Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4.50

c7.s4.50

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.