Brahmasamhita

The Brahma Samhita is held in very great veneration by schools of Vaishnava Sadhakas but by far the largest number among them know it only by name and even to the few who have had the good fortune to come across the book itself, it is not quite intelligible. This is due mainly to the defective manuscripts. The two printed editions which I have come across do not speak much in favour of the care bestowed on the publications. These remarks apply not so much to the text itself as to the way in which the masterly commentary of Jiva Gosvami has been dealt with. Jiva as is well known to all students of Vaishnavism, was an author of very great powers and dealt with Vaishnavism from a very catholic point of view. The Vaishnavism which Chaitanya taught and his personal disciples laboured to preach is not what we generally come across in the present age. Jiva accompanied his two uncles Rupa and Sanatana when they in compliance with the injunction of Chaitanya Deva whose disciples they were went to Brindabana and spent the rest of their lives there. It was there that Jiva wrote his books.
It was when living there that they came under the influence of Mira Bai the famous queen devotee of Jaipur who also had renounced a royal palace for a cottage in Brindabana. It was she, as the Rasa-bhava-pranta says, who initiated them into Yoga practice. This book which is yet in manuscript is written in the Bengali language by a Vaishnava devotee of old and is not very generally understood. A Bengali writer himself a Vaishnava in the course of a speech delivered by him at a learned society in Calcutta interpreted a passage from this book to contain a libelous attack on Chaitanya Deva. The passage in question states that Mahaprabhu Chaitanya United with Vidhava Brahmani and the speaker, not knowing that Vidhava Brahmani is a name of Kundalini Shakti, interpreted the passage in question to mean that he had some questionable connection with a Brahman widow.
The. Brahma Samhita is according to Jiva Goswami composed of one hundred chapters (Adhyaya-shata-yuk). The fifth chapter according to him contains the essence of the entire book as maxims or in Sutra form. It is on this account that he wrote the commentary to the fifth chapter alone. The book itself was brought by Chaitanya Deva from the temple of Adi Keshava in Mallara in Decca. The Chaitanya charitamrita (Madhya Lila chapter X) describes how delighted he was when he discovered this book. It also says that it contains the essence of all Vaishnava Shastras. Shri Chaitanya evidently got only the fifth chapter and there is no trace of the remaining 99 chapters. Part of the Narada Pancharatra published by the Anandashrama Press of Poona is also called Brahma Samhita and though that also is a Vaishnava work and does not conflict with the teachings of the book here published is entirely distinct. The commentary was written by Jiva at the request of his Guru Chaitanya Deva.