Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c9.s5.9

c9.s5.9

In the Stavāvali of Raghurātha-dāsa, who was the most fortunate of all the six Gosvāmins in obtaining longer and greater personal intimacy with Caitanya at Puri, we have only the first two (out of about thirty Kṛṣṇaite) Stotras directly concerned with Caitanya. The first is an Aṣṭaka of the same type (also composed in the Śikhariṇī metre) as those of Rūpa, while the second, consisting of twelve Śikhariṇī stanzas, is entitled Gaurāṅga-stava-kalpataru. The Aṣṭaka refers chiefly to Caitanya's life at Puri, his daily visit to the Jagannātha temple where he used to stand near the Garuḍa-column, the solicitous care of Svarūpa and the servant Govinda, his fits of frenzy at Saṃkīrtana, and his revealing of the Bhakti-doctrine which was inaccessible to the old sages and lay concealed in the Śruti. But the most remarkable statement occurs in the first verse, which repeats the fancy of Caitanya's double incarnation by saying that Kṛṣṇa, having once fallen in love with his own beauty reflected in a mirror, and desiring to taste his own sweetness as it was tasted by Rādhā, was born (jātaḥ) in Gauḍa in the one indivisible body of fair hue belonging to Rādhā who was his own (apara-gauraika-tanubhāk).¹ In his Saṃkīrtana Caitanya has thus merely cited with delight his own sweet names (mudā gāyann uccair nija-madhura-nāmāvalir asau). The Stava-kalpataru, on the other hand, referring to Caitanya's life of devotion at Puri at the house of [ Kaśīśvara- ] Miśra, as well as to his Guru Īśvara Purī (also mentioned in stanza 2 of the Aṣṭaka), his disciple Svarūpa and his servant Govinda, describes chiefly the ecstatic feelings of divine love which characterized the last phase of his life. It depicts Caitanya more as a Bhakta of passionate devotionalism than as an incarnated deity; but since the divyonmāda, the state of divine frenzy, is regarded in Vaiṣṇava Rasa-theology as the characteristic of the highest Madana Mahābhāva of Rādhā, there is possibly an implication here of the idea of the Rādhā-incarnation of Caitanya.¹ In the Namaskriyā verse to his Muktā-caritra,² however, Raghunātha does not refer to the Rādhā-incarnation of Caitanya, but simply regards him as an Avatāra who took birth in the womb of Śacī in order to bestow upon this world the bright nectar of his own Bhakti,³ while in the body of the work itself, which deals with a fancied episode of Kṛṣṇa's career, no such reference occurs.