62 BENGAL VAISHNAVISM regarded as a distinct rasa in the realisations of Yaishnavic bhakti in Bengal, but as the fundamental basis upon which this hhakti must grow. Love of God to be real must be something concrete and personal, and not a mere abs- traction or generalisation. The highest realisa- tion of love is in what we call romance. In romantic love the physical is overwhelmed by the spiritual. Though intimately asso- ciated with our senses, when love rises to the level of romance, conciousness of the sensuous is lost in the enjo3mient of that which passes beyond our senses. In fact, the senses are found in the romantic plane positive hindrances to it instead of being ins- trvtments of our enjoyment. The ultimate ana- l^'sis of our realisations of love reveals the fundamental fact that even while completelj'^ giving ourselves up to the sensuous aspect of it, we reallj' do not love the objects of our senses in our love but alwaj^s, however un- consciousty it miiy^be, we hanker after and seek something which the senses can never seize. This is the soul of all romance, whether it be the romance of the dasya or the sakhya or the batsalya or the madhtirya categor3^. Every relation of master and servant or king and
