Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c8.s1.1

c8.s1.1

Among the six immediate followers of Śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya, the so-called six Gosvāmins of Vṛndāvana, to whom was left the task of elaborating and defining the doctrines, creeds and practices of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism, the credit of first systematising its supreme religious emotion of Bhakti belongs to Rūpa Gosvāmin. Himself a poet and rhetorician, as well as a devout scholar and ascetic, he took up for treatment the emotional aspect of Vaiṣṇava Bhakti, and gave an authoritative exposition of its psychology, pathology and rhetoric with all the enthusiasm of a scholastic, yet devout, mind.