________________
OF THE HINDUS.
153
the Madhya and Anta Lilá. An abridgment of the composition of BÚNDÁVAN Dás, under the title of Chaitanya Charitámrita, was made by KŔishŃa Dás about 1590: although described by the author as an abridgment, it is a most voluminous work, comprising, besides anecdotes of CHAITANYA and his principal disciples, the expositions of the doctrines of the sect: it is written in Bengali, but it is interspersed most thickly with the Sanskrit texts on which the faith is founded, and which are taken from the Brahma Sanhitá, the Vishnu Puráňa, the Bhagavad Gitá, and, above all, the Sri Bhagavat, the work that appears about this period to have given a new aspect to the Hindu faith throughout the whole of Hindustan. The accounts we have to offer of CHAITANYA and his schism are taken from the Chaitanya Charitámrita.
CHAITANYA was the son of a Brahman settled at Nadiya, but originally from Srihatta, or Silhet. His father was named JAGANNÁTH Miśra, and his mother Sachi: he was conceived in the end of Magha 1484, but not born till Phalgun 1485, being thirteen months in the womb--his birth was accompanied by the usual portentous indications of a super-human event, and, amongst other circumstances, an eclipse of the moon was terminated by his entrance into the world. CHAITANYA was, in fact, an incarnation of KRISHŃA, or Bhagavún, who appeared for the purpose of instructing mankind in the true mode of worshipping him in this age: with the like view he was, at the same time, incarnate in the two greater teachers of
