Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

session of his throne. It bespeaks a degeneracy and an indifference, a languor and torpidity, a lack of the martial will and disposition, which form the standing reproach of the Bengalees.

[ocr errors]

Well may have Bukhtyar written the bulletin of his conquest of Bengal to his imperial master, in the words of Cæsar, Veni, vidi, vici.' He gave up Nuddea to be sacked and plundered by his troops, and, proceeding to Gour, established himself in that ancient city as the capital of his dominions.

From the Mussulman conquest of Bengal in 1203 to the end of the fifteenth century, the history of Nuddea again forms a blank. The removal of the seat of government must have led to its decay and insignificance. It did not, however, altogether cease to exist, but continued a seat of learning, where many a Pundit, learned in law and theology, rose to distinguish himself, and shed a lustre over the place.

The brightest epoch in the history of Nuddea dates from the era of Choitunya. Regarded by his adversaries as a heresiarch, worshipped by his followers as an incarnation, he is now truly appreciated by the discerning generations of the nineteenth century as a Reformer. Choitunya was born at Nuddea in 1485, His father was a Baidik Brahmin, who had removed hither from Sylhet. From his early childhood Choitunya gave signs of an eccentric disposition, but he possessed a very superior intellect, and the purest morals. He had also a very affectionate heart, and simple, winning manners. The age in which Choi

tunya was born, had been preceded by one of great religious reforms and innovations. There was Ramanund, who had revived the anti-caste movement. There was Kubeer, who repudiated alike the Shasters and the Koran, and preached an universal religion. Choitunya was brought up in the faith of a Vaishnava, but his opinions took a great tinge from the doctrines of his two immediate predecessors. In Bengal, Buddhism had maintained its supremacy up to the tenth century. On the accession of the Sena Princes, Shaivism gained the ascendancy, and predominated in the land. Under coalition with Sakti-ism, the worship of the emblems of the energy of man and the fruitfulness of woman had degenerated to the most abominable creed of the Tantra Shastras, first introduced in Nuddea, most probably, by some of its clever Pundits. The Tantric worship culminated in the worst forms of libertinism about the time of Choitunya. Two thousand years ago had a greater reformer viewed with disgust and a relenting heart the bloody rites and sacrifices of the Vedic Yugyas, and to reform the abuses had Buddha promulgated the doctrine of non-cruelty to animals. In like manner, the bacchanalian orgies of the Tantrics, and their worship of a shamefully exposed female,' had provoked the abhorrence of Choitunya, and roused his energy to remove the deep blots upon the national character. He commenced his labours by holding meetings of his immediate friends at the house of Sree Bhasa. In these meetings, he expounded the life and acts of Krishna. Passages in the Bhagbut

[ocr errors]

Choitunya's Reforms.

31

He

which every one understood in a literal sense, he construed figuratively; and, by striking upon the emotional chord of our nature, he thought of putting down sensualism by sentiment. In a little time, his enthusiasm affected hundreds, and gathered round him a body of disciples. His doctrines being aimed at the profligacies of the Tantrics committed under the mask of devotion, they became eager to put down his schism. But Choitunya was a tough antagonist, who established his mastery over the revilers and scouters. Having obtained the sympathies and support of a large class of men, he openly avowed his determination to uproot Tantricism, and establish the true Vaishnavism. now publicly preached in the streets of Nuddea, and went forth in processions of Kirtunwallahs, propagating his doctrines through the villages of that district. On one of these occasions, as he passed hurryboling (taking the name of Heri) through the bazars and hauts of Nuddea, a party of Tantrics, headed by two bullies and swaggerers, Jogai and Madhai, attacked to disperse his procession. But in vain were the hootings, the peltings, the interruptions, and the hostilities of the voluptuaries to arrest and turn back the movement. In the natural course of things, licence is always succeeded by restraint. The triumph of their adversaries, therefore, was helped by that re-action, which forms a law as well in the material as in the moral world. In time, their wassails, their debaucheries, and their loathsome vices, made them the most odious beings in the community, and they smarted under the wounds which

a purer and sentimental religion inflicted upon their

sect.

In 1509, Choitunya, alias Nemye, formally renounced the world by embracing the life of an ascetic. He then wandered from place to place, travelled to Gour, proceeded to Benares, visited Brindabun and Pooree, teaching his sentimental theology, making numerous converts, and devoting all his energy, time, and life to the fulfilment of his mission. His peregrinations lasted for six years, at the end of which he retired to Nilachull, near Juggernauth, and, settling there, passed twelve years in an uninterrupted worship of that divinity. In his last days, his intense enthusiasm and fervour affected his sanity, and he is said to have drowned himself in the sea under the effects of a disordered brain.

It is not our object to dwell on the merits of his religious doctrines, though their scope and aim had been to proscribe vices and immoralities which had tainted all classes of the society and disgraced the nation, and to inculcate purity of thought and action as the medium of salvation. To his zealous followers, Choitunya may be an apostle, an incarnate deity. But it is as a reformer that he is to be looked upon in his true light, and esteemed by the statesmen of the nineteenth century. The abolition of caste, the introduction of widow-marriage, the extinction of polygamy, and the suppression of ghat-murders—are social reforms which a governor of our day would willingly undertake, and entitle himself to the blessings of genera

Choitunya's Reforms.

33

tions of Hindoos. Choitunya had nearly all of these great reforms in his view to produce a change in the destinies of his nation. Though Ramanund and Kubeer had raised the first voice against the exclusiveness of Hindooism, it was Choitunya who properly inaugurated the anti-caste movement, to release the laity from the dominion and tyranny of the priesthood. He revived the old attempt of Buddha to obliterate the distinctions between a Brahmin and Sudra, and hence the animosity, the hostility, and the rancour of the Brahmins to his sect, similar to those with which the Buddhists had been opposed and persecuted for ages till their final annihilation. Hindoos of all castes are admitted into Choitunya's fraternity, and once admitted, are associated with on equal terms by all the brethren. His predecessors, Ramanund and Kubeer, had taken low-caste men for their disciples. But he scrupled not to permit even Mahomedans to enter his fold, and two of his most eminent followers, Rupa and Sonatun, were originally Mahomedan ministers in the court of Gour.

It is not on record how far the evils of polygamy had manifested themselves in the age of Choitunya. But it may be presumed that his contemporary Koolins drove a more thriving trade than their descendants of the eighteenth century, and often had two or three hundred wives to eke out their incomes by contributions upon their numerous fathers. The death of a single man risked the happiness of hundreds of females, and either Sutteeism or prostitutism often became their refuge

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »