CHAPTER 7
The Literature of the Sect
Should all traces of the Chaitanyas as a sect disappear in time, their monument would remain, enshrined in the literature of Bengal.
Were we to remove from that literature all that is connected with Chaitanya and inspired by him, the remainder would be a very greatly reduced and impoverished thing.
The Chaitanya movement poured itself out so copiously in song and story as to form a wholly new chapter in the literature of the province.
Rather, it is truer to say, the movement was of such vitality that it created for itself a literature whose influence has been potent ever since in the literary life of Bengal.
It was like a newly-discovered spring, which for long poured out its waters in lavish abundance, fructifying whole tracts.
One test of this vitality was its diversity:
It did not exhaust itself in song, but created ever new modes for itself, enriching the fields of scholarship and adding biography and narrative as permanent contributions to the vernacular.
The abundance of this literature, its variety and spontaneity, coupled with the solid learning and laborious toil given to it with such devotion, will continue, as long as the Bengali language persists, to bear testimony to the life and power which were in this movement.
In this chapter we shall attempt only an introduction to the literature of the sect, not a systematic study of it.
Our aim is descriptive rather than critical; we shall try to set its parts in relation to each other, that it all may be seen as a whole.
The interpretation of this literature and the estimation of its value as such is not our immediate purpose, although this is more or less involved throughout the study.