Caurasi Vais?n?avan Ki Varta

This is an excerpt from a longer essay which deals with the role that the Caurāsī Vais̟n̟avan kī Vārtā played in legitimising and popularising the Pus̟t̟i Mārga tradition in the Early Modern South Asia.

Legitimisation and Popularisation of the Vallabha Sampradāya: Revisiting Caurāsī Vais̟n̟avan kī Vārtā

I

Caurāsī Vais̟n̟avan kī Vārtā (referred to as CVK Vārtā, hereafter) is one of the most important prose texts in the Braja Bhās̟ā literature of the Vallabha Sampradāya or the Pus̟t̟i Mārga community. The CVK Vārtā is a compilation of hagiographies of eighty- four devout followers of Vallabhācārya (in some popular editions 92)[1]. Each vārtā relates selected events of spiritual import in life of one of the eighty-four chief followers of Vallabhācārya, an important philosopher who established his own particular version of the bhakti mārga in the North India during the first third of the sixteenth century. These vārtās are not considered to be mere legends, but are held by the pus̟t̟imārgiyas to be real accounts of actual people and episodes that played definite roles in the propagation of Vallabha’s revelations about the mārga.[2] Gokulanātha(CE 1551-1647), to whom the credit of organising the eighty four vārtās is given, was the grandson of the founder and was himself an important ācarya of S̟uddhādvaita. The compilation of present popularly accepted form of the vārtā is attributed to Harirāya(CE 1591-1716), who was the foremost interpreter of the Vallabha’s doctrines. Harirāya’s Bhāvaprakās̀a on the Vārtā presents a laukika, ādhibhautika, and ādhyātmika interpretation of each vārtā. No pus̟t̟imārgiya could doubt the veracity of these texts.

Each vārtā is made up of a series of vignettes ­ each of which is called a prasṅga­ each one a separate little story independent and distinct from the others.[3] Some vārtās also have padas set to a rāga suitable for its rendition before the listeners to whom the vārtā was told, and some others have Sanskrit s̀lokas in between. These elements along with the use of very colloquial Braja Bhasha in which it has been composed are reflective of the roots it had in the oral traditions of the early modern South Asia. The pran̟etā (initiator) of the Caurāsī Vais̟n̟avan kī Vārtā, Gokulanātha was known for his skills in giving sermons and one assimilates from other vārtās like the Nija Vārtā, Gharū Vārtā, and the Caurāsi Bait̟hakan ke Caritra that he was invited by devotees to lecture on the Pus̟t̟imārgiya principles and the vārtās. However, the task of producing the texts he composed in scriptural form was performed by his disciples during his life time or after. It was from his time that the tradition of appointing ‘likhiyās’