to Raghunātha himself, is noticed in Eggeling's India Office Catalogue, vii. pp. 1466-7 (no. 1177). From the extracts quoted as specimens, this appears to be different from the commentary of Vangeśvara.

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¹ The printed Stotras in the collection, besides those mentioned above are: Prārthanā (4 verses in Śārdūlavikrīḍita, Mālinī, Śikhariṇī and Sragdharā), Govardhanāśraya-daśaka (11 verses in Śārdūlavikrīḍita); Govardhana-vāsa-prārthanā-daśaka (11 verses in Mālinī), Rādhākuṇḍa-ṣṭaka (9 verses in Mālinī), Prema-pūrābhidha-stotra (11 verses in Mālinī), Prārthanā (4 verses in diverse metres), Sva-niyama-daśaka (11 verses in Śikhariṇī), Rādhikāṣṭottara-śata-nāma (in Śloka metre, 47 verses), Rādhikāṣṭaka (9 verses in Mālinī), Premāmbhoja-marandākhya-stavarāja (13 verses in Śloka metre), Sva-saṃkalpa-prakāśa (21 verses in Bhujangaprayāta, Śikhariṇī, etc.), Prārthanāmṛta (20 verses in Śikhariṇī, Mandākrāntā, Pṛthvī, Śārdūlavikrīḍita, Upendravajrā, Sragdharā etc.), Navāṣṭaka (9 verses in Śārdūlavikrīḍita), Gopāla-rāja-stotra (15 verses in Mālinī), Madanagopāla-stotra (22 verses in Mālinī), Mukundāṣṭaka (9 verses in Mālinī), Utkaṇṭhā-daśaka (11 verses in Śārdūlavikrīḍita), Nava-yuva-dvandva-didṛkṣāṣṭaka (9 verses in Mālinī), Abhīṣṭa-prārthanā-ṣṭaka (8 verses in Śikhariṇī), Dāna-nirvartana-kuṇḍāṣṭaka (9 verses in Mālinī), Prārthanāśraya-caturdaśaka (14 verses in Śikhariṇī, Vasantatilakā, Mālinī, Mandākrāntā, etc.), Abhīṣṭa-sūcana (13 verses in Indravajrā, Vasantatilakā, Mālinī, Mandākrāntā, Sragdharā, Śārdūlavikrīḍita, etc.).

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¹ Ed. Nityasvarup Brahmacari, in Bengali characters, with a Bengali translation, Vṛndavan 1908.

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² This is not the nameless Sanskrit work noticed in Eggeling's *India Office Catalogue* (vii, p. 1470b, no. 1184d) and ascribed to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, perhaps wrongly. The India Office work is written in prose and verse, and consists of four chapters, the descriptive titles of which will indicate their respective themes: (i) Vasana-caurya-keli, (ii) Bhāra-khaṇḍa, (iii) Pāra-khaṇḍa, and (iv) Dānakhaṇḍa, which form the various well known aspects of Kṛṣṇa's sport. From the passages quoted in Eggeling's *Catalogue* it appears that this work, attributed to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, is identical with the *Rādhā-premāmṛta* (ed. Murshidabad, Radharaman Press, B.S. 1335=1929 A.D.: the name of the author being given here as one Mohinimohana Lāhiḍi Vidyālaṃkāra of the village Māluṅga !), the authorship of which is sometimes also ascribed to

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¹ Ed. Haridas Das, Navadvīpa 1937, in Bengali characters.

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² Ed. Vaṅgiya Sāhitya Pariṣat, Calcutta 1916, p. 33 f.

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³ In C-C, Madhya ii. 84, 93, Raghunātha is said to have committed Svarūpa’s Kaḍacā to memory and thus preserved it; but in Antya xiv. 7-10, Svarūpa is called the Sūtrakāra and Raghunātha the Vṛttikāra, pointing to collaboration.

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⁴ The commentary on Rūpa Gosvāmin’s Dāna-keli-kaumudī is wrongly ascribed to Raghunātha-dāsa in Aufrecht. It was composed by Jīva. To Raghunātha-dāsa, as well as to his namesake Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa, is sometimes wrongly attributed the Govinda-līlāmṛta which was really the work of their friend and disciple Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, who is described in xxiii. 95 as "a bee to the lotus-feet of Rūpa and Raghunātha" (see Ind. Ant., 1928, p. 208). A Sārāt-sāra-tattva-saṃgraha is ascribed also to Raghunātha in a manuscript noticed in Mitra, Notices, vi, no. 2153, p. 214. It proposes to deal with the five Tattvas, viz., Guru, Kṛṣṇa, Nāman, Bhakti and Bhakta, for these are regarded as sārāt sāraṃ parāt param. But the colophon simply says: Iti sārāt-sāra-tattva-saṃgrahe pañcākhyāne ṣaṣṭha-vivekaḥ. The topic is dealt with also by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja in C-C, Ādi vii. 3-17. As Svarūpa Dāmodara is credited by Kavikarṇapūra with the doctrine of Pañca-tattva, it is not unlikely that Svarūpa’s disciple Raghunātha also wrote a work on the subject. Ānandin (p. 125) refers to Svarūpa’s work on Pañca-tattva as Gaura-tattva-nirūpaṇa.

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Caitanya himself. The work is also known as Gopāla-caritra. It cannot be the composition of a modern author, for two verses from it are cited in Rūpa Gosvāmin’s Padyāvalī and assigned to Manohara (see S. K. De, ed. of Padyāvalī p. 216).

3. Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa

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Of Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa nothing much is known, and he does not appear to have left any work. Murāri (iv. 1. 15-17) tells us that Caitanya met his father Tapana Miśra at Benares, where Caitanya became his guest on his journey back from Vṛndāvana and revealed his grace to the boy Raghunātha. Later on Raghunātha came to Caitanya at Puri and stayed there for eight months. At Caitanya's direction he returned home; and after four years, on the death of his parents, he came again to Puri and stayed for eight months. He was then directed by Caitanya to join Rūpa and Sanātana at Vṛndāvana, where he appears to have lived thereafter. Caitanya is said to have given him a Tulasī garland. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja tells us that the Bhaṭṭa was well read in the Śrīmad-bhāgavata, and Rūpa used to take delight in his reading of that scripture.¹

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¹ C-C. Antya xiii. 117, 126-29.

4. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa

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Apart from uncertain legends, there is no full nor satisfactory account of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa. Nothing practically is recorded of him by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, who refers to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa (Ādi i. 37) as one of his Śikṣā-gurus,² and must have known him quite well during the last phase of his life at Vṛndāvana. Narahari Cakravartin, in the first half of the 18th century, explains³ this extraordinary silence as due to an express prohibition, befitting his Vaiṣṇava humility, by Gopāla Bhaṭṭa himself, and undertakes to remedy this deficiency by a curious account in his own Bhakti-ratnākara.⁴

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² Other references to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa occur at Ādi x. 105, xi. 4; Madhya xviii. 49.—On Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, see S. K. De in Indian Culture, v, 1938-39, pp. 57-71.

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³ श्रीगोपाल भट्ट हइया आज्ञा दिल। ग्रन्थे निज प्रसङ्ग वर्णिते निषेधिल ॥ केन निषेधिल इहा के बुझिते पारे। निरन्तर अति दीन माने आपनारे ॥ कविराज तार आज्ञा नारे लङ्घिवार। नाममात्र लिखे ना करे प्रचार ॥

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⁴ Ed. Radharaman Press, Berhampur-Murshidabad, ch. i, pp. 6-16.

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The tradition recorded by Narahari informs us that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was the son of Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa, a learned Brahman of Southern India, at whose house Caitanya was a guest for four months during his South Indian pilgrimage; but no information is given regarding the place where Veṅkaṭa lived. Veṅkaṭa's elder brother was Trimalla and younger Prabodhānanda; they were worshippers of Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa and belonged to the Śrīvaiṣṇava sect; but through the grace of Caitanya, they, as well as young Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, were inspired with a devotion for Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa worship. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa further receiving Caitanya's direction to leave later for Vṛndāvana and meet Rūpa and Sanātana there.¹ He was educated by his uncle Prabodhānanda and, in a short time, went to Vṛndāvana with the permission of his parents. Narahari tells us that of all this there is a special account in the *Caitanya-caritāmṛta* (चैतन्यचरितामृते विशेष-वर्णन) meaning Kṛṣṇadāsa's biography; but he acknowledges that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's name does not appear there in this connexion (गोपाल भट्टेर नाम अलभ्य तथाय). But as an explanation he further states that 'elsewhere' it is found that Gopāla was the son of Veṅkaṭa (अन्यत्र व्याह गोपाल वेङ्कटनय).

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¹ This would imply that Rūpa and Sanātana were already in Vṛndāvana when Gopāla Bhaṭṭa arrived there; so Narahari says elsewhere: लिखिलेन पलीते श्रीरूपसनातन। गोपाल भट्टेर वृन्दावन-आगमन॥. But in another place Narahari says again: रूप आर सनातन यबे आइला वृन्दावन भट्ट गोसाञि मिलिला सबाय। implying that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was already there when Rūpa and Sanātana arrived for the first time! When did Gopāla Bhaṭṭa actually arrive?

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What is actually found in the *Caitanya-caritāmṛta* and 'elsewhere' about Gopāla Bhaṭṭa can be summarised as follows. Murāri-gupta (iii. 15. 14-16) mentions the hospitality of Trimalla (and not of Veṅkaṭa) during the rainy season, and describes Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, then a young lad, giving up his boyish sports and turning into a Bhakta by the touch of Caitanya, as the son of Trimalla; but no other details are given. In his Sanskrit Kāvya on Caitanya (xiii. 4), Kavi-karṇapūra states that Caitanya spent four months in the house of Trimalla Bhaṭṭa at Śrīraṅgam during his South Indian pilgrimage, but no mention is made of Veṅkaṭa, Prabodhānanda or Gopāla Bhaṭṭa in this connexion. Nor is this incident referred to in Karṇapūra's better known Sanskrit drama on Caitanya. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja makes matters worse confused¹ by speaking separately (Madhya i. 108-10 and ix. 82-166) of the hospitality of Trimalla and Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa, at Śrīraṅgam, respectively for four months; both of them are described as Śrīvaiṣṇavas, but their connexion is not stated; and, as Narahari says, the name of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa does not appear. In other biographies of Caitanya there is no reference to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa or to this incident at all.

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¹ This has not escaped the notice of Manohara-dāsa who comments in his Anurāga-vallī (Mañjarī i): सेवाने त्रिमल्ल भट्ट घरे भिक्षा लैला। भट्ट प्रार्थनामते चातुर्मास्य रैला॥ नवम परिछेदे सेइ सूत्र विस्तारिल। ताहे तार छोट भाइ वेङ्कट लिखिल॥ त्रिमल्ल भट्ट पुत्रादि आत्मसात् परिपाटी। रहि गेल ते कारणे लिखनेर त्रुटि॥

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By 'elsewhere,' therefore, Narahari may be referring to some such works of later date as the Prema-vilāsa² of Nityānanda-dāsa, where a similar but much briefer account is found; while the Anurāga-vallī³ of Manohara-dāsa records in some detail a somewhat similar tradition. According to Nityānanda-dāsa, Caitanya spent four months in the house of Trimalla Bhaṭṭa at Śrīraṅgam and directed Trimalla's younger brother Prabodhānanda to educate the young Gopāla (apparently Trimalla's son, for Veṅkaṭa is not mentioned), who would in time become a very learned man, and commanded Gopāla Bhaṭṭa to go to Vṛndāvana after his parents³ death. Manohara-dāsa accepts this story, believes that Gopāla was Trimalla's son, and states that Veṅkaṭa was the eldest and Prabodhānanda, who was Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's teacher, the youngest of the three brothers. In his account Gopāla was apparently a grown-up and learned young man at the time of Caitanya's visit; Caitanya commanded him to stay at home and tend his father and uncles but directed him to join Sanātana and Rūpa later at Vṛndāvana. Monohara adds that sometime after Caitanya's visit, the three brothers, with their wives, set out on a pilgrimage and came to Caitanya at Purī, where after religious intercourse, they were bidden to return home.

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² Ed. Radharaman Press, Berhampur-Murshidabad, 2nd ed., 1911, in the 18th Vilāsa. In the work itself its date of composition is given as Śaka 1522=1600 A. D., but the internal evidence of some parts conflicts with this date.

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³ Ed. Amrita Bazar Patrika Office, Calcutta 1898, pp. 8-12. The work is dated at Vṛndāvana in Śaka 1618=1696 A.D.

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It will be seen at once that there is a great deal of discrepancy and uncertainty in the accounts, meagre in themselves, which the records of the sect give of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa. Narahari is not unaware of this fact, but he exhorts the faithful not to indulge in vain arguments.¹ It is clear, however, that those writers, who have at all recorded anything about Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, agree about his South Indian origin, but they do not agree about his ancestry and personal history. The account of his meeting with Caitanya is also enveloped in the uncertainty of legends; and it is curious that at the time when Caitanya is alleged to have directed Gopāla Bhaṭṭa to meet Sanātana and Rūpa at Vṛndāvana, he himself had not yet met them nor directed them to proceed to Vṛndāvana! The fact is that none of Caitanya's well known disciples accompanied him during his South Indian pilgrimage; it is, therefore, not strange that the accounts of it, written in much later times and based more upon hearsay than direct knowledge, should be meagre and conflicting.²

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¹ श्रीगोपाल भट्ट र ए सब विवरण। केह किछु वर्ण केह ना करे वर्णन ॥ ना बुझिया मर्म इहे कुतर्क ने करे। अपराधबोज तार हृदये संवारे ॥ (p. 15)

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² Some modern writers (Ramnarayan Vidyaratna, introd. to the Berhampur ed. of the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa; Dinesh Chandra Sen, Vaiṣṇava Literature of Bengal, Calcutta University 1917, p. 57; etc.)

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The mention of Prabodhānanda as the uncle of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa is also curious; but it occurs nowhere else but in the three late works of Nityānanda-dāsa, Manohara and Narahari. At the commencement of his *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa*, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, no doubt, describes himself as the disciple (Śiṣya) of Prabodhānanda, but he is silent regarding his own parentage and makes no mention of his alleged relationship to Prabodhānanda. Gopāla describes Prabodhānanda as *bhagavat-priya*,¹ an epithet of which the commentary gives alternative explanations as a Bahuvrīhi and as a Tatpuruṣa compound. The latter sense would imply that Prabodhānanda was a favourite disciple and Gopāla Bhaṭṭa the disciple of this favourite disciple of Caitanya; and yet it is somewhat strange that the biographies of Caitanya preserve no account of Prabodhānanda² and very little of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa! Some Stotra-kāvyas exist bearing Prabodhānanda's name; they testify to their author's Vaiṣṇavite inclination and to a feeling of deep devotion to Caitanya as the supreme object of adoration. Of these the more well

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¹ The stanza runs thus: *bhakter vilāsāṃ cinute prabodhā-nandasya śiṣyo bhagavat-priyasya/ gopāla-bhaṭṭo raghunātha-dāsam/ saṃtoṣayan rūpa-sanātanau ca//*. The verse is known to Nityānanda-dāsa, Narahari and Manohara.

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² The omission is sometimes explained as due to Prabodhānanda's alleged defection from the orthodox views of the Gosvāmins, but this is unconvincing in view of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's direct mention of him as his Guru, along with the mention of Rūpa, Sanātana and Raghunātha-dāsa in the same stanza.

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add to the confusion by proposing to identify Gapāla Bhaṭṭa's alleged father, Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa, with Veṅkaṭanātha of Velaguṇḍi, whom Dharmarājādhvarin mentions as his Guru in his *Vedānta-paribhāṣā*; but of this there is not the slightest evidence. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's native place, again is given by some as Bhaṭṭamāri; but in Kṛṣṇadāsa's description of Caitanya's South Indian pilgrimage, Bhaṭṭamāri occurs not as the name of a place but as the name of a gang of false ascetics whom Caitanya is said to have met in Mallāra land (Malabar?).

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known is the *Caitanyacandrāmṛta*. The printed text¹ of the poem consists of 143 devotional verses in various metres distributed over twelve Vibhāgas. They are panegyrics of Caitanya, and the names of the Vibhāgas, such as Stuti, Nati, Āśīr, Bhakta-mahiman, Abhakta-nindā, Dainya, Upāsya-niṣṭhā, Utkarṣa, Avatāra, Loka-śikṣā, Rūpollāsa and Śocana, would roughly indicate their content. Several stanzas (especially 38, 129, 131, 135 and 136) suggest that the author must have seen Caitanya at Puri and had been in close contact with him: which would support the inference of his having been a disciple. The stanzas lament the passing away of the Lord and possibly of some of his great disciples; and the consequent disruption of the sect is also implied. This Stotra-kāvya is also interesting as one of the early works which openly inculcate Caitanya-worship, to which, however, the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins do not appear to have lent any direct theoretical support.² The poem undoubtedly reflects what is called the Gaura-pāramya attitude of his Navadvīpa devotees, which is not explicit in the works of the Gosvāmins, but which regards Caitanya in himself, and not as an image of Kṛṣṇa, as the highest reality or Parama Tattva. The theory that all the Gaṇas of Kṛṣṇa became incarnated along with Caitanya (a doctrine which probably originated at Navadvīpa and is fully described in 1576 A. D. by Kavikarṇapūra in his *Gaura-gaṇoddeśa*,³ but which found little encouragement from the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins!) is referred to in stanza 118; while the belief, first utilised by the contemporary composers of Bengali Padas,¹ that Caitanya was an incarnation of both Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā finds expression in stanzas 13 and 109. What is more remarkable is that in stanza 132 there is a reference to Caitanya as Gaura-nagara-vara, which apparently subscribes to the Nāgara-bhāva doctrine of Narahari Sarkār and Locana-dāsa, a doctrine which hardly found favour in the orthodox circles.² It is no wonder that the poem is not quoted with approval by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, but it is somewhat strange that its author, with his unorthodox views, could have been the Guru of one of the venerable Gosvāmins! From stanza 19 it is probable that Prabodhānanda was an Advaita Saṃnyāsin before he met Caitanya; and the commentator Ānandin describes him as Parivrājakācārya Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī, which description is often found in the colophons of the MSS of the poem. The other work ascribed to Prabodhānanda is entitled Saṃgita-mādhava.³ It gives in fifteen cantos a treatment of the Vṛndāvana-līlā of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa; and in imitation of Jayadeva's Gita-govinda, which is its obvious model, it includes melodious Padāvalis or songs. A third work, called Vṛndāvana-mahimāmṛta,⁴ is also ascribed to him; it describes with elaborate devotional fancy the glories of Vṛndāvana as the abode of Kṛṣṇa and the scene of his sports. A Sanskrit commentary¹ on the *Gopāla-tāpanī* Upaniṣad by Paramahaṃsa Parivrājakācārya Śrī-Prabodha Sarasvatī also exists, while a *Viveka-śataka*² on dispassion or indifference to worldly attraction is found ascribed to Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī.³

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¹ Ed. Radharaman Press, Berhampur-Murshidabad 1926, in Bengali characters, with the Sanskrit Rasikāsvādinī commentary of Ānandin, and a Bengali prose translation. For MSS of the work see Aufrecht, *Catalogus Catalogorum*, and *Descriptive Catalogue of Skt. MSS in the Vaṅgīya Sāhitya Pariṣad*, p. 223. In some Catalogues the total number of stanzas is given as 141 or 144, and the texts in the cited extracts do not always correspond exactly.

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² See below chapter v, on Caitanya-worship as a cult.

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³ See above p. 45, fn 3.

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² See above p. 65. 3 Printed from the Bhakti-prabhā Office, Hugli 1936, in Bengali characters. There is a MS of the work in the Dacca University Library (no. 1402) in Bengali script, with 17 folios. The MS contains 15 cantos and a total of 141 verses, excluding songs which are separately numbered (the 16th canto of the printed text really consists of four extra Namaskriyā verses, which are added after the colophon by the Dacca University MS, but which are not taken as forming an extra canto, there being no formal colophon after them naming a 16th canto). One of the opening (no. 6) and one of the concluding (no. 138) verses pay homage to Caitanya as Gaura and Sacinandana respectively. 4 A. B. Kathvate, Report on the Search of Skr. MSS, 1891-95, Bombay 1901, p. 38, no. 577; the number of verses is not mentioned, but since the MS contains only 11 folios (with 11 lines on a page) it cannot be a very long poem. It is, however, said that Prabodhānanda composed this work in one hundred Satakas, of which seventeen

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¹ Descriptive Catalogue of Skt. MSS in the Calcutta Sanskrit College Library, vol. x, pp. 158-59.

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² R. L. Mitra, *Notices*, vii, p. 261, no. 2510; in 180 Sanskrit 'Slokas.'

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³ The title Sarasvatī is mentioned in the *Bhakti-ratnākara*.—The Stotra-kāvya, named *Rādhā-rasa-sudhānidhi*, printed in two parts from the Bhakti-prabhā Office, Hugli 1924, 1935, is wrongly ascribed to Prabodhānanda. The first and the last verses of the printed text pay homage to Caitanya, but these verses are missing in the MSS noticed by Eggeling (*India Office Catalogue*, vii, pp. 1464-65), Aufrecht (*Bodleian Catalogue* p. 131, no. 239), Haraprasad Sastri (*Descriptive Catalogue of ASB Collection*, vii, p. 230 and *Notices*, 2nd Series, i, p. 384), while the work is uniformly ascribed in these and other MSS to Hitaharivaṃśa, son of Vyāsa. It is obviously a case of appropriation by the Caitanya sect of a work composed by Hitaharivaṃśa of the Rādhāvallabhi sect!

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Śatakas have been printed in Bengali characters at Vrindavan (1933-37) by Harendra Kumar Chakravarti and others; some of the Śatakas in this collection contain more than a hundred stanzas.—A *Vṛndāvana-śataka* (ed. Haeberlin's *Kāvya-saṃgraha*, 1847, p. 430 f; reprinted in Jivananda Vidyasagara's *Kāvya-saṃgraha*, pt. ii, 3rd ed., Calcutta 1888, pp. 333-384; 126 stanzas) is often ascribed to Prabodhānanda; but the name of the author is missing in the printed text. There are, however, two opening verses (nos. 2, 3), containing references to Caitanya, which raise the presumption that it was written by a Bengali Vaiṣṇava. In most of the catalogues and reports of Sanskrit MSS, where MSS of the *Vṛndāvana-śataka* are noticed, it is generally assigned to Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī (e.g. R. L. Mitra, *Notices*, vi, p. 188, no. 2122; Peterson, *Three Reports*, p. 396, no. 351; *Catalogue of Skt. MSS in the Vaṅgiya Sāhitya Pariṣad*, p. 205; but no name of the author is found in MSS noticed in Stein, *Jammu Catalogue*, p. 74, no. 816 and in R. G. Bhandarkar, *Report* 1887-91, p. 32, no. 468). If it is a genuine work of Prabodhānanda, it might have formed a part of the bigger *Vṛndāvana-mahimāmṛta* as one of its constituent Śatakas; but the parts of the latter work, which have so far been printed, do not contain this series of verses.

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Whether this Saṃnyāsin and Stotra-writer is identical with Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's Guru Prabodhānanda yet remains to be proved; and the allegation that he was Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's uncle is found only in the legend, clearly of a later date, narrated by Nityānanda, Manohara and Narahari.¹

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¹ The proposed identification of Prabodhānanda with Prakāśānanda (of which one hears for the first time in the spurious Advaita-prakāśa, see above p. 100, note 1), whom Caitanya met at Benares, is still more unfounded and unjustifiable. There is also no evidence for the statement (Jadunath Sarkar, Caitanya's Life and Teachings, 2nd ed., Calcutta 1922; misled by Dinesh Chandra Sen and others) that Caitanya changed the name of Prakāśānanda into Prabodhānanda; and nothing is said anywhere of a change of names. Caitanya is alleged to have met Prabodhānanda in Southern India long before he came across the scoffing unbeliever of Benares. Apart from the dubiousness of the fact of conversion of Prakāśānanda itself, we do not know if and when Prabodhānanda was actually converted by Caitanya.

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From what has been said above, it is clear that the account of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa found in the records of the sect itself is not only meagre but also uncertain and unsatisfactory. But here the matter does not end. Another work is definitely ascribed to our Gopāla Bhaṭṭa by Narahari Cakravartin and Manohara-dāsa, but the ascription is falsified by what is recorded in the ascribed work itself! And this is a good commentary on the trustworthiness of the traditions recorded by these writers. Narahari informs us² that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa composed a Ṭippaṇī on Līlāśuka's Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, which became a source of delight to devout Vaiṣṇavas;³ while Manohara not only mentions and characterises this commentary but also quotes and comments on its two Maṅgala-ślokas and declares Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's authorship of the work.¹ These verses do indeed occur, as they are quoted, in the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā commentary² of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa on the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, as its first two opening verses. The first verse is an invocation of Kṛṣṇa, there being no Namaskriyā to Caitanya, while the second

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