"chvsp10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Beames John)

In accordance with the usual Bengali superstition that if a man's real
name be known he may be bewitched or subject to the influence of the
evil eye, the real name given at birth is not made known at the time,
but another name is given by which the individual is usually called.
No one but the father and mother and priest know the real name.
Bisambhar's usual name in childhood was Nimai, and by this he was
generally known to his neighbours.

In person, if the description of him in the Chaitanyacharitamrita (Bk.
I. iii.) is to be considered as historical, he was handsome, tall (six
feet), with long arms, in colour a light brown, with expressive eyes, a
sonorous voice, and very sweet and winning manners. He is frequently
called "Gaurang" or "Gaurchandra," _i.e._, the pale, or the pale
moon, in contrast to the Krishna of the Bhagvat who is represented as
very black.

The name Chaitanya literally means 'soul, intellect,' but in the
special and technical sense in which the teacher himself adopted it, it
appears to mean perceptible, or appreciable by the senses. He took the
name Sri K.rish.na Chaitanya to intimate that he was himself an
incarnation of the god, in other words, K.rish.na made visible to the
senses of mankind.

The Charitamrita being composed by one of his disciples, is written
throughout on this supposition. Chaitanya is always spoken of as an
incarnation of K.rish.na, and his brother Nityanand as a re-appearance
of Balaram. In order to keep up the resemblance to K.rish.na, the
Charitamrita treats us to a long series of stories about Chaitanya's
childish sports among the young Hindu women of the village. They are
not worth relating, and are probably purely fictitious; the Bengalis of
to-day must be very different from what their ancestors were, if such
pranks as are related in the Charitamrita were quietly permitted to go
on. Chaitanya, however, seems to have been eccentric even as a youth;
wonderful stories are told of his powers of intellect and memory, how,
for instance, he defeated in argument the most learned Pandits. A
great deal is said about his hallucinations and trances throughout his
life, and we may perhaps conclude that he was more or less insane at
all times, or rather he was one of those strange enthusiasts who wield
such deep and irresistible influence over the masses by virtue of that
very condition of mind which borders on madness.

When he was about eighteen his father died, and he soon afterwards
married Lachhmi Debi, daughter of Balabhadra Acharjya, and entered on
the career of a _grihastha_ or householder, taking in pupils whom
he instructed in ordinary secular learning. He does not appear,
however, to have kept to this quiet life for long; he went off on a
wandering tour all over Eastern Bengal, begging and singing, and is
said to have collected a great deal of money and made a considerable