CHAITANYA AND THE MAKING OF BENGALI COLLECTIVE-CONSCIOUSNESS.

 

Bengali civilization could merely be dated back to the age of Buddhist-roving-monks called Charjapadis. These monks used to go around the neighbourhoods of North-Bengal (for alms as sustenance).They used to observe the life-styles of the local populace and wrote ballads about their life, problems and dreams etc in the form of folk-poems and ballads. Religious content or Buddhist doctrines were not much in those ballads though . That was however the first people's literature of Bengal and was supposed to be as of now the first literature. The pattern of ballad literature went on being carried through oral and aural traditions from generations to the next.This same type was found throughout the history henceforth in many ballads, collected by many over the years. The collection as we know now are in Purbo-BAnga gitika( a collection in 8 volumes), we find epics called Manasha Mangal KAvya , Chandi Mangal Kavya and other Mangal kavyas. This was a style which recounted the various myths of the popular culture and showed the value-systems the Bengalis had during the middle ages. The period of these kavyas were a broad spectrum from late Charyapad to the Nawabi period (Of course they were compiled and published in the Nineteenth Century). The Pre-Modern age or the Nawabi age in literature started mainly after the consolidation of the kingdom of GAud by Hossain Shah.He gave bengal a centralized territory independant of the Delhi Sultanate and started seriously the development the Bengali culture and language in full steam. Before him various Pathan and Moghul rulers came to Bengal mostly opposing the Delhi rule,but never started so to say a cultural movement in Bengali. Hossain Shah was a benevolent but shrewd Gaudadhipati or King. He wanted the kingdom to have a culture and religion different from that in North_India, different from the state-religion and state-culture of Delhi sultanate and also different from the North Indian hindu culture.This he did to make Bengalis have a different culture and different value-system than that of the rest of India. He undertook to translate all the hindu epics in Bengali ,interesting to note that Mahabharat and Ramayan was first translated by muslims like PARAGAL KHAN. And for this Hossain Shah was called by the hindus as the Avatar of Krishno.

 

In the religious world occured a revolution of sorts, the first of its kind in Bengal, a complete social revolution which upturned the whole orthodox hindu-brahminical structure, the concept of civil disobediance, mass movement and mass rallies were first introduced, just imagine 600 years ago.

 

The Bhakti culture that Chaitanya popularised is a unique version started in Bengal in parallel to other uniques versions that were introduced by Kabir and Nanak and more or less comparable to the Sufi/Bhakti/Fakir sub-culture of Lalan and Siraj Sai(n). Philosophically the cue was taken from the Bhedabhed or Dvaitadvaito school of Indian philosophy.As against Adyaitavad of Sankaracharya, the Dvaityadvaito philosophy of Madhavachrya retains the distinction of Jivatma and the Paramatma and considers that the Reality or the Supreme is always manifested in terms of a human or humanoid figure, i,e the Supreme God head "Sat-chit-ananda" is manifested through a "Sat-Chit-Ananda-Vigraha" .This Vigrahas are reincarnations of Vishnu the Supreme-God-head.Now since the concept of "Aham Brahmasmi" i,e I am the God is absent here, in this philosophy the best path to God in order to be in unison with the God-head is to completely surrender oneself (one's ego that is) to the manifestations. According to this school a Bhakti marg or Bhakti-Jog is more important than Karma or Jnan jog.Only through a complete surrender and Bhakti one can attain a near unity with Vishnu.Incidentally this is very similar to the Sufi school of Islam which sees the surrender to Allah the eternal as the core of Islam, The movement started with certain necessities and had to struggle it out with some orthodoxy in the society but after Chaitanya the effects of the movement increased manifold and left a mark in practically all aspects of bengali life and all other philosophies to come .

 

Bengal was very anarchist right from the beginning, as a matter of fact from the days of Charyapad the main-stream of Hindu orthodoxy never could have a strong footing in Bengal.The influence of the Tantrism coming through Tibet was very high, Bengal never had any Shaiva community and was mostly because of the tantric influence almost totally feminine-idol-worshippers and Shakta. Because of the power concept of the Shaktas, the philosophical root was the Advaita school of Sankara.Coupled with the Sankara school came in the Tantrik influence creating a unique Shakti thread in hinduism.Ironically Vaishnavism of Chaitanya came out with one deity (Krishno) and a male-oriented religion, yet unlike the south-indian counterpart it did not have the strict monastic or ascetic style of functioning. This creed started to take religion as a veritable private matter as a communication with the ishtodevata(the personal god) even as against the kuladevata(family god) or jati-devata(ommunity god).THe concept of Radha-govinda as a kula-devata could not be lineated to Chaitanya or his teachings. This concept was so revolutionary (in spite of having coming from a different route of Shakti) that not only it made the religious practices unfettered off the shackles of rituals and strictures of the Tantrik and the Brahminical pattern, but also it changed the religious practices of the other schools, The Brahminical structure of non-touchability and strict class-barricades broke down (the famous episode of KAlidas in Chaitanya charitamrito , where we find a son of Brahman Vaishnav is waiting to eat off of the left-overs of the untouchables and is only living off the alms from the un-touchables or "lowly-born" , when asked he explained this is the best way unite with the ishto-devata as these so-called lowly-borns are the manifestations of the SAt-chit-ananda-vigraha.)The Shakta pattern of worship underwent a revolutionary change.We have Bama Khyapa(an erstwhile Tantrik),Ramprosad who started conceiving Kali as Shyama , the beutiful domesticized deity in terms of a daughter of the family. The whole concept of rigidity in tantrism was replaced by a bhakti-editioned Shakti-vigraha.The wonderful era of experimentations in syncretism started. In the BAul tradition the tantric concept of sexuality was mingled through a Bhakti-edition of DEHATATVIK (relating to esoteric concept with the human body) philosophy.The FAKIR tradition started viewing KAnai(krishno) and Allah as one and the same. Came the fantastic concept of conceiving Rasul in the lap of Ma AMina, an icon directly borrowed from the JAsoda-Krishno figure. The AULIA tradition which came through Hazrat Nizamuddin Ahulia of Delhi and Pir Nooruddin(Nanda Rishi as it is known in parts of Gaud) of Cherar-e-sharif fame of Kashmir got transformed here in terms of conceiving Krishna and Allah as the SAt-Chit-Ananda.All these philosphies came very close to each other.People used to worship the pirs,darvishes,baul-goshains,sannyasins(ascetics) with the same reverence. The tradition went on unabetted till Ramkrishno when he accepted KAlma and used to follow namazes five times a day. There was never a question asked about any difference of any religion or philosophical school.It went so as that Rev KrishnoMohan BandoPadhay a protestant missionary wrote or oversaw the writing of Kristokirtan in the same style as HAri-nam-Sankirtan. Still the Bengali Christians sing on their mass the KRishto-kirtans insteas of the western hymns in bengal villages.Politically a natural withdrawal from the institutional politics and power bickerings and anarchism is still the main prop of Bengal politics and cultural life .Still even now any bengali family would consider any professional job more desirable than an administrative job. If there is one factor that forms the backbone of a bengali sahajiya culture that is the movement of Sri Chaitanya .This is the logical starting point of modern bengali civilization and if there is one book that epitomizes the ideal of a bengali it is the Chaitnya charitamrita.