"As regards Chaitanya and his followers, their persecution in the hands of the officers of Husain Shah, the most enlightened and liberal Muslim Sultan, has been described in some detail on pp. 632-635. One significant feature of the Chaitanya movement is often ignored. Of the twenty-four years he remained in his mortal frame after he renounced the world and was initiated as a sanyasin, he hardly spent even a year in the dominion of Husain Shah and his Muslim successors, but lived for twenty years in the Hindu kingdom of Orissa. The Vaishnava followers of Chaitanya were persecuted in their homeland during the regime of Husain Shah, and Chaitanya spent practically his whole life as a sanyasin under the patronage of the Hindu ruler of Orissa who became his devoted disciple. By connecting these two facts it will not probably be wrong to surmise that though Chaitanya began his religious life in the Muslim kingdom of Bengal, it did not evidently prove a congenial home to him or to his cult, and both found a safe refuge only in the neighbouring Hindu kingdom. In any case the fact remains that the chief credit for the rise and growth of Chaitanya’s Vaishnavism must go to the Hindu kingdom of Orissa and not to the Muslim kingdom of Bengal. This is a very significant fact in the history of Hindu culture in India during the period under review. (Preface)"

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English