Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4.43

c7.s4.43

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