ART IN BENGAL VAISHNAVISM 81 French Catholic church, touched even the highest madhurya plane or piety or bhakti of the Bengal classification. But these lack, strictly speaking, the reality of our Yaishnavic realisations. Bengal Yaishnavisni, however, recognises in all these a very high class of piety. Each of these four rasas have been described as the best and highest for those who cultivate them severallj', following their inner nature and constitution. Some are constitutionally fitted for the cultivation of the servitor and master relation, or the son and father relation, or the subject and king relation ; some are, by the very make and constitution of their being, best equipped for the pursuit of the sakhya bhakti or the cultivation of piety or love of God in and through the romance of friendship ; others are equally fitted for the cultivation of the romance of parent love in relation to the Divine; while others, and their number is exceedingly small, are qualified by the cons- titution of their mind and soul for the pursuit of the madhurya bhakti or the realisation of the love of God in and through the romance of the man and woman or the hero and hero- ine relation. T hese four types of piety are each best and highest for those who are fitted by 6
