Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c8.s3.84
Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c8.s3.84
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character, rather than as an impersonal intellectual conviction adduced by mere knowledge, but the attitude there is more speculative than passionate. The Bhakti in the Mahābhārata in general is often explained by the analogy of the love of the wife for her husband; and the term Bhakti in the later Sūtras of Nārada and Śāṇḍilya is made interchangeable with the terms Prīti, Bhāva, Rāga or Anurakti as expressions of ardent love and yearning; but the passioanateness of earlier theistic devotionalism was never entirely divorced from intellectual satisfaction or moral earnestness. Though not identical with it, knowledge or belief is still acknowledged as a preliminary to the emotion of Bhakti, and selfless action is not excluded. The mediaeval expressions of the passion, however, dispense with Jñāna and Karman in the orthodox sense, and take their stand exclusively upon mystical emotional realisation (Rasa). All worship and salvation are regarded as nothing more than a blissful enjoyment of the divine sports, involving personal consciousness and relation, direct or remote, between the enjoyer and the enjoyed. But in the emphasis laid on the erotic sentiment in the sports of Kṛṣṇa, the attitude borders definitely upon sense-devotion, and leans perceptibly and dangerously towards the erotic passion. The ultimate felicitous state is conceived as an eternity of enjoyment of the erotic sports of Vṛndāvana, in which the faithful serve Kṛṣṇa as did the Gopīs.
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The corrective is, no doubt, supplied by theologically representing the erotic relationship as the sport of the Śaktimat with his own Śaktis or Energies, in their Hlādinī or blissful state; but, however figuratively or philosophically the doctrine is interpreted, the erotic emotionalism is essential and prominent in the devotional writings as a literal fact. In the hands of these erotic emotionalists there is a fresh accession and interpretation of romantic legends; and the Purāṇic life of Kṛṣṇa being brought to the foreground, the older Epic figure of Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa is transformed beyond recognition. The ancient epic spirit of godly wisdom and manly devotion is replaced by a new spirit of mystical and theological fancy, of tender rapture over divine babyhood, and of sensuous and erotic passion of ecstasy over the loveliness of divine adolescence; and its god is moulded accordingly. The essential truth of the doctrine of Vṛndāvana-līlā, no doubt, lies in its appeal for a more emotional religion and in its protest against the unsatisfying intellectuality of mere metaphysics; and the whole theory of Bhakti-rasa appeals to the exceedingly familiar and authentic intensity of human moods and sentiments. But we have also a marked development of the dubious erotic possibilities of the attitude in an atmosphere of highly passionate and sensuous life and literature. In Bengal Vaiṣṇavism the tendency goes a step further.
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It seeks to realise, in its theory and practice, the actual passion of the deity, figured as a friend, son, father or master, but chiefly and essentially as a lover. The too ardent tendency of the position lapses into sensuousness of a refined type, but the mystical sensibility is chiefly vicarious. The doctrine, no doubt, attempts to transfigure the mighty sex-impulse into a deeply religious emotion, but the way of realisation insists upon an abnormal mental state, which seeks the highest satisfaction in a vicarious enjoyment of the erotic sports of Kṛṣṇa, contemplated not merely in a figurative but also in a vivid literal sense. It is important to note that the Vṛndāvana-līlā is not a mere symbol or divine allegory, but a literal fact of religious history. The Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa myth, as depicted in the Purāṇas and elaborated in the Kāvyas, Nāṭakas and Campūs, as well as in the Rasa-śāstra, of the sect as the basis of its theology and devotional life, is taken as a vivid historical, as well as super-historical, reality; and there is no suggestion of its being an allegory. The pressure of modern thought has, no doubt, induced some modern writers on the subject to the desperate method of allegorical interpretation, but the theologians and poets of the sect never think it necessary to spiritualise the myth as a symbolism of religious truth; for the Purāṇic world to them is manifestly a matter of religious history.