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Trouble in Paradise:

A Seventeenth Century Conflict


in the Caitanya Vaiava Tradition
by
Neal Delmonico
Iowa State University
May 17, 1999
January 20, 2015
Rpa Kavirja, who is not to be confused with Rpa Gosvmin (16th
cent.), the author of some of the Caitanya tradition's classic works on religious aesthetics, was a later Bengali member of the same tradition who lived
in the first half of the seventeenth century. He and his teacher, Mukundadsa, are examples of a certain daring and freedom of thought that resulted in the development of a schism within the Caitanya tradition of profound impact for the later history of the sect. Behind the surviving works
of Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja one can detect something of the atmosphere
of learned discourse that existed in the years following the deaths of the Six
Gosvmins of Vndvana in which the heirs of their thought struggled with
several of the seminal ideas and problems encountered in their writings. To
be more specific, one can find incipient forms of later, highly developed and
polished arguments in favor of the doctrine of paraky-vda (the theological
position that claims that the primary relationship between the divine lovers,
Rdh and Ka is extra-marital) and detailed discussions of whether passionate devotion (rga-bhakti) should be performed with the physical body
or a mentally conceived body, called the perfected or accomplished
body (siddha-deha, i.e. an internally visualized body representing the practitioner's identity in the ll of Rdh and Ka) or both. In the context of
1

the latter discussion Rpa Kavirja and Mukundadsa developed some subtle distinctions and terminology to better characterize different stages in the
unfolding of rga-bhakti.
Who were Mukundadsa and Rpa Kavirja? We fortunately have several texts that provide us with some biographical information on them. One
of the most reliable of these texts is the Narottama-vilsa (Nv) written in
the 18th century by Narahari Cakravartin whose other works include the
Bhakti-ratnkara. Narahari's works are generally conscientious accounts of
the 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 is
a manuscript entitled, Concerning Rpa Gosvmin and Kavirja Gosvmin, in
the Phab manuscript collection2 which tells the story of how Mukunda
came to Vndvana and became a disciple of Kadsa Kavirja. A second
version of Mukunda's story which differs in a few details from the Phab
one is found in the Sahajiy work, the Vivarta-vilsa (Vv) by Akicanadsa.3
Mukundadsa, strangely enough, was neither a Bengali nor a South Indian, the two main groups from which members of the Caitanya Vaiava
community usually came. He was the son of a wealthy merchant of Multan
near Lahore in the Punjab. He was a brhmaa according to the Nv and the
Vv informs us that he came to his teacher, Kadsa Kavirja, later than
Kadsa's other disciples, probably when Kadsa Kavirja was near
the end of his life.4 The Phab ms. tells us that one day, the youthful Mukunda outfitted a fleet of boats with goods and, like most merchants
of his time, set off on a trading trip. On the way, his boats were struck by a
storm in the vicinity of Vndvana. He landed and went to pay his respect to
the deities enshrined there: Madanamohana, Gopntha and Govinda. According to this account, he became filled with devotional feelings when he
saw Govindaj. Kadsa Kavirja was present at the time and spoke to him
about Ka-bhakti and Mukunda became converted to Caitanya Vaiavism. He became a disciple of Kadsa Kavirja, gave away all the goods
in his boats to the Vaiavas of Vndvana and spent the rest of his life at
Rdhkua in Vraja (Vndvana and its surrounding regions). He studied
all the bhakti texts under Kadsa and became his favorite disciple. Just
before Kadsa died he passed on to Mukundadsa the worship of the Govardhana il (a piece of stone from the sacred mountain of Govardhana in
1 Narahari Cakravartin, Narottama-vilsa (Nv), pp. 200-206. (Muridabda: Rdhramaa
Press, 1894 ?)
2 Cited and summarized in Caitanya-parikara by Ravndrantha Miti, p. 475. and identified
in his bibliography as Phab manuscript number 195. (Calcutta: Bookland Private Ltd., ?)
3 Akicanadsa, Vivarta-vilsa (Vv), pp. 29-33. (Kalikt: Trcanda Dsa Sons, ?)
4 ibid., p. 30.

Vraja) that Kadsa Kavirja himself had received from Raghunthadsa


Gosvmin. Mukunda apparently wrote a number of Sanskrit texts, few of
which have survived. His commentary on Rpa Gosvmin's Bhakti-rasmtasindhu, called the Artha-ratnlpa-(vali?)-dpik, has survived in only one
complete manuscript.5 This commentary was apparently the main vehicle
for his discussion of the two questions mentioned above. Another work
which has survived is the Siddhnta-candrodaya which alternates between
Sanskrit and Bengali (the Bengali being essentially a translation of the Sanskrit portions). Other works attributed to him, such as the Bhga-ratnval
and the Amta-ratnval, exist only in the Bengali translations of his Bengali
disciples.6
The Mnavi-vilsa, which is attributed to Hemalat, the daughter of rnivscrya (last half of the 16th cent.), one of the main propagators of Caitanya Vaiavism in West Bengal, contains several verses from another Sanskrit work by Mukunda called the Rga-siddhi.7 In addition, the Nv says that
he started several poetic descriptions of the ll-s of Rdh and Ka that he,
unable to finish them because of old age, had Vivantha Cakravartin (last
three quarters of the 17th cent.) complete. Thus, it is possible that some of
the poetic works that have survived in Vivantha's name may have been
started by Mukunda. Mukunda was born in approximately 1580 C.E., met
Kadsa Kavirja in the first decade of the 17th century, lived with him
until his death in 1614-15 and lived at Rdhkua until, perhaps, 1660.
Mukundadsa's student Rpa Kavirja is portrayed in the Nv in a rather
unflattering way. According to that account Rpa Kavirja was originally a
disciple of Kacaraa Cakravartin who was a disciple of Gagnryaa
Cakravartin and whose son and disciple, incidently, was Rdhramaa Cakravartin, the teacher of Vivantha Cakravartin. Since, in Caitanya Vaiavism, the practice of selecting one's teacher from the family of one's father's
teacher was and is common, it is quite possible that Rpa Kavirja was
indeed an uncle of Vivantha, as one traditional view has it.8 If so, he
must have been born in approximately 1600, met Mukunda in the 1620's
and died in the 1660's. The Nv says that he died of leprosy. There ap5 Published

in Haridsa Dsa's edition of the Bhakti-rasmta-sindhu. (Navadvpa: Haribol


Kura, G. 462) I came across the first part of another manuscript in the library of the Government Sanskrit College, Calcutta. It had been inadequately identified and catalogued. It was in
Bengali script and may contain Mukunda's original text before it was edited by King Sewai
Jayasiha II in the 18th century.
6 Paritoa Dsa, Sahajiy O Gauya Vaiava Dharma, pp. 102-3. (Calcutta: Firma KLM,
1978).
7 Hemalat hkur, Mnavi-vilsa, ed. by Pradpakumra Siha. (Viupura: Mikalla
Siha, 1387 [1981])
8 Krishnagopal Goswami Sastri in the introduction to his edition of Rpa Kavirja's Srasagraha, p. xliii. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1949)

pears to be no evidence for the contention that Rpa Kavirja was a disciple
of Hemalat hkur, daughter of rnivscrya. According to the Nv,
Rpa Kavirja accompanied his teacher, Kacaraa, to Vraja and visited
all of the places of Ka's ll. He met Mukunda at Rdhkua and when
Kacaraa returned to Bengal, Rpa Kavirja, with the permission of his
teacher, remained in Vraja to study the Bhgavata and other bhakti texts with
Mukundadsa. During his residence at Rdhkua Rpa Kavirja became
an important and respected member of the community, and yet, the Nv tells
us, a few days after Mukunda's death he ran amok.
During the last days of his life, Mukunda was cared for by the granddaughter of Gagnryaa Cakravartin, Kapriy hkur. The Nv
says that she cured him of a serious case of dysentery and administered to
him with such affection that she soon became his favorite. As a result of his
affection he turned over the service of Raghunthadsa's il to her when
he was approaching death.9 Though she, too, was a respected member of
the community of Rdhkua, the Nv describes an incident that occurred
between her and Rpa Kavirja. Rpa Kavirja used to attend daily readings of the Bhgavata at Rdhkua as did most of the devotees who lived
there. One day, Rpa Kavirja failed to show respect to Kapriy Dev
and sharply criticized her for continuing to utter the names of Ka during
the reading. He asked her how one could do two things at once. How could
she pay attention to the recitation of the names of Ka and listen to the
Bhgavata also? She replied that she had no control over her tongue which
was accustomed to repeating constantly Ka's names and that her habit
did not interfere with listening to the reading. This reply angered Rpa
Kavirja which, according to the Nv, was the beginning of his downfall, the
symptoms of which were the fabrication of his own philosophy and his eventual departure from Vraja for Orissa where he died of leprosy and became
a ghost. That, the text warns us, is the result of committing an offense to
a devotee.10 Two of Rpa Kavirja's works have survived and, in spite of
his eventual isolation from the rest of the Caitanya Vaiava community, he
successfully 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 the
points of conflict that arose between them and other members of the Caitanya tradition. It is interesting to note that though Mukundadsa is highly
9 Nv,

pp. 204-5.
pp. 205-7
11 Rpa Kavirja, Sra-sagraha, ed. by Krishnagopal Goswami Sastri (Calcutta: University
of Calcutta, 1949) and Rgnug-vivtti, ed. by Kadsa Bbj (Kusumasarovara: Kadsa
Bb, ? ).
10 ibid.,

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 Kavirja
and Kapriy Dev. Though the text is, generally speaking, historically
reliable, sometimes the sectarian biases of its author intrude into the narrative, in addition to which he wrote perhaps three quarters of a century after
the incident he describes. Nevertheless, a few important points emerge.
Rpa Kavirja, and presumably Mukunda too, very strongly favored the
extra-marital interpretation of the relationship between Rdh and Ka.
Jva Gosvmin's extensive argumentation against it in his commentary on
Rpa Gosvmin's Ujjvala-nlamai, however, makes it evident that the extramarital interpretation was already exerting influence in the last half of the
16th century. Though Jva takes special care to refute it in several parts
of his commentary, he leaves a great deal of doubt about his own views
by ending an important passage, in which he argues in favor of the marital
interpretation, 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 the
desire of another. Since there is a succession of former and latter
(between the two) that (my opinion) is the former and the other
is the latter.
Though the verse is extremely laconic and unclear, it is lends itself to the
interpretation that Jva supported the marital point of view at the instance of
someone else and that he himself favored the extra-marital viewpoint, since,
in his commentary, he states the case of the extra-marital interpretation first,
as the prva-paka, and then argues against it, as was the common procedure
in polemical discussions of this sort. Some suspect this verse, of course, of
being an interpolation, but all the manuscripts seem to contain it.
Jva's defense of the marital relationship and his portrayal of it in his literary works, the Mdhava-mahotsava and Gopla-camp, gave the Vaiava
community both in Vndvana and Bengal a great deal of difficulty. Yadunandana, in his 17th century Bengali work called the Karnanda, mentions a
letter written to Jva by Rmacandra Kavirja, Govindadsa and Narottamadsa asking him which interpretation he accepted. Jva's reply is included in the text and is oddly evasive. He says that his opinion is the same
as that of his student, rnivscrya. Whatever rnivsa has taught, that
12 Jva Gosvmin, Locana-rocan, on Rpa's Ujjvala-nlamai, 1.21, p.
Haridsa arman, 1954)

8.

(Vndvana:

is my opinion too.13 rnivsa supported the extra-marital interpretation,


according to Yadunandana. Though they therefore probably inherited the
debate on this question, Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja were among the first
to write in Sanskrit and with carefully crafted arguments contradicting the
authoritative views of Jva.
Another writer of a slightly later period sheds some light on this controversy from a different perspective. This is Rdhkadsa, the head priest
of the important Govinda temple in Vndvana during the middle of the
17th century.14 In his work, the Sdhana-dpik, he also argues on behalf
of the extra-marital interpretation of Rdh and Ka's relationship. After presenting a number of arguments in favor of that interpretation, he
mentions some circumstantial reasons, which he heard from his teacher,
for Jva's acceptance of the marital point of view.15 He tells us that Jva
Gosvmin had a very dear disciple named Gopladsa who was a Vaiya by
caste (which is mentioned, perhaps, to indicate that he was wealthy). In order to please Gopladsa, Jva wrote in favor of the marital interpretation.
Rdhkadsa implies that Gopladsa was the other by whose desire
Jva supported the marital viewpoint. Rdhkadsa reveals the closeness
of their friendship by asserting that Jva also composed his Sanskrit grammar the Harinmmta-vykaraa for the benefit of Gopladsa and cites a
verse as evidence from the closing section of the grammar in which Jva
mentions 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 brhmaa by the name of Kadsa who after Jva's death claimed to be Jva's
mantra 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 points
to some suspicious and contradictory passages of Jva's Vaiava-toa and
argues that suspicion should also be extended to those sections of Jva's writings that support the marital interpretation as well. The Kadsa referred
to here may be the same as the one in Jva's will who is identified as the
son of Bhratcrya and who later inherited from Vilsadsa the service of
Jva's deities, Rdh-Dmodara, after Jva's death.16
13 Yadunandana, Karnanda, in Vaiava Shitya o Yadunandana, by ntilat Rya, pp.
482-485. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1976)
14 Rdhka Dsa was the head priest of the Govinda temple in the year 1643, but when
he assumed the position and how long he held it is not known. See Vndvana Theke Jayapura
by Asmakumra Rya, p. 38. (Calcutta: Jijs, 1985)
15 Rdhkadsa Govmin, Sdhana-dpik, ed. by Haridsa str, 9.48, pp. 60-63. (Vndvana: Sadgranthapraksaka, 1980)
16 Tarapada Mukherjee and J. C. Wright, An Early Testamentary Document in Sanskrit, in

Whatever Jva's actual belief was, the marital/extra-marital dispute was


not the issue that created the trouble for Rpa Kavirja In fact, much of
the argument found in Rpa Kavirja's Sra-sagraha establishing the superiority of the extra-marital relationship reappeared later in Vivantha
Cakravartin's commentary on the Ujjvala-nlamai, which was accepted by
the tradition. It was his view on the question of practice that brought Rpa
Kavirja the most trouble. Rpa Kavirja developed the doctrine of the four
varieties of practice which were briefly anticipated in Mukunda's Siddhntacandrodaya. David Haberman has already discussed these four in some detail in his book, Acting as a Way of Salvation, so I will not dwell on them
here.17 We have already seen the principle behind the four practices in
the story from the Nv in which Rpa Kavirja criticized Kapriy Dev
for doing two things at once. This agrees substantially with his opinion
that rga-bhakti (devotional practice motivated by passion for one's deity)
must be practiced with both the physical and mental bodies. To practice
vaidhi-bhakti (devotional practice motivated by need to follow rules) with
the physical body and rga-bhakti with the mental body is equivalent to doing two things at once and being of two minds at once. This state of affairs
does not lead, according to Rpa Kavirja, to pure (kevala) bhakti. Curiously, although Jva evaded the question of the nature of the relationship
between Rdh and Ka, in his letter to Rmacandra Kavirja, he clearly
said that one should practice vaidh with the physical body and rga with
the mental body.18 We can only assume that Rmacandra and the others
asked 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 century
and the first quarter of the 17th century. It was this attempt to resolve the
conflict between two contradictory kinds of motivation in the practice of
devotion that appears to have brought about the eventual banning of Rpa
Kavirja's books.
The presence of women in the lives of both Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja
is another curious component of this story. Of course, these relationships
may have been innocent, but the presence of women in the community of
anchorites at Rdhkua is nonetheless suspicious. If the Mnavi-vilsa
is really the work of Hemalat, an important female leader in the Vaiava
center at Viupura, Mukunda seems to have had a profound effect on her as
well. Besides Kapriy Dev, two women named Kadambaml hkur
and Gaurgapriy hkur are listed as esoteric disciples of Mukunda
in a manuscript in the Phab collection entitled The Branches of (the DisBulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. LXII, 1979, p. 314.
17 David L. Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Rgnug Bhakti Sdhana, pp.
239-257. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)
18 See footnote 15.

ciples of) Kavirja Gosvm.19 The relationship between Kapriy Dev and
Mukunda is presented in the Nv as that of a daughter for a father, and there
was probably a 20 or 30 year difference in their ages. The relationship between Rpa Kavirja and Kapriy Dev, however, was much more complex. They were approximately the same age and both lived at Rdhkua
at the same time. In addition, they both were involved with Mukunda in
their own ways and Kapriy was the granddaughter of Rpa Kavirja's
previous teacher's teacher, Gagnryaa Cakravartin. Their exchange
during the reading of the Bhgavata can be reasonably interpreted as an
attempt by Rpa Kavirja to win Kapriy over to his point of view. The
recitation of the name of Ka can be taken, in this context, as vaidhi bhakti
(enjoined devotion) and listening to the Bhgavata as rga-bhakti (passionate
devotion). Rpa Kavirja was telling Kapriy that she could not practice
vaidhi with her physical body and rga with her mental body at the same
time. The implication is that she should practice rga with both her physical body and mental body. Her reply is very interesting; she said essentially
that she was not doing two things at once. Her tongue recited the names
of Ka merely out of habit while her heart was in the reading of the Bhgavata. This may be taken as the standard response of the tradition to the
problem. The physical body continues as it always has, subject to the rules
that apply to it, while the heart is turned to the separate reality of the ll
of 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 and
Ka.
The clash between Rpa Kavirja and Mukunda and other elements of
the tradition climaxed long after their deaths. In the second half of the 17th
century, during the reign of Aurangzeb, a tremendous uneasiness developed
in the Vaiava community in Vndvana. King Mnasiha of Amber, a
favorite of Emperor Akbar, had built a fabulous temple for the sect's main
deity Govinda and there was fear that Akbar's great grandson, Aurangzeb,
would attack it and desecrate it. In a letter dated 1671, King Rmasiha
of Amber, advised a Vaiava named Vimaladsa to find a safe place, away
from the royal highway, for Govindaj.20 It is thought that the deity was
moved a short time later to Rdhkua and then to a village called Km
were Govindaj was being worshipped in 1674. By 1717 Govinda was in the
city of Jayapura under the direct care of King Sewai Jayasiha II.
The conclusion to the controversy initiated by Rpa Kavirja and carried on by his and Mukunda's disciples was reached with the ascendancy
of the authority of the King of Jayapura in religious matters pertaining to
19 Cited

in Caitanya-parikara, p. 476, and identified as ms. no. 166.


Rya, op. cit., p. 38-39.

20 Asmakumra

the Caitanya tradition. A document, dated 1731, reports the findings of


a council held in Jayasiha's court to debate the validity of the views of
Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja.21 This document was apparently presented
to and signed by five members of Mukunda's disciplic line, two of whom
came in disciplic lines through Rpa Kavirja, too. The document claims
that a Kadeva Bhacrya defeated the interpretations of Mukunda and
Rpa Kavirja and established the correctness of Jva's point of view in a
council held by the king. As a result of these deliberations the king passed a
judgement banning the reading and teaching of Rpa Kavirja's works, condemning him for rejecting his previous teacher (Kacaraa Cakravartin)
and recommending that Vaiavas not associate with those who agree with
him. As for Mukunda, the king himself apparently rewrote or eliminated the
portions of his commentary on the Bhakti-rasmta-sindhu that did not agree
with Jva's view. Today, the only complete copy of Mukunda's commentary
is found in the collection of the descendants of King Sewai Jayasiha II, the
founder of Jayapura.
This is not quite the end of the tale, however. It seems that Kadeva
Bhacrya, the champion of the court of Sewai Jayasiha II, was persuaded to take his arguments to Bengal in order to win universal approval
for his position. When he got there he was soundly defeated by another
great scholar of the 18th century, Rdhmohana hkura. There are two
old Bengali documents which record this event, one of which appears to be
the actual concession of defeat of Kadeva.22 The primary focus of the
disputation seems to have been the marital/extra-marital question, because
no mention is made of the question of practice. There is only one reference
to Rdhkua and it is a rather puzzling one because an archaic word is
used. The document says that a hg of extra-marital love was started or
established at Rdhkua. D.C. Sen takes this to mean some sort of victory pillar, but I have not been able to find the word given that sense in
any of the major Bengali dictionaries. It seems more reasonable to relate
the word to hgita, an immoral ruffian, which would mean that a travesty or miscarriage of the extra-marital interpretation was started at Rdhkua from which the victorious disputants of Bengal wanted to exclude
themselves.23 Thus, though the part of the thought of Rpa Kavirja that
focused on the extra-marital interpretation was accepted and became part of
21 Naresh Candra Basala, Caitanya-sampradya, appendix 4, pp. 504-506. (Agra: Vinoda
Pustaka Mandira, 1980)
22 D.C. Sena, Baga Shitya Paricaya, vol. 2, pp. 1638-1643. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta,
1914)
23 For 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 be
related to haga, defined in Sen on p. 379.

the mainstream tradition through Vivantha Cakravartin, his reflections on


practice were rejected by the orthodox tradition even in Bengal. Moreover,
the document implies that certain practices had developed at Rdhkua
that the Bengali authors did not approve of. It was, perhaps, at this point in
the history of the sect that the separation between the mainstream tradition
and the sub-traditions out of which the Sahajiy sub-sects arose was most
sharply and permanently effected.
In concluding, one must note that though Rpa Kavirja ultimately was
not accepted by the tradition, he forced it to define itself through the challenges he posed for it. Rpa Kavirja appears to have carried Rpa Gosvmin's
theological and practical discussions to their logical conclusions, some of
which the tradition was reluctant to accept. The first idea became an accepted alternative interpretation of the relationship between Rdh and
Ka in Bengal; the second, depending on how one answered the question,
became a justification for certain practices that were prominent among some
sub-sects of the Caitanya tradition. The Sahajiy lines, for instance, found
support for their sexual practices and other disciplic communities for the
practice of dressing as gop-s (cowherd women) in the idea of practicing rgabhakti with both the physical and mental bodies. Lastly, the terms that arose
in this early discourse developed into the technical terminology peculiar to
post-Caitanya Sahajiy Vaiavism (i.e., pravartaka, sdhaka and siddha).24
It is not surprising, therefore, to find an influential 18th century Sahajiy
text, the Vivarta-vilsa (Vv), tracing the doctrines and practices of Sahajiy
Vaiavism back through Mukunda, to his teacher, Kadsa Kavirja, and
through him to the Six Gosvmins themselves.25 In fact, it appears possible
to argue that the development of the post-Caitanya Sahajiy sects was intimately connected with the works of Mukunda and Rpa Kavirja, who, in
turn, were very well versed in the writings of the Six Gosvmins of Vndvana, especially those of Rpa Gosvmin. Though the Vv does not mention
Rpa Kavirja, he is included in many of the other Sahajiy lineages as the
disciple of Mukundadsa.26 Thus, on the one hand, Mukunda and Rpa
Kavirja enriched and helped define the mainstream Caitanya tradition and
on the other, whether they themselves practiced or not, they provided a theoretical basis and justification for the hetero-practical sub-sects of the tradition, which had a rich flowering in Bengal among the common followers
of the sect during the 17th and 18th centuries. In addition, it is interesting
24 These

three terms, which are well attested in the early post-Caitanya Sahajiy texts, appear
to have developed out of Rpa Kavirja's taastha, sdhaka and siddha distinctions. See pp. 7779 in his Sra-sagraha. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1949)
25 Akicanadsa, Vivarta-vilsa (Vv), pp. 108-9. (Kalikt: Trcanda Dsa and Sons, ?)
26 Haridsa Cakravart, Bhakta-mlik o bhakti-candrik, pp. i-ii. (Navadvpa: Prabhvat
Dev, 1391 [1975])

10

to reflect on the banning of Rpa Kavirja's books as a possible factor in


weakening the Sanskritic tradition among these sub-sects and consequently
in strengthening the trend, already visible in them, towards the composition
of vernacular works.

11

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