Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c9.s1.12

c9.s1.12

Yugāvatāra and Kāryāvatāra. In the four Yugas, the different Avatāras, in his opinion, are respectively Śukla, Yajña, Pṛthu and Caitanya; the ten Kāryāvatāras are Matsya, Kūrma, Varāha, Nṛsiṃha, Vāmana, Bhārgava, Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Buddha and Kalkin, in which list (slightly different from that of Jayadeva) Caitanya's name does not appear (i. 4. 18-33). Elsewhere (i. 8. 9-10), Murāri accepts Caitanya as an Āveśa-Avatāra; and like his other biographers, he regards Caitanya as having manifested divine character from the very beginning. He thus speaks of Caitanya as an Aṃśa of Hari (i. 5. 4), but, not very consistently, as the Bhagavat himself (i. 15. 1), and bows to him as the Caturbhuja Viṣṇu (i. 1. 14). Kavikarṇapūra, on the other hand, regards Caitanya definitely as Dvibhuja Kṛṣṇa, śrīmad-vraja-varavadhu-prāṇanātha (Kāvya i. 8), and believes that his descent was for the purpose of saving men from suffering (ibid, xvii. 7), for refuting Advaitavāda (drama i. 7), and for teaching devotion to Hari, that is, to himself (ibid, i. 28). In his introductory Namaskriyā to his Ānanda-vṛndāvana-campū (śl. 3), he pays homage to Caitanya as his family deity and as Hari himself (devo naḥ kuladaivatam vijayatāṃ caitanya-kṛṣṇo hariḥ). The faith of the biographers of Caitanya in his divinity is axiomatic and does not require demonstration; but they seek to establish it partly by recording personal feeling and experience of his followers and partly by the enumeration of Caitanya's devotional and miraculous acts. Kavikarṇapūra distinguishes the Vaidhi from the Rāgānugā Bhakti (drama iii. 19), but thinks that the Rāgānugā can never follow a fixed course. He never considers Advaita Mukti as the summum bonum, but states (drama i) mukti-śabdo'tra pārṣada-svarūpa-paraḥ, and regards Saṃkīrtana to be the sole means of Bhakti. In his Gaura-gaṇoddeśa, however, he elaborates a complete hagiology of the faith and purports to develop Svarūpa Dāmodara's doctrine of Pañcatattva, which regards Caitanya, Nityānanda, Advaita, Gadādhara and Śrīvāsa as the five Tattvas of the faith, but which considers Caitanya as the Mahāprabhu, and Advaita and Nityānanda as Prabhus. Vṛndāvana-dāsa, accepting the divinity of Caitanya as manifested from his very birth (in which view Locana and Jayānanda also agree) and his identity with Kṛṣṇa, does not consider it as worth discussing, but models the early life of Caitanya (before his Saṃnyāsa) on the Vṛndāvana life of Kṛṣṇa. He rejects, however, the Gaura-nāgara doctrine with contempt and rules out erotic traits from Caitanya's life as Kṛṣṇa, although occasionally, following the Rāgānugā doctrine, he describes the Rādhā-bhāva of Caitanya. All the biographers are concerned more with the description of the inner emotional life of Caitanya than with outward doctrine. A short theological work, called *Śrīkṛṣṇa-bhajanāmṛta*¹ is ascribed to Narahari Sarkār Thākur. It is composed in prose, with interspersed verses, and discusses such questions as the diversity of Vaiṣṇava devotees; conduct towards the Dīkṣā-guru and the Śikṣā-guru respectively; the incarnation of Balabhadra in relation to Kṛṣṇa; Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva as Guṇāvatāras of Kṛṣṇa; Lakṣmī, Rukmiṇī, Jānakī and Rādhā as consorts of the deity, and so forth. Although the work pays homage to Caitanya and regards him as an Avatāra of Kṛṣṇa, there is no trace of the Gaura-pāramya-vāda or Gaura-nāgara-vāda which is prominent in the Padāvalis ascribed to Narahari as a Navadvipa devotee of Caitanya. The genuineness of the attribution is, therefore, open to doubt, and its theology offers nothing new, being obviously influenced (which indication is somewhat strange) by the views of the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins. In the following pages, we need, therefore, confine ourselves to the systematic exposition given by the Vṛndāvana Gosvāmins in their laborious theological treatises.