founder of the great Vaishnava sect of Bengal, was the son of a
high-caste Brahman of Nadiya, the famous Bengal seat of Sanskrit
learning, where he was born in 1485, two years after the birth of
Martin Luther, the German reformer. Having married in due
time, and a second time after the death of his first wife, he lived as
a “householder” (grihastha) till the age of 24, when he renounced
his family ties and set out as a religious mendicant (vairagin),
visiting during the next six years the principal places of pilgrimage
in northern India, and preaching with remarkable success his
doctrine of Bhakti, or passionate devotion to Krishna, as the Supreme
Deity. He subsequently made over to his principal disciples the
task of consolidating his community, and passed the last twelve
years of his life at Puri in Orissa, the great centre of the worship of
Vishnu as Jagannatha, or “lord of the world,” which he remodelled
in accordance with his doctrine, causing the mystic songs of
Jayadeva to be recited before the images in the morning and evening
as part of the daily service; and, in fact, as in the other Vaishnava
creeds, seeking to humanize divine adoration by bringing it into
accord with the experience of human love. To this end, music,
dancing, singing-parties (sankirtan), theatricals—in short anything
calculated to produce the desired impression—would prove welcome
to him. His doctrine of Bhakti distinguishes five grades of devotional
feeling in the Bhaktas, or faithful adherents: viz. (santi)
calm contemplation of the deity; (dasya) active servitude; (sakhya)
friendship or personal regard; (vatsalya) tender affection as between
parents and children; (madhurya) love or passionate attachment,
like that which the Gopis felt for Krishna. Chaitanya also seems
to have done much to promote the celebration on an imposing
scale of the great Puri festival of the Ratha-yatra, or “car-procession,”
in the month of Ashadha, when, amidst multitudes of
pilgrims, the image of Krishna, together with those of his brother
Balarama and his sister Subhadra, is drawn along, in a huge car,
by the devotees. Just as this festival was, and continues to be,
attended by people from all parts of India, without distinction of
caste or sex, so also were all classes, even Mahommedans, admitted
by Chaitanya as members of his sect. Whilst numerous observances
are recommended as more or less meritorious, the ordinary form of
worship is a very simple one, consisting as it does mainly of the
constant repetition of names of Krishna, or Krishna and Radha,
which of itself is considered sufficient to ensure future bliss. The
partaking of flesh food and spirituous liquor is strictly prohibited.
By the followers of this sect, also, an extravagant degree of reverence
is habitually paid to their gurus or spiritual heads. Indeed, Chaitanya
himself, as well as his immediate disciples, have come to be
regarded as complete or partial incarnations of the deity to whom
adoration is due, as to Krishna himself; and their modern successors,
the Gosains, share to the fullest extent in the devout attentions
of the worshippers. Chaitanya’s movement, being chiefly
directed against the vile practices of the Saktas, then very prevalent
in Bengal, was doubtless prompted by the best and purest of intentions;
but his own doctrine of divine, though all too human,
love was, like that of Vallabha, by no means free from corruptive
tendencies,—yet, how far these tendencies have worked their way,
who would say? On this point, Dr W. W. Hunter—who is of
opinion that “the death of the reformer marks the beginning of
the spiritual decline of Vishnu-worship,” observes (Orissa, i. 111),
“The most deplorable corruption of Vishnu-worship at the present
day is that which has covered the temple walls with indecent
sculptures, and filled its innermost sanctuaries with licentious
rites” . . . yet . . . “it is difficult for a person not a Hindu to
pronounce upon the real extent of the evil. None but a Hindu
can enter any of the larger temples, and none but a Hindu priest
really knows the truth about their inner mysteries”; whilst the
well-known native scholar Babu Rajendralal Mitra points out
(Antiquities of Orissa, i. 111) that “such as they are, these
sculptures date from centuries before the birth of Chaitanya, and
cannot, therefore, be attributed to his doctrines or to his followers.
As a Hindu by birth, and a Vaishnava by family religion, I have
had the freest access to the innermost sanctuaries and to the most
secret of scriptures. I have studied the subject most extensively,
and have had opportunities of judging which no European can
have, and I have no hesitation in saying that, ‘the mystic songs’
of Jayadeva and the ‘ocean of love’ notwithstanding, there is
nothing in the rituals of Jagannatha which can be called licentious.”
Whilst in Chaitanya’s creed, Krishna, in his relations to Radha,
remains at least theoretically the chief partner, an almost inevitable
step was taken by some minor sects in attaching the greater importance
to the female element, and making Krishna’s love for his
mistress the guiding sentiment of their faith. Of these sects, it
will suffice to mention that of the Radha-Vallabhis, started in the
latter part of the 16th century, who worship Krishna as Radha-vallabha,
“the darling of Radha.” The doctrines and practices
of these sects clearly verge upon those obtaining in the third principal
division of Indian sectarians which will now be considered.
The Saktas, as we have seen, are worshippers of the sakti, or the female principle as a primary factor in the creation and reproduction of the universe. And as each of the principal gods is supposed to have associated with him his own Saktas. particular sakti, as an indispensable complement enabling him to properly perform his cosmic functions, adherents of this persuasion might be expected to be recruited from all sects. To a certain extent this is indeed the case; but though Vaishnavism, and especially the Krishna creed, with its luxuriant growth of erotic legends, might have seemed peculiarly favourable to a development in this direction, it is practically only in connexion with the Saiva system that an independent cult of the female principle has been developed; whilst in other sects—and, indeed, in the ordinary Saiva cult as well—such worship, even where it is at all prominent, is combined with, and subordinated to, that of the male principle. What has made this cult attach itself more especially to the Saiva creed is doubtless the character of Siva as the type of reproductive power, in addition to his function as destroyer which, as we shall see, is likewise reflected in some of the forms of his Sakti. The theory of the god and his Sakti as cosmic principles is perhaps already foreshadowed in the Vedic couple of Heaven and Earth, whilst in the speculative treatises of the later Vedic period, as well as in the post-Vedic Brahmanical writings, the assumption of the self-existent being dividing himself into a male and a female half usually forms the starting-point of cosmic evolution.[1] In the later Saiva mythology this theory finds its artistic representation in Siva’s androgynous form of Ardha-narisa, or “half-woman-lord,” typifying the union of the male and female energies; the male half in this form of the deity occupying the right-hand, and the female the left-hand side. In accordance with this type of productive energy, the Saktas divide themselves into two distinct groups, according to whether they attach the greater importance to the male or to the female principle; viz. the Dakshinacharis, or “right-hand-observers” (also called Dak-shina-margis, or followers “of the right-hand path”), and the Vamacharis, or “left-hand-observers” (or Vama-margis, followers “of the left path”). Though some of the Puranas, the chief repositories of sectarian doctrines, enter largely into Sakta topics, it is only in the numerous Tantras that these are fully and systematically developed. In these works, almost invariably composed in the form of a colloquy, Siva, as a rule, in answer to questions asked by his consort Parvati, unfolds the mysteries of this occult creed.
The principal seat of Sakta worship is the north-eastern part of India—Bengal, Assam and Behar. The great majority of its adherents profess to follow the right-hand practice; and apart from the implied purport and the emblems of the cult, their mode of adoration does not seem to offer any very objectionable features. And even amongst the adherents of the left-hand mode of worship, many of these are said to follow it as a matter of family tradition rather than of religious conviction, and to practise it in a sober and temperate manner; whilst only an extreme section—the so-called Kaulas or Kulinas, who appeal to a spurious Upanishad, the Kaulopanishad, as the divine authority of their tenets—persist in carrying on the mystic and licentious rites taught in many of the Tantras. But strict secrecy being enjoined in the performance of these rites, it is not easy to check any statements made on this point. The Sakta cult is, however, known to be especially prevalent—though apparently not in a very extreme form—amongst members of the very respectable Kayastha or writer caste of Bengal, and as these are largely employed as clerks and accountants in Upper India, there is reason to fear that their vicious practices are gradually being disseminated through them.
The divine object of the adoration of the Saktas, then, is Siva’s wife—the Devi (goddess), Mahadevi (great goddess), or Jagan-mata (mother of the world)—in one or other of her numerous forms, benign or terrible. The forms in which she is worshipped in Bengal are of the latter category, viz. Durga, “the unapproachable,” and Kali, “the black one,” or, as some take it, the wife of Kala, “time,” or death the great dissolver, viz. Siva. In honour of the former, the Durga-puja is celebrated
- ↑ This notion not improbably took its origin in the mystic cosmogonic hymn, Rigv. x. 129, where it is said that—“that one (existent, neutr.) breathed breathless by (or with) its svadha (? inherent power, or nature), beyond that there was nothing whatever . . . that one live (germ) which was enclosed in the void was generated by the power of heat (or fervour); desire then first came upon it, which was the first seed of the mind . . . fertilizing forces there were, svadha below, prayati (? will) above.”
