Trouble in Paradise:A Seventeenth Century Conlict

in the Caitanya Vaiava Traditionby

Neal DelmonicoIowa State University

May 17, 1999January 20, 2015

Rpa Kavirja, who is not to be confused with Rpa Gosvmin (16thcent.), the author of some of the Caitanya tradition's classic works on reli-gious aesthetics, was a later Bengali member of the same tradition who livedin the irst half of the seventeenth century. He and his teacher, Mukun-dadsa, are examples of a certain daring and freedom of thought that re-sulted in the development of a schism within the Caitanya tradition of pro-found impact for the later history of the sect. Behind the surviving worksof Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja one can detect something of the atmosphereof learned discourse that existed in the years following the deaths of the SixGosvmins of Vndvana in which the heirs of their thought struggled withseveral of the seminal ideas and problems encountered in their writings. Tobe more speciic, one can ind incipient forms of later, highly developed andpolished arguments in favor of the doctrine of paraky-vda (the theologicalposition that claims that the primary relationship between the divine lovers,Rdh and Ka is extra-marital) and detailed discussions of whether pas-sionate devotion (rga-bhakti) should be performed with the physical bodyor a mentally conceived body, called the perfected or accomplishedbody (siddha-deha, i.e. an internally visualized body representing the prac-titioner's identity in the ll of Rdh and Ka) or both. In the context of

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the latter discussion Rpa Kavirja and Mukundadsa developed some sub-tle distinctions and terminology to better characterize diferent stages in theunfolding of rga-bhakti.

Who were Mukundadsa and Rpa Kavirja? We fortunately have sev-eral texts that provide us with some biographical information on them. Oneof the most reliable of these texts is the Narottama-vilsa (Nv) written inthe 18th century by Narahari Cakravartin whose other works include theBhakti-ratnkara. Narahari's works are generally conscientious accounts ofthe history of the sect after the deaths of Caitanya and his close associates.Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja are discussed in an appendix of the Nv entitled"Introduction to the Author."1 Another source of information on Mukunda isa manuscript entitled, Concerning Rpa Gosvmin and Kavirja Gosvmin, inthe Phab manuscript collection2 which tells the story of how Mukundacame to Vndvana and became a disciple of Kadsa Kavirja. A secondversion of Mukunda's story which difers in a few details from the Phabone is found in the Sahajiy work, the Vivarta-vilsa (Vv) by Akicanadsa.3

Mukundadsa, strangely enough, was neither a Bengali nor a South In-dian, the two main groups from which members of the Caitanya Vaiavacommunity usually came. He was the son of a wealthy merchant of Multannear Lahore in the Punjab. He was a brhmaa according to the Nv and theVv informs us that he came to his teacher, Kadsa Kavirja, later thanKadsa's other disciples, probably when Kadsa Kavirja was nearthe end of his life.4 The Phab ms. tells us that one day, the youth-ful Mukunda outitted a leet of boats with goods and, like most merchantsof his time, set of on a trading trip. On the way, his boats were struck by astorm in the vicinity of Vndvana. He landed and went to pay his respect tothe deities enshrined there: Madanamohana, Gopntha and Govinda. Ac-cording to this account, he became illed with devotional feelings when hesaw Govindaj. Kadsa Kavirja was present at the time and spoke to himabout Ka-bhakti and Mukunda became converted to Caitanya Vaiav-ism. He became a disciple of Kadsa Kavirja, gave away all the goodsin his boats to the Vaiavas of Vndvana and spent the rest of his life atRdhkua in Vraja (Vndvana and its surrounding regions). He studiedall the bhakti texts under Kadsa and became his favorite disciple. Justbefore Kadsa died he passed on to Mukundadsa the worship of the Go-vardhana il (a piece of stone from the sacred mountain of Govardhana in

1Narahari Cakravartin, Narottama-vilsa (Nv), pp. 200-206. (Muridabda: RdhramaaPress, 1894 ?)

2Cited and summarized in Caitanya-parikara by Ravndrantha Miti, p. 475. and identiiedin his bibliography as Phab manuscript number 195. (Calcutta: Bookland Private Ltd., ?)

3Akicanadsa, Vivarta-vilsa (Vv), pp. 29-33. (Kalikt: Trcanda Dsa Sons, ?)4ibid., p. 30.

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Vraja) that Kadsa Kavirja himself had received from RaghunthadsaGosvmin. Mukunda apparently wrote a number of Sanskrit texts, few ofwhich have survived. His commentary on Rpa Gosvmin's Bhakti-rasmta-sindhu, called the Artha-ratnlpa-(vali?)-dpik, has survived in only onecomplete manuscript.5 This commentary was apparently the main vehiclefor his discussion of the two questions mentioned above. Another workwhich has survived is the Siddhnta-candrodaya which alternates betweenSanskrit and Bengali (the Bengali being essentially a translation of the San-skrit portions). Other works attributed to him, such as the Bhga-ratnvaland the Amta-ratnval, exist only in the Bengali translations of his Bengalidisciples.6

The Mnavi-vilsa, which is attributed to Hemalat, the daughter of rni-vscrya (last half of the 16th cent.), one of the main propagators of Cai-tanya Vaiavism in West Bengal, contains several verses from another San-skrit work by Mukunda called the Rga-siddhi.7 In addition, the Nv says thathe started several poetic descriptions of the ll-s of Rdh and Ka that he,unable to inish them because of old age, had Vivantha Cakravartin (lastthree quarters of the 17th cent.) complete. Thus, it is possible that some ofthe poetic works that have survived in Vivantha's name may have beenstarted by Mukunda. Mukunda was born in approximately 1580 C.E., metKadsa Kavirja in the irst decade of the 17th century, lived with himuntil his death in 1614-15 and lived at Rdhkua until, perhaps, 1660.

Mukundadsa's student Rpa Kavirja is portrayed in the Nv in a ratherunlattering way. According to that account Rpa Kavirja was originally adisciple of Kacaraa Cakravartin who was a disciple of GagnryaaCakravartin and whose son and disciple, incidently, was Rdhramaa Cakra-vartin, the teacher of Vivantha Cakravartin. Since, in Caitanya Vaiav-ism, the practice of selecting one's teacher from the family of one's father'steacher was and is common, it is quite possible that Rpa Kavirja wasindeed an uncle of Vivantha, as one traditional view has it.8 If so, hemust have been born in approximately 1600, met Mukunda in the 1620'sand died in the 1660's. The Nv says that he died of leprosy. There ap-

5Published in Haridsa Dsa's edition of the Bhakti-rasmta-sindhu. (Navadvpa: HaribolKura, G. 462) I came across the irst part of another manuscript in the library of the Govern-ment Sanskrit College, Calcutta. It had been inadequately identiied and catalogued. It was inBengali script and may contain Mukunda's original text before it was edited by King SewaiJayasiha II in the 18th century.

6Paritoa Dsa, Sahajiy O Gauya Vaiava Dharma, pp. 102-3. (Calcutta: Firma KLM,1978).

7Hemalat hkur, Mnavi-vilsa, ed. by Pradpakumra Siha. (Viupura: Mika llaSiha, 1387 [1981])

8Krishnagopal Goswami Sastri in the introduction to his edition of Rpa Kavirja's Sra-sagraha, p. xliii. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1949)

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pears to be no evidence for the contention that Rpa Kavirja was a discipleof Hemalat hkur, daughter of rnivscrya. According to the Nv,Rpa Kavirja accompanied his teacher, Kacaraa, to Vraja and visitedall of the places of Ka's ll. He met Mukunda at Rdhkua and whenKacaraa returned to Bengal, Rpa Kavirja, with the permission of histeacher, remained in Vraja to study the Bhgavata and other bhakti texts withMukundadsa. During his residence at Rdhkua Rpa Kavirja becamean important and respected member of the community, and yet, the Nv tellsus, a few days after Mukunda's death he ran amok.

During the last days of his life, Mukunda was cared for by the grand-daughter of Gagnryaa Cakravartin, Kapriy hkur. The Nvsays that she cured him of a serious case of dysentery and administered tohim with such afection that she soon became his favorite. As a result of hisafection he turned over the service of Raghunthadsa's il to her whenhe was approaching death.9 Though she, too, was a respected member ofthe community of Rdh kua, the Nv describes an incident that occurredbetween her and Rpa Kavirja. Rpa Kavirja used to attend daily read-ings of the Bhgavata at Rdhkua as did most of the devotees who livedthere. One day, Rpa Kavirja failed to show respect to Kapriy Devand sharply criticized her for continuing to utter the names of Ka duringthe reading. He asked her how one could do two things at once. How couldshe pay attention to the recitation of the names of Ka and listen to theBhgavata also? She replied that she had no control over her tongue whichwas accustomed to repeating constantly Ka's names and that her habitdid not interfere with listening to the reading. This reply angered RpaKavirja which, according to the Nv, was the beginning of his downfall, thesymptoms of which were the fabrication of his own philosophy and his even-tual departure from Vraja for Orissa where he died of leprosy and becamea ghost. That, the text warns us, is the result of committing an ofense toa devotee.10 Two of Rpa Kavirja's works have survived and, in spite ofhis eventual isolation from the rest of the Caitanya Vaiava community, hesuccessfully established a following that has survived until the present day.His surviving works are the Sra-sagraha and the Rgnug-vivtti.11

From these details of the lives of Rpa Kavirja and his teacher, Mukunda,and the evidence of their surviving works we can form a general idea of thepoints of conlict that arose between them and other members of the Cai-tanya tradition. It is interesting to note that though Mukundadsa is highly

9Nv, pp. 204-5.10ibid., pp. 205-711Rpa Kavirja, Sra-sagraha, ed. by Krishnagopal Goswami Sastri (Calcutta: University

of Calcutta, 1949) and Rgnug-vivtti, ed. by Kadsa Bbj (Kusuma sarovara: KadsaBb, ? ).

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praised in the Nv, his student, Rpa Kavirja, is not. One must be wary,however, of the Nv's representation of the incident involving Rpa Kavirjaand Kapriy Dev. Though the text is, generally speaking, historicallyreliable, sometimes the sectarian biases of its author intrude into the narra-tive, in addition to which he wrote perhaps three quarters of a century afterthe incident he describes. Nevertheless, a few important points emerge.Rpa Kavirja, and presumably Mukunda too, very strongly favored theextra-marital interpretation of the relationship between Rdh and Ka.Jva Gosvmin's extensive argumentation against it in his commentary onRpa Gosvmin's Ujjvala-nlamai, however, makes it evident that the extra-marital interpretation was already exerting inluence in the last half of the16th century. Though Jva takes special care to refute it in several partsof his commentary, he leaves a great deal of doubt about his own viewsby ending an important passage, in which he argues in favor of the maritalinterpretation, with an enigmatic verse. The verse is as follows:

svecchay likhita kicitkicidatra parecchay|yatprvparasambandha tatprvamapara param||12

Some of this was written by my own desire and some by thedesire of another. Since there is a succession of former and latter(between the two) that (my opinion) is the former and the otheris the latter.

Though the verse is extremely laconic and unclear, it is lends itself to theinter pretation that Jva supported the marital point of view at the instance ofsomeone else and that he himself favored the extra-marital viewpoint, since,in his commentary, he states the case of the extra-marital interpretation irst,as the prva-paka, and then argues against it, as was the common procedurein polemical discussions of this sort. Some suspect this verse, of course, ofbeing an interpolation, but all the manuscripts seem to contain it.

Jva's defense of the marital relationship and his portrayal of it in his lit-erary works, the Mdhava-mahotsava and Gopla-camp, gave the Vaiavacommunity both in Vndvana and Bengal a great deal of diiculty. Yadunan-dana, in his 17th century Bengali work called the Karnanda, mentions aletter written to Jva by Rmacandra Kavirja, Govindadsa and Narotta-madsa asking him which interpretation he accepted. Jva's reply is in-cluded in the text and is oddly evasive. He says that his opinion is the sameas that of his student, rnivscrya. Whatever rnivsa has taught, that

12Jva Gosvmin, Locana-rocan, on Rpa's Ujjvala-nlamai, 1.21, p. 8. (Vndvana:Haridsa arman, 1954)

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is my opinion too.13 rnivsa supported the extra-marital interpretation,according to Yadunandana. Though they therefore probably inherited thedebate on this question, Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja were among the irstto write in Sanskrit and with carefully crafted arguments contradicting theauthoritative views of Jva.

Another writer of a slightly later period sheds some light on this contro-versy from a diferent perspective. This is Rdhkadsa, the head priestof the important Govinda temple in Vndvana during the middle of the17th century.14 In his work, the Sdhana-dpik, he also argues on behalfof the extra-marital interpretation of Rdh and Ka's relationship. Af-ter pre senting a number of arguments in favor of that interpretation, hementions some circumstantial reasons, which he heard from his teacher,for Jva's acceptance of the marital point of view.15 He tells us that JvaGosvmin had a very dear disciple named Gopladsa who was a Vaiya bycaste (which is mentioned, perhaps, to indicate that he was wealthy). In or-der to please Gopladsa, Jva wrote in favor of the marital interpretation.Rdhkadsa implies that Gopladsa was the other by whose desireJva supported the marital viewpoint. Rdhkadsa reveals the closenessof their friendship by asserting that Jva also composed his Sanskrit gram-mar the Harinmmta-vykaraa for the beneit of Gopladsa and cites averse as evidence from the closing section of the grammar in which Jvamentions a certain Gopladsa as a friend of his. As if this were not enough,Rdhkadsa goes on to say that Jva had another student, a Bengali brh-maa by the name of Kadsa who after Jva's death claimed to be Jva'smantra disciple. According to Rdhkadsa, however, Jva had no mantra(initiation) disciples, but only ik (instruction) disciples. This Kadsa,claiming to be the true disciple of Jva, made amendments to Jva's works,in some places adding and in others deleting things. Rdhkadsa pointsto some suspicious and contradictory passages of Jva's Vaiava-toa andargues that suspicion should also be extended to those sections of Jva's writ-ings that support the marital interpretation as well. The Kadsa referredto here may be the same as the one in Jva's will who is identiied as theson of Bhratcrya and who later inherited from Vilsadsa the service ofJva's deities, Rdh-Dmodara, after Jva's death.16

13Yadunandana, Karnanda, in Vaiava Shitya o Yadunandana, by ntilat Rya, pp.482-485. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1976)

14Rdhka Dsa was the head priest of the Govinda temple in the year 1643, but whenhe assumed the position and how long he held it is not known. See Vndvana Theke Jayapuraby Asmakumra Rya, p. 38. (Calcutta: Jijs, 1985)

15Rdhkadsa Govmin, Sdhana-dpik, ed. by Haridsa str, 9.48, pp. 60-63. (Vnd-vana: Sadgranthapraksaka, 1980)

16Tarapada Mukherjee and J. C. Wright, An Early Testamentary Document in Sanskrit, in

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Whatever Jva's actual belief was, the marital/extra-marital dispute wasnot the issue that created the trouble for Rpa Kavirja In fact, much ofthe argument found in Rpa Kavirja's Sra-sagraha establishing the su-periority of the extra-marital relationship reappeared later in VivanthaCakravartin's commentary on the Ujjvala-nlamai, which was accepted bythe tradition. It was his view on the question of practice that brought RpaKavirja the most trouble. Rpa Kavirja developed the doctrine of the fourvarieties of practice which were briely anticipated in Mukunda's Siddhnta-candrodaya. David Haberman has already discussed these four in some de-tail in his book, Acting as a Way of Salvation, so I will not dwell on themhere.17 We have already seen the principle behind the four practices inthe story from the Nv in which Rpa Kavirja criticized Kapriy Devfor doing two things at once. This agrees substantially with his opinionthat rga-bhakti (devotional practice motivated by passion for one's deity)must be practiced with both the physical and mental bodies. To practicevaidhi-bhakti (devotional practice motivated by need to follow rules) withthe physical body and rga-bhakti with the mental body is equivalent to do-ing two things at once and being of two minds at once. This state of afairsdoes not lead, according to Rpa Kavirja, to pure (kevala) bhakti. Curi-ously, although Jva evaded the question of the nature of the relationshipbetween Rdh and Ka, in his letter to Rmacandra Kavirja, he clearlysaid that one should practice vaidh with the physical body and rga withthe mental body.18 We can only assume that Rmacandra and the othersasked Jva about it in their letter to him and that, therefore, this question,too, was already a being discussed in the last quarter of the 16th centuryand the irst quarter of the 17th century. It was this attempt to resolve theconlict between two contradictory kinds of motivation in the practice ofdevotion that appears to have brought about the eventual banning of RpaKavirja's books.

The presence of women in the lives of both Mukunda and Rpa Kavirjais another curious component of this story. Of course, these relationshipsmay have been innocent, but the presence of women in the community ofanchorites at Rdhkua is nonetheless suspicious. If the Mnavi-vilsais really the work of Hemalat, an important female leader in the Vaiavacenter at Viupura, Mukunda seems to have had a profound efect on her aswell. Besides Kapriy Dev, two women named Kadambaml hkurand Gaurgapriy hkur are listed as esoteric disciples of Mukundain a manuscript in the Phab collection entitled The Branches of (the Dis-Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. LXII, 1979, p. 314.

17David L. Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Rgnug Bhakti Sdhana, pp.239-257. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)

18See footnote 15.

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ciples of) Kavirja Gosvm.19 The relationship between Kapriy Dev andMukunda is presented in the Nv as that of a daughter for a father, and therewas probably a 20 or 30 year diference in their ages. The relationship be-tween Rpa Kavirja and Kapriy Dev, however, was much more com-plex. They were approximately the same age and both lived at Rdhkuaat the same time. In addition, they both were involved with Mukunda intheir own ways and Kapriy was the granddaughter of Rpa Kavirja'sprevious teacher's teacher, Gagnryaa Cakravartin. Their exchangeduring the reading of the Bhgavata can be reasonably interpreted as anattempt by Rpa Kavirja to win Kapriy over to his point of view. Therecitation of the name of Ka can be taken, in this context, as vaidhi bhakti(enjoined devotion) and listening to the Bhgavata as rga-bhakti (pas sionatedevotion). Rpa Kavirja was telling Kapriy that she could not practicevaidhi with her physical body and rga with her mental body at the sametime. The implication is that she should practice rga with both her physi-cal body and mental body. Her reply is very interesting; she said essentiallythat she was not doing two things at once. Her tongue recited the namesof Ka merely out of habit while her heart was in the reading of the Bh-gavata. This may be taken as the standard response of the tradition to theproblem. The physical body continues as it always has, subject to the rulesthat apply to it, while the heart is turned to the separate reality of the llof Ka and Rdh, in which, in one's perfected identity or mental body,one seeks to assume the functions of one's own eternal service to Rdh andKa.

The clash between Rpa Kavirja and Mukunda and other elements ofthe tradition climaxed long after their deaths. In the second half of the 17thcentury, during the reign of Aurangzeb, a tremendous uneasiness developedin the Vaiava community in Vndvana. King Mnasiha of Amber, afavorite of Emperor Akbar, had built a fabulous temple for the sect's maindeity Govinda and there was fear that Akbar's great grandson, Aurangzeb,would attack it and desecrate it. In a letter dated 1671, King Rmasihaof Amber, advised a Vaiava named Vimaladsa to ind a safe place, awayfrom the royal highway, for Govindaj.20 It is thought that the deity wasmoved a short time later to Rdhkua and then to a village called Kmwere Govindaj was being worshipped in 1674. By 1717 Govinda was in thecity of Jayapura under the direct care of King Sewai Jayasiha II.

The conclusion to the controversy initiated by Rpa Kavirja and car-ried on by his and Mukunda's disciples was reached with the ascendancyof the authority of the King of Jayapura in religious matters pertaining to

19Cited in Caitanya-parikara, p. 476, and identiied as ms. no. 166.20Asmakumra Rya, op. cit., p. 38-39.

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the Caitanya tradition. A document, dated 1731, reports the indings ofa council held in Jayasiha's court to debate the validity of the views ofMukunda and Rpa Kavirja.21 This document was apparently presentedto and signed by ive members of Mukunda's disciplic line, two of whomcame in disciplic lines through Rpa Kavirja, too. The document claimsthat a Kadeva Bhacrya defeated the interpretations of Mukunda andRpa Kavirja and established the correctness of Jva's point of view in acouncil held by the king. As a result of these deliberations the king passed ajudgement banning the reading and teaching of Rpa Kavirja's works, con-demning him for rejecting his previous teacher (Kacaraa Cakravartin)and recommending that Vaiavas not associate with those who agree withhim. As for Mukunda, the king himself apparently rewrote or eliminated theportions of his commentary on the Bhakti-rasmta-sindhu that did not agreewith Jva's view. Today, the only complete copy of Mukunda's commentaryis found in the collection of the descendants of King Sewai Jayasiha II, thefounder of Jayapura.

This is not quite the end of the tale, however. It seems that KadevaBhacrya, the champion of the court of Sewai Jayasiha II, was per-suaded to take his arguments to Bengal in order to win universal approvalfor his position. When he got there he was soundly defeated by anothergreat scholar of the 18th century, Rdhmohana hkura. There are twoold Bengali documents which record this event, one of which appears to bethe actual concession of defeat of Kadeva.22 The primary focus of thedisputation seems to have been the marital/extra-marital question, becauseno mention is made of the question of practice. There is only one referenceto Rdh kua and it is a rather puzzling one because an archaic word isused. The document says that a hg of extra-marital love was started orestablished at Rdhkua. D.C. Sen takes this to mean some sort of vic-tory pillar, but I have not been able to ind the word given that sense inany of the major Bengali dictionaries. It seems more reasonable to relatethe word to hgita, an immoral ruian, which would mean that a trav-esty or miscarriage of the extra-marital interpretation was started at Rd-hkua from which the victorious disputants of Bengal wanted to excludethemselves.23 Thus, though the part of the thought of Rpa Kavirja thatfocused on the extra-marital interpretation was accepted and became part of

21Naresh Candra Basala, Caitanya-sampradya, appendix 4, pp. 504-506. (Agra: VinodaPustaka Mandira, 1980)

22D.C. Sena, Baga Shitya Paricaya, vol. 2, pp. 1638-1643. (Calcutta: Univer sity of Calcutta,1914)

23For hgita, see Sukumar Sen, An Etymological Dictionary of Bengali: c. 1000-1800 A.D.,vol. 1, p. 380. (Calcutta: Eastern Publishers, 1971) Both hg and hgita appear to berelated to haga, deined in Sen on p. 379.

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the mainstream tradition through Vivantha Cakravartin, his relections onpractice were rejected by the orthodox tradition even in Bengal. Moreover,the document implies that certain practices had developed at Rdhkuathat the Bengali authors did not approve of. It was, perhaps, at this point inthe history of the sect that the separation between the mainstream traditionand the sub-traditions out of which the Sahajiy sub-sects arose was mostsharply and permanently efected.

In concluding, one must note that though Rpa Kavirja ultimately wasnot accepted by the tradition, he forced it to deine itself through the chal-lenges he posed for it. Rpa Kavirja appears to have carried Rpa Gosvmin'stheological and practical discussions to their logical conclusions, some ofwhich the tradition was reluctant to accept. The irst idea became an ac-cepted alternative interpretation of the relationship between Rdh andKa in Bengal; the second, depending on how one answered the question,became a justiication for certain practices that were prominent among somesub-sects of the Caitanya tradition. The Sahajiy lines, for instance, foundsupport for their sexual practices and other disciplic communities for thepractice of dressing as gop-s (cowherd women) in the idea of practicing rga-bhakti with both the physical and mental bodies. Lastly, the terms that arosein this early discourse developed into the technical terminology peculiar topost-Caitanya Sahajiy Vaiavism (i.e., pravartaka, sdhaka and siddha).24It is not surprising, therefore, to ind an inluential 18th century Sahajiytext, the Vivarta-vilsa (Vv), tracing the doctrines and practices of SahajiyVaiavism back through Mukunda, to his teacher, Kadsa Kavirja, andthrough him to the Six Gosvmins themselves.25 In fact, it appears possibleto argue that the development of the post-Caitanya Sahajiy sects was inti-mately connected with the works of Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja, who, inturn, were very well versed in the writings of the Six Gosvmins of Vnd-vana, especially those of Rpa Gosvmin. Though the Vv does not mentionRpa Kavirja, he is included in many of the other Sahajiy lineages as thedisciple of Mukundadsa.26 Thus, on the one hand, Mukunda and RpaKavirja enriched and helped deine the mainstream Caitanya tradition andon the other, whether they themselves practiced or not, they provided a the-oretical basis and justiication for the hetero-practical sub-sects of the tra-dition, which had a rich lowering in Bengal among the common followersof the sect during the 17th and 18th centuries. In addition, it is interesting

24These three terms, which are well attested in the early post-Caitanya Sahajiy texts, appearto have developed out of Rpa Kavirja's taastha, sdhaka and siddha distinctions. See pp. 77-79 in his Sra-sagraha. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1949)

25Akicanadsa, Vivarta-vilsa (Vv), pp. 108-9. (Kalikt: Trcanda Dsa and Sons, ?)26Haridsa Cakravart, Bhakta-mlik o bhakti-candrik, pp. i-ii. (Navadvpa: Prabhvat

Dev, 1391 [1975])

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to relect on the banning of Rpa Kavirja's books as a possible factor inweakening the Sanskritic tradition among these sub-sects and consequentlyin strengthening the trend, already visible in them, towards the compositionof vernacular works.

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