BLiterature

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‘unique Jayadeva’ in his own time, Vidyapati will ever be remembered as a great
designer of Radha-Krishna Padabali.
Chandidas (15 th /16 th Century)
Chandidas is the only medieval Bengali poet who claims a place in the entire
world literature. In the world of poetry, his place is unique and everlasting.
This great poet’s historicity is shrouded in mystery. A large number of poets of
this same name lived in this province in the middle ages. They held different
sobriquets like Baru, Dwiza, Dina, Taruniraman, etc. As a result, a great poet of
Bangla literature (whoever he is) is in historical sense, confined to a mere name.
I have a suggestion to solve the riddle: there was a Chandidas who used no
sobriquet and wrote the finest poems in Vaishnava literature. The poems of this
Chandidas have stylistic distinction from other Vaishnava poets’ works; and can be
regarded as the poet we are concerned of.
Chandidas’s life-story (probably fictitious) is associated with a washerwoman
named Rami (or Tara). He wrote love poems to his beloved glorifying her as equal to
Krishna’s consort Radha.
Chandidas mainly wrote of the sorrows of love in his poems. However,
Chandidas’s tears of love are not the outcome of a failed lover’s broken heart (as
apparently seems), but in fact a crave for getting attached to a soul of higher order.
His poems sometimes tell of Platonic love – his perception reaches at a love
beyond any physical attraction. Sometimes his temporal love develops into divine or
mystical love. When he tells us that love is like an inscription on stone and cannot
be removed, he at the same time expresses love’s sorrows, eternity and greatness; it
does not remain an ordinary feeling.
And his love develops into a divine perception from a usual temporal idea. He
says in a song –
“I feel the joy of wearing the necklace of infamy
Around my neck
For you, my love.”
(Translated by the author)
He tells us in another poem –
“If I
Don’t see in the eye,
Then I do in my mind,
Chandidas says he wears the touch-jewel
Around his neck.”
(Translated by the author)
Then it seems he is telling of an unearthly love.
He exposes his dangling heart in such lines –
“Goes the blue sari wringing out along with my mind.”
(Translated by the author)
He professes his firm conviction of love in these two lines –
“I’ll live in Love Town, will build a house with love,
Tracing love I’ll make neighbors, except which all are far ones.”