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Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s2: 2. Raghunātha-dāsa

Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s2

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English

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).

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