Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/978

 932 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. once more in the minds of our countrymen, who were never found slow to respond to a call for putting forth their best activity in the cause of religion. The simple ways taught by Chaitanya Deva, of reciting the name of God and of praying to Him in the spirit of true renunciation had gradually fallen into disfavour. Pompous processions and great festivities accompanied with dances of mauch girls and display and flourish of materialistic grandeur now attracted people to religion, which had, however, lost its serious character, and become a source of amusement to the vulgar. The great yroakea devotees had already begun to realise the use- religion. lessness of a multiplicity of religious rites, and the vanity which in many cases prompted the ostentation of religious festivals in Bengal. Raja Kama Krisna expressed the idea in one of his songs that he would fling away his rosary into the waters of the Ganges as soon as true devotion for the divine Mother should dawn on his mind,—thus showing an utter disregard of formal observances in religion; and Rama Prasada, already quoted on page 716, said of himself that he was a fool to worship an image of clay, when his divine Mother was manifesting herself throughout the whole universe. He said how foolish it was to kill goats before the image instead of. saerific- ing the passions—his real enemies, and that it was but so much energy wasted to visit the sacred shrines. If one’s mind is fixed on the lotus feet of the Mother, there he will feel all the sanctity of the Ganges and of the holy cities of Benares and Gava.