Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c9.s5.15

c9.s5.15

In the professed theological works of the Gosvāmins, however, Caitanya is referred to only in the Namaskriyās, but nowhere else in the body of these elaborate treatises his divinity or incarnated appearance is either mentioned or discussed in the same way as the divinity of Kṛṣṇa. For reasons best known to themselves, these recognized theologians of the sect and authors of systematic treatises do not, except in their brief Namaskriyās, make any reference to Caitanya. While the personality and the direct spiritual realizations of the Master are silently passed over, Jiva Gosvāmin, who gives an exposition of the entire philosophy and theology of the sect in his stupendous six *Saṃdarbhas*, does not utter a single word about the Caitanya-concept in itself, as well as in relation to the Kṛṣṇa-concept, with which latter concept he appears to be entirely occupied. Rūpa and Sanātana, in their two *Bhāgavatāmṛtas*, consider with great devotional and scholastic acumen the question of Avatāra, but in this connexion they make no reference, either direct or illustrative, to Caitanya. Just as the Kṛṣṇa-concept had to be traced and established in the light of Bhāgavata texts, so it was necessary that the Caitanya-concept in a similar manner should find a distinct place in the authoritative philosophic and theological compendiums of the sect. If Jiva thought it necessary to write an elaborate *Kṛṣṇa-saṃdarbha*, he never thought it necessary, for some unknown reason, to write a similar *Caitanya-saṃdarbha*. This remarkable omission is, no doubt, made good by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja in his scholastic Bengali biography of Caitanya, but Kṛṣṇadāsa's theology on this point is clearly the theology of a later date, anticipated, no doubt, by the six Gosvāmins but never clearly expressed. Even in the collection of Stotras mentioned above, written by the professed theologians of the sect, we have only four (out of nearly one hundred) separate poems which are devoted to the glorification of Caitanya, the rest setting forth in highly sensuous language and imagery the various phases of the Vṛndāvana-līlā of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. The realization of the Līlā or divine sport of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa indeed forms the central creed, which Caitanya himself is reported to have emphasized by the erotico-religious emotionalism characterizing his own devotional career. But this Līlā of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa is considered by the Gosvāmins, only as set forth by the Bhāgavata texts, and not as directly realized by Caitanya, only in itself and not in relation to the Caitanya-līlā, even though they regard Caitanya as the first founder of the emotional creed.