64 BENGAL VAISHN AVISM case. Nor does our parental affections attain this ideal always. Not even is this romantic idane reached b}' every attachment between man and woman. In 999 cases out of every 1000 we form and follow these attachments absolutely in the carnal plane, possessed by the universal animal instincts of parental or sexual relations. Every affection or attach- ment between a sci*vant and his master, a subject and his king, a son and his parent, a friend and his friend, ])arents and their children or between man and woman, is not romantic, does not rise to the level of rasa, which must be distinguished from the ordi- iicirj' physical enjoyments and attachments among hunnins who are still on the mere
animal plane. Bengal Vaishnavism, though
sometimes misrepresented and misinterpreted as the pursuit of vulgar sensuality' or what
- is ciilled erotic in English, is really a highly
spiritual culture. The sensuous and erotic inter-
pretation of it is entirely due to the ignorance not Only of outsiders but even of the Yaish- nava crowd themselves of those deeper realisa- tions verified and verifiable, upon which both Vaishnavic theology and art have been built. These realisations are, as all real realisations as distinguished
