Bankim Chandra and Krishna Charita
I have been reading a very interesting book, The Unhappy Consciousness by Sudipta Kaviraj , an Indian political historian from Bengal.(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995). In fact, I have only been reading and rereading the book's third chapter which is called "The Myth of Praxis: Construction of the Figure of Krishna in the Krishna-charitra ." Now I know that I have mentioned Bankim Chandra and his reevaluation of Krishna's life before. Bankim was Bhaktivinoda Thakur's slightly younger contemporary and though he became far more influential in India than the Thakur, they shared one common interest: the direction of religion in Bengal and India and Krishna's place in it. Bhaktivinoda wrote Krishna-samhita in 1880 and Bankim wrote Krishna-charitra in 1886. It is hard to imagine that there was not some common link between these two books, though again, Bankim's influence was more widespread, with Aurobindo and Vivekananda being at least two major figur...