THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY,

A JOURNAL OF ORIENTAL

RESEARCH.

CHAITANYA AND THE WAISHNAWA POETS OF BENGAL. STUDIES IN BENGALI POETRY OF THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.

By JOHN BEAMES, B.C.S., M.R.A.S., &c.

HE PADAKALPATARU, or ‘wish-granting tree of song, may be considered as the scriptures of the Vaishnava sect in Bengal. In form it is a collection of songs written by various poets in various ages, so arranged as to exhibit a complete

series of poems on the topics and tenets which constitute the religious views of the sect.

The

book has been put together in recent times, and takes the reader through the preliminary consecra tion, invocations and introductory ceremonies, the rise and progress of the mutual love of Rādhā and Krishna, and winds up with the usual closing and valedictory hymns. Before beginning an analysis of this collection so remarkable from many points of view, it will probably be of some assistance even to those who

have studied the history of Vaishnavism, if I state briefly the leading points in the life of Chaitanya, and the principal features of the religion which he developed, rather than actually founded.

Bisambhar (Vishvambhara) Miśr was the youngest son of Jagannāth Miśr, a Brahman, native of the district of Sylhet in Eastern Ben gal, who had emigrated before the birth of his son to Nadiya (Nabadwipa), the capital of Bengal.” His mother was Sachi Debi, daughter of Nilám

bar Chakravarti. She bore to Jagannāth eight

• The facts which here follow are taken from the “Chai

tanyacharitāmrita," a metrical life of Chaitanya, the greater

daughters who all died young ; her first-born child, however, was a son named Biswarāp, who afterwards under the name of Nityanand became

the chief disciple of his more famous brother. Bisambhar was born at Nadiya in the evening of the Purnima or day of the full moon of Phâlgun 1407 Sakábda, corresponding to the latter part of February or beginning of March A.D. 1486.

It is noted that there was an eclipse of the moon on that day.

By the aid of these indications

those who care to do so can find out the exact

day.f

The passages in the original are—

Śri Krishna Chaitanya Nabadwipe abatari; Ashtachallis batsar prakat bihári ;

Chauddaśat sát éake janmer pramān, Chauddaśat panchâune hoilà antardhān. Chaitanyacharitámrita, Bk. I. ch. xiii.l.. 13.

Śri Krishna the Visible became incarnate in Nabadwip, For forty-eight years visibly he sported ;

The exact (date) of his birth (is) in Šaka 1407,

-

In 1455 he returned to heaven.

And again— Phâlgun purnimä sandhyāy prabhurjanmoday, Seha Kāle daibajoge chandrer grahan hay. On the full moon of Phâlgun at eve was the lord’s birth, works in Bengali. My esteemed friend Babu Jagadishnath Ray has kindly gone through the book, a task for which I

part of which was probably written by a contemporary of the teacher himself. The style has unfortunately been much

had not leisure, and marked some of the salient points for me.

modernized, but even so, the book is one of the oldest extant

18, O.S. 1486,-Ed.

There was an eclipse of the moon before midnight Feb.