CHAPTER XXX
LATER VISHNUISM IN NORTH INDIA
1
With the fifteenth century Hinduism enters on a new phase. Sects arise which show the influence of Mohammedanism, sometimes to such an extent that it is hard to say whether they should be classed as Hindu or Moslim, and many teachers repudiate caste. Also, whereas in the previous centuries the centre of religious feeling lay in the south, it now shifts to the north. Hinduism had been buffeted but not seriously menaced there: the teachers of the south had not failed to recognize by their pilgrimages the sanctity and authority of the northern seats of learning: such works as the Gîtâ-govinda testify to the existence there of fervent Vishnuism. But the country had been harassed by Moslim invasions and unsettled by the vicissitudes of transitory dynasties. The Jains were powerful in Gujarat and Rajputâna. In Bengal Śâktism and moribund Buddhism were not likely to engender new enthusiasms. But in a few centuries the movements inaugurated in the south increased in extension and strength. Hindus and Mohammedans began to know more of each other, and in the sixteenth century under the tolerant rule of Akbar and his successors the new sects which had been growing were able to consolidate themselves.
After Râmânuja and Madhva, the next great name in the history of Vishnuism, and indeed of Hinduism, is Râmânand. His date is uncertain.604 He was posterior to Râmânuja, from whose sect he detached himself, and Kabir was his disciple, apparently his immediate disciple. Some traditions give Prayaga as his birthplace, others Melucote, but the north was the scene of his activity. He went on a lengthy pilgrimage, and on his return was accused of having infringed the rules of his sect as to eating, etc., and was excommunicated, but received permission from his Guru to found a new sect. He then settled in Benares and taught there. He wrote no treatise but various hymns ascribed to him are still popular.605 Though he is not associated with any special dogma, yet his teaching is of great importance as marking the origin of a popular religious movement characterized by the use of the vernacular languages instead of Sanskrit, and by a laxity in caste rules culminating in a readiness to admit as equals all worshippers of the true God.606 This God is Râma rather than Kṛishṇa. I have already pointed out that the worship of Râma as the Supreme Being (to be distinguished from respect for him as a hero) is not early: in fact it appears to begin in the period which we are considering. Of the human forms of the deity Kṛishṇa was clearly the most popular but the school of Râmânuja, while admitting both Râma and Kṛishṇa as incarnations, preferred to adore God under less mythological and more philosophic names such as Nârâyaṇa. Râmânand, who addressed himself to all classes and not merely to the Brahman aristocracy, selected as the divine name Râma. It was more human than Nârâyaṇa, less sensuous than Kṛishṇa. Every Hindu was familiar with the poetry which sings of Râma as a chivalrous and godlike hero. But he was not, like Kṛishṇa, the lover of the soul, and when Râmaism was divested of mythology by successive reformers it became a monotheism in which Hindu and Moslim elements could blend. Râmânand had twelve disciples, among whom were Kabir, a Raja called Pîpâ, Rai Das, a leather-seller (and therefore an outcast according to Hindu ideas) as well as Brahmans. The Râmats, as his followers were called, are a numerous and respectable body in north India, using the same sectarian mark as the Vadagalais from whom they do not differ materially, although a Hindu might consider that their small regard for caste is a vital distinction. They often call themselves Avadhûtas, that is, those who have shaken off worldly restrictions, and the more devout among them belong to an order divided into four classes of which only the highest is reserved to Brahmans and the others are open to all castes. They own numerous and wealthy maṭhs, but it is said that in some of these celibacy is not required and that monks and nuns live openly as man and wife.607
An important aspect of the Râmat movement is its effect on the popular literature of Hindustan which in the fifteenth and even more in the sixteenth century blossoms into flowers of religious poetry. Many of these writings possess real merit and are still a moral and spiritual force. European scholars are only beginning to pay sufficient attention to this mighty flood of hymns which gushed forth in nearly all the vernaculars of India608 and appealed directly to the people. The phenomenon was not really new. The psalms of the Buddhists and even the hymns of the Ṛig Veda were vernacular literature in their day, and in the south the songs of the Devaram and Nâlâyiram are of some antiquity. But in the north, though some Prâkrit literature has been preserved, Sanskrit was long considered the only proper language for religion. We can hardly doubt that vernacular hymns existed, but they did not receive the imprimatur of any teacher, and have not survived. But about 1400 all this changes. Though Râmânand was not much of a writer he gave his authority to the use of the vernacular: he did not, like Râmânuja, either employ or enjoin Sanskrit and the meagre details which we have of his circle lead us to imagine him surrounded by men of homely speech.
One current in this sea of poetry was Krishnaite and as such not directly connected with Râmânand. Vidyâpati609 sang of the loves of Kṛishṇa and Râdhâ in the Maithili dialect and also in a form of Bengali. In the early fifteenth century (c. 1420) we have the poetess Mirâ Bai, wife of the Raja of Chitore who gained celebrity and domestic unhappiness by her passionate devotion to the form of Kṛishṇa known as Ranchor. According to one legend the image came to life in answer to her fervent prayers, and throwing his arms round her allowed her to meet a rapturous death in his embrace. This is precisely the sentiment which we find later in the teaching of Vallabhâcârya and Caitanya. The hymns of the Bengali poets have been collected in the Padakalpataru, one of the chief sacred books of the Bengali Vaishṇavas. From Vallabhâcârya spring the group of poets who adorned Braj or the Muttra district. Pre-eminent among them is the blind Sur Das who flourished about 1550 and wrote such sweet lyrics that Kṛishṇa himself came down and acted as his amanuensis. A somewhat later member of the same group is Nâbhâ Das, the author of the Bhakta Mâlâ or Legends of the Saints, which is still one of the most popular religious works of northern India.610 Almost contemporary with Sur Das was the great Tulsi Das and Grierson611 enumerated thirteen subsequent writers who composed Râmâyaṇas in some dialect of Hindi. A little later came the Mahratta poet Tukarâm (born about 1600) who gave utterance to Krishnaism in another language.
Tulsi Das is too important to be merely mentioned as one in a list of poets. He is a great figure in Indian religion, and the saying that his Râmâyaṇa is more popular and more honoured in the North-western Provinces than the Bible in England is no exaggeration.612 He came into the world in 1532 but was exposed by his parents as born under an unlucky star and was adopted by a wandering Sâdhu. He married but his son died and after this loss he himself became a Sâdhu. He began to write his Râmâyaṇa in Oudh at the age of forty-three, but moved to Benares where he completed it and died in 1623. On the Tulsi Ghat, near the river Asi, may still be seen the rooms which he occupied. They are at the top of a lofty building and command a beautiful view over the river[4].
His Râmâyana which is an original composition and not a translation of Vâlmîki's work is one of the great religious poems of the world and not unworthy to be set beside Paradise Lost. The sustained majesty of diction and exuberance of ornament are accompanied by a spontaneity and vigour rare in any literature, especially in Asia. The poet is not embellishing a laboured theme: he goes on and on because his emotion bursts forth again and again, diversifying the same topic with an inexhaustible variety of style and metaphor. As in some forest a stream flows among flowers and trees, but pours forth a flood of pure water uncoloured by the plants on its bank, so in the heart of Tulsi Das the love of God welled up in a mighty fountain ornamented by the mythology and legends with which he bedecked it, yet unaffected by them. He founded no sect, which is one reason of his popularity, for nearly all sects can read him with edification, and he is primarily a poet not a theologian. But though he allows himself a poet's licence to state great truths in various ways, he still enunciates a definite belief. This is theism, connected with the name Râma. Since in the north he is the author most esteemed by the Vishnuites, it would be a paradox to refuse him that designation, but his teaching is not so much that Vishṇu is the Supreme Being who becomes incarnate in Râma, as that Râma, and more rarely Hari and Vâsudeva, are names of the All-God who manifests himself in human form. Vishṇu is mentioned as a celestial being in the company of Brahmâ,613 and so far as any god other than Râma receives attention it is Śiva, not indeed as Râma's equal, but as a being at once very powerful and very devout, who acts as a mediator or guide. "Without prayer to Śiva no one can attain to the faith which I require."614 "Râma is God, the totality of good, imperishable, invisible, uncreated, incomparable, void of all change, indivisible, whom the Veda declares that it cannot define."615 And yet, "He whom scripture and philosophy have sung and whom the saints love to contemplate, even the Lord God, he is the son of Dasarath, King of Kosala."616 By the power of Râma exist Brahmâ, Vishṇu and Śiva, as also Mâyâ, the illusion which brings about the world. His "delusive power is a vast fig-tree, its clustering fruit the countless multitude of worlds, while all things animate and inanimate are like the insects that dwell inside and think their own particular fig the only one in existence."617 God has made all things: pain and pleasure, sin and merit, saints and sinners, Brahmans and butchers, passion and asceticism. It is the Veda that distinguishes good and evil among them.618 The love of God and faith are the only road to happiness. "The worship of Hari is real and all the world is a dream."619 Tulsi Das often uses the language of the Advaita philosophy and even calls God the annihilator of duality, but though he admits the possibility of absorption and identification with the deity, he holds that the double relation of a loving God and a loving soul constitutes greater bliss. "The saint was not absorbed into the divinity for this reason that he had already received the gift of faith."620 And in a similar spirit he says, "Let those preach in their wisdom who contemplate Thee as the supreme spirit, the uncreate, inseparable from the universe, recognizable only by inference and beyond the understanding; but we, O Lord, will ever hymn the glories of thy incarnation." Like most Hindus he is little disposed to enquire what is the purpose of creation, but he comes very near to saying that God has evolved the world by the power of Mâyâ because the bliss which God and his beloved feel is greater than the bliss of impersonal undifferentiated divinity. It will be seen that Tulsi Das is thoroughly Hindu: neither his fundamental ideas nor his mythological embellishments owe anything to Islam or Christianity. He accepts unreservedly such principles as Mâyâ, transmigration, Karma and release. But his sentiments, more than those of any other Indian writer, bear a striking resemblance to the New Testament. Though he holds that the whole world is of God, he none the less bids men shun evil and choose the good, and the singular purity of his thoughts and style contrasts strongly with other Vishnuite works. He does not conceive of the love which may exist between the soul and God as a form of sexual passion.
2
The beginning of the sixteenth century was a time of religious upheaval in India for it witnessed the careers not only of Vallabhâcârya and Caitanya, but also of Nânak, the founder of the Sikhs. In the west it was the epoch of Luther and as in Europe so in India no great religious movement has taken place since that time. The sects then founded have swollen into extravagance and been reformed: other sects have arisen from a mixture of Hinduism with Moslem and Christian elements, but no new and original current of thought or devotion has been started.
Though the two great sects associated with the names of Caitanya and Vallabhâcârya have different geographical spheres and also present some differences in doctrinal details, both are emotional and even erotic and both adore Kṛishṇa as a child or young man. Their almost simultaneous appearance in eastern and western India and their rapid growth show that they represent an unusually potent current of ideas and sentiments. But the worship of Kṛishṇa was, as we have seen, nothing new in northern India. Even that relatively late phase in which the sports of the divine herdsman are made to typify the love of God for human souls is at least as early as the Gîtâ-govinda written about 1170. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the history of Kṛishṇa worship is not clear,621 but it persisted and about 1400 found speech in Bengal and in Rajputâna.
According to Vaishṇava theologians the followers of Vallabhâcârya622 are a section of the Rudra-sampradâya founded in the early part of the fifteenth century by Vishṇusvâmi, an emigrant from southern India, who preached chiefly in Gujarat. The doctrines of the sect are supposed to have been delivered by the Almighty to Śiva from whom Vishṇusvâmi was fifteenth in spiritual descent, and are known by the name of Śuddhâdvaita or pure non-duality. They teach that God has three attributes—sac-cid-ânanda—existence, consciousness and bliss. In the human or animal soul bliss is suppressed and in matter consciousness is suppressed too. But when the soul attains release it recovers bliss and becomes identical in nature with God. For practical purposes the Vallabhâcâris may be regarded as a sect founded by Vallabha, said to have been born in 1470. He was the son of a Telinga Brahman, who had migrated with Vishṇusvâmi to the north.
Such was the pious precocity of Vallabha that at the age of twelve he had already discovered a new religion and started on a pilgrimage to preach it. He was well received at the Court of Vijayanagar, and was so successful in disputation that he was recognized as chief doctor of the Vaishṇava school. He subsequently spent nine years in travelling twice round India and at Brindaban received a visit from Kṛishṇa in person, who bade him promulgate his worship in the form of the divine child known as Bâla Gopâla. Vallabha settled in Benares and is said to have composed a number of works which are still extant.623 He gained further victories as a successful disputant and also married and became the father of two sons. At the age of fifty-two he took to the life of a Sannyâsi, but died forty-two days afterwards.
Though Vallabha died as an ascetic, his doctrines are currently known as the Pushṭi Mârga, the road of well-being or comfort. His philosophy was more decidedly monistic than is usual among Vishnuites, and Indian monism has generally taught that, as the soul and God are one in essence, the soul should realize this identity and renounce the pleasures of the senses. But with Vallabhâcârya it may be said that the vision which is generally directed godwards and forgets the flesh, turned earthwards and forgot God, for his teaching is that since the individual and the deity are one, the body should be reverenced and indulged. Pushṭi624 or well-being is the special grace of God and the elect are called Pushṭi-jîva. They depend entirely on God's grace and are contrasted with Maryâdâ-jîvas, or those who submit to moral discipline. The highest felicity is not mukti or liberation but the eternal service of Kṛishṇa and eternal participation in his sports.
These doctrines have led to deplorable results, but so strong is the Indian instinct towards self-denial and asceticism that it is the priests rather than the worshippers who profit by this permission to indulge the body, and the chief feature of the sect is the extravagant respect paid to the descendants of Vallabhâcârya. They are known as Maharajas or Great Kings and their followers, especially women, dedicate to them tan, dhan, man: body, purse and spirit, for it is a condition of the road of well-being that before the devotee enjoys anything himself he must dedicate it to the deity and the Maharaj represents the deity. The daily prayer of the sect is "Om. Kṛishṇa is my refuge. I who suffer the infinite pain and torment of enduring for a thousand years separation from Kṛishṇa, consecrate to Kṛishṇa my body, senses, life, heart and faculties, my wife, house, family, property and my own self. I am thy slave, O Kṛishṇa."625 This formula is recited to the Maharaj with peculiar solemnity by each male as he comes of age and is admitted as a full member of the sect. The words in which this dedication of self and family is made are not in themselves open to criticism and a parallel may be found in Christian hymns. But the literature of the Vallabhis unequivocally states that the Guru is the same as the deity626 and there can be little doubt that even now the Maharajas are adored by their followers, especially by the women, as representatives of Kṛishṇa in his character of the lover of the Gopis and that the worship is often licentious.627 Many Hindus denounce the sect and in 1862 one of the Maharajas brought an action for libel in the supreme court of Bombay on account of the serious charges of immorality brought against him in the native press. The trial became a cause célèbre. Judgment was delivered against the Maharaj, the Judge declaring the charges to be fully substantiated. Yet in spite of these proceedings the sect still flourishes, apparently unchanged in doctrine and practice, and has a large following among the mercantile castes of western India. The Râdhâ-Vallabhis, an analogous sect founded by Harivaṃsa in the sixteenth century, give the pre-eminence to Râdhâ, the wife of Kṛishṇa, and in their secret ceremonies are said to dress as women. The worship of Râdhâ is a late phase of Vishnuism and is not known even to the Bhâgavata Purâṇa.628
Vallabhism owes much of its success to the family of the founder. They had evidently a strong dynastic sentiment as well as a love of missionary conquest—a powerful combination. Vallabhâcârya left behind him eighty-four principal disciples whose lives are recorded in the work called the Stories of the Eighty-four Vaishṇavas, and his authority descended to his son Vithalnath. Like his father, Vithalnath was active as a proselytizer and pilgrim and propagated his doctrines extensively in many parts of western India such as Cutch, Malwa, and Bijapur. His converts came chiefly from the mercantile classes but also included some Brahmans and Mussulmans. He is said to have abolished caste distinctions but the sect has not preserved this feature. In his later years he resided at Muttra or the neighbouring town of Gokul, whence he is known as Gokul Gosainji. This title of Gosain, which is still borne by his male descendants, is derived from Kṛishṇa's name Gosvâmin, the lord of cattle.629 He had seven sons, in each of whom Kṛishṇa is said to have been incarnate for five years. They exercised spiritual authority in separate districts—as we might say in different dioceses—but the fourth son, Gokulnathji and his descendants claimed and still claim a special pre-eminence. The family is at present represented by about a hundred males who are accepted as incarnations and receive the title of Maharaja. About twenty reside at Gokul630 or near Muttra: there are a few in Bombay and in all the great cities of western India, but the Maharaj of Nath Dwara in Rajputâna is esteemed the chief. This place is not an ancient seat of Kṛishṇa worship, but during the persecution of Aurungzeb a peculiarly holy image was brought thither from Muttra and placed in the shrine where it still remains.
A protest against the immorality of the Vallabhi sect was made by Swâminârâyaṇa, a Brahman who was born in the district of Lucknow about 1780.631 He settled in Ahmedabad and gained so large a following that the authorities became alarmed and imprisoned him. But his popularity only increased: he became the centre of a great religious movement: hymns descriptive of his virtues and sufferings were sung by his followers and when he was released he found himself at the head of a band which was almost an army. He erected a temple in the village of Wartal in Baroda, which he made the centre of his sect, and recruited followers by means of periodical tours throughout Gujarat. His doctrines are embodied in an anthology called the Śikshâpatrî consisting of 212 precepts, some borrowed from accepted Hindu scriptures and some original and in a catechism called Vacanâmritam. His teaching was summed up in the phrase "Devotion to Kṛishṇa with observance of duty and purity of life" and in practice took the form of a laudable polemic against the licentiousness of the Vallabhis. As in most of the purer sects of Vishnuism, Kṛishṇa is regarded merely as a name of the Supreme Deity. Thus the Śikshâpatrî says "Nârâyaṇa and Śiva should be equally recognized as parts of one and the same supreme spirit, since both have been declared in the Vedas to be forms of Brahma. On no account let it be thought that difference in form or name makes any difference in the identity of the deity." The followers of Swâminârâyaṇa still number about 200,000 in western India and are divided into the laity and a body of celibate clergy. I have visited their religious establishments in Ahmedabad. It consists of a temple with a large and well-kept monastery in which are housed about 300 monks who wear costumes of reddish grey. Except in Assam I have not seen in India any parallel to this monastery either in size or discipline. It is provided with a library and hospital. In the temple are images of Nara and Nârâyaṇa (explained as Kṛishṇa and Arjuna), Kṛishṇa and Râdhâ, Gaṇeśa and Hanuman.632
3
The sect founded by Caitanya is connected with eastern India as the Vallabhis are with the west. Bengal is perhaps the native land of the worship of Kṛishṇa as the god of love. It was there that Jayadeva flourished in the last days of the Sena dynasty and the lyrical poet Chandîdâs at the end of the fourteenth century. About the same time the still greater poet Vidyâpati was singing in Durbhanga. For these writers, as for Caitanya, religion is the bond of love which unites the soul and God, as typified by the passion633 that drew together Râdhâ and Kṛishṇa. The idea that God loves and seeks out human souls is familiar to Christianity and receives very emotional expression in well-known hymns, but the bold humanity of these Indian lyrics seems to Europeans unsuitable. I will let a distinguished Indian apologize for it in his own words:
"The paradox that has to be understood is that Kṛishṇa means God. Yet he is represented as a youth, standing at a gate, trying to waylay the beloved maiden, attempting to entrap the soul, as it were, into a clandestine meeting. This, which is so inconceivable to a purely modern mind, presents no difficulty at all to the Vaishṇava devotee. To him God is the lover himself: the sweet flowers, the fresh grass, the gay sound heard in the woods are direct messages and tokens of love to his soul, bringing to his mind at every instant that loving God whom he pictures as ever anxious to win the human heart."634
Caitanya635 was born at Nadia in 1485 and came under the influence of the Mâdhva sect. In youth he was a prodigy of learning,636 but at the age of about seventeen while on a pilgrimage to Gaya began to display that emotional and even hysterical religious feeling which marked all his teaching. He swooned at the mention of Kṛishṇa's name and passed his time in dancing and singing hymns. At twenty-five he became a Sannyâsî, and at the request of his mother, who did not wish him to wander too far, settled in Puri near the temple of Jagannath. Here he spent the rest of his life in preaching, worship and ecstatic meditation, but found time to make a tour in southern India and another to Brindaban and Benares. He appears to have left the management of his sect largely to his disciples, Advaita, Nityânanda and Haridas, and to have written nothing himself. But he evidently possessed a gift of religious magnetism and exercised an extraordinary influence on those who heard him preach or sing. He died or disappeared before the age of fifty but apparently none of the stories about his end merit credence.
Although the teaching of Caitanya is not so objectionable morally as the doctrines of the Vallabhis, it follows the same line of making religion easy and emotional and it is not difficult to understand how his preaching, set forth with the eloquence which he possessed, won converts from the lower classes by thousands. He laid no stress on asceticism, approved of marriage and rejected all difficult rites and ceremonies. The form of worship which he specially enjoined was the singing of Kîrtans or hymns consisting chiefly in a repetition of the divine names accompanied by music and dancing. Swaying the body and repetition of the same formula or hymn are features of emotional religion found in the most diverse regions, for instance among the Rufais or Howling Dervishes, at Welsh revival meetings and in negro churches in the Southern States. It is therefore unnecessary to seek any special explanation in India but perhaps there is some connection between the religious ecstasies of Vaishṇavas and Dervishes. Within Caitanya's sect, caste was not observed. He is said to have admitted many Moslims to membership and to have regarded all worshippers of Kṛishṇa as equal. Though caste has grown up again, yet the old regulation is still in force inside the temple of Jagannath at Puri. Within the sacred enclosure all are treated as of one caste and eat the same sacred food. In Caitanya's words "the mercy of God regards neither tribe nor family."
His theology637 shows little originality. The deity is called Bhagavân or more frequently Hari. His majesty and omnipotence are personified as Nârâyaṇa, his beauty and ecstasy as Kṛishṇa. The material world is defined as bhedâbhedaprakâśa, a manifestation of the deity as separate and yet not separate from him, and the soul is vibhinnâṁśa or a detached portion of him. Some souls are in bondage to Prakṛiti or Mâyâ, others through faith and love attain deliverance. Reason is useless in religious matters, but ruci or spiritual feeling has a quick intuition of the divine.
Salvation is obtained by Bhakti, faith or devotion, which embraces and supersedes all other duties. This devotion means absolute self-surrender to the deity and love for him which asks for no return but is its own reward. "He who expects remuneration for his love acts as a trader." In this devotion there are five degrees: (a) sânti, calm meditation, (b) dâsya, servitude, (c) sâkhya, friendship, (d) vâtsalya, love like that of a child for its parent, (e) mâdhurya, love like that of a woman for a lover. All these sentiments are found in God and this combined ecstasy is an eternal principle identified with Hari himself, just as in the language of the Gospels, God is love. Though Caitanya makes love the crown and culmination of religion, the worship of his followers is not licentious, and it is held that the right frame of mind is best attained by the recitation of Kṛishṇa's names especially Hari.
The earlier centre of Caitanya's sect was his birthplace, Nadia, but both during his life and afterwards his disciples frequented Brindaban and sought out the old sacred sites which were at that time neglected. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Lala Baba, a wealthy Bengali merchant, became a mendicant and visited Muttra. Though he had renounced the world, he still retained his business instincts and bought up the villages which contained the most celebrated shrines and were most frequented by pilgrims. The result was a most profitable speculation and the establishment of Caitanya's Church in the district of Braj, which thus became the holy land of both the great Krishnaite sects. The followers of Caitanya at the present day are said to be divided into Gosains, or ecclesiastics, who are the descendants of the founder's original disciples, the Vrikats or celibates, and the laity. Besides the celibates there are several semi-monastic orders who adopt the dress of monks but marry. They have numerous maṭhs at Nadia and elsewhere. Like the Vallabhis, this sect deifies its leaders. Caitanya, Nityânanda and Advaita are called the three masters (Prabhû) and believed to be a joint incarnation of Kṛishṇa, though according to some only the first two shared the divine essence. Six of Caitanya's disciples known as the six Gosains are also greatly venerated and even ordinary religious teachers still receive an almost idolatrous respect.
Though Caitanya was not a writer himself he exercised a great influence on the literature of Bengal. In the opinion of so competent a judge as Dinesh Chandra Sen, Bengali was raised to the status of a literary language by the Vishnuite hymn-writers just as Pali was by the Buddhists. Such hymns were written before the time of Caitanya but after him they became extremely numerous638 and their tone and style are said to change. The ecstasies and visions of which they tell are those described in his biographies and this emotional poetry has profoundly influenced all classes in Bengal. But there was and still is a considerable hostility between the Śâktas and Vishnuites.