The Journal of Hindu Studies 2020;1–24 doi:10.

1093/jhs/hiaa003

Piety in Print: The Vaishnava Periodicals of

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Colonial Bengal
Santanu Dey*
Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur Math, West Bengal, India
*Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract: The voluminous corpus of Bengali Vaishnava periodical literature

remains largely untapped in scholarship on Bengali Vaishnavism and colonial
Hinduism more broadly. This article explores a range of Bengali Vaishnava period-
icals from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in order to understand
the complex ways in which educated Vaishnavas sought to forge points of con-
vergence for Vaishnava culture within the colonial Bengali public sphere. The
ensuing investigation will, it is hoped, demonstrate both the centrality and ver-
satility of the role of the periodical in the broad and multiplex program of
Vaishnava retrieval in colonial Bengal.

One of the most vibrant forms through which the project of Bengali Vaishnava re-
trieval was carried out in the colonial period was periodical literature.1 Surveys of
Vaishnava periodical collections in various archives and libraries of Bengal have
revealed a substantial, if not pervasive, presence of Vaishnava periodicals in colonial
times (Stewart and Basu 1983). The rapid spread of such periodicals across different
parts of Bengal attests to both a high receptivity for Vaishnava ideas across the
province and the formation of a Vaishnava community consciousness. The spread
of vernacular literacy in Bengal had created a substantial community of ‘silent’ read-
ers in the region by the second half of the nineteenth century, so much so that weekly
and monthly religious periodicals could be published and commercially sustained.
Periodicals addressed their readers (pathak) as a community (Mitra 2013). This point
is worth stressing since periodical publishing differed from book publishing in its
structural requirement of a continually subscribing readership. The continuity of
various Vaishnava periodicals for a fairly extensive period (more than two decades in
the case of some) is significant given the fact that they were sustained essentially by
regular monthly or annual subscriptions. Being products of collaborative literary
effort, periodicals were forced to rope in panels of authors to provide regular article
contributions. Most periodicals became flexible enough to provide space for readers
to express their opinions and suggestions through letters to the editors. Periodical
literature thus provided a forum wherein authors and readers could express

ß The Author(s) 2020. Oxford University Press and The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. All rights reserved.
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2 Santanu Dey

opinions, clarify doubts and question viewpoints. This fact not only testifies to the
existence of strong networks among educated devotees, readers and authors in the

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colonial milieu but also provides empirical evidence for a vibrant Vaishnava devo-
tional space within the public sphere in colonial Bengal.
This article explores this voluminous range of periodical literature, which some-
what intriguingly remains largely untapped in scholarship on Bengali Vaishnavism,
particularly in the English language.2 In view of the still rather inchoate picture of
this corpus in current scholarship, I restrict my concern here primarily to mapping
the various features and mechanics of devotional periodical literature between the
1880s and the 1920s. One can discern a general shift in attitudes concerning
Vaishnavism among the Bengali intelligentsia around the beginning of this period,
from a general environment of hostility towards the tradition to a broad acceptance
and even championing of Bengali Vaishnava-related issues and personalities; al-
though the tirade never ceased entirely.3 Throughout the period a vibrant process
of Vaishnava reform was nurtured by a heterogeneous group of Bengalis, including
western-educated reformers, educated successors of hereditary goswami lineages,
members of the socially despised Vaishnava caste or Jati-Vaishnava, conservative
ritual specialists, and literary scholars.
In what follows, I examine a representative sample of Vaishnava periodicals in
order to understand the complex ways in which this heterogenous group sought to
forge points of convergence for Vaishnava culture within the colonial Bengali public
sphere. It should be noted that the periodical corpus itself is scattered across various
public libraries and archives, not just within Bengal but also beyond, in Brindaban
and in certain international institutions, such as the British Library. Moreover, most
periodicals do not exist in a complete, unbroken series in any of the libraries that I
have surveyed, either singly or collectively. Some Vaishnava denominations such as
the Baranagar Pathbari and the Gaudiya Math at Baghbazar hold some of the richest
standalone Vaishnava periodical collections, but the custodians of these archives
make access to them exceedingly difficult. The Bhaktivedanta Research Centre in
Kolkata has been trying for the last decade or so to digitize and build a database of
these journals with some amount of success. These constraints render the findings
presented in this article more akin to tentative snapshots rather than a coherent and
complete film. Even snapshots however can serve as useful point of reference and
orientation with regard to navigating a terrain that is little traversed.
In ‘Shared features and objectives’ section, I examine some of the common features
and objectives of the periodicals that constitute the corpus. In ‘Recurrent themes’
section, I proceed to outline key content-related themes that recur across the corpus.
In ‘Readership and finances’ section, I attend to the related issues of periodical read-
erships and the economics of periodical publishing. The ensuing investigation will, it
is hoped, demonstrate both the centrality and versatility of the role of the periodical
in the broad and multiplex program of Vaishnava retrieval in nineteenth and early
twentieth century Bengal.
 Piety in Print 3

Shared features and objectives

The printed journal, despite being a specifically modern medium, was easily co-opted

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by educated Vaishnavas and projected as an instrument for religious propagation.
This is evinced not least by the names of journals within the corpus. In accordance
with the Vaishnava norm of considering every endeavour or medium of religious
propagation as embodying divine respectability, the names of all devotional period-
icals were prefixed by the common honorific ‘Sri’. The use of appellations like ‘Sangini’
(female companion), ‘Sevika’ (maidservant), ‘Sevaka’ (servant), etc. by these
Vaishnava periodicals similarly reflected traditional notions of Vaishnava humility
and selfless service towards the Vaishnava community. The feminine appellations
used by many devotional periodicals, such as the Vaishnava Sangini, Vaishnava Sevika,
Sajjan Toshani, etc., also hints at conformation to Gaudiya Vaishnava theological
principles of raganuga bhakti, according to which devotees adopt a feminine love
relation to god as the highest form of divine adoration.
The journals that constituted this corpus exhibited evident linguistic common-
alities, considering themselves part of a broader program of ‘devotional propagation’
in ‘simple’ vernacular Bengali among the masses. Their vocabulary and content was
nevertheless rooted in the scriptural and exegetical core of the Gaudiya Vaishnava
tradition, located firmly in the high tradition of the Brindaban Goswamis. These
periodicals saw themselves as conduits for popularizing a ‘correct’ interpretation
of the Vaishnava heritage as a sacred, pious and devotional religion. A somewhat
puritanical spirit of religious righteousness thus pervaded the entire Vaishnava
periodical enterprise. Vaishnavas sought to explain their existence as sacred watch-
dogs preserving the tradition from further effacement and threats of corruption. An
editorial column in the Gaurangapriya framed this task aptly:

People may question that when our vast scriptural corpus of the Vedas,
Puranas, Shruti, Smriti, Tantra, etc. is already extant, what further purpose
will be served by a partial development of the same through a periodical? . . .
Why is it so that despite the presence of so many theological treatises of the
Gaudiya community, like Sri Chaitanya Bhagavat, Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita and
others, there have emerged around four hundred sub-sects within the commu-
nity (sampradaya) that have rendered the real tenets of the tradition almost
unrecognizable? Despite the existence of scriptures, what misplaced faith has
led irreligion to raise its demonic head? Would it be a mistake to say that the
reason lies in lack of proper propagation of the real scriptural tenets? Although
correct advice will not be able to wean away all followers from the path of
irreligion, surely it will help transform those people who follow irreligion out
of misplaced faith?
(Goswami 1923, p. 69)4

These periodicals laid down norms of proper behaviour towards Vaishnavas, as well as
behaviour expected from Vaishnavas. In doing so, they developed a discourse that spoke
4 Santanu Dey

at two levels. At one level, periodical discourse was directed towards guiding a believing
laity in the selection a religious preceptor (guru), the proper performance of rituals, the

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acquisition of foundational knowledge of the scriptures, and so forth. In this sense, it
attempted to be a mode of religious instruction, a didactic method of teaching and
dissemination. At another level, the discourse broadly signaled a warning to what
were perceived as aberrant Vaishnava sects, their believers and sympathizers to reform
their ways. In this regard, not only were almost all periodicals highly antagonistic to-
wards groups like the Sahajiyas, Bauls, and Sahebdhanis, but were also frequently critical
of the traditional goswami classes and akhda-based Vaishnava babajis.
The similarity in substance and structure among Bengali Vaishnava periodicals
underscores their common objective of salvaging the Vaishnava heritage and reju-
venating the Vaishnava community by acting as mediators. They purported to be
official mouthpieces for the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. The Sajjan Toshani, estab-
lished by Kedarnath Datta in 1881, set the parameters for a Vaishnava resuscitation
program with a rather conservative spiritual agenda:

it is the avowed objective of the Sajjan Toshani to not discuss any issues save those
concerning spiritual theory . . . discussions about Hari (harikatha), truths pertain-
ing to Hari (haritattwa) and the treasures of the soul (atma sampatti). Our sole aim
is to discuss the lives of devotees and commentaries on the play of Hari (harilila).
(Datta 1898b, p.129)

Subsequent devotional periodicals stuck closely to this predominantly theological

agenda, which placed a distinct emphasis on notions of divinity, respectability, com-
munity development and the inculcation of a devotional attitude among the masses.
Recapitulating this agenda, the Vaishnava Sangini, edited by Madhusudan Das
Adhikari, spoke in 1905 of creating a ‘new dawn for the setting glory of the
Vaishnava heritage’ by rationalizing the dense Vaishnava theological tenets in sim-
ple language. It envisaged for itself the task of propagating

the essential tenets of the Vaishnavas to those who are unable to comprehend
them from the voluminous works of the scholarly masters of yore and for those
new devotees who loathe to read the conventional traditional poetic renditions
of the Vaishnava classics. The statements made in this periodical will neither be
‘self-manufactured’ nor will they entertain any ‘anti-devotional’ perspectives.
By basing itself essentially on the Chaitanya Charitamrita and other Vaishnava
scriptures, [this periodical] will try to disseminate the essential teachings (and
advice of Chaitanya in a lucid and concise manner that will be necessary for a
bhakta to transform himself from one averse to God (sribhagavadabhimukhya) to
one in the state of enlightenment (siddhadasha).
(Das Adhikari 1905, p.2)

Conforming to normative standards of Vaishnava modesty, the editor considered his

task to be akin to that of a garland manufacturer sewing together the flower-like
 Piety in Print 5

thoughts of Vaishnava masters (prabhus) and offering them to society. He concluded

in characteristic Vaishnava humility that he would be content if his ‘simple gift’

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provided happiness and contentment to devotees and is able to ‘germinate the
seed of devotion in the heart of even a single non-believer’. Similar attitudes were
echoed by the Gauranga Sevaka, published by the Kasimbazar Gaudiya Vaishnava
Sanmilani under the patronage of Maharaj Manindrachandra Nandi (1860–1929),
the renowned Vaishnava zamindar of Kasimbazar in Murshidabad. Lalitamohan
Bandyopadhyay, the journal’s editor, outlined a purely devotional agenda in his
inaugural article in 1910: ‘the overseers of this periodical desire to enable men to
savor the essence of the pure religion of God (bhagavad dharma) and mold their lives
accordingly’. This was reiterated later by Amulyacharan Vidyabhushan in 1918 when
he became the journal’s editor:

The essential task of a servant (sevaka) is service. This Sevaka has arrived to
provide the highest service of all: service for Sri Gauranga. If one can serve Sri
Gauranga, his disciples and their disciples, only then will one’s mortal birth be
considered truly worthwhile.
(Vidyabhushan 1918, p.2)

The optimism of this devotional program remained unabated even in the mid 1920s.
For instance, in 1924, a new periodical named Bishnupriya Gauranga outlined an am-
bitious program that involved: setting up a ‘Marketplace of the Name [of God]’ (namer
hat) in all rural hamlets of Bengal; translating Chaitanya’s divine play (lila) into
various Indian languages and English; ‘converting’ the masses to Chaitanya worship;
promoting discussions on Chaitanya’s lila and theory (tattwa); transforming places
blessed by the grace of Chaitanya into ‘renowned’ pilgrim centers; reasserting alle-
giance with sectarian Vaishnava abbots (mahanta); and, finally, establishing
Nabadwip as the new (naba) Brindaban (Goswami 1924, p.209).
The emergence of these Vaishnava periodicals occurred, of course, against the
backdrop of a rising nationalist tide. However, while a handful of Bengali Vaishnava
periodicals, such as the Bishnupriya Patrika and Narayan, did attempt to reclaim a
cultural space that stood in opposition to British rule, most stopped short of any
aggressive anti-colonial nationalist agenda. Instead, they cultivated a loyalist accept-
ance of British rule, with some even showering praise on the government’s activities.
Yet, this did not prevent many journals from attempting to expand the reach of the
Vaishnava community as a devotional alternative for the Bengalis. During this
period, some even began to portray Chaitanya as the ‘national God’ (jatiya devata)
of the Bengali people. In his 1914 book, Bangalir Thakur Sri Gauranga (‘Sri Gauranga, the
Lord of the Bengalis’), Haridas Goswami even exhorted Bengalis to seek refuge in
Chaitanya as their sole deity:

It is the fortune of the Bengalis that Chaitanya, the resuscitator of the fallen
(kaliyugpabanavatar), had distinguished them by being born in their land. He is
6 Santanu Dey

not only the glory and savior of the Bengali nation; he is the God not only of the
Vaishnavas, but of all classes and religions of Bengal. Whatever be one’s reli-
gion, he has full claim to the Chaitanya heritage.

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(Goswami 1914b, preface)

By the early twentieth century, as English translations of Gaudiya literature emerged

and Bengali Vaishnava missionaries such as Premananda Bharati (1858–1914) began
to travel to the West (Carney 2020), some periodicals began to propose the universal
propagation of Chaitanya bhakti. This is clear from the words of the editor of the
Gaurangapriya, Kunjalal Goswami, who belonged to the Bishnupriya lineage of
Nabadwip:

Nowadays many people in America and other countries are interested in know-
ing about Sri Gauranga . . . many scholars have been trying to translate books of
this religion into western languages with some success. Hopefully, by the ben-
evolence of Sriman Mahaprabhu, this periodical shall also be able to tread that
path.
(Goswami 1923, p.70)

Regarding editorial standards, a number of these periodicals developed clear-cut

professional rules and regulations regarding the content and the procedure of article
submissions, advertisements, and book reviews. Such regulations (niyamavali) also
claimed the right on behalf of the editors to ‘exclude, modify or elaborate and even
purify the language of any article submission’ (Goswami 1923b). This illustrates that
these periodicals considered themselves as effective instruments for organizing a
Vaishnava public sphere. Not only did they try to propagate norms of proper
Vaishnava behaviour but also ensured a regular supply of religio-cultural knowledge
for consumption by the reading public.
We might say, in sum, that the objective of Bengali Vaishnava journals at the cusp
of the twentieth century was three-fold: first and foremost, they attempted to create
a discursive medium for discussing religious issues and constitute a framework of
normative behaviour for Bengali Vaishnavas. Secondly, they sought to act as a com-
bative instrument for defending a faithful community of believers from the contam-
ination of perceived Vaishnava deviance, which was in turn a co-optation of the
legacy of nineteenth century colonial missionaries, Orientalists and ethnographers.
Thirdly, these periodicals acted as conduits for documenting, collecting, processing
and disseminating information about the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, both past and
present, to the community of Bengali Vaishnava readers.

Recurrent themes
There was a large and frequently overlapping pool of writers that contributed con-
tent to the various journals. Most periodicals set aside space at the end of each issue to
 Piety in Print 7

acknowledge receipt of and comment upon the merits of other Vaishnava period-
icals. Some periodicals explicitly stressed the need for journal editors to share their

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material and interact with one another. As the editor of the Vaishnava Sevika com-
mented in 1912:

Exchange of periodicals leads to exchange of ideas, it expands the path towards

societal progress and also provides solutions towards accommodating divergent
ideas of various [Vaishnava] societies (samaj). If these decentralized [Vaishnava]
societies work in a determined manner towards the unification of [Vaishnava]
society, then Hindu society can also be cemented in a disciplined manner.
Although the Sri Vaishnava Sevika is the mouthpiece of householder
Vaishnavas, it caters to the entire Vaishnava society. For this reason it keeps
its contact with [the various] decentralized portions of the society.
(Sashtri 1912b, p.81)

Such literary bonhomie did not, however, automatically signify the emergence of a
unified Vaishnava voice on all issues; indeed, from time to time impassioned polemics
between periodicals over certain divisive issues played out in their pages. Moreover,
not only did periodicals vie with each other for their own respective reading clien-
tele, sometimes even readers objected to overlaps in content matter. A reader drove
home this point sharply in a letter to the editor of the Vaishnava Sevika, wherein he
criticized what he saw as the repetition of the journal’s content in another contem-
porary Vaishnava periodical, the Vaishnava Sangini:

What is the professed aim of Madhusudan babu [the editor of the Vaishnava -
Sangini]? Is not the propagation of devotional scriptures his main aim? If so,
then why is he dabbling in social affairs in his periodical? Can’t he discuss such
issues in the [Vaishnava] Sevika itself? Despite being a member of the Vaishnava
Jatiya Sanmilani, doesn’t he have any responsibility for the stability of the
Sevika? . . . I am merely reminding him of his literary promise.
(Das 1911, p.122)

The fact that this letter was published in the Sri Vaishnava Sevika shows that editors
too supported the need to segregate the reading space. This dynamic interplay be-
tween consensus and contention, unity and plurality among periodicals needs to be
borne in mind in as we proceed to explore some of the themes that recurred most
frequently across the Vaishnava periodical corpus.

i) Vaishnava normativity

Bairagi: Harekrishna!
Lawyer: Babaji, this very name has led to the devastation of our people and our
nation.
Bairagi: Babu, how have we been involved in such despoliation?
8 Santanu Dey

Lawyer: Your religion has caused this ruin.

Bairagi: Our behavior may contain some blemishes, but this decline is not the
result of faults within the religion of Chaitanya.

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(Mukhopadhyay, 1912a, p.161)

This conversation from a short drama published in the Gauranga Sevaka is emblem-
atic of the strategies devised by educated lay Vaishnavas to reassert contemporary
interest in Vaishnavism. The narratives constructed through stories, plays, and
articles sought to reverse the stereotypical images of Vaishnava goswamis and bairagis
represented in nineteenth century colonial Bengali farcical literature. They reas-
serted the need to follow initiation (diksha) and the need of a preceptor (guru) by
castigating the prevailing corruption and moral turpitude of deviant Vaishnava
forms. Vaishnava identity was ironed out through a narrative interplay of purity
and impurity, an extolling of positive virtues and a rejection of sinful behaviour.
While positive normative standards pertaining to proper behaviour by and towards
Vaishnavas were propagated, a virulent antagonism towards ‘debased’ Vaishnava
sects like the Bauls and Sahajiyas was simultaneously projected. Thus, a sharp dis-
tinction between Vaishnava and non-Vaishnava (avaishnava) identity was drawn in
these devotional periodicals.
The Sajjan Toshani took the lead in this effort to create a cleansed version of a
Vaishnava community. The ‘pure’ (shuddha) Vaishnava typified features such as tol-
erance, equanimity, humility, and religiosity and stood as the antithesis of the fallen
Vaishnava. An 1893 article in the journal entitled ‘Good Qualities and
Devotion’(sadgun o bhakti) identified a range of attributes as the qualities of a ‘re-
spectable’ Vaishnava, including: sympathy (daya) for all living beings, sinlessness
(nishpapata), innocence (saralata), truthfulness (satyasrayata), equanimity (samadar-
shittwa), humility (dainya), peacefulness (shanti), reserved behaviour (gambhirjya),
and friendship (maitri). Such traits were to be cultivated by associating with devoted
ascetics (Datta 1893a, pp.11–4). Another article by Kedarnath Datta in 1898 titled
‘Associating with Ascetics’ (sadhujansanga) exhorted Vaishnavas to seek spiritual
salvation not through secluded devotion but rather constant discussion on religious
matters with a true ascetic, who was to be regarded as an intimate friend (praner
bandhu) (Datta 1898a, p.121). Critical to this formulation was the identification of a
‘genuine’ holy person (sadhu). Datta identified avoidance of the company of women
and constant utterance of the name of Krishna as the ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ character-
istics respectively of such a genuine holy person. Other periodicals such as the
Gauranga Sevaka stressed the significance of the preceptor for the Vaishnava initiate,
highlighting humility (binay) and tolerance (sahishnuta) as characteristic Vaishnava
qualities embodied by such a preceptor (Ghosh 1912; Bhattacharya 1914). At the same
time readers were warned to be careful of the ‘fake saint’ (asadhu) since ‘taking refuge
in them would be an act of sacrilege’ (Sashtri 1914, pp.419–24). Having a dig at the
lamentable proliferation of the title ‘Goswami’ and its use by all and sundry, the
Gauranga Sevaka caustically remarked that ‘Nowadays confusion over titles (upadhi
 Piety in Print 9

bibhrat) has pervaded the Gaudiya Vaishnava community like an epidemic.

The appellation “Goswami” has become ubiquitous just like that of “Babu” under

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British rule’ (Thakur 1920, p.203).
Since it was mainly the middle class Vaishnava householders who were the
target audience of the reform agenda, several articles were directly addressed to
them (Sen 1910, p.64). Interestingly, one article titled ‘The Duty of the Ideal
Householder’(adarsha grihir kartavya) likened Vaishnava humility and service (seva)
to an ‘electric lift’ that instantly elevates one from the ground to a higher floor
without working one’s way up the steps (Basu 1920, p.438). The Vishwabandhu pre-
scribed six sins that were to be avoided by Vaishnavas: meting out physical punish-
ments; verbal slander; harboring animosity or enmity; the discourtesy of not greeting
a Vaishnava; exhibiting anger towards a Vaishnava; and, lastly, not exhibiting con-
tentment (harsha) while meeting a Vaishnava (Sarkar 1919a).
There was a great deal of criticism of liminal Vaishnava sects from within the
periodical corpus. To an extent, such criticism represented a form of co-optation of
colonial administrative-ethnographic discourses, but was also clearly informed by
brahmanically inflected Vaishnava conservative discourses that preceded the colo-
nial era (Wong 2018). There was a widely prevalent perception that the Gaudiya
Vaishnava order had been defiled due to the lack of proper gurus and the random
initiation of unworthy people. In his Sajjan Toshani, Kedarnath Datta castigated the
non-Vaishnava behaviour of adopting the ascetic guise (kach/besh dharan) as exem-
plified by sects such as the Kapindri, Churadhari and Atibadi. Their attempts to
personify divinity represented the worst form of moral corruption (Datta 1892a,
1892b). Notions of religious decline in the sense of loss of zeal and character among
Vaishnavas and the penetration of lust (kamukata) within the tradition were also
internalized in the periodical literature. Educated Vaishnavas framed their idea of
‘decline’ in the post-Chaitanya phase as an internal failure of the traditional leaders
of the community. As the Gauranga Sevaka argued:

Chaitanya allowed Nityananda to lead a householder’s life so that his hereditary

lineage would become preachers, teachers and preceptors and uphold the pur-
ity of the Vaishnava faith, initiate Vaishnavas in rituals and discipline . . .
Immediately after the demise of Chaitanya, the Six Goswamis, Eight Kavirajs
and Sixty-Four Mahantas have been preaching the Vaishnava religion in
Bengal. With the passage of time there emerged three primary centers of
Vaishnavism in Bengal: Khardah, Santipur and Saidabad. The goswamis of these
three centers exercise their dominance over the Vaishnava religion till today.
But it is a matter of great regret, sorrow and shame that most of the goswamis of
these three centers are entirely oblivious to preserving Vaishnava rituals,
practices and the very purity of the religion. If such is the state of affairs,
then from whom will Vaishnavas learn about Vaishnava purity and discipline?
(Bandyopadhyay 1910a, p.12)
10 Santanu Dey

The journal advised Vaishnavas to avoid any form of social contact with the liminal
sects, for ‘Just as a drop of oil spoils the purity of water, so meeting, touching, eating

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and even inhaling the breath of such self-styled divinities and their followers defiles
the body through the contamination of sin’ (Kavyatirtha 1915, p.541). The liminal
sects were thus looked upon as an evil morass that was engulfing the entire believing
community.
Another interesting issue touched upon by Vaishnava periodicals was dietary
practice. Colonial vernacular farces had painted a picture of Vaishnavas as secretly
flouting vegetarianism and consuming alcohol and meat. As early as 1896 the Sajjan
Toshani took note of western discourses contending that the human teeth and di-
gestive processes were more attuned to vegetarian diet (Datta 1896). In an effort to
prohibit Vaishnavas from taking to non-vegetarianism the Vaishnava Sevika extolled
the regenerative powers of a vegetarian diet by citing an article by a doctor named
F.C. Penny published in the British Health Review, directing the fallen ‘fish-loving
Vaishnavas’ to take special note (Sashtri 1911a). Self-censure was adopted as a means
to convey to the readers the norms of proper dietary practice (Gosain 1912). Another
article on ‘Diet and Vaishnava Religion’ (ahar o vaishnava dharma) in the Gauranga
Sevaka contended that a possible reason for the Bengali educated middle-class’ aver-
sion towards Vaishnavism was its bias towards a non-vegetarian diet, considering as
they do victual norms to be irrelevant to spiritual progress (Mukherjee 1919, pp. 355–
66). Distinguishing between religions favouring animal-sacrifice, such as Vedic
Brahmanism, Christianity, Shaivism, Shaktism, Confucianism, etc., and non-
sacrificial traditions, such as Jainism, Buddhism, and Vaishnavism, the article
attempted to make a case for the latter through an appeal to reason. Meat-eating
might be a valid method of obtaining food at an early stage of human evolution when
humans had not yet learned to produce food by agriculture means. The author cited
references from medical discourses on the structure of the human teeth and stomach
and evidence of the increasing spread of Vegetarian and Humanitarian societies in
the West to buttress his view in favor of the ideal of non-violence as advocated by
Vaishnavism. The article proposed that ritual sacrifice actually meant ‘sacrifice of
objects related to the sensory organs, in the sense of self-sacrifice and a sacrifice of
lust’. Contending that there exists a direct connection between religious thought and
the type of food one eats, it stated that

with the consumption of gross (tamasik) food, such as fish and meat, the seeds
of enmity spread in the body and these gradually make a man violent, cruel,
corrupt and cheating . . . Thus, the consumption of non-vegetarian food is not
conducive to spiritual upliftment.
(Mukherjee 1919, p.366)
 Piety in Print 11

ii) Vaishnava superiority

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All Vaishnava periodicals attempted to promote Vaishnavism as the highest evolu-
tion of religion. This is evidenced not least by the plethora of articles that contain
titles such as ‘The Supremacy of Vaishnava Religion’ (vaishnava dharmer sresthata)
(Sashtri 1914), ‘The Superiority of the Religion of Chaitanya’ (sri gaurdharmer sarbot-
karsha) (Bandyopadhyay 1920) and so forth, which abound in the corpus. Such articles
contended that the magnificence of Vaishnavism lay in loving one’s enemies (shatrur
prati prem), universal love (biswa premikata), liberalism (udarata), and compassion for
all living beings (sarva jibe daya). Gaudiya Vaishnavism was portrayed as the reposi-
tory of these impulses and on this basis inherently superior to other religions, both
Vedic and non-Vedic. One article in the Gauranga Sevaka entitled ‘The Fundamental
Aspects and Layers of Vaishnava Religion’ (vaishnava dharmer moulikattwa o starbhed)
argued that although Vishnu was present in the Vedas, that age ‘did not witness a
proper development’ of Vaishnava ideas. Rather, it was only in the Puranic age that
‘Vaishnavism began to branch out like a tree,’ for it was during this period, the author
maintained, that people ‘for the first time felt the need to establish an intimate
personal relation between the devotee and God’ (Brahmachari 1912). This effort to
establish the superiority of Vaishnavism sometimes led to patently fictitious repre-
sentations of the past. Referencing a tract published in another contemporary jour-
nal, Gambhira, one contributor to the Gaurangapriya went so far as to argue that Martin
Luther, the early modern German Protestant reformer, had come to Puri to meet
Chaitanya and receive his blessings (Ray 1924, p.223).
Some articles argued for Vaishnava superiority on the basis of its ritual process. A
1914 article titled ‘The Glory of Devotion’ (bhakti mahatmya) in the Gauranga Sevaka
glorified the place of devotional ritual within the Vaishnava tradition. It argued that
although the philosophical systems of India had established various concepts of
salvation, none had come close to the Vaishnava method of worship (bhajan pranali),
which was the ritual process for actually realizing this concept. It is only by keeping
oneself away from sins that a human realizes the ultimate superiority of worship of
bhagavan and can be said to be on the path towards salvation. Performing worship
(archana puja) to Narayan will lead to a change in one’s approach towards the idol,
conceiving him not as a god but rather an intimate relative. This process is called the
path of passion (raga) and automatically leads one’s mind towards the supreme des-
tination, Brindaban (Dev Sharma 1914).
One particularly oft-used motif for conveying Vaishnavism’s superiority was the
portrayal of the rural countryside as a repository of unalloyed religiosity. Articles
implicitly contended that the external artificiality of life in a city had to be simmered
by visits to Vaishnava sites located in the countryside. Numerous stories and articles
in Vaishnava periodicals portrayed visits by urban educated men involved in service
(chakri) from Calcutta to sacred personalities and locales. This dichotomy between
artificial urban educated gentility and authentic devotional rural simplicity is a key
trope in many articles. From here it was merely a small step to the logical conclusion
12 Santanu Dey

implicit in these portrayals that urban modernity had robbed or at least veiled the
heart of Bengalis from the real religion of their hearts.

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iii) Vaishnava practices and rituals

Articles on the performance of Vaishnava rituals featured ubiquitously within the

pages of periodicals of this period. A particularly strong accent was placed on the
centrality of the role of guru within proper Vaishnava practice. An article from 1911
in the Gauranga Sevaka on the ‘The Eligibility for Initiation’ (dikshar adhikar) criticized
the attempt by some contemporaries to seek salvation through meditation alone and
instead propounded a return to the rigours of traditional Vaishnava ritual, especially
the acceptance of initiation (diksha), even by the masses (including lower classes and
women), which it insisted was mandated by scriptures such as the Haribhaktivilas
(Thakur 1911). The guru moreover had to be bona-fide, that is, formally affiliated
with a Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition (sampradayik). Leaders who distributed self-
manufactured initiatory rituals to unworthy initiates were categorically denounced.
These periodicals thus almost univocally propagated a renewed emphasis on the
institution of guruship that had been lambasted in colonial discourse.
A number of articles on the theme of ritual displayed a socially reformative bent.
For example, one such article in the Vishwabandhu argued for the worship of shala-
gram shilas (fossilized shell considered by Hindus to be an iconic symbol of Vishnu),
traditionally the preserve of Brahmins, to be accessible to Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and
Sat-Sudras. It went on to cite instances of prominent non-Brahmin Vaishnava gurus
initiating Brahmins, as in the case of the Baidya Narahari Sarkar, the Kayastha
Narottam Das, and Chaitanya himself, who took initiation from a Kayastha named
Ishwar Puri (Sarkar 1919d). Some of the regimens prescribed lay in the sphere of
extra-rational traditionalism. For instance, in 1919, the Vishwabandhu propagated a
regular schedule of bathing thrice-a-day—at sunrise, mid-day, and evening—as a
panacea for good health and sound devotion: ‘This three-time daily bathing schedule
leads to the automatic emergence of devotion, to the natural inclination towards
harinam and the realization of all religious concepts’. Strangely, the journal advanced
scriptural ‘proof’ for the performance of the same in the case of Chaitanya,
Bishnupriya, Raghunath Das Goswami, and other Brindaban Goswamis (Sarkar
1919c).
By the late nineteenth century Vaishnava auspicious dates (tithi) and festivals
(mahotsav) had begun to be celebrated en masse by the Vaishnava periodical read-
ership. The surge in such observances among the educated Bengali Vaishnava com-
munity is corroborated by the proliferation of Vaishnava almanacs (panjika) during
this period.5 A good example of these almanacs is that published by Sri Gauranga
Grantha Mandir at Panihati, patronized by the Nityananda order. The text was repro-
duced in the Gauranga Sevaka (1927, pp.52–3, 118–9). It included a list of birth and
death anniversary celebrations of Bengali Vaishnava personalities from Chaitanya’s
 Piety in Print 13

time through to the contemporary period. Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati, founder of

the Gaudiya Math and Mission, had in 1897 established the ‘Saraswat Chatuspathi’ at

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Maniktala to foster study in astrology and published two periodicals named Jyotirbid
and Brihashpati that culminated in the compilation of the Bhaktibhavan Panjika
(Maharaj 1968, pp.54–5). By 1925, the Gaudiya Math began to publicize almanacs
by Bhaktisiddhanta that judged astrological data (including bar, tithi, nakshatra,
mas, hritu, barsha, and abda) and determined the respective dates of the birth and
demise of all major and some minor Gaudiya Vaishnava personalities, along with
prescriptions for the performance of requisite fasts and festivals (Saraswati 1928).
The most significant among Vaishnava tithis was, of course, that of Chaitanya’s
birth anniversary. Contrary to the contention that the Gauranga Samaj and the
Bishnupriya Patrika group was the first to organize Chaitanya’s birth anniversary
celebrations (mahotsava) in 1899 (Bhatia 2009, pp.283–91), evidence from the Sajjan
Toshani reveals that Kedarnath Datta, under the aegis of the Vishwa Vaishnava Raj
Sabha, had already initiated the public celebration of this festival in 1885. The Sajjan
Toshani reported that Chaitanya’s 400th birth anniversary celebration was attended
by at least 300 householder devotees on Sunday 19 Falgun, 1885 at 22, Krishna Singha
Lane in North Calcutta, and presided over by Bipin Bihari Goswami of the Baghnapara
Vaishnava community. The celebration included performance of namsankirtan and
speeches. Interestingly, it was at this meeting that Datta proposed the use of the
‘Chaitanya Era’ (chaitanyabda/gaurabda), which took Chaitanya’s birth in 1486 as its
point of reference, within the Bengali Vaishnava community (Datta 1885a). The
journal informed its readers that such celebrations were also organized in
Nabadwip and Krishnanagar (Datta 1885b). Vaishnavas associated with the
Gauranga Sevaka also took a leading role in the celebration of festivities (mahotsavas)
in honor of the birth anniversaries of Vaishnava personalities such as Nityananda
and Advaita (Basu 1911, 1912). In 1911, the journal reported that the latter’s birth was
celebrated with éclat on Makar Saptami at Kasimbazar’s Saidabad palace temple of
Radhamadhab. Kirtan was performed by Pratapchandra Majumdar (the in-house
kirtan singer of the palace) and Bipinbihari Haridas of Krishnamati, Bhagavadpath
(Basu 1913).

iv) Vaishnava lives and sites

The compilation and chronicling of Vaishnava lives was an essential task assumed by
all Vaishnava periodicals. There appears to have been a profound urge among con-
temporary intellectuals to chronologically date texts, the occurrence of events and
the life span of important Vaishnavas. This clearly reflected the new mode of ‘critical-
historical consciousness’ that had arisen in colonial Bengal as a direct result of the
introduction of western disciplines such as history and literature into colonial edu-
cational curricula (Wong 2014). Biographical sketches (vaishnava jivani), with a keen
14 Santanu Dey

eye on chronology, thus occupied a significant space within the pages of the
periodicals.

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Such biographies may be broadly categorized into three types. First, biographic
entries about contemporaries of Chaitanya. In this segment Vaishnava periodicals
attempted to cover a wide array of sacred lives of well-known as well as lesser known
devotees of Chaitanya. Emphasis in these narratives was placed on the rescue of the
fallen, as in the Gauranga Sevaka’s account of Nityananda’s deliverance of two dacoits,
who were identified as a Muslim named Keramat and a Hindu named Kalu Sardar at a
place called Handidaha in the dense forests near Santipur (Saraswati 1913). The
second layer of biographies dealt with post-Chaitanya Vaishnava leaders such as
Narottama Das Thakur, Srinivasa Acharya, Shyamananda Prabhu, Baladev
Bidyabhushan, Krishnadas Kaviraj, as well as some lesser known figures of the
Vaishnava movement such as Jadunandan Das (a disciple of Das Gadadhar at
Malihati Sripat in Murshidabad District) and Ganganarayan Chakrabarti (a disciple
of Narottam Thakur). Finally, the third layer of biographies pertained to contempor-
ary influential Vaishnavas. The Gauranga Sevaka ran a series of articles entitled ‘The
Nectarean Tales of Bijay’ (bijay kathamrita) about the former Brahmo Bijaykrishna
Goswami that highlighted his contributions to Vaishnavism in the 1890s (Bagchi
1921). It also carried biographical sketches of contemporary bhaktas, such as those
of Sakshigopal Boral (1863–1927), a prominent Subarnabanik patron, businessman,
follower of Nityananda and founding member of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sanmilani,
who played a major role in the reclamation and annual festivities at the Pathbari of Sri
Uddharan Datta at Saptagram (Nandi 1927); and Sitanath (1840–1912), a lawyer by
profession and follower of Srinivas Acharya, who established the Padmapukhuria
Haribhakti Pradayini Sabha at Baruipur in the suburbs of Calcutta (Bandyopadhyay
1927). Periodicals also published obituaries of locally important contemporary
Vaishnavas. In some cases, genealogies of famous Gaudiya Vaishnava families were
also given in periodicals perhaps to inform the public about pure guru lineages
(Ghosh 1927, p.59).
Among the personalities whose memory the Vaishnava periodicals strove to re-
suscitate, Bishnupriya Devi, the second wife of Chaitanya, deserves special mention.
Interest in Bishnupriya was generated particularly by Sisir Kumar Ghosh, who strove
to memorialize Chaitanya in the image of the eternal householder rather than that of
the ascetic Gauranga (Basu 1920, p.400). This new theory, which posited implicit
ontological equivalence between Gaur-Bishnupriya and Radha-Krishna, was consid-
ered an innovation even by some in its attempt to move beyond, and even challenge,
conventional Gaudiya Vaishnava understandings of gender, intimacy, and relation-
ship (Goswami 1914a). The image of the sacred duo of Gaur-Bishnupriya is almost
non-existent in pre-colonial Gaudiya Vaishnava theological treatises and was con-
sidered problematic in certain, more traditionalist Vaishnava quarters. A large num-
ber of poems dedicated to Bishnupriya were regularly published in Sisir Ghosh’s
Bishnupriya Patrika. Poems advocating the worship of the sacred duo conceptualized
in terms of the meeting of two lovers (jugal milan), all with the refrain that
 Piety in Print 15

Bishnupriya was to be accorded the role of a conjugal partner of Chaitanya, were also
published in the journal (Goswami and Goswami 1898a, 1898b, 1898c). It was based on

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this perspective that some other Vaishnava devotional periodicals of the period, such
as the Viswabandhu, took up the cause of Bishnupriya worship.
Another major related focal point of the corpus was the publicization and reno-
vation of Vaishnava holy centers (sripat). Through this process a sacred matrix of
Vaishnava territorial sites across Bengal was charted anew by Vaishnava intellec-
tuals of the period. Reports of the annual sessions of the Kasimbazar Gaudiya
Vaishnava Sanmilani in the Gauranga Sevaka reveal an all-out effort to physically
resuscitate ‘lost’ religious sites (tirtha), collect detailed information on Vaishnava
sripats and raise funds for such ventures. Patrons such as Manindrachandra Nandi
took the initiative of seeking financial assistance from the public and setting up
committees to renovate sripats, such as that of Srinivas Acharya, the seventeenth
century Vaishnava emissary of the Brindaban Goswamis, at Chakundi and Jajigram in
the Burdwan district. To this end, the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sanmilani even formed a
committee named ‘Sri Acharya Parishad’ to recuperate relevant sites at rural centers
such as Malihati, Nabagram, and Banbishnupur (Sankhyatirtha 1911a). One contribu-
tor to the journal urged educated devotees to access the spiritual reservoir of devo-
tion at the various Vaishnava sacred sites with earnestness:

Although many of these [sites] have been lost due to the ravages of time, there
remains much to be retrieved by the Vaishnavas . . . Please grace yourself by
visiting the sites connected with Srinivas Acharya and Narottam Thakur. The
river of Vaishnava devotion is still flowing at sripats Chakundi, Jajigram,
Kheturi, Budhuri, Gambhila, Budhuipara, etc. The intelligent bhakta can easily
access the nectar of devotion (premamrita) that flows beneath these places by
removing the sand and mud of worldly life (samsar).
(Bandyopadhyay 1914)

Periodicals collected information and documented current events, including festivals,

deaths, establishment of temples, etc. in the Vaishnava world for consumption by the
developing Vaishnava public sphere. By the early 1920s, the Gauranga Sevaka had begun
a series of articles by Amulyadhan Raybhatta entitled ‘The Circumambulation of
Gaurmandala’ (gaurmandala parikrama) that reviewed sripats one by one (Raybhatta
1920a).6 Other articles by Bhatta in the journal included his accounts of Chaitanya’s
pilgrimage to Gaya in 1502 (Raybhatta 1927) and the sripat of Kashishwar Pandit/
Shankararanya (Raybhatta 1920, pp.617–23). Among several other neglected sripats
mentioned by the Gauranga Sevaka was that of Ishwar Puri’s birthplace at Kumarhata
(Halishahar in 24 Parganas), known locally as ‘Chaitanya Khat’ or ‘Chaitanya Doba’. An
article in 1927 reported that the place had become a soiling spot by local ‘mlechha’
porters and laborers, earnestly appealing to the journal’s readers to come forward and
reclaim the place for the Vaishnavas (Mukherjee 1927).
16 Santanu Dey

v) Vaishnava images

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In a context of increasing visual transmission, photographs of pata paintings and
lithographic images of Hindu divinities began to gain wide reception among Bengalis
of the colonial period (Smith 1997). The notion of ‘darsan’, or seeing the divine image
and the act of being seen by God (Eck 1988), holds, of course, particular appeal for the
Vaishnavas of Bengal, and the new visual forms were easily co-opted by the emerging
Bengali Vaishnava literary sphere. Several editions of the Chaitanya Charitamrita
contained wood cut illustrations and sepia-toned prints in the early 1880s. These
illustrations appeared in grey-scale and later three- and four-colour separations in
the early twentieth century (Dimock and Stewart 1999). Periodicals became sites for
advertising the sale of photographs of saints and gods. In a review of Calcutta Art
Studio images of Hindu divinities by a periodical in 1893 we hear of the publication of
a lithographic image of Chaitanya with his entourage in sankirtan at Nabadwip. We
find mention of another chromolithograph version of Chaitanya’s sankirtana pro-
duced by the Chorebagan Art Studio of Calcutta in the early 1880s. The chromo-litho
image of ‘The Renunciation of Chaitanya’ (gaur sannyas) as well as numerous Radha-
Krishna pictures from the Poona Chitrashala were advertised in the Amrita Bazar
Patrika of 1893 (Bhadra 2011, pp.343–51). The sale of photographs of the dual idols
(yugalmurti) of Gaur-Bishnupriya established at Nabadwip were advertised in the
Sajjan Toshani in 1898 (Datta 1898c). In the Bishnupriya Patrika of 1898, a person named
Satyacharan Sharma wrote that while researching for biographical materials on
Maharaja Nandakumar he discovered a pat picture of Chaitanya preserved in a
dilapidated box at the Kunjaghat residence of a descendant of the family. The actual
picture was supposedly given to the latter by his guru Radhamohan Thakur, whose
great grandfather, Srinivas Acharya, received from Prataprudra Deva, the Gajapati
ruler of Orissa. The picture portrayed Chaitanya at Nilachal Puri with Prataprudra
kneeling in front of him. An associate, probably Gadadhar, was reciting the Bhagavata
Purana while four or five people listened (Sharma 1898, p.242). Advertisements in the
Sri Vaishnava Sevika announced the sale of new editions of Vaishnava literature,
especially the Chaitanya Charitamrita, seeking to enhance marketability by distribut-
ing free prints of Radha-Krishna’s footprints (charan jugal) (Sashtri 1911b). In this
way, divine images began to infiltrate common Bengali households en masse at
relatively nominal rates. At times the visual and the written were merged, as in,
for instance, when certain periodicals exhorted their readers to write down the
prescriptions and prohibitions regarding the repetition of God’s name (nam) on a
piece of paper, bind and frame it with a glass front and hang it on the wall in a manner
‘where you can easily see it’ (Das 1911). At various fairs, Vaishnava or otherwise,
pictorial depictions of Chaitanya were often exhibited for the public. The Bishnupriya
Patrika of 1898 refers to such a fair at the adjoining bazaar beside Naihati railway
station in the Hooghly district, where pictures produced by painters from Nadia
depicted various episodes from Chaitanya’s life. It reviewed the Vaishnava art on
display approvingly:
 Piety in Print 17

1st picture: Chaitanya’s birth and then his sashti puja image, a fantastic sight. 2nd
picture: the Panchatattwa image of the five leaders of the Vaishnava faith
including Gauranga, Nityananda, Advaita, etc. are filled with emotion; looking

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at them soothes the heart. 3rd picture: Sadabhuj or six-armed image of
Chaitanya. 4th picture: the advance of the Kazi’s group to break the drums
(khol) of Prabhu’s nagarkirtan group. All have sticks in their hand and exhibit
spiteful faces. The bhaktas are depicted as immersed in kirtan, looking towards
Prabhu with fearless faces. 5th picture: the subduing the unbelievers (pashanda
dalan) episode. It shows Chaitanya and Nityananda in the middle of a kirtan
group. I gained a lot of satisfaction by looking intently at these images. If such
exhibitions (pradarshani) are held in different towns then everyone can witness
Prabhu’s play (lila).
(Das 1897, pp.88–9)

3. Readership and finances

Vaishnava periodicals were calibrated to speak to Bengali reading communities
distributed across the Bengal region as well as beyond it. They sought to shape
opinion regarding Vaishnavism among various segments of the educated lay
Bengali Vaishnava middle classes and vied for roughly the same reading audiences.
An important clue to the constitution of the audiences that sustained the periodical
corpus is found in the detailed subscription lists that were often appended to the back
covers of periodical issues. The Gauranga Sevaka’s subscription lists, for instance,
reveal that the periodical was read by a cross-section of Bengali society, ranging
from middling castes with family names such as Sarkar, Kundu, and Datta to upper
caste Brahmins with family names such as Sarbabhauma and Chaudhuri. These lists
also enable us to comprehend the spatial reach of these periodicals, which were in
many cases considerably broad, transcending the urban-rural divide. The Gauranga
Sevaka was circulated to readers located in Akyab (modern Sittwe) in British Burma,
Tripura, Mathura, Calcutta, Jabbalpur, Nabadwip, Dinajpur, Chawk Bazar (Dacca),
Habaspur, and Naldanga in the Khulna District (Bandyopadhyay 1911). That period-
icals attached considerable importance to their readers is exemplified by the
Vishwabandhu’s request to its readers to report to the journal’s office even temporary
changes of residential address and expected duration of stay at a transitory station to
ensure the prompt delivery of its issues (Sarkar 1919b). Similarly, the Gaurangapriya
earnestly requested its subscribers to write their residential addresses along with
their allocated subscriber number in ‘clear legible handwriting, preferably both in
Bengali and in English’ to avoid dispatch errors resulting in distress for the readers
and financial loss for the publishers (Goswami 1923).
Letters to the editor from inquisitive or concerned readers that found their way
into the pages of many periodicals provide valuable insight into the mindset of the
Vaishnava reading public. It appears that readers often subscribed to more than one
periodical. Some readers did not want to end up reading about the same subjects in
18 Santanu Dey

the periodicals to which they subscribed. In this regard, one reader who subscribed to
both the Vaishnava Sangini and the Vaishnava Sevika expressed his consternation in a

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letter to the editor of the latter periodical thus:

Sevika refers to a young girl, while Sangini means a mature lady. Many people
subscribe to both the Vaishnava Sangini and the Sevika. If the Sangini too takes
up social issues for discussion, then it would be extremely difficult to save the
life of the Sevika.
(Das 1911, p.122)

Similarly, the Vaishnava Sevika’s publication of information relating to Vaishnavas,

drawn from the 1901 Census, was objected to by numerous readers on the basis of its
questionable value and validity. The journal’s editors nevertheless continued with
this practice for the ‘greater good’ of informing the public of the need to rectify their
response in the forthcoming 1911 Census (Sashtri 1911c). The discursive space that
was forged through the periodical corpus was thus evidently a reciprocal one involv-
ing a symbiotic interface between periodical editors and their respective
readerships.
The urgency to reach out to and be read widely across the emerging community of
devotee readers evidently superseded the goal of preserving a niche devotee clientele
for one’s periodical. By the late nineteenth century, Bengalis, in seeking the benefits
of education (vidya) and employment (chakri), had gained a diasporic status that
spanned the entire subcontinent.7 It was this Bengali predominance in the employ-
ment registers of the colonial bureaucracy that facilitated and sustained the net-
works of a growing periodical readership. Another factor that undoubtedly
facilitated journal circulation was the change in Postal Departmental policies
effected in 1853 by Lord Dalhousie’s decision to pass a new law on postage whereby
rates were standardized and regulated, and magazines and newspapers received the
special privilege of lower charges.8
Periodicals were envisaged more as instruments for religious propagation by pas-
sionate devotees and less as commercial ventures per se. But even religious dissem-
ination through the printing press forced upon this process its own dynamic of fiscal
discipline. Rich patrons certainly alleviated to a great extent the uncertainties of
commercial viability that had to be otherwise assiduously built up through sub-
scriber support. Periodicals such as the Gauranga Sevaka that were patronized by
devout zamindaris were thus able to retain a notable publication consistency. Yet,
even the Gauranga Sevaka repeatedly exhorted its subscribers in its segment ‘Request
to Subscribers’ (grahakder prati nibedan) to send advance subscriptions within good
time to ensure smooth publication (Sankhyatirtha 1911b). Economic self-
sustainability through benevolent patronage by men of wealth was however a priv-
ilege that only a few periodicals could enjoy. Some editors indeed explicitly
highlighted the lack of financial support from affluent zamindars. For instance, while
 Piety in Print 19

setting up a public collection drive to support its operation, the editor of the
Vaishnava Sevika lamented:

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Even the periodical Sadgop . . . receives a handsome grant of 500 rupees from
the Narail Raj Bahadur . . . but the Sri Vaishnava Sevika is the periodical of the
poorest community of India [i.e. Jati-Vaishnava], so no raja or maharaja is will-
ing to patronize it. It will have to be organized on the collective subscription of
the Vaishnava community. If Vaishnavas consider this periodical as their own,
then there will be no hindrance to its publication.
(Sashtri, 1911d, pp.15–16)

In fact, it could be said that most periodicals of this period were perennially plagued
by the specter of scant finances and the risk of a dwindling subscriber base. The editor
of the Vaishnava Sevika alluded to just such a concern in 1911:

O Gaurhari! Don’t we know how difficult it is to operate a periodical? Haven’t

we heard how numerous journals have vanished immediately after their incep-
tion due to lack of sufficient support, like a shadow on water? Haven’t we seen
that it is impossible for a periodical to achieve permanence without the support
of one’s countrymen? Even after knowing, hearing and seeing this, why have
we, o Gaurhari? With what audacity and hope have we taken upon ourselves
the responsibility of publishing Sri Vaishnava Sevika? . . . Moreover, our period-
ical is devoid of any article on science, industry, agriculture, commerce or
economy; only articles on sociology and religion that are inspired by our
kind Lord and concerned with the development of the Vaishnava community
are published in it; is it imprudent for us to go ahead and publish a journal with
such intentions?
(Sashtri 1911d, pp.13–14)

That the Vaishnava Sevika, like so many other Vaishnava periodicals of the period,
abruptly ceased its operations within a couple of years exposes the weaknesses that
plagued such collective religio-reformist efforts. A similar condition of financial
bankruptcy was cited as a reason for a proposed merger of the Sonar Gauranga and
Bishnupriya Gauranga in 1924 (Babaji 1924). In response to this proposal, the editor of
the latter declared itself to be an ‘infant periodical without strength to stand up on its
own legs’ and so acceded to a merger of the two names on the condition it would not
be burdened with any other liability. In all probability, the merger did not succeed
and, as the archival collections of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad indicate, the Sonar
Gauranga survived for at least another four years until 1928. This incident highlights
the rather uncertain and tenuous financial existence of many devotional periodicals.
Editors consistently printed lists of prominent contributors and subscribers in the
pages of their periodicals. While this may have been with the expressed aim of
transparency, it is probable that this practice also doubled up as a method of show-
casing its illustrious clientele in pursuance of new readers. Most periodicals
20 Santanu Dey

attempted to remain financially buoyant by seeking advertisements for which elab-

orate rate charts were appended to their pages. While some journals like the

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Gaurangapriya charged on the basis of space allocation per page (ranging from five
rupees for a full page to one rupee for an eighth of a page), others such as the Gauranga
Sevaka were more professional, charging advertisers per line at the rate of six annas
for the first three advertisements. The Vaishnava Sevika combined the methods of
charging advertisers according to both space and line with varying rates for quar-
terly, half yearly and annual charges (Sashtri 1911b). All editors were, however, eager
to woo advertisers with special rates that were to be fixed on the basis of ‘direct
communication’ between them. Despite such elaborate attempts, advertisements in
these devotional journals were rather rare and the ones that did appear related
mostly to devotional books and printing presses. Most periodicals also promised
concessions or complete waivers to those advertisers who claimed to genuinely serve
the community. The Gauranga Sevaka thus pledged to publish free of cost all advertise-
ments that sought to preserve the Vaishnava heritage or promote the welfare of the
Vaishnavas. The Vaishnava Sevika, on the other hand, offered its own subscribers a
special 25% discount on the normal advertising rates. Householder Vaishnavas were
also entitled to advertise names of prospective brides and grooms in the journals’
matrimonial columns free of cost.

Conclusion
From the late nineteenth century, periodical literature played an increasingly cen-
tral role in the Vaishnava resurgence in Bengal. These periodicals originated largely,
but not exclusively, in middle class leadership and were employed as a vital means of
shaping notions of Vaishnava devotion and culture among educated Bengali
Vaishnavas. They served a spatially diverse readership, nurturing the growth of
Vaishnava community consciousness. As well as serving as a unique vista into the
interconnections between the emerging Vaishnava culture, print readership, and
authorship in the colonial milieu, the Vaishnava periodical corpus affords vivid in-
sight into the nature of the Bengali intellectual investment in the Vaishnava retrieval
process. Issues concerning illicit sexual digression and low-caste ritual pollution
within Vaishnavism stoked by colonial missionary, administrative, and orthodox
Brahmanical discourses provoked critical reactions from educated Vaishnavas of
colonial Bengal. These Vaishnavas engaged in developing an effective counter nar-
rative of moral rectitude and ritual purity, of social probity and theological magna-
nimity for their tradition, which they sought to communicate to an educated and
increasingly engaged reading public.

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Notes
1 I would like to express my sincere thanks to Lucian Wong (Oxford Centre for Hindu
Studies) for his insightful comments and indispensable assistance in editing this
article.
2 One of the first studies on a Vaishnava periodical was Jason Fuller’s analysis of
Kedarnath Datta’s Sajjan Toshani, which attempts to understand the print-based emer-
gence and sustenance of a religious community through the conceptual lens of habitus
(2003, pp.173–210). More recently, Varuni Bhatia has analysed Sisir Kumar Ghosh’s
Bishnupriya Patrika in terms of Bengali middle class strategies of cultural nationalist
anamnesis or memorialization of the Chaitanya heritage (2017, pp.124–60).
3 It seems that by the third decade of the twentieth century the dynamism of the
Vaishnava periodical sphere had begun to fall from the heights it achieved in
the immediately preceding period. This was likely the result, in part at least, of the
wave of nationalism that had begun to impact the broader Bengali periodical sphere.
The periodicals that remained after this period (e.g. Gaudiya, Shyamsundar, Bhagavad
Dharma, Nitai Sundar, etc.) became mouthpieces of specific sectarian institutions or
cults. As Rasikmohan Vidyabhushan, editor of the GaurangaPriya lamented in 1923:
‘Although there is no dearth of readable monthly or fortnightly journals for the
believing public (bhakta samaj), a scarcity of efficiently functioning and well-written
periodicals has been felt for quite some time. The Sri Bishnupriya Patrika, the old Sajjan
Toshani, the Sri Sri Gauranga Bishnupriya Patrika, the Vaishnava Sangini, the Bhakti Patrika,
and the SriGauranga Sevaka are all famous monthly journals that used to discuss issues
relating to the Vaishnava religion. Although some of these journals are still in circu-
lation today, they have lost their former literary wisdom and glorious effervescent
devotional essence’ (Vidyabhushan 1923).
4 All translations from Bengali to English are my own, unless otherwise stated.
5 Gautam Bhadra has recently pointed to the rising popularity of the panjika in the
broader Bengali Hindu context, not only as a text regulating Hindu society but also
as a vibrant site for performances, images, and reading practices. By the early twen-
tieth century, popular demand had led almanac publishers to include some Vaishnava
observances with the suffix ‘as stated by Goswamis’ (Bhadra 2014).
6 Amulyadhan Raybhatta, who compiled the Dwadash Gopal on the twelve Gopalas of
Nityananda in 1923, was a regular contributor to the Gauranga Sevaka and many por-
tions of this work was first serialized in its pages (Raybhatta 1919).
7 In 1873, on his return from his travels in north-west India, Lal Behari Dey (1824–94)
proudly catalogued the occupational achievements of the Bengalis: ‘The head writer of
every public office in the North West is a Bengali. The Deputy Post Master of every tapal
office is a Bengali. The head masters of most English schools are Bengali. Most of the
24 Santanu Dey

business connected with the Railway and Electric telegraph departments of the North
West is managed by Bengalis . . . I have never yet met a man or heard of a man who has
denied that the Bengalis are a highly intelligent race’ (1873, pp.183–4).

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8 This came about as a result of demands for the same in a memorial to the Government
in 1850 and was to an extent inspired by the Penny Postage Legislation passed in 1840,
the initiative of Sir Rowland Hill in England (Majumdar 1917, pp.188–90).