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

or earnest, all-engrossing love.

Vaish.navism is singularly like Sufiism, the resemblance has often been
noticed, and need here only be briefly traced. [Footnote: Conf. Capt.
J. W. Graham's paper 'On Sufiism,' _Bombay Literary Soc. Trans._
Vol. I. pp. 89 et seqq.; Rajendralala Mittra's valuable introduction to
the _Chaitanya Chandrodaya_ (Biblioth. Ind.), pp. ii-iv and xv;
also Jones' 'Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindus,' _Asiat.
Res._ Vol. III. pp. 165-207; and Leyden, 'On the Rosheniah Sect,
&c.,' _As. Res._ Vol. XI. pp. 363-428.--ED.] With the latter the
first degree is _nasut_ or 'humanity' in which man is subject to
the law _shara_, the second _tarikat_, 'the way' of
spiritualism, the third _'aruf_ or 'knowledge,' and the fourth
_hakikat_ or 'the truth.' Some writers give a longer series of
grades, thus--_talab,_ 'seeking after god;' _'ishk_, 'love;'
_m'arifat_, 'insight;' _istighnah_, 'satisfaction;'
_tauhid_, 'unity;' _hairat_, 'ecstacy;' and lastly
_fana_, 'absorption.' Dealing as it does with God and Man as two
factors of a problem, Vaish.navism necessarily ignores the distinctions
of caste, and Chaitanya was perfectly consistent in this respect,
admitting men of all castes, including Muhammadans, to his sect. Since
his time, however, that strange love of caste-distinctions, which seems
so ineradicable from the soil of India, has begun again to creep into
Vaish.navism, and will probably end by establishing its power as firmly
in this sect as in any other.

Although the institution of love towards the divine nature, and the
doctrine that this love was reciprocated, were certainly a great
improvement on the morbid gloom of Siva-worship, the colourless
negativeness of Buddhism, and the childish intricacy of ceremonies
which formed the religion of the mass of ordinary Hindus, still we
cannot find much to admire in it. There seems to be something almost
contradictory in representing the highest and purest emotions of the
mind by images drawn from the lowest and most animal passions.


"Ut matrona meretrici dispar erit atque discolor."


So must also Vaish.navism differ from true religion, the flesh from the
spirit, the impure from the pure. The singing of hymns about Radha and
K.rish.na is much older than Chaitanya's age. Not to mention Jayadeva
and his beautiful, though sensual, Gitagovinda. [Footnote: It is many
years now since I read Gitagovinda as a text-book at college, but the
impression I still retain is that it was in many parts far too warm for
European tastes.] Bidyapati, the earliest of Bengali poets, and
Cha.n.di Das both preceded Chaitanya, and he himself is stated to have
been fond of singing their verses. There was therefore a considerable
mass of hymns ready to his hand, and his contemporaries and followers
added largely to the number; the poems of the _Padakalpataru_ in