Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/500

 Vrindavan Das, born 1507 A.D. Cribasa’s angina. 464 RENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [Chap all parts of the world are bound to be superstitious, but in Hinduism the gross forms of worship are™ always in touch with the superior light of pure faith and thus without disturbing the faith of the illiterate, Hinduism makes its vast religious system a homogeneous whole in which the lowest represents merely a step in the ladder that reaches the highest. This catholic trait in the character of Chaitanya Deva 1s deliberately omitted or ignored by many of his subsequent biographers, who want- ~ ed to represent him as the leader and _ upholder of their own party,—the god of a special class of © men and not the prophet for all that he was | undoubtedly. (b) Chaitanya Bhagabata by Vrindavan Das. After Govinda Déas’s account of the few years of Chaitanya’s life, the next biographical work about the great Vaishnava prophet was written by Vrindavan Das born in 1507 A.D. He was a grandson of Crinivas, whose brother Crivasa’s ] devotion to Chaitanya Deva is well known to the Vaishava community. The spacious lawn before. Criv asa’s house was the favourite baunt of the” Sankirtan parties led by Chaitanya Deva ; many a. night from the rise of the evening star on the western | horizon till the appearance of the sun, the deep | chanting of God’s name was heard accompanied — with the unceasing sounds of hod and karta/ in k this historic ‘angina’ of Crivasa, but Vrindavan Das was only two years old when Chaitanya Deva left Navadwipa for good. The biographer regrets i in many passages of his work that he had not 1170 the good fortune of seeing Chaitanya Deva.