Jagat

  Modern and classical literary sensibility Since Sushil Kumar De is one of the few modern scholars to have attempted a critique of Gauḍīya kāvya , it may not be untoward to discuss his assessment of that body of work and Rūpa in particular. Consciously or unconsciously, De writes with the optic of a modern man applying today's literary standards to the literature of another age. For him, Kālidāsa is the unique bright spot in Sanskrit literary history and the language has only known decline since his time. The innumerable poets who inevitably used Kālidāsa as their model were imitators in whom there was little or no originality. About the Gauḍīya  writings, though he admits that the apotheosis of the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa legend, with all its paraphernalia of impassioned beatific sports, was no doubt a literary gain of immense importance and lifted the devotional literature from the dead level of speculative thought to the romantic richness of an intensely passionate experience, he qua...

As we have seen, the dūta-kāvya genre is everywhere concerned with the theme of love in separation. Love in separation has a long tradition not only in secular Sanskrit poetry, but also in the Vaiṣṇava religious literature. [1] For the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, of course, Caitanya Mahāprabhu as described by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja is a living symbol of the intensity of divine love in separation.   For the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava practitioner, separation or viraha is the devotional mood by which one attains Kṛṣṇa. Such worship of Kṛṣṇa in separation is said to be the contribution of Mādhavendra Purī, the guru of Caitanya Mahāprabhu's guru . Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura writes, “the seed of all the religious doctrines of Caitanya Mahāprabhu can be found in the following verse attributed to Mādhavendra Purī, spoken in the mood of a gopī separated from Kṛṣṇa].” [2] ayi dīnadayārdra nātha he, mathurānātha kadāvalokyase / hṛdayaṁ tvad-aloka-kātaraṁ dayita bhrāmyati kiṁ karomy aham //   O l...