THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

2

[JANUARY, 1873.

At that time by divine provision there was an

When he was about eighteen his father died,

eclipse of the moon.—Ch. I. xiii. 38. In accordance with the usual Bengali super

and he soon afterwards married Lachhmi Debi,

stition that if a man's real name be known he

on the career of a grihastha or householder,

may be bewitched or subject to the influence of the evil eye, the real name given at birth is not

taking in pupils whom he instructed in ordinary secular learning. He does not appear, however, to have kept to this quiet life for long; he went off on a wandering tour all over Eastern Bengal, begging and singing, and is said to have col lected a great deal of money and made a con

made known at the time, but another name is

given by which the individual is usually called. No one but the father and mother and priest know the real name.

Bisambhar’s usual name

in childhood was Nimãi, and by this he was generally known to his neighbours. In person, if the description of him in the Chaitanyacharitāmrita (Bk. I. iii.) is to be con sidered as historical, he was handsome, tall (six feet), with long arms, in colour a light brown, with expressive eyes, a sonorous voice, and very sweet and winning manners. He is frequently called “Gaurang” or “Gaurchandra,” i. e., the

daughter of Balabhadra Achârjya, and entered

siderable name for himself.

On his return he

found his first wife had died in his absence, and

he married again one Bishnupriyā, concerning whom nothing further is said.

Soon after he

went to Gayå to offer the usual pinda to the manes of his ancestors.

It was on his return from Gayā, when he was

about 23 years of age, that he began seriously to start his new creed. “It was now,” writes

pale, or the pale moon, in contrast to the Krishna

of the Bhagvat who is represented as very black. The name Chaitanya literally means “soul, intellect,” but in the special and technical sense in which the teacher himself adopted it, it appears

Babu Jagadishnath, “that he openly condemned the Hindu ritualistic system of ceremonies as being a body without a soul, disowned the insti

tution of caste as being abhorrent to a loving god all whose creatures were one in his eyes,

to mean perceptible, or appreciable by the senses. He took the name Sri Krishna Chai tanya to intimate that he was himself an incar nation of the god, in other words, Krishna made visible to the senses of mankind.

preached the efficacy of adoration and love and

extolled the excellence and sanctity of the name, and the uttering and singing of the name of god

as infinitely superior to barren system without faith.”

Chaitanya, however, as the Babu points

The Charitāmrita being composed by one of

his disciples, is written throughout on this sup position. Chaitanya is always spoken of as an incarnation of Krishna, and his bro ther Nityanand as a re-appearance of Balarām. In order to keep up the resemblance to

Krishna, the Charitāmrita treats us to a long series of stories about Chaitanya's childish sports among the young Hindu women of the village. They are not worth relating, and are

probably purely fictitious; the Bengalis of to day must be very different from what their ancestors were, if such pranks as are related in

the Charitāmrita were quietly permitted to go on. Chaitanya, however, seems to have been eccentric even as a youth ; wonderful stories are

told of his powers of intellect and memory, how,

out, was not the originator of this theory, but appears to have borrowed it from his neigh

bour Adwaita Achârjya, whose custom it

was,

after performing his daily ritual, to go to the banks of the Ganges and call aloud for the com ing of the god who should substitute love and faith for mere rites and ceremonies. This cus

tom is still adhered to by Vaishnavas. The Charitāmrita veils

the

priority of Adwaita

adroitly by stating that it was he who by his austerities hastened the coming of Krishna in the avatar of Chaitanya.

Vande tam šrimadadvaitāchāryam adbhuta cheshtitam,

Yasya prasādād ajno'pi tatswarāpam nirā payet.

for instance, he defeated in argument the most learned Pandits. A great deal is said about his

I praise that revered teacher Adwaita of won derful actions,

hallucinations and trances throughout his life,

By whose favour even the ignorant may perceive

and we may perhaps conclude that he was more or less insane at all times, or rather he was one of those strange enthusiasts who wield such

the (divinity) personified.—Ch. I. vi. Thus in Sanskrit verses at the head of that chapter which sings the virtues of Adwaita: in the Bengali portion of the same chapter it is asserted that Adwaita was himself an incar

deep and irresistible influence over the masses by virtue of that very condition of mind which borders on madness.

nation of a part of the divinity, e.g.—