Chaitanya and the Vaishnava Poets of Bengal | Page 2

the influence of the
evil eye, the real name given at birth is not made known at the time, but
another name is given by which the individual is usually called. No one
but the father and mother and priest know the real name. Bisambhar's
usual name in childhood was Nimai, and by this he was generally
known to his neighbours.
In person, if the description of him in the Chaitanyacharitamrita (Bk. I.
iii.) is to be considered as historical, he was handsome, tall (six feet),
with long arms, in colour a light brown, with expressive eyes, a
sonorous voice, and very sweet and winning manners. He is frequently
called "Gaurang" or "Gaurchandra," i.e., the pale, or the pale moon, in
contrast to the Krishna of the Bhagvat who is represented as very black.
The name Chaitanya literally means 'soul, intellect,' but in the special
and technical sense in which the teacher himself adopted it, it appears
to mean perceptible, or appreciable by the senses. He took the name Sri
K.rish.na Chaitanya to intimate that he was himself an incarnation of
the god, in other words, K.rish.na made visible to the senses of
mankind.
The Charitamrita being composed by one of his disciples, is written
throughout on this supposition. Chaitanya is always spoken of as an
incarnation of K.rish.na, and his brother Nityanand as a re-appearance
of Balaram. In order to keep up the resemblance to K.rish.na, the
Charitamrita treats us to a long series of stories about Chaitanya's
childish sports among the young Hindu women of the village. They are
not worth relating, and are probably purely fictitious; the Bengalis of

to-day must be very different from what their ancestors were, if such
pranks as are related in the Charitamrita were quietly permitted to go
on. Chaitanya, however, seems to have been eccentric even as a youth;
wonderful stories are told of his powers of intellect and memory, how,
for instance, he defeated in argument the most learned Pandits. A great
deal is said about his hallucinations and trances throughout his life, and
we may perhaps conclude that he was more or less insane at all times,
or rather he was one of those strange enthusiasts who wield such deep
and irresistible influence over the masses by virtue of that very
condition of mind which borders on madness.
When he was about eighteen his father died, and he soon afterwards
married Lachhmi Debi, daughter of Balabhadra Acharjya, and entered
on the career of a grihastha or householder, taking in pupils whom he
instructed in ordinary secular learning. He does not appear, however, to
have kept to this quiet life for long; he went off on a wandering tour all
over Eastern Bengal, begging and singing, and is said to have collected
a great deal of money and made a considerable name for himself. On
his return he found his first wife had died in his absence, and he
married again one Bishnupriya, concerning whom nothing further is
said. Soon after he went to Gaya to offer the usual pi.n.da to the manes
of his ancestors.
It was on his return from Gaya, when he was about 23 years of age, that
he began seriously to start his new creed. "It was now," writes Babu
Jagadishnath, "that he openly condemned the Hindu ritualistic system
of ceremonies as being a body without a soul, disowned the institution
of caste as being abhorrent to a loving god all whose creatures were one
in his eyes, preached the efficacy of adoration and love and extolled the
excellence and sanctity of the name, and the uttering and singing of the
name of god as infinitely superior to barren system without faith."
Chaitanya, however, as the Babu points out, was not the originator of
this theory, but appears to have borrowed it from his neighbour
Adwaita Acharjya, whose custom it was, after performing his daily
ritual, to go to the banks of the Ganges and call aloud for the coming of
the god who should substitute love and faith for mere rites and
ceremonies. This custom is still adhered to by Vaish.navas. The

Charitamrita veils the priority of Adwaita adroitly by stating that it was
he who by his austerities hastened the coming of K.rish.na in the avatar
of Chaitanya.
I praise that revered teacher Adwaita of wonderful actions, By whose
favour even the ignorant may perceive the (divinity) personified.
--Ch.
I. vi.
Thus in Sanskrit verses at the head of that chapter which sings the
virtues of Adwaita: by in the Bengali portion of the same chapter it is
asserted that Adwaita was himself an incarnation of a part of the
divinity, e.g.--
The teacher Adwaita is a special portion of god.
And the author goes on to say that Adwaita was first the teacher then
the