Biographical
In producing biography the Chaitanya movement broke virgin soil in Bengal. It is one of the contributions that gave it a sure place in the literature of the country.
It was the impression of a strong personality upon the hearts of his friends that gave rise to this vital addition to literature:
From the clouds of mythology and its attendant unrealities, a great human love and admiration brought men to the solid ground of reality. This was an immense gain for society.
The narratives that were written about Chaitanya, however full of exaggeration and credulity, were still narratives of a man, full of human interest and appeal.
Once originated, they were imitated in the case of later worthies, and thus biography became a distinctively Vaishnava product, and Bengali writing greatly the gainer thereby.
There are 4 chief biographies of Chaitanya written in the vernacular.
But behind them stand at least 2 works in Sanskrit, which are of importance because of the use made of them by the writers of the vernacular works.
The first of the Sanskrit sources was a work called Karchā (notes), by Murāri Gupta, a well-known scholar and physician of Navadvīpa. It was written in Navadvīpa in 1514, a few years after Chaitanya's departure from the city.
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Although older than Chaitanya by a good many years, Murāri had been his devoted friend and admirer.
So great, indeed, was the devotion, and so deep the reverence in which he held Chaitanya's name after his taking sannyāsa, that he found no difficulty in believing all the legends about his miraculous exploits as a boy, which had already begun to be told.
His record, which, as the name indicates, was in the form of notes, dealt largely with the youth of Chaitanya. His standing and reputation for learning gave his biographical material great weight in the Vaishnava community.
The later biographers incorporated his material into their work, and thus the legendary element was accepted by all.
The second of the Sanskrit sources was also in the form of notes, and was written by Svarūpa Dāmodara.
There seems to have been no copy of this work preserved, but various authors refer to it. The most important of the biographies makes particular mention of it as a valuable source.
Dāmodara was one of the very few intimate disciples who lived with Chaitanya during the last period at Purī:
During the last years he became indispensable to Chaitanya, regulating his life in detail, reading his favourite works, and keeping watchful care over him. His notes were authoritative for much of the middle period and the last years of Chaitanya’s life.
Of the 4 biographies, the first is the Chaitanya Bhāgavata:
Its author Vrindāvan Dās, was born in 1537, shortly after Chaitanya's death, and wrote his work about 1573. He was the grandson of a brother of the Śrīvāsa in whose courtyard Chaitanya began his movement.
The book seems to have met with favour in the circle of the Vrindāvan Gosvāmīs; for they changed the original name which it bore, and called it by its present name in recognition of its worth.
It is held in high honour among Vaishnavas, although its inadequate treatment of the closing years of Chaitanya's life makes it incomplete.
It is vitiated, also, as pure biography, by its theological presuppositions, its use of the legendary and incredible elements in the material, and also by the fact that the author is inspired by the desire to depict the life of Chaitanya as a replica of the boyhood of Krishna.
Such an idea was highly acceptable to devout Vaishnavas, doubtless, but it was not particularly happy as a biographical method.
However, the work throws valuable light upon the people who surrounded Chaitanya, and upon the social and religious conditions of the time.
The Chaitanya Maṅgala, the second work of importance, was written at about the same time as the first, by an elderly man named Jayānanda. He was a member of a well-known Vaishnava family, and as a child had seen Chaitanya.
This work is not held in equal esteem with its predecessor, although for what reason is not altogether clear. It may be because of the fact that it breaks the curious silence maintained by all the orthodox works concerning Chaitanya's death:
This book gives a story found nowhere else, ascribing the end to fever brought on by an injury to Chaitanya's foot sustained during one of his frenzied outbursts of delirium.
In other points also the facts narrated in this record differ from those of the other accepted works. For instance, this author gives us new information about Chaitanya's forefathers and the ancestral home.
Among some scholars there is a suspicion of interpolation in connection with this biography, which may partly explain the feeling mentioned above.
The third and most authoritative of all the biographies is the Chaitanya Caritamṛta, by Krishna Dās Kaviraj. This gives by far the fullest treatment of Chaitanya's life.
In point of scholarship and exposition of the Vaishnava faith it goes far beyond anything else written in the vernacular.
This work attains an added interest, as well as sanctity, to the Vaishnava, because of the circumstances of its writing:
The author was a venerable ascetic of 79 years before he even commenced the task. Born in Bengal about 1496, of poor parents, of the Vaidya, or physician, caste, he was left an orphan at an early age.
Falling under the influence of Nityānanda, while still a boy, he became a Vaishnava and begged his way to Vrindāvan. Being accepted as a disciple by the Gosvāmīs, he spent all his days there in the ascetic way of life marked out by the Fathers of the faith.
Now in the year 1575, at an age when most men are long since freed from labour, infirm and weak, the old scholar was prevailed upon to undertake this great task as a last gift to the community.
The other orthodox biography, as we have seen, was incomplete.
The leaders of the sect at Vrindāvan had long felt the need of an authoritative work which should set forth the life of their master completely, and at the same time furnish a recognised standard for theological teaching.
The aged Krishna Dās seemed the scholar best fitted for the task, and the burden was laid upon him as by divine commission.
For 9 years the poor old man, in spite of his infirmities, toiled away at his labour of love.
He incorporated in it all the materials available, and made use of the reminiscences of the Vrindāvan Gosvāmīs, most of whom had lived with Chaitanya at one time or another.
Of these, Lokanātha Gosvāmī had been the boyhood friend and companion of the master at Navadvīpa; Raghunātha Gosvāmī had lived for 16 years at Purī as intimate companion, with Svarūpa Dāmodara, of the last phase of the great life.
Sanātana and Rūpa, also, as well as others, had had close relations with Chaitanya.
This biography, therefore, was based on the first-hand knowledge of various disciples, and reflects the intimate experience of those who knew him best.
We are told that Krishna Das first asked permission to write from the author of the Chaitanya Bhāgavata, intending to make his work supplementary only to that biography. But his purpose soon widened.
The work is not only a fuller treatment of Chaitanya's life than anything else produced; it is also a treatise on theology and devotion.
Its exposition of the great doctrines of the sect give it assured philosophical standing,
while its record of events, its descriptions of people, places and customs, make it of historical value beyond its sectarian usage.
It is a huge work, containing more than 15,000 ślokas, or couplets, and divided, like its predecessor into 3 parts, līlās or khāṇḍas, of which
the first (ādi līlā) treats of the boyhood and pre-sannyāsi period,
the second (madhyā Līlā) records the active period of travel, and
the third (anta Līlā) tells the story of the more passive and final years at Purī.
It is written in Bengali of a hybrid sort, and is all in verse.
The author's long life far from Bengal did not make his use of the vernacular a well of style, pure and undefiled. It is full of Hindi and long Sanskrit terms.
Its great learning is evidenced by the array of Sanskrit authorities quoted, a partial list of which, given in the History of Bengali Language and Literature, runs to 60 names.
Indeed, for its exposition of Vaishnava philosophy, the whole field of Sanskrit literature and philosophy is laid under tribute.
So full is its treatment of bhakti, indeed, that the older Vrindāvan Fathers are said to have been somewhat opposed to its publication, on the ground that such a scholarly work in the vernacular would lead devotees to neglect the authoritative Sanskrit works on bhakti.
The manuscript of this work is kept in one of the Vrindāvan temples and worshipped as a relic. Among the Vaishnavas of Bengal it is held in utmost reverence, and is counted second only to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in sanctity. Among the more ignorant, it is actually worshipped.
From the standpoint of the historian, we are told that “in spite of its epic length, prolixity and repetitions, it is a masterpiece of early Bengali literature.” Also that it has no parallel in the whole of Bengali literature.
The so-called 4th biography, Chaitanya Maṅgala, hardly deserves the name. It is the work of Lochana Dās, and is said to have been written when the author was only 14 years of age:
The date given is about 1575. It is a work of poetical charm in which the author's imagination has embroidered with his own fancy the facts of the saint's life.
The first part is described as a free translation of Murāri Gupta's Sanskrit Karchā. It is full of supernaturalism, which partly accounts for its popularity.
It is principally valued and used by professional singers, because of its lyrical qualities. The original MS. is still preserved in the home of one of these singers. The author is also known for his Bengali songs.
That there were still other biographical works of the first generation after Chaitanya dealing with his life is indicated by a statement, in Jayānanda’s Chaitanya Mangala, giving the names of several writers who had written such narratives. No trace of these works, however, has been found.
We must now consider another work which claims to be the very first of the biographical accounts of Chaitanya written in Bengali: It is the Karchā by Govinda Dās, known as Karmakār, the blacksmith, because of his caste.
This work purports to be the notes of an uneducated man who ran away from a quarrelsome wife and took service in Chaitanya’s home, where he served for more than a year, before Chaitanya became a sannyāsī.
He accompanied Chaitanya in his two years of wandering through the south and in the Deccan, keeping notes all the while, but secretly for fear of his master's displeasure.
His records cease with Chaitanya's return to Purī.
Dr. Sen, in his history, gives to Govinda Karmakār a place of honour as “one of the most authentic biographers of Chaitanya," and believes his notes to be a fresh contemporary record, unbiased by the sectarian feeling that is found in the later orthodox works.
The principal fact upon which he seems to base his appreciation is that the notes portray Chaitanya as worshipping at all shrines on his travels, regardless of their sectarian character.
This, however, is true of the Caritamṛta, the most orthodox work of all. Many references can be found, for example, describing Chaitanya’s visit to Śaivite shrines.
Most Vaishnava scholars unite in maintaining this Karchā to be a forgery. Their reasons are as follows.
(1) The language is modern Bengali.
(2) The sentiments put in Chaitanya's mouth are not in keeping with the teaching ascribed to him elsewhere. The philosophy is different from all other works.
(3) There is no mention of this work anywhere in the authoritative literature of the movement. In Jayānanda’s Chaitanya Mangal a Govinda Karmakār is mentioned, but it is not stated that he accompanied Chaitanya.
(4) Grotesque mistakes abound in it,
such as describing Chaitanya's hair as coiled and matted, though Chaitanya was always shaven, as required by the rule of his order of sannyāsīs.
The author says he became a sannyāsi when Chaitanya did, in spite of the fact that he was a Śūdra, and therefore inadmissible; and there was no system of bhek at that time by which such could adopt the ascetic life.
(5) Chaitanya is continually pictured as conversing with women, both good and bad, whereas his clear teaching in all other works is that a sannyāsi must have no contact whatever with women.
(6) No manuscript of this work has ever been produced for examination.
It is impossible for an outsider to pronounce judgment in such a matter. However, the facts seem to cast very considerable doubt upon the authenticity of these Notes.
It is significant that a modern historical scholar like Professor Jadunath Sarkār, in the introduction to his translation of the Madhya līlā of the Chaitanya Caritamṛta, makes no mention of this Karchā among the biographical works in old Bengali.
Although not strictly biographical in form, the works of a celebrated writer, named Paramānanda Sen, should be included here. He is best known by his poetical title of Kavikarṇapūra.
He was only a child when Chaitanya died, but he had seen the saint and tradition associates his poetic gifts with that childhood contact.
The father of the poet was a well-known physician and a devoted follower of Chaitanya. He figures in the records most prominently as the organiser and leader of the annual pilgrimage of the Bengal disciples to Purī.
Kavikarṇapūra’s works were written in Sanskrit, the best known being a poem, Charitā, and a drama, the Chaitanya Chandrodaya Nāṭaka.
These works dealt with the life and times of Chaitanya and the movement that followed. They were especially renowned for their poetic beauty, and were widely quoted in subsequent works.
The author, as well as his father, wrote songs in Bengali which have found a place in the hymnology of the sect.
So far we have been concerned only with the literature of Chaitanya's life. This is by far the most important, and the only part that has any real claim to literature.
There, is, however, considerable other biographical material which should be mentioned at least, and which must be taken into account in any just estimate of the enormous literary output of the sect.
It is only natural to find that the other prominent figures associated with Chaitanya, especially the two apostles, Nityānanda and Advaita, should have been made the subject of much writing of a biographical character.
Of Nityānanda, whose influence was so paramount in the sect's development, strangely enough we find no standard biography. Accounts of his life are to be found in practically all Vaishnava historical works, a fact which may explain the lack.
Even the Chaitanya Bhāgavata, in its later sections, is more concerned with Nityānanda’s life than with Chaitanya's.
5 works dealing with Advaita's life are listed in Dr. Sen's History:
3 of these are more or less contemporary works, the best-known being the Advaita Prakāśa, by Īshan Nāgara, and the Advaita Maṅgala, by Hari Charan Das.
Practically every well-known follower of Chaitanya became the founder of a Gosvāmī family, and had his life written by some disciple. But these works are partisan and do not figure in the literature of the sect.
The lives of the saints and leaders of a later generation are enshrined in the historical works that treat of that period.