Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c7.s4.55

c7.s4.55

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.