Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/646

 606 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERALTURE. [ Chap. Brabmin,—a native of Eastern Bengal; his name was Madhaba and Kavindra was his title ; Kavindra literally means a prince of poets, but the Vaisnavas called him Kapindra ora prince of monkies. The other one who was also a Brahmin belonged to Western Bengal (410 c#4); his name is not given, but his family title was Mallik. This man called himself an incarnation of Visnmu and the Vaisnhavas gave him the title of Fox. Both in Bhakti Ratnakara and in Chaitanya Bhagavata we find many con- temptuous epithets bestowed on these two men. We have besides seen a number of Sanskrit verses in which some details are given about them. The The Vaisnava community gradually grew larger. রি Lay men recruited from the lowest castes formed nobler the largest portion of this community. — Fallen elements. women and Parialis swelled its ranks and the result was that the allegory of Radha and Krisna was made an excuse for the practice of many immorali- ties. Chaitanya Deva did not himself organise this community, as I have said; those, who did so, kept up its purity during their life-time ; but it gradually sank into ignorance and corruption. Not only Chaitanya Deva but all his companions also were deified and the catholicity of views that had charac- terised them became a thing of the past. People came forward to prove that Haridas (a Mahomedan) was realy a Brahmin as if none but a Brahmin could be accepted as a leader even in Vaishnava society. The Vaidya and Kayastha leaders of that society who once counted Brahmin disciples by hundreds gradually lost much of the esteem in which they had been held, because of their having belonged to castes lower than that of the Brahmins,