elements, but no new and original current of thought or
devotion has been started.

Though the two great sects associated with the names of Caitanya and
Vallabhacarya have different geographical spheres and also present
some differences in doctrinal details, both are emotional and even
erotic and both adore Krishna as a child or young man. Their almost
simultaneous appearance in eastern and western India and their rapid
growth show that they represent an unusually potent current of ideas
and sentiments. But the worship of Krishna was, as we have seen,
nothing new in northern India. Even that relatively late phase in
which the sports of the divine herdsman are made to typify the love of
God for human souls is at least as early as the Gita-govinda written
about 1170. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the history of
Krishna worship is not clear,[621] but it persisted and about 1400
found speech in Bengal and in Rajputana.

According to Vaishnava theologians the followers of
Vallabhacarya[622] are a section of the Rudra-sampradaya founded in
the early part of the fifteenth century by Vishnusvami, an emigrant
from southern India, who preached chiefly in Gujarat. The doctrines of
the sect are supposed to have been delivered by the Almighty to Siva
from whom Vishnusvami was fifteenth in spiritual descent, and are
known by the name of _Suddhadvaita_ or pure non-duality. They teach
that God has three attributes--_sac-cid-ananda_--existence,
consciousness and bliss. In the human or animal soul bliss is
suppressed and in matter consciousness is suppressed too. But when the
soul attains release it recovers bliss and becomes identical in nature
with God. For practical purposes the Vallabhacaris may be regarded as
a sect founded by Vallabha, said to have been born in 1470. He was the
son of a Telinga Brahman, who had migrated with Vishnusvami to the
north.

Such was the pious precocity of Vallabha that at the age of twelve he
had already discovered a new religion and started on a pilgrimage to
preach it. He was well received at the Court of Vijayanagar, and was
so successful in disputation that he was recognized as chief doctor of
the Vaishnava school. He subsequently spent nine years in travelling
twice round India and at Brindaban received a visit from Krishna in
person, who bade him promulgate his worship in the form of the divine
child known as Bala Gopala. Vallabha settled in Benares and is said to
have composed a