1,000 love ballads, which have now been collected. His favorite subject was
the relationship between Kr.s.n.a and Ra ̄dha ̄ and the use of erotic imagery to
speak of the bhakta’s relationship with the divine.^24
One other significant contributor to the bhaktimovement in Bengal was
Vis ́vambhar Mis ́ra, better known as Caitanya(1485–1533), who started a new
movement within Benga ̄lı ̄ Vais.n.avism. Appealing especially to a newly
emergent “middle class” in Bengal – for example, merchants, farmers,
artisans – Caitanya offered an egalitarian form of Vais.n.avism which borrowed
brahmanical ideas while critiquing brahmanic hegemony. He sent six
followers (gosva ̄mins) to Vrinda ̄van, pilgrimage center par excellence of the
Kr.s.n.a cultus. There they were asked to work out a theology based on sacred
texts, not least importantly, the Bha ̄gavata Pura ̄n.aand the Bhavadgı ̄ta ̄. In
Caitanya’s system, Kr.s.n.a was the highest form of the divine, its true essence,
who was united with S ́aktı ̄, manifest in Ra ̄dha ̄. A devotee could ascend the
ladder of bhaktiuntil reaching the supreme state, known as ma ̄dhuryaor
sweetness. When one was identified with Ra ̄dha ̄, devotion was expressed in
sankı ̄rtan.a– ecstatic dancing to the sound of tambourines. Sound in the form
of chant and recitation of the deity’s name was thought to enable the devotee
to draw near to the divine.^25 Sound was cosmogonic, a vaidikaassertion, but
it also incorporated the Su ̄fı ̄ notion of becoming one with the divine. Kr.s.n.a
was presented as consistent with the Qura ̄nic imagery of Alla ̄h, but more
pervasive. The school Caitanya founded has survived into the present and is
widely known as Gaudia ̄ Vais.n.avism or the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness.
Hindı ̄
Though Hindı ̄ was only standardized by the early nineteenth century, the
language was evolving in dialects by the fourteenth century. In fact, it evolved
alongside Urdu ̄, in the Indo-Islamic matrix with which it shared a grammar
and a vocabulary.^26 Like the language itself, the bhaktisingers were a product
of their time, sometimes explicitly showing the connections between the
Hindu and Muslim experience; sometimes those relationships were, at
best, implicit.
The lineage of the “Hindı ̄”bhaktasbegan perhaps as much as anywhere
withRa ̄ma ̄nanda(1400–1470). Apparently from South India and a follower
of Ra ̄ma ̄nujan, he became an important catalyst for the forms of devo-
tionalism that followed. For him Ra ̄ma was the supreme god who was to be
worshiped with S ́aktı ̄, yet he was rather eclectic in lifestyle. Possibly influenced
by Su ̄fı ̄sm,^27 he was opposed to caste and other distinctions of “religion” and
class. His own disciples are said to have included a Muslim, an outcaste, and
several women. One of those he apparently influenced was Kabı ̄r.
Developments in the Late Medieval Period 145