² For an introduction to the history and teachings of the sect, see Raeside, I. M. P., ‘The Mahānubhāvas’, BSOAS, XXXIX, 3, 1976, 585–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ V. B. Kolte's edition (Malkapur: Aruṇa Prakāśana, 1944; 5th ed., 1972), the one which will be cited here, is entitled Śri Govindaprabhu Caritra, but this name is not used in the manuscripts. Govindaprabhu is intended as a Sanskritized form of Guṇḍam Rāuḷ's name

⁴ One important exception is the text's meticulous attention to geography

⁵ This and other meetings between Guṇḍam Rāuḷ and Cakradhar are reported in the Līḷdcaritra, a biography of Cakradhar roughly contemporary with that of Guṇḍam Rāuḷ. V. B. Kolte, ed., Līḷācaritra (Bombay: Mahārāṣṭra Rājya Sāhitya Saṃskṛti Maṇḍaḷa, 1978)

⁶ I use the word ‘gone’ rather than ‘died’ in order not to become embroiled in doctrinaldisputes still very much alive in Mahānubhāva circles

⁷ His name means ‘rounded stone’. It may be an example of what Emeneau calls an ‘apotropaic name’, ‘Towards an onomastics of South Asia’, JAOS, XCVIII, 2, 1978, 113–30Google Scholar

⁸ Never the devotes; and not, directly, the text itself

⁹ In the ‘Prastāvanā’ to his edition, pp. 54–5, Kolte reports having seen two commentaries which appear to attempt philosophical and religious rationalizations of Guṇḍam Rāuḷ's behaviour. I have seen neither of these commentaries

¹⁰ See, for instance, Majumdar, A. K., Caitanya, his life and doctrine: a study in Vaiṣnavism (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1969)Google Scholar

¹¹ During May-August 1979

¹² Mahānubhāva incarnation-doctrine distinguishes three ways in which Parameśvara can take on a body: by becoming an embryo, by taking over the body of someone who has died, or by replacing a jiva in a living body. Although the first chapter of Guṇḍam Rāuḷ's biography states that he was an incarnation of the first type, contemporary Mahānubhāvas hold that he was also an incarnation of the third type—that is, he replaced an embryo already in his mother's womb. See Kolte, V. B., Mahānubhāva tattvajńnā (Malkapur: Aruna Prakasana, 4th printing, 1975), 199Google Scholar

¹³ The Sūtrapāṭha is the collection of the sayings of Cakradhar. It is edited and translated in Feldhaus, A., The Mahānubhāva Sūtrpāṭha, South Asian Studies, University of Heidelberg (New Delhi: Manohar Book Service, in press)Google Scholar

¹⁴ And by the doctrine that the one God has three members (tri-aṃśa). See Feldhaus, part 1, ch. iii

¹⁵ See Feldhaus, , ‘The devatacakra of the Mahanubhavas’, BSOAS, XLIII, 1, 1980, 101–9Google Scholar

¹⁶ See, for example, Edward Dimock, C., Jr., The place of the hidden moon: erotic mysticism in the Vaiṇṣava-Sahajiyā cult of Bengal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966)Google Scholar Mahānubhāvas understand Kṛṣṇa to be, like Guṇḍam Rāuḷ and Cakiadhar, an incarnation of Parameśvara. The Mahānubhāvas' Kṛṣṇa, however, is not primarily the lover of Rādhā and the other gopis, but the more conventional husband of Rukmiṇī. For the Mahānubhāvas, it is Guṇḍam Rāuḷ, not Kṛṣṇa, who is the violator of conventions; and the conventions he violates are not, primarily, sexual

¹⁷ Reynolds, Frank E. and Donald, Capps (ed.), The biographical process (The Hague: Mouton and Company, 1976), pp. 3–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar