VAISNAVA-SAHAJIYA

member of an esoteric Hindu cult centred in Bengal that sought religious experience through the world of the senses, specifically human sexual love. Sahaja (Sanskrit: easy or natural) as a system of worship was prevalent in the Tantric traditions common to both Hinduism and Buddhism in Bengal as early as the 8th9th centuries. The divine romance of Krishna and Radha was celebrated by the poets Jayadeva (12th century), Candidas, and Vidyapati (mid-15th century), and parallels between human love and divine love were further explored by Caitanya, the 15th16th-century mystic, and his followers. The Vaisnava-Sahajiya cult developed from the 17th century onward as a synthesis of these various traditions. The Vaisnava-Sahajiyas elevated parakiya-rati (literally, the love of a man for a woman who legally belongs to another) above svakiya-rati (conjugal love) as the more intense of the two. Parakiyarati, it was said, was felt without consideration for the conventions of society or for personal gain and thus was more analogous to divine love. Radha is conceived as the ideal of the parakiya woman, and the Vaisnava-Sahajiyas never attempted (as did some sects of Vaishnavism) to depict her as the wife of Krishna. The Vaisnava-Sahajiyas were looked upon with disfavour by other religious groups and operated in secrecy. In their literature they deliberately employed a highly enigmatic style. Because of the extreme privacy of the cult, little is known about its prevalence or its practices today.