Note 308 — Chapter II · (continued 3)

See the work quoted, p. 125-129. The members of this sect consider a teacher named Hari Vans as their founder. This person settled at Vrindavan, and established a math, or “convent,” there, which exists to our days, and in 1822 comprised between forty and fifty resident ascetics. He also erected a temple there that still exists, and indicates by an inscription over the door that it was dedicated to Sri Rádhá Vallabha by Hari Vans, Samvat 1641, or A. D. 1585. Rádha, the favourite mistress of Krishna, is the object of adoration to these sectaries, who worship Krishna as Rádhá-Vallabah, “the lord or lover of Rádhá,” whose adoration Mr. Wilson thinks an undoubted innovation in the Hindu creed. He says (ibid., p. 125): “The only Rádhá that is named in the Mahábharat is a very different personage, being the wife of Duryodhana’s charioteer, and the nurse of Karna. Even the Bhagavat makes no particular mention of her amongst the Gopis of Vrindhavan, and we must look to the Brahma Váivarta Purána (Krishna Janana Khanda) as the chief authority of a classical character, on which the pretensions of Rádhá are founded.” We know the difference of opinion which exists among the Indianists about the antiquity to be attributed to the Puranas, and which has not yet found a positive decision. It is probably from the last mentioned Púráná that Jayadéva (see note, p. 180) took the theme of his admirable poem, in which the love of Krichna and Rádhá is described in the most glowing colours.