Page:Bengal Vaishnavism - Bipin Chandra Pal.djvu/97

 82 BENGAL VAISHNAVISM nature for their cultivation. But judged absolutely and without relation to the needs and capacity of individual devotees, rmdhurya or the romance of the man and woman or the hero and heroine relation is the highest form of Yaishnavic piety. Because, in this romance there is a combination of the essential qua- lities of all the other rasa-s. In the sringara or the sex romance there is the romance of service, which is the soul of the dasya rasa. There is also in it the romance of friendship, which adds a new feature or quality to the dasya romance, namely, that of the sense of absolute equality. In it there is also the romance of hatsalya, which combines in it the essentials of the dasya and the salchya, adding to these a new element, namely, that of pro- tective care. All these, namely, selfless service, absolute equality and protective care, are essential elements of the sex romance. But there is a new element in it, the element of passionate hankering for complete unification or identification of one’s self with the object of one’s romance, wherein both body and soul seek and find their highest self-realisation in and through the self-realisation its own object. For this reason Bengal Yaishnavism, while fully and frankly recognising the value of all