Page:Bengal Vaishnavism - Bipin Chandra Pal.djvu/88

ART IN BENGAL VAISHNAVISM 73 are to the Yaishnava devotees at once both their art and religion, both their poetry and their scripture. These lyrics are sung during their devotional exercises, as it is through these l3’rics that the Yaishnava devotees of Bengal seek to realise vicariously the supreme love of Radha and Krishna or Bhagavan and His Prakriti. The Rhada-Krishna leela is the soul and centre of these Yaishnava lyrics. Though they present the three dominant m»a-s, namely, sakhya or the romance of friendship, batsalya or the romance of parent love, and madhurya or the romance of sex relation, the last dominates the other two. And in all these Shree Krishna is the soul and centre. In sakhya the cowherds of Brindabana move round Shree Krishna as the common object of their romance. It is He Who leads them in their sport in the pasture fields, where they all follow Him with their cattle. It is again He Who is the soul and centre of the romance of parent-love in these lyrics, where Yasoda plays the part of the mother, and combines in her really the entire motherhood of Brindabana. The mothers of the youthful cowherds, the playmates of Shree Krishna, all find in Yasoda and Shree Krishna a representation of their own mother-love. In