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Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4: 4. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa

Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4

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English

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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² करिलेन कृष्णकर्णामृतेर टिप्पणी । वैष्णवेर परमानन्द याहा शुनि ॥

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³ The importance of Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta to Bengal Vaiṣṇavism is explained by the legend, narrated by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, of Caitanya's discovery of this work during his South Indian pilgrimage. Caitanya was so struck by its high devotional value that he brought back the work with him, and it became the source of the emotional religious experience of himself and his disciples. There can be no doubt that it exercised a great influence on the emotionalism of the Bengali faith. It not only inspired similar lyrics and is quoted in the

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¹ Ed. in S. K. De's edition of Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta mentioned in the foregoing footnote. The introduction to this ed. contains a discussion of the problem raised here, and reviews the commentator's conformity to ideas of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism (p. xxxix and xli). There is nothing in the commentary which does not subscribe to the tenets of Caitanyaism, and it quotes directly from Rūpa's two works on Rasa-śāstra. It is curious, however, that Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, in spite of his homage to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa as one of his Śikṣā-gurus, does not anywhere refer to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's commentary; nor does he, in his own commentary, follow the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā, but he accepts and expands Caitanya-dāsa's Subodhanī.

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treatises on Rasa-śāstra composed by Rūpa, but several commentaries came to be written on it, explaining its significance from the standpoint of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism. Kṛṣṇadāsa, who eulogised (Madhya ix. 307-8) the work thus:

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कर्णामृतसम वस्तु नाहि त्रिभुवने । याहा इइते हय कृष्णप्रेमरसाने ॥
सौन्दर्य माधुर्य कृष्णलीला र अवधि । से जाने ये कर्णामृत पडे निरवधि ॥

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himself composed a Sāraṅga-raṅgadā commentary in Sanskrit, while Caitanya-dāsa wrote yet another commentary entitled Subodhanī. Yadunandana-dāsa translated the work into Bengali verse.—These three commentaries have been edited in S. K. De's edition of the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta (Dacca University Oriental Publication Series, Dacca 1938), which see for further information about the commentaries.

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१ श्रीभट्टगोसाञि कर्णामृतेर टीका कैल । अशेष विशेष व्याख्या ताहाते लिखिल ॥
याहार दर्शने भक्तपण्डिते चमत्कार । रसपरिपाटी याते सिद्धान्तेर सार ॥
से टीकार मङ्गलाचरण दुइ श्लोक । लिखियाछे याहा देखि शुनि सर्वलोक ॥
आपना पासरे रहे चकित हइया । पुलकादि अश्र वहे मुञ्ज युक्त बाया ॥
तथा हि श्लोकी—मुह्यन्मुग्धितचारुचन्द्रक, etc.

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verse¹ names the author and the work, and informs us that the commentator was a Drāviḍa Brahman. But in one of the closing verses,² which, however, is not quoted by Mahohara, the commentator informs us that he was the son of Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa and grandson of Nṛsiṃha of the Drāviḍa country!³ Narahari, Nityānanda and Manohara, we have seen, give an entirely different ancestry, and it is needless to add that no such description occurs in the *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa*. The conclusion is, therefore, inevitable that *either* this commentator is a different person, *or*, if the two Gopāla Bhaṭṭas are (following Narahari and Manohara) to be taken as identical, then nothing remains of the Trimalla-Veṅkaṭa-Prabodhānanda legend! Of this commentary nothing is said in other Bengal Vaiṣṇava works.⁴

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1 कृष्णकर्णामृतस्यैतां टीकां श्रीकृष्णवल्लभाम्। गोपालभट्टः कुरुते द्राविडवनिनिर्झरः॥

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2 श्रीमद्राविडनीपदम्वुधिविधुः श्रीमन्नृसिंहोऽभव- द्द्रष्ट्राहरिवंश उत्तमगुणग्रामैकभूत्स्तनुतः। तत्पुत्रस्य कृतिस्त्वियं वितनुतां गोपालनाम्नो मुदं गोपीनाथपदारविन्दमकरन्दानन्दितचेतोऽलिनः॥

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3 The colophon confirms the reading as follows: इति श्रीद्राविडहरिवंशभट्टकन्यशरखाधीगोपालभट्टविरचिता श्रीकृष्णकर्णामृतटीका श्रीकृष्णवल्लभा समाप्ता॥ (The readings of both of our complete MSS agree, the date of one of them being Saṃvat 1662=1605 A.D.).

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4 Of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, son of Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa and author of the *Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā* commentary, two or three other works are known. That he was also an Alaṃkārika, interested in erotic Rasa-works, is clear from the fact that he also wrote a commentary, entitled *Rasika-rañjanī*, on Bhānudatta's *Rasa-mañjarī*. The second opening verse of this commentary states that its author Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was a Brahman of the Drāviḍa country (श्रीमद्गोपालभट्टेन द्राविडक्ष्मापवणा। क्रियते रसमञ्जरीटीका रसिकरञ्जनी॥), and the first of the two concluding verses, which is identical with the concluding verse of the *Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā* quoted above (श्रीमद् द्राविड०), gives the names of his father and grandfather On the other hand, the *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa*, which goes under the name of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa of the Caitanya sect, contains no such colophon or self-descriptive verse giving the

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respectively as Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa and Nṛsiṃha (On MSS of this work and readings of these verses see S. K. De in *Indian Culture*, v, 1938-39, p. 64, footnote). This commentary contains no reference to or citations from Bengal Vaiṣṇava works on *Rasa-śāstra*, as the *Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā* does; and no MSS of it in Bengali characters have yet been found. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa appears to have written another exegetic work of a similar type. The *Kāvyamālā* edition of Rudra's *Śṛṅgāra-tilaka* (Gucchaka iii, p. 11 footnote) mentions an incomplete commentary on this work by Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, which is called *Rasa-taraṅgiṇī*; but nothing is known of this commentary and no other MSS of it are known to exist. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, son of Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa, appears to have written yet another (ritualistic) work, called *Samaya-* or *Kāla-kaumudī*, which is noticed by Rajendralal Mitra (*Notices*, vii, p. 254, no. 2501, with a résumé of its contents). Here also the author, in one of the opening verses (श्रीमद्धरिभट्टनद्राविडचमासुपर्वणा । क्रियते विदुषां प्रीतये रम्या समयकौमुदी ॥) describes himself in almost similar terms as a Brahman of the Drāviḍa country, while the colophon to the work, which is almost similar in wording to those of the works mentioned above, describes him as 'one whose refuge is the feet of Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa' (इति श्रीहरिवंशचरणाशरण-श्रीगोपालभट्टकृतः कालकौमुदी समाप्ता ॥). The work appears to have been written in Sanskrit prose and verse; and from the enumeration of its content, its chief object appears to be the determination of auspicious times or Tithis suitable for religious rites and observances, including the Saṃskāras, the Dīkṣā, the various Vratas, festivals (e.g. Janmāṣṭamī), the installation of the image of the Bhagavat and so forth. The work is not yet printed, and the MS is not available; but the notice of the only known MS, written in Bengali characters, makes it clear that it was a fairly extensive compilation (folios 128; 9 lines on a page) and dealt with the subject in some detail. From some of the topics treated, it may be presumed that it was written by a Vaiṣṇava author.—So much about Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, son of Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa. But the question is further complicated by the discovery of another Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, who wrote another, but entirely different, commentary on the *Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta*, entitled *Śravaṇāhlādinī*, and who appears also to have belonged to Bengal. For details about this work, see S. K. De, introd. to ed. of *Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta*, cited above, pp. lxxxiii-lxxxvii. In one of author's ancestry.¹ The second opening verse² distinctly states that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, a disciple of Prabodhānanda, who is dear to the Bhagavat, is compiling the work for the satisfaction of Raghunātha-dāsa, Rūpa and Sanātana. In the fourth verse, again, mention is made of Kāsīvara and Lokanātha. It contains Namaskriyās to Caitanya at the commencement of each of its twenty chapters, called Vilāsas. It is a voluminous and almost exhaustive metrical compendium in Sanskrit of the corpus of Vaiṣṇava ritual and religious practices. We shall have occasion to deal with this work in detail; but it may be said here that it is a work of patient and extensive Purāṇic and Tāntric erudition, and each rule is copiously illustrated and supported by large quotations from the Purāṇas, Saṃhitās, Tantras and other scriptures and sectarian religious treatises. It is, in brief, a complete guide to the Vaidhi Bhakti, in which devotional acts proceed from Vidhis or Śāstric injunctions. Some omissions, however, are

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¹ Ed. Radharaman Press, Berhampur-Murshidabad, 2nd ed. in two parts, 1889, 1891, in Bengali characters, with the Digdarśanī commentary. The work is sometimes also called Bhagavad-bhakti-vilāsa, or simply Bhakti-vilāsa. A detailed survey of the work will be found below under ch. vi.

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² Cited above, p. 129, fn 1.

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the opening verses the author bows to his Guru, named Nārāyaṇa, and in two of the concluding verses supplies information about himself. The name of the author's father is given as Bhaddat- (?Bṛhat- or Udyat-), phaṇa; and we are informed that the commentary was composed to please the author's friend Vanamālī-dāsa and younger brother Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa. The Bengal origin of the commentary is indicated by the fact that, like the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā, it follows the Bengal (as distinguished from the South Indian) recension of the text, and cites not only Jayadeva's Gīta-govinda, but also the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu of Rūpa Gosvāmin, earlier than which last work (i.e., earlier than 1541 A.D.) it could not, like the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā again, have been composed. It follows the views of the Bengal school of Vaiṣṇavism.—For the mention of yet another Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, belonging to Bengal, see S. K. De in Indian Culture, v, 1938-39, p. 71.

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remarkable. No treatment is accorded to the purificatory rites, known as Saṁskāras,¹ although a section is devoted to initiation or Dīkṣā, in which the incorporation of Tāntric ideas is a noteworthy feature. While festivals connected with deities other than Kṛṣṇa are excluded, an exception is made in favour of Śiva-rātri ; but the most important Vaiṣṇava festival of Rāsa-yātrā, which the Smārta Raghunandana also omits in his Yātrā-tattva, is conspicuous by the absence of all reference. It is also important to note that this ritual authority does not recognise the cult of Caitanya-worship or the worship of Caitanya's image. There are no directions for the construction of images of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, although there are rules for those of Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa, Kṛṣṇa and Rukmiṇī, and other forms of the deity. The work departs in many details from the accepted views of the sect. The Kṛṣṇa in this work is Caturbhuja Cakradhara, and not Dvibhuja Muralidhara; and the Rādhā-cult does not figure as prominently as it should, Rādhā being even omitted in the Dhyāna of Kṛṣṇa. As the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa is quoted by name in Rūpa Gosvāmin's Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (dated Śaka 1463=1541 A. D.), it must have been composed some time before that date.¹

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¹ The deficiency is sought to be remedied in a work called Sat-kriyā-sāra-dīpikā, which is undoubtedly a much later fabrication passed off in Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's name. It was published in Bengali characters in the Bengali Vaiṣṇava journal, Sajjana-toṣaṇī, vol. xv-xvii, by Kedar Nath Datta, and reprinted by the Gauḍīya Mādhva Maṭha, Calcutta 1935. MSS of the work are, however, noticed in Haraprasad Sastri, Notices, 2nd Series, i, p. 397, no. 395; ii, pp. 209-10, no. 235. We shall deal with this work in ch. vi. below. The reprint contains another work, entitled Saṁskāra-dīpikā, meant as a supplement, on the duties of Saṁnyāsa, also ascribed to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa; but the authority for this attribution is not known, and no MS of this work has yet been noticed. The Sat-kriyā-sāra-dīpikā contains no account of the author or his family, but the opening passages name Gopāla Bhaṭṭa as the author and pay homage to Caitanya. The fourteen Saṁskāras dealt with in this work begin with Vivāha, Garbhādhāna etc., and end with Samāvartana, following the order of treatment of Bhavadeva's Karmānuṣṭhāna-paddhati; but it omits the important ceremony of Antyeṣṭi or Śrāddha as a ceremony forbidden to a true Vaiṣṇava. The Bhagavad-dharma being, in the author's opinion, superior to every other Dharma, the Smārta rules are excluded from application to a Vaiṣṇava (but Tāntric ceremonies and rules are preferred!); and yet the author acknowledges as his source the works of such Smārta writers as Bhavadeva Bhaṭṭa, Aniruddha Bhaṭṭa, Govindānanda, Bhīma Bhaṭṭa, Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, besides the older works of Manu, Hārīta etc. There are a few other minor works on Vaiṣṇava ritualism, but they are neither well known nor authoritative. Haraprasad Sastri notices (Notices, 2nd Series, iii, pp. 223-25, no. 343) a Sāra-saṁgraha-dīpikā by Rāmaprasāda Devaśarman, which among other miscellaneous Bhakti topics, deals generally with Dīkṣā and appears to have a section on Śrāddha, which is omitted by Gopāla Bhaṭṭa. In the Calcutta Sanskrit College (Descriptive Catalogue, x, Calcutta 1907, pp. 65, 123, 141, 145, 154, nos. 52, 102, 114, 116, 130) there are anonymous Vaiṣṇava ritualistic works, entitled Rādhikā-pūjā-vidhi (folios 3), Śrī-rādhā-kṛṣṇa-pūjā-paddhati-nibandha (7 fol.), Saṁkṣepa-bhakti-sādhana-paddhati (17 fol.), Vaiṣṇavāhnika-paddhati (5 fol.), Gaurāṅga-bhakta-vaiṣṇava-pūjā-paddhati (5 fol.), all of which appear to be late works belonging to the Bengal school. A Laghu

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¹ As we have stated above, the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā quotes this work of Rūpa Gosvāmin, as well as its supplement, the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi; it was therefore written sometime after 1541 A.D.

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Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, ascribed to Rūpa Gosvāmin, is mentioned in Proc. of the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, 1865, p. 140, but as the list given there contains numerous wrong ascriptions, not much reliance can be placed on the entry. Some other Sanskrit ritualistic texts of the Bengal Vaiṣṇava sect are also registered in the Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Vaṅgīya Sāhitya Pariṣad (Calcutta 1935), but most of them are anonymous, modern and unimportant: e.g. Viṣṇu-pūjā-vidhi (p. 233 ; 4 folios), Vaiṣṇavīya-pūjā-paddhati (p. 234 ; 10 fol.), Janmāṣṭamī-vrato-vidhi (p. 126 ; 5 fol.), Rādhāṣṭamī-vrata-vidhi (p. 134 ; 4 fol.), etc. There is also in this collection (p. 122) an incomplete MS of Kṛṣṇārcana-candrikā of Rādhāmohana Śarman (dated Śaka 1776=1854 A.D.), which deals with topics like Dīkṣā and ceremonies connected with festivals like Janmāṣṭamī, Rāsa-yātrā etc. The author may be the same as the author of Kṛṣṇa-bhakti-sudhārṇava, who is said to have flourished in the early part of the 19th century. The Bhakti-candrikā, ascribed to Lokānanda Ācārya (ed. Rakhalananda Sastri of Srikhanda, Satyaratna Press 1920) deals generally with Caitanya-worship, but contains a great deal of ritualistic matter.

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The work must have become an authoritative source of the ritualism and devotional practices of the sect; and its popularity is indicated by the fact that an abridged Bengali metrical adaptation was made by one Kānāi-dāsa, a manuscript of which (no. 1231) exists in the Dacca University Library.

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On the *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa* there is a Sanskrit commentary, named *Digdarśanī*, which is attributed to Sanātana Gosvāmin; but there is also the tradition that the original work itself was composed, not by Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, but by Sanātana. The story of its origin, as given by Narahari Cakravartin, relates¹ that the idea of composing a Vaiṣṇava Smṛti originated in the mind of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, but the work was actually composed by Sanātana in Gopāla's name. Manohara-dāsa also believes² that Sanātana wrote the work itself, but Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was responsible for the illustrative passages culled from

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1 करिते वैष्णवस्मृति हैल भट्टमने ।
सनातन गोस्वामी जानिला सेइ क्षणे ॥
गोपालेर नामे श्रीगोस्वामि सनातन ।
करिल श्रीहरिभक्तिविलास-वर्णन ॥
2 श्रीसनातन गोसानि ग्रन्थ करिल ।
सर्वत्र आभोग महगोसामिर दिल ॥
श्रीरूप सनातन रघुनाथ दास ।
इहा सवाय सुख दिते हरिभक्ति विलास ॥
संग्रह करिल श्रीभागवतप्रधान ।
सर्व पुराणेर वाक्य करिया सन्धान ॥

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This is apparently a conjecture; but an examination of the commentary does not appear to lend support to it. There is, for instance, a very long passage quoted in the commentary from the Matsya-purāṇa (covering 6 printed pages in small type) which might have been easily included among the numberless lengthy quotations in the text. Nityānanda-dāsa is not clear on the point; but he says that at the command of Rūpa and Sanātana, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa undertook the work. After it was completed he gave it to Sanātana, who took it as his own; but Gopāla Bhaṭṭa put his own Guru's name in it!

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Purāṇas and other scriptures. As the statements of Narahari and Manohara are not always beyond question, the extra-ordinary reverence paid to Sanātana’s learning and piety may be held responsible for this attribution. But Sanātana’s authorship of both the text and its commentary is also recorded by no less an authority than his nephew and associate, Jīva Gosvāmin, in the list he gives of Sanātana’s works at the end of the (Laghu) Vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī commentary on the Śrīmad-bhāgavata. This is also confirmed by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, who was a disciple of the Gosvāmins at Vṛndāvana; for he makes Caitanya teach a rapid summary (Madhya xxiv) of the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa to Sanātana with an express command to write a Vaiṣṇava Smṛti on the basis of the outlines taught. Moreover, Kṛṣṇadāsa expressly ascribes this work to Sanātana in two passages (Madhya i. 35; Antya iv. 221). These testimonies cannot indeed be lightly set aside; but in the text of the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa itself, on the other hand, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa’s authorship is unambiguously declared, and there is nothing to show that the opening verses, which declare it, are spurious. If Sanātana’s authorship was known from 1582-83 A. D. (the date of the Laghu-toṣaṇī) and expressly recorded by Jīva and Kṛṣṇadāsa, there could be no point in gratuitously adding such verses in favour of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa’s authorship; and the very uneasiness of later authors, who never reject them, but try to explain them away, would imply their genuineness. If Manohara’s proposed solution of the difficulty implies that Sanātana wrote an outline of the work, which Gopāla Bhaṭṭa elaborated with copious illustrative passages, the presumption is ingenious but is entirely without evidence.¹ That Sanātana had, besides writing the commentary, a direct connexion with the text, seems highly probable.

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¹ Equally unfounded and unconvincing is the suggestion of some modern writers (Dinesh Chandra Sen, Vaiṣṇava Literature, Calcutta University, 1922, p. 290, followed by Kennedy, Chaitanya Movement, Oxford University Press 1925, p. 137) that Sanātana’s name was not officially associated with the work because his defection from Hinduism

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even if we do dot know exactly what this connexion was; but at the same time, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's authorship, expressly stated in it, cannot be easily dismissed. It is undisputed that Sanātana, with his equally able brother Rūpa, was the

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to Islam before becoming a Vaiṣṇava, had created a prejudice which stood in the way of its acceptance as an authoritative ritualistic work. Apart from the fact that there is no satisfactory evidence of Sanātana's alleged conversion to Muhammadanism (see above p. 97, note 2), we may assume from the testimony of orthodox records that Sanātana might have considered himself lowered in status because of his contact with and service in the Muhammadan court. But it is not intelligible why the alleged prejudice, arising from this circumstance, should have stood in the way of acceptance only of the *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa*, which was a work on Ācāra fortified at every step by profuse citation from scriptural authorities, and did not stand in the way of acceptance of Sanātana's more doctrinal and more fundamental *Bhāgavatāmṛta* and *Vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī*, nor of his name being associated, officially and reverentially, with the works of Rūpa, Jīva, Kṛṣṇadāsa and others. If Sanātana's authorship of the *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa* was a matter of doubtful acceptance, how could have his authorship of its commentary been accepted? Sanātana's supposed "impurity," therefore, could not have been the motive of the alleged suppressing of his name and the declaring of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's authorship; and there is no question of the genuineness of the verses which declare Gopāla Bhaṭṭa as the author. Sanātana was certainly a more important and authoritative writer of the group than Gopāla Bhaṭṭa. If there was any other reason (the question of "impurity" apart) for transferring authorship, the transfer would have been openly made from Gopāla Bhaṭṭa to Sanātana, and not otherwise; and Sanātana's name would have occurred in the work itself as its author, instead of that of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa. The supposition is unconvincing that Sanātana's authorship was suppressed by a deliberate addition (in the face of Jīva's express testimony) of verses naming Gopāla Bhaṭṭa as the author. It is also hardly amiable imagination which believes that Sanātana deliberately passed off his own composition in the name of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, or that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa appropriated, whatever may have been the reason, a work of Sanātana. This would be imputing a shrewd motive and unworthy act to the Gosvāmins in question, whose purity of intentions is otherwise never disputed. If it is a fact that the sect for some time looked askance at the injunctions laid down in the *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa* (Amar Nath Ray in *Indian Culture*, v, 1938-39, p. 202), it goes only to strengthen the point acknowledged centre of inspiration of the Bengal Vaiṣṇava group at Vṛndāvana; but, if Gopāla Bhaṭṭa is presumed to have merely elaborated a previous work of Sanātana, it is extremely unlikely that he should have failed to acknowledge this basis of his labours and appropriated the work to himself, especially as he actually mentions that he wrote the work for the satisfaction of Sanātana and others. In a similar case, Jīva Gosvāmin does not fail to express his indebtedness to an outline prepared by an unnamed Dākṣiṇātya Bhaṭṭa (by which reference he is supposed to mean Gopāla Bhaṭṭa himself), on which he based his elaborate *Sat-samdarbha*. It seems probable, therefore, that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, as stated in the work itself, was the actual author of the *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa*, but the attribution to Sanātana might have arisen from a kind of close collaboration, which will remain undetermined, between this doyen of the Vaiṣṇava Śāstra and Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, in making this voluminous compilation.

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From the above discussion it will be clear that the various legends and traditions about Gopāla Bhaṭṭa should be taken with extreme caution. Apart from pious belief, the following conclusions arise inevitably from the available facts:

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(1) According to the description given of himself, the Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, who composed the ritualistic work *Kāla-kaumudī*,¹ as well as the *Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā* and *Rasika-rañjanī*² commentaries, was the son of Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa and grand-

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¹ See above p. 136, footnote.

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that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was the real author; for some of the views, stated in the work itself, could not have been the strictly orthodox views of Sanātana, but of one who had some lingering Śrī-vaiṣṇava leanings. Sanātana's other works are never known to have met with disrespect. On the contrary, it is possible to argue that the legend of Sanātana's authorship may have been a pious afterthought meant to impart greater authoritativeness to a work which did not meet with the entire approval of the orthodox circle.

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son of Nṛsiṃha, and belonged to Drāviḍa. It is not known what connexion he had with the Caitanya sect; but if the Trimalla-Veṅkaṭa-Prabodhānanda story is excluded, there are some facts in favour of his identification with the Gopāla Bhaṭṭa of the Caitanya sect. The absence of Namaskriyā to Caitanya in the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā and other works, though suspicious in view of the profuse Namaskriyās in every chapter of the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, is not decisive; for the two Dūta-kāvyas, the Dāna-keli-kaumudī and the Padyāvalī of Rūpa Gosvāmin do not also contain such Namaskriyā. The commentary Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā, if not the other works, gives ample evidence that this Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, son of Harivaṃśa Bhaṭṭa, was a devout Vaiṣṇava; and we have already stated that there is hardly anything in it which does not subscribe to the tenets of Caitanyaism. At the very commencement, the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā refers, for instance, to the characteristic doctrine of the Bengal school that Kṛṣṇa is not an Avatāra but the Avatārin, the supreme deity himself in his essential character. It also believes in the other important doctrine of the Bengal school that the deity possesses a supersensuous and blissful form, which is adolescent (Kiśora) quasi-human (Narākṛti) and always sporting at Vṛndāvana, and which is the highest object of adoration; it is somewhat strange, on the other hand, that the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, as we have noted above, does not fully subscribe to this doctrine. With very minor modifications, the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā comments upon the Bengal recension of the text of the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, and does not accept the South Indian text, in spite of the author's declared Dravidian origin. It also quotes directly from the two authoritative Rasa-treatises of Rūpa Gosvāmin. Against these arguments in favour of identity of the two Gopāla Bhaṭṭas, the somewhat curious fact may be urged that Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, in spite of his homage to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa as one of his Śikṣā-gurus, does not anywhere refer to or make use of the Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā in his own Sāraṅga-raṅgadā commentary on the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta. This circumstance, however, need not present a serious difficulty; but it will be seen that the arguments for identity are not conclusive. They only prove that the author of the *Kṛṣṇa-vallabhā* and possibly of the *Kāla-kaumudī* was a Vaiṣṇava who accepted the views of the Bengal school, and nothing more.

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(2) There is, therefore, no direct or decisive evidence to identify him with the Gopāla Bhaṭṭa who was one of the six Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins of the Caitanya sect. The personal history of this Gosvāmin is at best scanty and fatuous; his lineage, as given in the records of the sect is vague, conflicting and obviously legendary. In his *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa*, the authorship of which also is shrouded in mystery, he describes himself as writing for the satisfaction of Rūpa, Sanātana and Raghunātha-dāsa, and as the Śiṣya of Prabodhānanda; but he does not give his own ancestry or place of origin, as the other Gopāla Bhaṭṭa does in every work. The history of this Prabodhānanda is not clear; and in the works ascribed to him he reflects strangely the views of Caitanya's Navadvīpa disciples rather those of Vṛndāvana! It is doubtful if he was (as alleged by Nityānanda, Monohara and Narahari) an uncle of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa; for the story of Trimalla-Veṅkaṭa-Prabodhānanda is suspiciously legendary and uncorroborated by the earlier records of the sect.

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Exactly how and when the Gosvāmin Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was admitted into discipleship is, thus, uncertain. There is no record that he ever came to Caitanya at Purī. He must have survived Caitanya; for he was already at Vṛndāvana when Kṛṣṇadāsa arrived. We are also told that when Śrīnivāsa Ācārya came to Vṛndāvana, he found Rūpa and Sanātana dead, but Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Jīva Gosvāmin were still living. Śrīnivāsa is said to have become a disciple of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, studied the Vaiṣṇava Śāstra with him and Jīva, and received the title of Ācārya from the latter.¹

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¹ In the *Padyāvalī* we have only one verse (no. 38) assigned to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, but see notes on Dākṣiṇātya in S. K. De's ed. of the

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