CHAPTER VI
The Teaching of the Sect
Chaitanya was not primarily a thinker. From the record of his life it will have become abundantly clear that his main interests were not intellectual:
Not only did his absorption in bhakti leave no time or energy for the life of scholarship, but - what is far more to the point
- the increasing strain of an impossible emotionalism upon a highly-wrought nervous system, made serious intellectual effort quite out of the question as the years went on.
His whole mode of life was against his being a thinker. We are not surprised, therefore, that he wrote nothing except the Aṣṭaka, the eight couplets already noted.
There is no means of knowing his own thought, except as it is transmitted to us in the biographies. And these were written a considerable time after his death and embody the theology of a later day.
The origins of the teaching of the sect have been briefly indicated in the first chapter:
The principal factor in the development of Vaishnavism in Bengal seems to have been Mādhvaite:
Viṣṇupurī in the 13th century, and Mādhavendra Purī in the 15th, both Mādhvas, were influential in stimulating the Vaishnava faith.
The one by his celebrated work, Bhaktiratnāvali, made the Bhāgavata Purāṇa popularly known, while the Purī helped materially to spread the Krishna cult and gained numerous disciples.
Among these disciples of Mādhavendra Purī were all the men who had greatest influence on Chaitanya’s life:
His two closest friends and leading disciples, Advaitācārya and Nityānanda, the two gurus who initiated him into the life of devotion, and other Vaishnava friends whom he revered, all were Mādhvas.
It seems clear, therefore, that Chaitanya began his religious life as a Mādhva.
But the Mādhva influence was considerably modified.
The Rādhā cult was wholeheartedly accepted very early in his religious life:
We are guided here by our knowledge of the works in which Chaitanya found his chief delight. Among these the Rādhā-Krishna singers of Bengal and Mithilā were prime favourites.
From them he received the Rādhā-Krishna legend, probably without any doctrinal emphasis, since these poets reveal no special influence.
Later, as we have seen, he came into touch with other works, and was variously influenced in his thinking.
Both the Viṣṇusvāmīs and the Nimbārkas directly contributed to his theological development and the choice of a philosophical basis for his movement.
This latter, indeed, he seems to have taken direct from the Nimbārkas. His conception of the glories of the heavenly Vrindāvan is probably from the Nimbārkas also.
But it is to be noted that there is no evidence of his following the Nimbārka’s exaltation of Rādhā into the eternal consort of Krishna. In this matter he seems to have followed the Viṣṇusvāmīs.
Just how far, or in what further detail, the Chaitanya movement drew upon these older sects is not entirely clear, but in general it may be said that, as regards ritual, religion, and theology, he was indebted to the three groups named.
How far the teaching of the sect as found in its most authoritative source - the Caritamṛta - is the product of theologians of Vrindāvan, and how far truly representative of Chaitanya's thought it is impossible to say.
It seems most improbable, however, that much of the elaborate theologising put into his mouth could have been uttered by him:
It is not consistent with the general impression given of him in the book itself, for repeatedly he is portrayed as careless of śāstric knowledge, more and more indifferent to disputation, and increasingly given up to emotional ecstasies.
The truth of the matter is given in these words, referring to Krishna-bhakti:
Here there is no śāstric reasoning, nor consideration of (theological) dogma. This is its nature; its quality is essence of sweetness.
The long philosophical disquisitions, the marvels of exegesis, the elaboration of fine points in theology credited to Chaitanya in chapter after chapter,
could only be the work of keen and highly-trained minds devoting all their powers to problems of thought and construction of theological systems.
The few verses believed to be Chaitanya’s own are expressions of devotion simply.
Tradition ascribes 8 ślokas to him, but the Chaitanya Caritamṛta seems definitely to mention him in connection with 5 only. They are the following:
1. Your all-pervading power is multiplied by your own name, and there is no fixed time for remembering it. Such kindness from you, O powerful one, to my misfortune, has not caused love in me.
2. Humbler than the grass, more patient than a tree, honouring others yet without honour oneself; such a one is ever worthy to take the name of Krishna.
3. O lord of the world, I do not want wealth, or relation, or beautiful wife, or poetic genius; birth after birth may I have disinterested faith in you.
4. When, at the chanting of your name, will my eyes be filled with flowing tears, my voice become choked, and my body thrill with joy?
5. My moments are lengthened into cycles, and my eyes are turned into the rainy season itself; my whole world is made empty because of the separation from Govinda.
The remaining 3 ślokas, about which there may be some doubt, are given also:
6. May the praise of Śrī Krishna be triumphant, which cleanses the mirror of the mind, extinguishes the great forest fire of the world,
sheds moonlight upon the lily of prosperity, lives in its beloved knowledge, swells the sea of joy, gives the full taste of pure nectar at every step, and washes the whole self (of man).
7. O son of Nanda, graciously count me, your servant, as a particle of dust on your lotus-feet, fallen as I am in the terrible ocean of this world.
8. Even if he lifts and crushes me under foot, or cuts me to the quick by avoiding me, or treats me anyway, the profligate, still he is no other than the lord of my heart.
At one point in the Caritamṛta we find a clue to what was very likely the real relation between Chaitanya and the work of his disciples:
Sanātana is described as being commissioned by Chaitanya to prepare the Smriti for the sect. He pleads his inability and his ignorance, whereupon Chaitanya suggests in outline the various points to be treated.
As this was doubtless the inspiration of Sanātana's great work on ritual - the Haribhaktivilāsa - it is likely enough that Chaitanya sustained a somewhat similar relation to the theology of the Vrindāvan scholars:
He inspired them for the task, suggested its main lines, and furnished them with ample material for illustration and analysis in his own life of devotion.
Thus we find that the greatest theologians of the sect, Rūpa and Jīva, based their theology on the Brahma Saṁhitā, one of the works which Chaitanya discovered and held in such high regard.
In sketching the teaching of the sect we shall confine ourselves largely to the Caritamṛta, and shall not attempt to discriminate, beyond what has been said, between the teaching of Chaitanya and his followers.
An exhaustive treatment has not been attempted, our desire being, rather, to set in as clear outline as may be, the main tenets of the sect.