Jagat

Last time I was in Vrindavan I picked up a book called Nāgarī dāsa kī vāṇī (ed. Vrajavallabha Sharan, Vrindavan: Sri Sarvesvara Press, 1966) . Nagari Das was a Nimbarki virakta who lived in the mid-18th century (b. 1699, d. 1765). Some of you may have read my article on Prabodhananda Saraswati. What really struck me about the research I did for that article is the extent to which sectarian feeling dominated the Vaishnava world and how historical accounts differ, preserving the extensive prejudices and resentments that exist in one or the other factions. Not that these may not have foundation. For instance, for all of my appreciation of the Radha-vallabhi tradition, I take it that the evidence points to the kind of ingratitude and inability to acknowledge the human avenues of divine mercy I wrote about in a previous post. The Radhavallabhi tradition says that Harivamsa wrote the  Rādhā-rasa-sudhā-nidhi  when he was five years old. Do I have any takers for that one? They ...