Jagat

Go to Part I . 5. Mukherjee's arguments can be met as follows: (i) Whatever Krishnadasa Kaviraja may have written of Rupa's handwriting, and whatever beauty it may have possessed, it was inevitable that Rupa's handwriting would be an object of interest for the devotees in the sampradaya. There can be no doubt that relics still excite a great deal of respect among devotees of all persuasions in India. That so few movable relics remain is probably due to this very interest. While I was in Vrindavan, there was a great to-do about the prayer beads, supposedly Rupa's own, that had been stolen from his bhajan kutir at Radha Damodara. Nevertheless, it is hard to see that Rupa's handwriting has anything to do with the argument that has been presented here. Vishnudasa's comments make no mention of Rupa's calligraphy. It is Rupa's authority as the helmsman of the 'official' course of devotional practice in the post-Chaitanya period that is imp...

I had a break yesterday and plunged back into Chandidas. I was reading Biman Bihari Majumdar's edition, which has much to say for it, as he has gone deeply into the Chandidas mystery, sorting out which Chandidas is which. There are so many Chandidasas -- minimum four, probably five or more. Majumdar divides his book into four sections: definitely Chandidas, not so sure, definitely Baru Chandidas and Dina Chandidas, and ones that though ascribed or attributed are definitely not the original Chandidas. Many of the latter are signed Dvija Chandidas, who is definitely post-Chaitanya, though he shows no direct knowledge of or devotion to Chaitanya. The  rāgātmikā-padas  of the Sahajiya Chandidas are left out entirely, since everyone seems to agree that they are post-Chaitanya. Majumdar also thinks Baru Chandidas is at least contemporary with Chaitanya, which I don't agree with. Basically all the students of early Bengali literature pick over each  pada  and...