Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c9.s5.32

c9.s5.32

These verses, no doubt, reveal an attitude of adoration which verges almost upon worship, but theoretically the Gosvāmins do not maintain any such worship of Caitanya as they insist upon in the case of Kṛṣṇa who alone, in their view, is the supreme deity of the faith. They appear to regard Caitanya more as an Avatāra, the Bhakta-Avatāra *par excellence*, the Kṛṣṇa incarnated as Rādhā, as it were, for a special purpose. It appears, therefore, that Caitanya-worship did not become a definite creed with these learned disciples of Caitanya. This is even more evident from Gopāla Bhaṭṭa's *Hari-bhakti-vilāsa*, which is the most authoritative compendium of Vaiṣṇava Ācāra of the sect. The eighteen out of twenty Namaskriyās to the twenty chapters of this work express the author's deep reverence for Caitanya and apply