Page:Bengal Vaishnavism - Bipin Chandra Pal.djvu/61

 46 BENGAL VAISHNAVISM of the cultivation of Bhakti as defined in the Shmdilya-Sntra, This definition of Bhakti governed all the Bhakti cults of India, more or less, upto the time of Shree Chaitanya Mahapravu, the founder of Bengal Yaishna- vism. Bengal Yaishnavism discovered and revealed a new type of Bhakti called ragatmika or ragannga. Baga means passion in a spe- cific sense what may be called the sex passion, that passion which is the soul of the sex romance or the love organised in the pas- sionate attachment between man and wife, or the hero and the heroine in literature. The cultivation of this passion in relation to the Lord is called ragannga or ragatmika bhakti by the Bengal Yaishnavas. The defini- tion of Bhakti of Bengal Vaishnavism is, therefore, somewhat different from the older definition of Shandilya, and even superior to it on account of its clearer human note. This definition is the worship of the Lord, Who is the Director of alT^r senses, through the activity of those senses themselves. The original text runs thus ; faimV