Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c9.s5.48

c9.s5.48

The conception of the dual incarnation was, therefore, not unknown to the Gosvāmins, but its theological implications are not found systematically developed until the Bengali Caitanyaite works, which in course of time almost superseded the Sanskrit sources of Caitanyaism, came to be composed. We find it set forth in its full-fledged form in the Bengali theological biography of Caitanya written by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja about 1615 A.D. We need not consider here in detail this later theological elaboration of the idea, but the process of Caitanya’s elevation from single to double incarnation, as we have already noted, can be traced in the account which Kṛṣṇadāsa records. Although there are many passages in which Kṛṣṇadāsa speaks of Caitanya as an Avatāra, the ideal Bhakta-Avatāra with the mission of Prema-bhakti, yet he expresses in unambiguous language his belief that śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu svayaṃ bhagavān, thus employing to the case of Caitanya the technical theological expression svayaṃ bhagavān which had been hitherto applied to Kṛṣṇa alone. In Kṛṣṇadāsa’s time Caitanya-worship apparently became an accomplished fact.¹ This zealous biographer of Caitanya's who also appears to have been a trained theologian in the school of his acknowledged Gurus, Rūpa, Sanātana and Jiva, spares no pains to demonstrate, with a wealth of theological texts and arguments, Caitanya's essential identity with Kṛṣṇa, laying down emphatically that there is no other greater Tattva in the world than Caitanya who is Kṛṣṇa (na caitanyāt kṛṣṇāj jagati para-tattvam param iha). Kṛṣṇadāsa, therefore, takes upon himself the task of analysing the Caitanya-concept and thus supplying an important omission of the previous theologians of the sect. He achieves this end chiefly by applying to the case of Caitanya all the divine attributes and energies of the Bhagavat-Kṛṣṇa which had been elaborated by his predecessors and which have been discussed from the theological point of view by Jiva Gosvāmin in his Kṛṣṇa-samdarbha. Some writers even go further, and, identifying Caitanya with Kṛṣṇa, evolve a series of Caitanya's Parikaras and Pārṣadas parallel to those of Kṛṣṇa, so that each associate and follower of Caitanya becomes from this point of view an incarnation of the various associates and followers of Kṛṣṇa.