ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a sketch of the ‘social anatomy’ of the diffuse Caitanya Vaiṣṇava community in Bengal by estimating who and how many they were, and how they were distributed in social and geographic terms. 1 It consists of five different probes into its demographics and provides empirical data bearing upon several of the issues discussed in the preceding chapters. To the extent feasible, we draw upon what quantifiable evidence is provided by Caitanya Vaiṣṇava biographical and hagiographical sources, but also upon statistical and descriptive data drawn from early modern ethnological studies and the decennial census reports of the government of British India. These probes, while more quantitative than the repertorial and testimonial literature of the Vaiṣṇava writers themselves, are far from exhaustive. Even their value is more suggestive and heuristic than explanatory or definitive. Projecting back to pre-colonial times the far more detailed and systematic data of British colonial reports offers at best an approximation and remains somewhat conjectural, but there is nothing comparable surviving from the sultanate or, with certain exceptions (like rent rolls), from the Mughal regimes. Still, it may be hoped that these probes can contribute to our understanding of the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava community in its mundane social aspects while encouraging further research. The five areas probed are: caste distribution among Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas in the sixteenth century; gender distribution among Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas in the sixteenth century; caste distribution among Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas in 1901; ‘upward mobility’ and ‘Hinduization’ of lower castes and tribes in relation to Vaiṣṇava bhakti; and the geographical distribution of Vaiṣṇavas in Bengal as of the 1931 Census of India.
