Book Description

The Caitanya Caritamrta is an early-seventeenth-century Bengali and Sanskrit biography of the great saint and Vaisnava leader Caitanya (1486-1533 CE) by the poet and scholar Krsnadasa, who has been given by Bengali tradition the title Kaviraja--"Prince of Poets." The text is of interest to theologians--Caitanya was, in Krsnadasa's view, an androgyne of Krsna and Radha; philosophers--his theory was that aesthetic and religious experience are much the same in kind; historians of religion--the movement that Caitanya inspired has encompassed the great part of the eastern Indian subcontinent, and Krsnadasa has some interesting observations on his own times; and appreciators of literature--in Krsnadasa's very long poem are embedded some lyric gems.