The Life and Times of Srikrsnacaitanya (An Old and Rare Book)

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There are already a number of books on the life of Sri Caitanya but most of them are hagiographical literature about him. Here in this book the author makes a masterly attempt to analyse and examine all that has been written about him so far by the devotees and others and correctly assesses his life and time from the point of view of history appealing to the modern mind. Here one will find Caitanya as an erudite pandit, a Vaisnavite, a religious reformer of the 16th century Bengal and why and how he wielded a great and far-reaching influence on the life of a vast number of people

Dr. Deb Narayan Acharyya, Ph. D. (London), F.R.A.S. (London) was some- time Senior Research Fellow, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Executive Member, World Congress of Faiths, London, and Director- Editor of Hinduism, England. He is currently attached to the University of Southern California. Dr. Acharyya has a wide and deep knowledge of Indian history, culture and religion and is thus a most competent person to correctly interpret Sri Caitanya as a religious leader of historical importance.

The whole life of Bengal and indeed, of many other parts of India, has been drastically affected for ages to come by the teachings of the great sixteenth century mystic Sri Caitanya. Caitanya appeared in Bengal at a time when Hindus and Muslims had achieved a certain equilibrium under the rule of benevolent Sultans. He took up the Vaisnavism which was at the time only one of the strands in the thread of Bengali religious life and greatly developed it along his own lines, producing a distinctive pattern of religious thought and behaviour which has influenced the national character of Bengal in many respects and has helped to make Bengali religious life somewhat different from that of the rest of India.

Much has been written already about Caitanya, mostly by the devotees of this saintly teacher who have developed a complex body of hagiographical literature about him. Such literature, in many parts of the world, may throw more light on the attitudes of early devotees than on the life of the master himself. The poems on the life of Caitanya, however, do clearly contain authentic recollections of the teacher though in transmission these recollections have become garbled and exaggerated. The problem of sifting the historical corn from the hagiographical shaff is a very difficult one and hitherto very few scholars have made a serious attempt at doing so. My friend, Dr. D. N. Acharyya, has subjected all the legends of Sri Caitanya to a very careful analysis, and by this means he has been able to present a biography of the great teacher which is more credible, more historically accurate than anything hitherto written. He has had much to say also about the teaching of the master and has presented to the world a really valuable contribution to the history of Hinduism.