ABSTRACT
The devotional community in which Caitanya Vaisnavas understand themselves to be participants may from a certain perspective be called a ‘symbolic community’, the contours, localities, key figures, tonalities and other distinctive features of which are articulated through a dense array of Vaisnava symbolic resources: literary, theological and artistic. For Caitanya Vaisnavas, the primary symbolic context for depicting and eliciting bhakti to Krsna is provided by lila, literally ‘sport, play, pastime’—a pregnant symbolic category if ever there was one. Caitanya Vaisnavas living after Caitanya’s lifetime have ample symbolic resources for maintaining a sense of continuity and solidarity with the avatara generation and those that followed. The loving devotion that is so prominent in Caitanya Vaisnava discourse does not necessarily imply sexually amorous love, transcendental or otherwise, even though erotic symbolism—understood as transcendental or spiritual—does hold a prominent place in their theology and devotional literature.
