Chaitanya and the Vaishnava Poets of Bengal

The text surveys a body of Bengali Vaishnava songs and traces how devotional poetry and collective singing fostered a reforming religious movement focused on the passionate love of Radha and Krishna. It provides a biographical account of Chaitanya, outlines his critique of ritual and caste, and describes practices such as sankirtan, ecstatic worship, and congregational performance. Close readings examine recurring motifs, devotional diction, and the compilation’s ceremonial sequence, while placing poets and hymns in their social and literary contexts to show how poetic form, oral tradition, and personal charisma combined to shape and propagate a distinctive devotional culture in Bengal.