Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c8.s3.85

c8.s3.85

This fervent quasi-amorous attitude, in spite of its subtle and elusive juggling with psychological complexes and theological refinements, inspires not only the Śāstras and professedly devotional works of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism, but also enlivens its mass of resplendent lyrics in Sanskrit, as well as in Bengali, with the practical possibilities of its mystical erotic impulse. Whatever may be the devotional value of this attitude, the literary gain was immense. This last reach of Vaiṣṇava Bhakti, transmuted in Bengal Vaiṣṇavism into Preman or love, became an unfailing and rich source of literary inspiration, as well as of religious emotion; for it was personal in ardour, concrete in expression and original in appeal. Along with its metaphysics and theology was also produced a psychological rhetoric of the endless diversity of the passionate condition, which reproduced, no doubt, the classical phraseology and ideas of Sanskrit rhetoric of Rasa, but whose erotic-religious application and subtilising of emotional details were novel, intimate and inspiring. These aesthetic and emotional conventions were implicitly accepted in its literary productions. In spite of its psychological formalism, its rhetoric of ornament and conceits and its pedantry of metaphysical sentimentalism, there can be no doubt that the inspiration supplied by the erotic emotionalism of such works as those of Rūpa Gosvāmin (with their hundreds of poetical illustrations) to later Vaiṣṇava literature, especially the lyrics composed in Bengali, must have been of a deep and far-reaching character. Even the abstruse dogmas, formulas and shibboleths have had their effect on literary conception and phrasing, but there was an essentially human appeal in its religious attitude, which imparted to its literary effusions an enduring emotional and poetical value. The wistfulness and amazement of its devotional ecstasy, the richly romantic idealism of its mystical erotic sensibility, lifted the lyric literature of Caitanyaism into a high level of artistic and passionate expression, which was endowed, by the virtue of these attributes, with as much human as transcendental value.