110 RELIGIOUS SECTS 



were Adwaitanand and Nityanand, who, being men of domestic and settled 

 habits, seem to have made use of a third, who had early embraced the ascetic 

 order, and whose simplicity and enthusiasm fitted him for their purpose, and 

 to have set up Ch ait any a as the founder and object of a new form of Vaish- 

 7iava worship. 



The history of Chaitanya has been repeatedly written, but the work most 

 esteemed by his followers is the Chaitanya Charitra of Vrindavan Das, which 

 was compiled from preceding works by Murari Gupta and Damodara, who 

 were the immediate disciples of Chaitanya, and who wrote an account, the first 

 of his life as a Grihastha, or the Adi Lild, and the second of his proceedings 

 as a pilgrim and ascetic, or the Madhya and Anta Lild. An abridgement of 

 the composition of Vrindavan Das, under the title of Chaiiani/a Ckariidmriia, 

 was made by Krishna Das about 1590: although described by the author as 

 an abridgement, it is a most voluminous work, comprising, besides anecdotes 

 of Chaitanya and his principal disciples, the expositions of the doctrines of 

 the sect: it is written in Bengali, but it is interspersed most thickly with the 

 Sanscrit texts on \\hich the faith is founded, and which are taken from the 

 Brahma Sanhitd, the Vishnu Purdn, the Bhdgavaf Gitd^ and, above all, the Sri 

 Bhdgavat, the work that appears al>out this period to have given a new aspect 

 to the Hindu faith, throughout the whole of Hindustan: the accounts we 

 have to offer of Chaitanya and his schism, are taken from the Chaitanya 

 Charitdmrita. 



Chaitanya was the son of a Brahman settled at Nadiya^ but originally 

 from Srihatttty or Silhet. His father was named Jagannath Misha, and his 

 mother Sachi: he was conceived in the end of Magha i484<, but not born till 

 Phalgiin 1485, being thirteen months in the womb — his birth was accompanied 

 by the usual portentous indications of a super-human event, and, ainongst 

 other circumstances, an eclipse of the moon was terminated by his entrance 



