INTRODUCTION. 41 single duty.” “The characteristic virtues of chivalries bear so much resemblance to those which Eastern writers of the same period extol, that I am a little disposed to suspect Europe of having derived some improvement from imitation of Asia.”t This sort of love-romance appears to be most congenial to our tropical clime, where a luxuriant imagination is the characteristic of the people. The oriental by his very nature and environment is prone to carry such sentiments to an excess till the secular is given the . footing of the spiritual. Ilove between man and woman, according to Chandidas, was the door-way to heaven, for, as he says, “He that pervades the universe, unseen by all, is approachable only by him who knows the secret of pure love between man and woman.” The orthodox standard of nuptial love is trampled under foot. Chandidas says, “Far higher than what the Vedās say and the canons of our theology sanction is the region of this love” (p. 998). He addresses Rāmi, the woman whom he adores, “Thou art my Gāyatri” (p. 996). Chandidas was a Brähmin and Rimi was a washer-woman. The difference in social status between the two was the difference between heaven and earth. Yet this Brühmin calls her his “Gāyatri”—the great hymn—the highest and the most sacred thing with a Brähmin, which it would be sacrilegious on his part to compare with anything of the earth. But the lover has become a mystic and risen far higher than Brähminic traditions. Rāmi to him is adorable “as the goddess Pârvati, the consort of Siva, as Saraswati, the goddess of speech” (p. 996). “There is not the least particle of sensuousness in this love of mine”, he says (p. 996). He has himself ascended the highest point in the scale; but no one knows the danger of the Sahajiyā ideal of love better than the - poet himself. He says, “in a million there may be found His love for Rāmī. o - - one who can purify himself by this love.” The rest, he repeatedly says, will roll in the mire—victims to animal passion. There were undoubtedly many ignominious Chandidases who, in their A step gained in spiri attempts to try heroic feats in love, degraded themtual experience. selves in society and became out-eastes. But as they had a high ideal before them, their failure, though ignoble, was not without a redeeming feature. It is true that many of them succumbed to the influence of the flesh, but sensuality was not the point from which they had at first started and they had made great sacrifices for love. They thus made a step forward in their spiritual experience and became fit to realize the divine love inspite of their failures.
- The Student's Middle Ages, p. 580. + Io. —p. 582.
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