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The individuality of Bengali culture sought expression along two different lines — first, through the Shabti cult, where the Deity is conceived as the Universal Mother, and next, through the Krishna cult with its intoxicating love of the Lord and its spiritualisation of the ordinary human relations.
As expounded in Mr. Pal's “Bengal Vaishnavism”, the Krishna cult of Bengal gave us a new philosophy, which departing from the Monism of Sankara and the Mono-dualisim of Ramanuja, made a notable departure in conceiving of the Deity as Chidakora and as the eternal embodiment of all the Rasas, This cult reached its efflorescence with Sri Chaitanya of Nadia, creating a new art and a new poetry — unique in its richness and romance—and profoundly affecting the moral and the social life of the Bengali people, with its protest against formalism and dogma and its simple faith and single surrender to the love of the Absolute.
Mr. Pal in the present volume has attempted, and I venture to think with considerable success, to re-interpret and re-explain the message of the Bengal Krishna-cult to the modern man, and I am sure that both in India and outside this country, his book will be read with profound interest and considerable profit by the people of different races and denominations, who happen to be interested in religion, philosophy, art and general culture.
HIRENDRA NATH DATTA.
October 16th, 1933.
