Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/575

 V.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 537 A person who yearns for God should not care for home, for fame, or for any earthly consideration ; he must renounce all. This idea is best expressed by the allegory of Radha and Krisna; for a woman, peculiarly situated as she is in Hindu society, cannot _ contract love with a stranger without risking all that is near and dear to her. The spirit of mar- _tyrdom in this love is kindred to that for which the soul of a true devotee is always ready. Per- secutions and all manner of earthly evils must come upon him as a matter of course and the world will call such a man, a knave, a maniac and what not; but he must stick to his faith inspite of all misfortune. Hence this symbol was adopted by the Vaisnavas to express their unflinching devotion and self-sacrifice for religion. The personality of Chaitanya Deva gave a The emo- new form to this poetic literature. If one reads তিন carefully a number of Vaisnava padas from such পিন collections as the Padakalpalatika, Padakalpataru, Radha. and Padasamudra together with some of the biogra- phies of Chaitanya Deva, they will be struck with the fact, that nearly all the emotions ascribed to Radha are taken from those of Chaitanya Deva. The rap- turous feelings on his seeing the clouds described in his biographies are attributed to Radha in the padas. His fine frenzy lends charms to the similar mental states ascribed to her, and the sight of a kadamva flower, of the river Jumna, of the Vrinda groves, lifts both into a state of rapture. One who is not an adept in Chaitanya literature will be charmed while reading the padas by the high poetical flights reached in the description of Radha’s love for Krisna, and will not easily suspect 68