The Ontology of Bhakti Devotion As Param PDF

LANCE E.
NELSON
THE ONTOLOGY OF BHAKTI:

DEVOTION AS PARAMAPURUS.ĀRTHA IN GAUD
. ĪYA VAIS.N.AVISM
AND MADHUSŪDANA SARASVATĪ
If love of God were an accomplishment, it would not be highest goal of life, since it would
then be a thing produced.
– Jı̄va Gosvāmı̄1
Everything other than Vāsudeva, since it is a product of māyā, is not real. Vāsudeva alone
is real, is the dearest, because He is the Self.
– Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄2
Śaṅkara (c. 650–700 C.E.), the great systematizer of the Advaita (nondua-
list) Vedānta, is not known as a theologian of bhakti, the Hindu path of
salvation through loving devotion to God. Nevertheless, the conception of
devotion that he and his followers developed set the parameters for much
of the subsequent discussion in the various schools of Vedānta. He taught,
of course, that knowledge (jñāna) is the only means to moks.a, or spiritual
liberation, identified as the supreme goal of life (parama-purus. ārtha), and
that bhakti is at most a means of purifying the mind (citta-śuddhi) and,
as such, no more than a means to knowledge. The Bhāgavata Purān.a
(BhP, eighth-ninth century),3 however, proclaimed that bhakti is both the
highest spiritual discipline and the most desirable goal, superior even
to moks.a. Following this lead, Rūpa Gosvāmı̄ (c. 1470–1560) and the
other theologians of the Gaud.ı̄ya or Bengal Vais.n.ava tradition identified
bhakti as itself the supreme goal of life. Surprisingly enough, so did
Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ (sixteenth-seventeenth century), a monastic and
scholiast in the Śaṅkara tradition famed as a champion of Advaita Vedānta
who nonetheless had strong inclinations toward Kr.s.n.a-devotion.4
1 bhāvasya sādhyatve krtrimatvāt paramapurus ārthatvābhāvah syād, DS on BhRS 1.2.2.
. . .
All translations in this paper are my own unless otherwise specified.
2 vāsudevātiriktam sarvam satyan nāsti māyikatvāt, vāsudeva evātmatvāt priyatamas
. .
satya ityarthah., BhRT. 1.32, p. 88.
3 On the dating of the BhP, see Dennis Hudson, “The Śrı̄mad Bhāgavata in Stone: The
Text as an Eighth-Century Temple and its Implications”, Journal of Vais.n.ava Studies 3
(Summer 1995): 137–182.
4 For Rūpa’s dates, see Neal Delmonico, “Sacred Rapture: A Study of the Reli-
gious Aesthetic of Rūpa Gosvāmin”. Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago (1990), 279–286.
Journal of Indian Philosophy 32: 345–392, 2004.

© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
346 LANCE E. NELSON
Prior to both Rūpa Gosvāmı̄ and Madhusūdana, bhakti had already been
defined as a mental, and therefore phenomenal, state in Advaita and other
sources. As citta-vr.tti (modification of mind), mano-dharma (attribute of
mind), mano-gati (mental flow), etc., even love of God was relegated to
the status of, in Advaita terminology, a jad.a-tattva, an insentient principle.
Perhaps curiously from a Western perspective, Indian thought has always
seen mind as unconscious and quasi-material, the light of consciousness
being borrowed from the transcendent ātman. India’s spiritual traditions,
moreover, have tended to regard mind as suspect: fickle, wandering, diffi-
cult to control but in need of control. The mind is – to be sure – an
instrument of liberation if disciplined, but at the same time it is a signifi-
cant obstacle thereto. Consider Patañjali’s well-known definition of yoga
as ‘the suppression of the fluctuations of the mind’ (citta-vr.tti-nirodha).
The later Advaita tradition speaks even of ‘destruction of the mind’ (mano-
nāśa) as necessary for final liberation. The mind must be subdued – even
destroyed – in service of the emergence of a higher, more permanent truth.
Against this background, the present paper will explore how bhakti made
the transition from the realm of psychology to that of ontology – that is,
from being regarded as a mental state to being portrayed as an expression
of highest reality – in the work of Gaud.ı̄ya Vais.n.ava theologians, especially
Rūpa Gosvāmı̄, and the Advaitin Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄. We shall see that
Vais.n.ava theology provided a more hospitable ground for this develop-
ment, while Madhusūdana’s effort to valorize bhakti in this way was made
more complex, and theoretically less satisfying, by his orthodox Advaitin
presuppositions.
DEVOTION IN BENGAL VAIS. N. AVISM
The fifth and highest goal of life

From the time of the dharmaśāstras and the Mahābhārata (ca. 400
B.C.E.–400 C.E.), the Hindu tradition acknowledged four ‘goals of human
life’ (purus.ārtha), namely: religious duty (dharma), material prosperity
(artha), pleasure (kāma), and final liberation (moks.a). The first three
were known collectively as the ‘triad’ (trivarga). Although understood
Madhusūdana’s dates are less well-determined, but the general consensus seems to be that
he lived mid-sixteenth century to mid-seventeenth century. See Sanjukta Gupta, Studies
in the Philosophy of Madhusudana Sarasvati (Calcutta: Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1966),
i–v; P. C. Divanji, ed. and trans., Siddhantabindu of Madhusudana with the Commentary
of Purusottama, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series LXIV (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1933), xxv;
V. Sisupala Paniker, Vedāntakalpalatikā: A Study (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1995),
4–6.
THE ONTOLOGY OF BHAKTI 347
and accepted as valid and even necessary pursuits, they were acknowl-
edged as having a common orientation toward worldly, transient concerns.
Liberation, on the other hand, was placed in a different category. It was
recognized as a spiritual goal, one achieved only through its own unique
means. Since it was placed in a class by itself, partaking of ultimacy and
finality, it became known, especially among the teachers of Advaita, as the
parama-purus. ārtha, the ‘highest goal of life’.
With the rise of the devotional schools, however, the notion that bhakti
is an end in itself, worthy of pursuit for its own sake, began to come
into circulation. The BhP proclaims bhakti to be the ‘highest religion’
(paro dharmah., 1.2.6) and tends to devalue the quest for moks.a. By the
sixteenth century, we find the Gosvāmı̄s of the Bengal Vais.n.ava move-
ment refusing to accept the finality of either the traditional formula of four
purus.ārthas or the exaltation of moks.a as being the highest among them.
They extol instead an expanded list that includes bhakti as the fifth goal
of life (pañcama-purus. ārtha). As the ‘ocean of the nectar of the bliss of
divine love’, it is for them a higher attainment than moks.a, being itself the
parama-purus. ārtha, the final and ultimate end of all human striving.5
This claim on behalf of bhakti arises from the Vais.n.avas’ perception
of liberation as a limited goal. Based on their reading of BhP 1.2.11, the
Gosvāmı̄s propose understanding Kr.s.n.a as a threefold Supreme Being,
comprising the hierarchy of Brahman, Paramātman, and Bhagavān (Abso-
lute, Supreme Self, and Blessed Lord). They teach that the moks.a attained
by the jñānin (‘knower’ of Brahman) results in the attainment of union
5 “Prema toward Krsna is the highest end of man [sic], before this the other four ends
.. .
of man are as blades of grass. The fifth end of man [pañcama-purus. ārtha] is the sea of the
nectar of the joy of prema; and the joys of moks.a and the rest are less than a single drop
of it” (kr.s.n.avis.ayaka premā – parama purus.ārtha | yāra āge tr.n.a tulya cāri purus.ārtha ||
pañcama-purus. ārtha premānandāmr. ta-sindhu | moks.ādi ānanda yāra nahe ekavindu, CC
1.7.81–82); “Bhakti toward Bhagavān is the parama-purus.ārtha” (bhagavāne bhakti –
parama-purus.ārtha haya, CC 2.6.166). All translations of the CC are from Edward C.
Dimock, Caitanya Caritamr.ta of Kr.s.n.adāsa Kavirāja: A Translation and Commentary, ed.
by Tony K. Stewart (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). See also BhRS 1.1.33
and Jı̄va’s commentary thereon. Neither the BhP nor either of the Bhakti Sūtras refer to
bhakti as a distinct purus.ārtha. The earliest trace of this notion that I have been able to find
is in the work of the thirteenth century Maharashtrian saint, poet, and theologian Jñānadeva.
In his celebrated Marathi version of the BhG the Jñāneśvarı̄ (9.191, 18.864), he anticipates
the Gosvāmı̄s by declaring bhakti superior to the four commonly recognized goals of life.
See V. G. Pradhan, trans., Jñāneśvarı̄ (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1967), 1.229
and 2.289; B. P. Bahirat, The Philosophy of Jñāinadeva (3d ed.; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1984), 95. Jñānadeva also seems to have been the first to identify bhakti with the supreme
power or śakti of the Godhead, though he does it from a nondualistic Śaiva perspective
(owing much to Kashmir Śaivism), to which the Gosvāmı̄s could scarcely acknowledge
any debt (Bahirat, Philosophy of Jñānadeva, xii–xiii, 93–96).
348 LANCE E. NELSON
(sāyujya) with no more than the first (and least interesting) of these three
aspects of the Deity. In this way of thinking, Brahman is a limited form
of Kr.s.n.a, his unqualified, or nirviśes.a, aspect. A limited experience of
bliss in this condition is allowed, since the Vais.n.ava concept of union
entails an inexplicable ‘difference and non-difference’ rather than the
Advaitins’ absolute identity. Still, the brahmatva (‘Brahmanhood’) of the
jñānins is a state far lower than the yogins’ realization of Paramātman or
the devotees’ attainment of Bhagavān. In comparison with the supreme
bliss of the vision of the saviśes.a (‘quality-full’) Bhagavān attained by
devotees through bhakti, the bliss of union in moks.a with the nirviśes.a
(‘qualityless’) Brahman is insignificant.6
The Gosvāmı̄s, therefore, follow the BhP in its tendency to devalue
the experience of moks.a in favor of the joy of bhakti. Twice in the first
chapter of his Bhaktirasāmr.tasindhu (BhRS, ‘Nectar-Ocean of Devotional
Sentiment’), for example, Rūpa Gosvāmı̄ declares that devotion ‘makes
light of liberation’.7 He goes on to make his understanding of the superio-
rity of bhakti unmistakably plain: “Even if the bliss of Brahman were
magnified a hundred thousand billion times, it would not be equal to an
infinitesimal droplet of the ocean of the bliss of bhakti”.8 At BhRS 1.2.22
he begins a long section on this topic by describing the desire for moks.a
as a demon that will never disturb the devotee whose mind is absorbed
in the service of the Lord. True devotees, he proclaims, are so intent on
bhakti that they exhibit no interest at all in acquiring any of the five forms
of moks.a commonly recognized by Vais.n.ava schools.9
None of this, however, is meant to deny that moks.a may be attained
by devotees or that it can have spiritual value for them. Despite the fact
that, as true bhaktas, they do not desire it and are reluctant to accept it
even as a gift, the Lord does grant liberation to his devotees.10 To be sure,
this is not the moks.a of the followers of the way of knowledge, which
entails losing one’s individual identity in the impersonal Brahman, an
ideal the Vais.n.avas must stoutly condemn. Liberation is given a specifi-
cally Vais.n.ava, devotion-friendly, definition, becoming the realization of
6 BhRS 1.1.33; CC 1.7.133, 2.24.57–61, 2.25.30; Sushi Kumar De, Early History of the
Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Bengal: From Sanskrit and Bengali Sources (Calcutta:
General Printers and Publishers, 1942), 291–292.
7 moksalaghutākrt, BhRS 1.1.17, 33.
. .
8 brahmānando bhaved esa cet parārdhagun ı̄krtah | naiti bhaktisukhāmbhodheh
. . . . .
paramān.utulām api, BhRS 1.1.38.
9 BhRS 1.2.22–57. BhRS 1.2.22 is quoted at CC 2.19, śloka 26. Cf. BhP 3.29.13, quoted
by Rūpa at BhRS 1.2.28, at five places in the CC, and by Madhusūdana at BhRT. 1.32.
10 CC 1.4, śloka 37 (= BhP 9.4.67); CC 3.3.177, with śloka 12 (= BhP 3.29.13). Cf.
BhRS 1.1.34, 1.2.55; BhP 11.20.34.
one’s true nature (svarūpa) as a participant in the eternal lı̄lā of Kr.s.n.a, the
abandonment of one’s false identity as a material being, and release from
the bondage created by māyā-śakti, the Lord’s power of material creation.
The Gaud.ı̄ya tradition even speaks of the possibility of liberation while
still in the physical body (jı̄vanmukti). By no means, however, does this
‘liberation in devotion’ (bhaktye mukti) entail an end of devotional activity.
Bhakti, previously restricted in its expression by māyā-śakti, becomes free
in moks.a to manifest itself in its ecstatic fullness.11 Still, liberation must be
regarded an incidental by-product (tuccha-phala) of devotional practice;
bhakti remains the highest goal.12
11 Rūpa Gosvāmı̄: “This very rati, when fully developed, attains the state of mahābhāva,
which should be sought after by the muktas and the most excellent bhaktas” (iyam eva ratih.
praud.hā mahābhāvadaśām vrajet | yā mr.gyā syād vimuktānām. bhaktānām. ca varı̄yasām,
UNM 14.51). Jı̄va Gosvāmı̄: “Even the liberated, having assumed a form for sake of [parti-
cipating in the divine] sport, worship [the Lord] . . . For bhakti is eternally blissful, even
for the liberated” (muktā api lı̄layā vigraham. kr.tvā bhajanta iti | . . . muktānām api bhaktir
hi nityānandasvarūpin. ı̄ti, BhagS 72). Kavikarn.apura: “Here [in our system], the word
‘liberation’ means [attaining] one’s real nature/form (svarūpa) as an attendant [of Kr.s.n.a]”
(muktiśabdo ‘tra pārs.adasvarūpaparah. ), quoted by De, Early History, 175; trans. and
brackets mine). This notion is based on BhP 2.10.6, ‘Liberation is abiding with one’s true
form (svarūpa), having abandoned other [adventitious] forms’ (muktir hitvānyathārūpam.
svārūpen.a vyavasthitih.). In the CC we read: ‘Jı̄van-muktas are many; they also are of two
kinds: jı̄van-muktas in bhakti, and jı̄van-muktas in jñāna. The jı̄van-muktas in bhakti are
drawn by the qualities of Kr.s.n.a; jı̄van-muktas in dry jñāna are plunged below because of
offenses . . . By the power of bhakti the svarūpa [one’s real nature] is gained, and the divine
body [divya-deha]; drawn by the qualities of Kr.s.n.a they worship at Kr.s.n.a’s feet . . . The
abandonment of other forms, and remaining in the svarūpa is called mukti . . . And when
one gains mukti in bhakti, he inevitably worships Kr.s.n.a’ (jı̄vanmukta aneka, sei dui bheda
jāni | bhaktye jı̄vanmukta, jāne jı̄vanmukta māni || bhaktye jı̄vanmukta gun.ākr.s.t.a hañā
kr.s.n.a bhaje | śus.ka-jñāne jı̄van-mukta aparādhe adho maje || . . . bhakti-bale prāpta-svarūpa
divya-deha pāra | kr.s.n.a-gun.ākr.s.t.a hañā bhaje kr.s.n.a-pāya || . . . muktir hitvānyathārūpam
svarūpena avasthitih. || . . . bhaktye mukti pāileho avaśya kr.s.n.ere bhajaya, 2.24.91–93, with
śloka 43 = [BhP 2.10.6], and 2.24.96; trans. Dimock, Caitanya Caritamr.ta; brackets mine).
See also CC 2.8.203, 2.25.112. De (Early History, 238) explains: “The state of release,
therefore, is only release from the earthly bondage of the Māyā-śakti, but not extinction
. . . nor the merging of the Jı̄va in the Bhagavat (laya). The emancipated self is in reality
no longer the Jı̄va or part of the Jı̄va-śakti, but becomes a part of the Svarūpa-śakti of the
Bhagavat as his Parikara or Attendant in his Paradise”.
12 “So at the beginning of the rising of the name, sins and the rest are dispelled; and
when it is risen there is the manifestation of prema at the feet of Kr.s.n.a. Mukti is an insigni-
ficant result, from a hint of the name” (taiche nāmodayārambhe pāpādi ks.aya | udaya kaile
kr.s.n.apade haya premodaya || mukti tucca-phala haya nāmābhāsa haite, CC 3.3.175–176,
trans. Dimock, Caitanya Caritamr.ta).
350 LANCE E. NELSON
Devotion defined
Rūpa Gosvāmı̄ gives a definition of bhakti early in the BhRS: “Supreme
devotion is reverent service (anuśı̄lana) of Kr.s.n.a, in accord with his
wishes, without any other desire, and unobstructed by knowledge, action,
etc.”.13 Such bhakti is ‘supreme’ because it is pure (śuddha), unmixed with
dry vedantic gnosis, self-serving vedic ritualism, or other elements antago-
nistic to devotion. There appears to be an effort here to maintain a clear
differentiation between bhakti and knowledge, in contrast to the stance
of other Vais.n.ava ācāryas, such as Rāmānuja, Madhva, and Vallabha, all
of whom make room for knowledge in some form in their definitions of
devotion.14 Still, Jı̄va Gosvāmı̄ (c. 1555–1600), here Rūpa’s commentator,
explains that the exclusion of knowledge should not be interpreted so as to
13 anyābhilāsitāśūnyaṁ jñānakarmādyanāvr tam | ānukūlyena krsnānuśı̄lanaṁ bhaktir

. . .. .
uttamā, BhRS 1.1.11. See also BhRS 1.1.12.
14 Rāmānuja (1017–1137) speaks of bhakti as a ‘particular kind of knowledge’
(jñānaviśes.a, Vedārthasam. graha, 128, 129, 252, text with translation by S. S. Ragha-
vachar [Mysore: Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, 1968]). “Only knowledge which has attained
the nature of supreme devotion”, he declares, “is in reality a means of attaining
the Lord” (parabhaktirūpāpannam eva vedanaṁ tattvato bhagavatprāptih. sādhanam,
Vedārthasam . graha, 251). Madhva (thirteenth century) defines bhakti as a “constant,
supreme affection (parasneha) accompanied by knowledge” (jñānapūrvaparasneho nityo
bhaktir itı̄ryate, Mahābhāratatāparyanirn. aya, 1.107; quoted by S. Dasgupta, A History of
Indian Philosophy [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949], IV: 58 n. 1). Madhva’s
understanding of the relation between knowledge and devotion is very close to that of
Rāmānuja: “Devotion is defined as a particular kind of knowledge . . . When the scriptures
speak of knowledge as the means to release, that kind [of knowledge, i.e., devotion] is
intended” (jñānasya viśes.o yad bhaktir ity abhidhı̄yate . . . jñānam eva vimuktaye vadanti
śrutayah. so ‘yaṁ viśes.o’pi hy udı̄ryate, Anuvyākhyāna 4; quoted by B. N. K. Sharma,
Madhva’s Teachings in His Own Words [Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1979], 104).
Jayatı̄rtha (fl. 1365–1388), one of the great defenders of Madhva’s system, describes bhakti
as follows: “What is called bhakti toward the Supreme Lord consists of an uninterrupted
flow of love (preman). It cannot be hindered by thousands of obstacles. It is many times
greater than love for oneself or all that is regarded as one’s own and is accompanied
by knowledge [of the Lord’s] having unlimited and infinite good and beautiful quali-
ties” (parameśvarabhaktir nāma niravadhikānantānavadyakalyān. agun.atvajñānapūrvakah.
svātmātmı̄yasamastavastubhyah. anekagun.ādhikaih. antarāyasahasren.āpi apratibaddhah.
nirantarapremapravāhah. , Nyāyasudhā; quoted by Dasgupta, History, IV: 317 n. 2; also
by Sharma, Madhva’s Teaching, 105). The definition of bhakti offered by Vallabha
(1481–1533) is similar to that of Madhva: “a firm and overwhelming affection (sneha)
[for the Lord] accompanied by a knowledge of [His] greatness” (māhātmyajñānapūrvas
tu sudr.d.hah. sarvato ‘dhikah. | sneho bhaktir iti proktah., Tattvārthadı̄panibandha,
Śāstrārthaprakaran. a, 42, ed. by Harishankar Onkarji Shastri, Seth Narayandas and
Jethanand Asanmal Pustimargiya Grantha Series, No. 11 [Bombay, 1943]).
exclude reverent inquiry in to the worshipful nature of the Lord, which is

desirable or even necessary.15
What is most noteworthy about this definition, however, is the absence
of explicit reference to love of the Deity or psychic absorption in him,
common in other definitions of bhakti.16 Yet it must be born mind that
‘service’ here means more than bodily works alone. In Rūpa’s definition,
the word anuśı̄lana implies constant reverence and worship, a complete
focussing of all of one’s life-faculties on God, somewhat after the spirit
of the Gı̄tā, but with perhaps a greater cultivation of the purely emotional
element. It includes the practice of various devotional disciplines such as
submission to the guru, chanting, worship, devotional dancing, pilgrimage,
and so on – in short, any number of pious activities centering on Kr.s.n.a.
Such service would assume affection toward, and aim at continuous mental
absorption in, the Deity. And indeed, explains Jı̄va, such service is inspired
and empowered directly by Kr.s.n.a.17
The stages of devotion

The emphasis on love of God, which we miss in the formal definition
of devotion just considered, appears with redoubled force in Rūpa’s
discussion of the higher stages of bhakti. Indeed, the title of the first chapter
of the BhRS, ‘The General Characteristics of Devotion’ (Sāmānyabhakti
Laharı̄), suggests in advance that more developed notions are to come. At
the beginning of the second chapter (Sādhanabhakti Laharı̄), we learn that
bhakti is three-fold, or has three levels of development, namely, sādhana
15 Jı̄va glosses Rūpa’s jñānakarmādyanāvr tam: jñānamātra nirbhedabrahmānu-

.
sandhānam. , na tu bhajanı̄yatvānusandhānam api, tasyāvaśyāpeks. an.ı̄yatvāt, karma
smr.tyādyuktam. nityanaimittikādi, na tu bhajanı̄yaparicayādi tasya tadanuśı̄lanarūpatvāt,
ādiśabdena vairāgyayogasām. khyābhyāsādayah. , DS on BhRS 1.1.11.
16 Śāndilyabhaktisūtra 2 defines bhakti as “supreme love (anurakti) for the Lord” (sā
..
parā’nuraktir ı̄śvare). Svapneśvara, the commentator, explains anurakti as “deep attach-
ment” (rāga) which follows (anu-) knowledge of the Lord’s greatness. He adds that
bhakti is a “special modification of the mind directed towards the Supreme Lord”
(parameśvaravis.ayakāntah. karan.avr.ttiviśes.a, Śān.d.ilya Bhakti Sūtras with Svapneśvara
Bhās.ya, edited and translated by Swami Harshananda [Mysore: University of Mysore,
1976]). Nāradabhaktisūtra 2 defines bhakti as “supreme love (paramapreman) for God”
(sā tu asmin paramapremarūpā, Nārada Bhakti Sūtras, text with translation by Swami
Tyagisananda [Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, n.d.]). Cf. the definition of bhakti as a
“flow of the mind” (manogati) at BhP 3.29.11–12.
17 “It is to be obtained by the grace of Krsna and his [advanced] devotees” (etac ca
.. .
kr.s.n.atadbhaktakr.payaiva labhyam, DS on BhRS 1.1.11).
352 LANCE E. NELSON
(‘means’ or ‘practice’), bhāva (literally, ‘emotion’), and preman(‘ecstatic

love’).18
The first of these levels, sādhana-bhakti, consists of the various devo-
tional practices that prepare the mind for the experience of the higher
stages of devotion. These comprise especially the elements of the cele-
brated ‘nine-fold’ discipline recommended by the BhP (7.5.23–24).19 The
goal of such devotional praxis is the experience of bhāva.20
Bhāva, the second level, is the beginning of real devotion and there-
fore in itself already an anticipation of preman (BhRS 1.3.2). According to
Rūpa, it resembles ‘a ray of the sun of preman’ which ‘softens the heart
with delightful flavors’.21 It is also called rati (‘love’, BhRS 1.3.13) and, in
relation to the more intense levels of experience to come, is best understood
as ‘nascent love’ (bhāvāṅkura).22 Although it is only the first taste of true
bhakti, this state is described as ‘a flood of powerful bliss’. Caused by the
grace of Lord Kr.s.n.a, it is ‘sweeter than a even hundred-thousand moons’.23
18 sā bhaktih sādhanam bhāvah premā ceti tridhoditā, BhRS 1.2.1. In going through
. . .
the following outline of these stages, the reader should keep in mind that they were not
conceived in a vacuum, but, at least in the case of bhāva and preman, were worked out
in reference to two paradigms. The first was the love for Kr.s.n.a experienced by the gopı̄s
(cowherd girls of Vraja) and especially by Rādhā, the Lord’s favorite among them, as
evoked in the Vais.n.ava literature with all of its emotional intensity and variation. The
second was that same love as relived in the devotional ecstasies of Caitanya, the founding
figure of the Gaud.ı̄ya tradition, the memory of whose life was still fresh in the minds of
his followers. In formulating his understanding of bhakti and its modes, Rūpa drew upon
categories developed earlier in Sanskrit aesthetics (see De, Early History, and Delmonico,
“Sacred Rapture”).
19 “Hearing of the glories of Visnu, singing of them, constant thought of Him, attendance
..
at His feet, worship, reverent prostration, regarding oneself as His servant, thinking of Him
as a close friend, and surrender of oneself to Him – if this nine-fold devotion, offered
to the Blessed Lord Vis.n.u, were practiced by a person, it would indeed, I deem, be the
highest learning” (śravan.am . kı̄rtanam . vis.n.oh. smaran.am . pādasevanam | arcanam. vandanam.
dāsyam. sakhyam ātmanivedanam || ity pum . sārpitā vis.n.au bhaktiś cen navalaks.anā || kriyate
bhagavaty addhā tan manye ‘dhı̄tam uttamam).
20 “Accomplished by action, that [bhakti] called sādhana has bhāva as its goal”
(kr.tisādhyā bhavet sādhyabhāvā sā sādhanābhidhā, BhRS 1.2.2).
21 premasūryāṁśusāmyabhāk | rucibhiś cittamāsrnyakrd asau bhāva ucyate, BhRS 1.3.1
.. .
(quoted CC 2.23, śloka 2).
22 Literally, the ‘sprout (aṅkura) of bhāva’ (BhRS 1.3.26). Bhāva here, confusingly,
seems to be used as a shortened form of mahābhāva (see discussion of the latter below).
Cf. prı̄tyaṅkura in CC 2.22.94. Note that Madhusūdana describes the fifth of his eleven
stages of bhakti, a state of incipient love, as ‘the arising of the sprout (aṅkura) of rati’
(ratyaṅkurotpatti, BhR 1.35).
23 krsnaprasādajah . . . prabalatarānandapūrarūpā . . . sudhāmśukoter api svādvı̄, BhRS
.. . . .. .
1.3.58, 61.
Preman, the third and highest level of bhakti, is simply an intensified

state of this incipient love (BhRS 1.4.1, quoted at CC 2.23, śloka 3);
it is bhāva ‘developed to the highest degree’ (ārūd.hah. paramotkars. am,
BhRS 1.4.5). While in bhāva, as we have seen, the heart is softened, in
preman it is ‘completely softened’ (samyaṅ-masr.n.ita-svānta, BhRS 1.4.1).
An important characteristic of this stage of devotion is the feeling of strong
possessiveness toward the Lord and detachment from all else (BhRS 1.4.1–
3). According to Caitanyacaritamr. ta (CC) 2.23.9, this form of love is the
‘abode of all bliss’ (sarvānanda-dhāma).
The levels of ecstatic love

Another list we must consider is that of the stages that occur in the devel-
opment of preman itself. Rūpa indicates that the expressions of advanced
levels of love for God are exceedingly difficult to understand (BhRS 1.4.17,
quoted at CC 2.23, śloka 19). In fact, because they are rarely manifest
in aspirants, he discusses them only briefly in the BhRS (at 1.4.19) and
reserves their detailed consideration for his Ujjvalanı̄laman.i (UNM). He
gives, in the latter, an extended analysis of the various nuances of what
he and the tradition believe to be the most fervent and exalted devotional
relationship possible, that between the gopı̄s and their beloved Kr.s.n.a.24
Since our interest here is not in practice, we need not go through a detailed
discussion of the stages in preman’s development, which are six in number.
It is instructive to note, however, that Rūpa compares them with the phases
that sugar passes through during refinement: from seed through sugar
cane juice to the most refined product, rock candy.25 Kr.s.n.adāsa Kavirāja
(sixteenth century), author of the CC, suggests that, as in the case of sugar,
24 The classification of levels of preman has a strong literary-dramatic component. On
one important level, it represents a categorization – like those common in later rhetorical
treatises – of the diverse moods of the nāyikā (“heroine”, in this case preeminently Rādhā).
Thus we find Rūpa illustrating the various levels of emotion described in his UNM with
quotations from his poetry and dramas. See UNM 5.
25 “This rati, strengthened, becomes preman. This [preman], rising up, becomes in
succession sneha, māna, pran.aya, rāga, anurāga, and [mahā-]bhāva. Just as the seed
becomes the sugar cane, and that [becomes] juice, and that molasses and [then] dry
molasses, sugar crystals, white sugar, and [finally] rock candy, so there arise the six
emotions that are the playful manifestations of preman. For the most part, these [six]
are referred to [collectively] as preman by the wise” (syād dr.d.heyam. ratih. premā
prodyan snehah. kramād ayam | syān mānah. pran.ayo rāgo ‘nurāgo bhāva ity api ||
bı̄jam iks.uh. sa ca rasah. sa gud.ah. khan.d.a eva sah. | sa śarkarā sitā sā ca sā yathā syāt
sitopalā || atah. premavilāsāh. syur bhāvāh. snehādayas tu s.at. | prāyo vyavahiyante ‘mı̄
premaśabdena sūribhih., UMN 14.53–55). Jı̄va explains: ‘bhāva here means mahābhāva’
(bhāvo mahābhāvah. , Locanarocanı̄ on UNM 53, p. 417). See also CC 2.19.152–153, CC
2.23.22–24.
354 LANCE E. NELSON
love becomes increasingly pure, and its sweet taste (āsvāda) is intensified,
as it is refined.26
The last of these stages, called mahābhāva (the ‘great ecstasy’) or
simply (and somewhat confusingly) bhāva, is the highest pinnacle of
love. According to Rūpa, it can be experienced by the gopı̄s alone, or
perhaps rarely and with great difficulty (atidurlabha) by Kr.s.n.a’s queens
in Dvārakā.27 But only the inner circle of the gopı̄s, Rādhā’s associates
(rādhikā-yūtha), have the ability to experience the higher (adhirūd.ha)
stage of mahābhāva, known as ‘delighting’ (modana).28 Indeed, in its fully
developed form (mādana, ‘maddening’), mahābhāva can be attained only
by Rādhā.29
Devotion identified as Kr.s.n.a’s highest power

That the paradigm of the love-relationship of Kr.s.n.a and the gopı̄s occu-
pies a central place Kr.s.n.aite Hinduism is of course well-known. Hindu
thought seeks to avoid charges of moral impropriety in connection with
the accounts in the BhP and elsewhere of the amorous ‘sports’ (lı̄lās) of
26 CC 2.23.24. For Krsnadāsa’s dates, see Dimock, Caitanya Caritamrta, 26–32.
.. . .
27 “That which is extremely difficult to obtain, even by Krishna’s queens [in Dvārakā],
which is experienced only by the gopı̄s, is called mahābhāva” (mukundamahis. ı̄vr.ndair apy
asāv atidurlabhah. | vrajadevyekasam. vedyo mahābhāvākhyayocyate, UNM 14.144). But cf.
CC 2.23.37–44, which seems to give the mahis.ı̄s greater access to mahābhāva.
28 “This modana is [experienced] in Rādhā’s circle only, not by all” (rādhikāyūtha
evāsau modano na tu sarvatah., UNM 14.161).
29 “This mādana, playing beyond all [the bhāvas], shines always in Rādhā only as the
essence of hlādinı̄. It excels even the highest” (mādano ‘yam
. parāt parah. | rājate hlādinı̄sāro
rādhāyām eva yah. sadā, UNM 14.202). Jı̄va explains: “It is even higher than modana, the
highest” (parāt modanād api parah.). See also the note by Dimock on CC 2.6.12 (Caitanya
Caritamr.ta, p. 403).
Caitanya, as an incarnation of both Rādhā and Kr.s.n.a, was believed to have been
capable of equaling Rādhā’s experience of adhirūd.ha-mahābhāva. His experience of
divine madness (divyonmāda), as he relived the ecstatic agony of Rādhā’s separation from
Kr.s.n.a, is reported in the CC as follows:
Ahead of them Prabhu was running like the wind, but [suddenly] on the path he became
still as a post, and he had not the power to move. In each pore of his body swellings
of flesh appeared, and the hairs rising on top of them were like kadamba-flowers. And
streams of blood sweating from every pore ran down, and his voice was choked – he could
not pronounce a syllable. His two eyes were filled with tears which flowed endlessly, like
the streams of the Yamunā and Gaṅgā meeting with the sea. His body was white, like a
conch-shell in its pallor; and then he began to tremble, like the waves of the sea. And while
quaking Prabhu fell to the earth . . . Thus has been related the bhāva of Prabhu’s divine
madness; even Brahmā could not describe its power (CC 3.14.85–90, 112; trans. Dimock,
Caitanya Caritamr.ta).
Kr.s.n.a and the gopı̄s through a wide variety of stratagems. These need
not be discussed in detail here, but there is some relevance to the present
discussion. The BhP itself intertwines several levels of interpretation, from
explicitly realistic to symbolic and metaphysical. All emphasize that the
bindingness of dharma is suspended in face of the immediate presence and
irresistible call of the divine source of dharma (BhP 10.32.10, 10.33.30–
40). Some later writers allegorize the affair – especially the willingness
of the gopı̄s to endure the social consequences of being unfaithful to their
husbands, which were extreme in India – as symbolic of the demands of
true religious love, which override all other considerations. Others choose
the route of denying that the encounters described in the BhP were sexual,
because the Kr.s.n.a upon whom the gopı̄s doted was too young.30
The Bengal school itself deals with the issue in several ways, the most
interesting of which is the doctrine that the gopı̄s were not ordinary human
beings at all, but incarnations of Kr.s.n.a’s various divine powers or śaktis.
Being such, they were the Lord’s eternal companions (parikara) and there-
fore ultimately inseparable from him. Their engagement was thus merely
a wondrous manifestation of the eternal play (lı̄lā) of Kr.s.n.a and his own
energies, the play that, on a vaster scale, underlies the whole of creation.31
The introduction of the notion of śakti brings us to what is, from
the point of view of the present study, the most important aspect of the
Gosvāmı̄s’ theory of devotion. In defining bhakti as means (sādhana-
bhakti), i.e., bhakti as a form of spiritual practice, Rūpa faces a problem:
the notion of practice might imply that bhakti is something that does not
yet exist, but which has to be brought into existence through sādhana.
His succinct response is at BhRS 1.2.2: “The accomplishment of bhāva,
which is eternally accomplished, consists in its manifestation in the
heart”.32 The word ‘manifestation’ (prākat. ya) is not used casually. It is
chosen to compliment and support the notion that bhāva is ‘eternally
accomplished’ (nitya-siddha). This means that it is not something which
is produced (janita, sādhya),33 say, by spiritual practice, nor is it an
30 Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Mayavati

Memorial Edition (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1973), III, 257–259; S. Bhagavantam,
ed., Summer Showers in Brindavan, 1978: Discourses by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
(Prashanti Nilayam, Andra Pradesh: Sri Sathya Sai Education and Publication Foundation,
n.d.), 111–112.
31 1.1.40–41; 1.4.62–74; 2.8.126. See also De, Early History, 264–268.
32 nityasiddhasya bhāvasya prākatyaṁ hrdi sādhyatā, BhRS 1.2.2. Cf. CC 2.22.57:
. .
“Kr.s.n.a-prema is eternal and is perfect – it is never ‘to be attained’ ” (nityasiddha
kr.s.n.aprema – ‘sādhya’ kabhu naya, trans. Dimock, Caitanya Caritamr.ta).
33 “It is not produced, because it is self-luminous” (na tu janitāyām, tasyāh svayam-
. . .
prakāśarūpatvāt, DS on BhRS 1.1.33.
356 LANCE E. NELSON
activity of the devotee’s mind. Indeed, the Gosvāmı̄s want to assert that
bhāva is not phenomenal in nature at all but rather an eternally existent,
transphenomenal reality.
While Advaitins deny bhakti any final ontological status, for the Bengal
Vais.n.avas it is the parama-purus. ārtha, superior even to moks.a. Such an
assertion cannot be based on devotional experience alone; it requires an
adequate theological foundation. If bhakti is truly a higher spiritual goal
than moks.a, it must have a corresponding ontological value. Bhakti, in
short, is so important for the Gosvāmı̄s that they seek to give it a meta-
physical status beyond that of the merely psychological. In the thinking
of Rūpa and Jı̄va, it is not a mode of the mind (mano-gati), as it is in
the definition of BhP 3.29.11–12. Neither, in the final analysis, can it be
worshipful service, as in Rūpa’s initial definition, or even love, if the latter
is understood as a function of human consciousness. Bhakti in its essential
nature is an aspect of the highest power (śakti) of God. As Jı̄va writes in
his gloss on BhRS 1.2.2:
If bhāva were something to be accomplished (sādhya), because of being a product, then
it would not be the parama-purus.ārtha. To dispel this doubt, he [Rūpa] says, ‘eternally
accomplished’. This is because, as will be established below, it is a particular function of
God’s śakti.34
And indeed, Rūpa does later declare that bhakti is a manifestation of

mahāśakti, the ‘great power’ that is part of God’s essential being.35
According to the Gosvāmı̄s’ theology, Kr.s.n.a has three main powers:
his essential power (svarūpa-śakti), his power of manifesting individual
souls (jı̄va-śakti), and his power of creating the universe (māyā-śakti). The
essential power, described as ‘intrinsic’ (antaraṅgā), is the highest.36 It is
itself divided into three aspects, which must be kept in mind if we are to
follow the Gosvāmı̄s as they ratchet up the ontological status of bhakti.
These aspects correspond to the formula ‘existence-consciousness-bliss’
(saccidānanda) – which, here as well as in Advaita, is thought to express
the inner nature (svarūpa) of the ultimate (saccit-ānandamaya kr.s.n.era
svarūpa). They are: (1) the power of upholding existence (sandhinı̄-śakti),
34 bhāvasya sādhyatve krtrimatvāt paramapurus ārthatvābhāvah syād ity āśaṅkyāha –
. . .
nityeti | bhagavacchaktivr.ttiviśes.atvenāgre (1.3.1) sādhayis.yamān.atvād iti bhāvah., DS on
BhRS 1.2.2.
35 mahāśaktivilāsātmā bhāvo ‘cintyasvarūpabhāk, BhRS 2.5.92. It is, he says further, a
“beautiful manifestation of hlādinı̄śakti” (hlādinı̄śakteh. suvilāsah., UNM 14.161).
36 “The svarūpa-śakti is antaraṅga, and is the greatest of all” (antaraṅgā svarūpa-śakti
– sabāra upāre, trans. Dimock, Caitanya Caritamr.ta). For a discussion of the Bengal
Vais.n.ava concept of Deity, including the various śaktis, see Dimock, Caitanya Caritamr.ta,
135–139; S. G. Chakravarti, Philosophical Foundations of Bengal Vais.n.avism: A Critical
Exposition (Calcutta: Academic Publishers, 1969), chap. 4.
(2) the power of consciousness (sam . vit-śakti), and (3) the power of bliss
(hlādinı̄-śakti).37 The last of these, said to include and transcend the other
two, is regarded as the highest aspect of the Lord’s essential power.38
In the BhRS, Rūpa speaks of bhaktas as vessels (pātra) or receptacles
(ādhāra) of bhakti.39 He is able to do so because he does not believe
that devotion is a mental phenomena; it is something that enters into the
empirical self of the devotee from outside, as it were. It is, in fact, the
hlādinı̄-śakti that appears in the heart of the devotee, taking the form of
bhakti (first as bhāva, then preman) and causing the experience of bliss.
At BhRS 1.3.1, Rūpa defines bhāva as ‘having the nature of a special
form of pure sattva’ (śuddha-sattva-viśes. ātmā). Jı̄va explains:
Here, what is called pure sattva is a self-luminous function, called ‘consciousness’
(sam. vit), of the svarūpa-śakti; it is not an aspect of māyā-śakti . . . It is the great power
(mahāśakti) called ‘hlādinı̄’ (gladdening) which is an internal characteristic of the function
of the svarūpa-śakti.40
As such bhakti is nonphenomenal (aprākr.ta) in nature.41 Preman is defined

as the ‘tasting of complete bliss and consciousness’ (ānanda-cin-maya-
rasa). At the stage of preman, the Gosvāmı̄s teach, bhakti should be
understood as the manifestation of not the whole but only the purest
essence of the highest power of Kr.s.n.a (hlādinı̄-sāra-rūpa, DS on BhRS
37 “The svarūpa of Krsna is full of sat, cit, and ānanda, and thus the svarūpa of śakti is
.. .
of three kinds. Hlādinı̄ is a function of the ānanda part, sandhinı̄ of the sat-part, and sam . vit
of the cit-part, which is also known as jñāna” (saccit-ānandamaya – kr.s.n.era svarūpa | ata
eva svarūpaśakti haya tin rūpa || ānandām.śe hlādinı̄, sadam . śe sandhinı̄ | cidam . śe sam
. vit
– yāre ‘jñāna’ kari māni, CC 2.8.118–119, trans. Dimock, Caitanya Caritamr.ta). The
authority cited is Vis.n.u Purān.a 1.12.69 (CC 2.8, śloka 37): hlādinı̄ sandhinı̄ sam . vit tvayekā
sarvasam.śraye | hlādatāpakarı̄ miśrā tvayi no gun.avarjite. See also CC 1.4.54–55, with
śloka 9, and 2.6.144–145, with śloka 11, which repeat this material.
38 “Hlādinı̄ is the great power, most excellent among all [the Lord’s] powers” (hlādinı̄
yā mahāśaktih. sarvaśaktivarı̄yası̄, UNM 4.6); “Here, the order of increasing preemin-
ence is to be understood as sandhinı̄, sam . vit, and hlādinı̄” (atra kramād utkars.en.a
sandhinı̄samvithlādinyo jñeyāh., BhagS 118).
39 BhRS 2.5.7, 46. At 2.5.7 Rūpa says: “Because of the difference in its vessels, this
rati attains difference, like the sun reflected in substances like crystals” (vaiśis.t.yam .
pātravaiśis.t.yād ratir es.opagacchati | yathā ‘rkah. pratibimbātmā sphat.itādis.u vastus.u).
40 atra śuddhasattvam nāma svaprakāśikā svarūpaśakteh samvidākhyā vrttih; na tu
. . . . .
māyāvr.ttiviśes.ah. . . . cātra yā svarūpaśaktivr.ttyantaralaks.an.ā . . . hlādinı̄nāmnı̄ mahāśaktih.,
DS on BhRS 1.1.3. See also BhagS 118: “The pure sattva with a preponderance of the
essence of hlādinı̄, is the secret wisdom . . . bhakti” (tatra cedam eva viśuddhasattvam. . . .
hlādinı̄sārām.śapradhānam. guhyavidyā | . . . guhyavidyā – bhaktih.).
41 “It should be understood as nonphenomenal, a special mode of the essential power
of the Lord, become manifest as [seemingly] identical with the activities of the body,
etc.” (śrı̄bhagavatah. svarūpaśaktivr.ttirūpam ato ‘prākr.tam api kāyādivr.ttitādātmyenaivā-
virbhūtam iti jñeyam, DS on BhRS 1.1.11).
358 LANCE E. NELSON
1.3.1). Mahābhāva, the apogee of ecstatic love, is in turn the most refined
essence (parama-sāra) of preman.42
In an interesting passage (BhRS 1.3.4–5), Rūpa explains how rati
(‘love’, here a synonym of bhāva) becomes manifest (āvirbhūya) in the
mind and even seems to be identical with it:
That rati, having become manifest in a mental mode, attains identity with it; although self-
luminous, it appears like something in need of illumination [by the mental mode]. Although
in reality its nature is self-enjoyment, it becomes the means of enjoyment of objects such
as Kr.s.n.a.43
There is thus a kind of ‘step-down’ phenomenon, in which the Lord’s śakti

becomes seemingly limited by a kind of apparent identity (Jı̄va glosses:
tādātmya) with the mind. While ‘self-luminous’ (svayam-prakāśa-rūpā) –
‘like Brahman’ (brahma-vat), Viśvanātha adds – it nevertheless appears as
if illumined by the mental mode (mano-vr.tti), becoming an instrument of
enjoyment and in so doing assuming a posture of difference from the object
of enjoyment (Kr.s.n.a). But if this is how it appears, in reality is otherwise.
The bhakti which resides in the devotee and seems to be a function of
the devotee’s mind is, so to say, in the mind but not of it. In truth it is
autonomous and non-phenomenal (aprākr.ta), the essence of the highest
divine power. Rādhā, the Lord’s most intimate companion, is this supreme
devotion personified (mahābhāva-svarūpā).44
When the Gosvāmı̄s say that bhakti is nitya-siddha (‘eternally accom-
plished’), they point to their belief that it exists constantly in a dynamic
and fully actualized condition, entirely independent of its particular mani-
festation in the mind of the devotee. Ultimately, they say, it is nothing
less than an experience eternally belonging to Bhagavān himself. Kr.s.n.a
42 “The most essential amśa [portion] of hlādinı̄ is called prema; and the glory of prema
.
is the rasa which is experienced through ānanda. The highest essence of prema is known
as mahābhāva” (hlādinira sāra aṁśa – tara ‘prema’ nāma | ānanda-cinmaya-rasa – premera
ākhyāna || premera parama sāra – ‘mahābhāva’ jāni, CC 2.8.122–123, trans. Dimock, Cait-
anya Caritamr.ta, my brackets). Cf. CC 1.4.59–60: “The essence of hlādinı̄ is prema; the
essence of prema is bhāva; the highest state of bhāva is called mahābhāva” (hlādinı̄ sāra
‘prema’, prema-sāra ‘bhāva’ | bhāvera parama-kās.t.hā, nāma – ‘mahābhāva’. trans. Dimock,
Caitanya Caritamr.ta). Also UNM 14.202 (quoted above, note 29).
43 āvirbhūya manovr ttau vrajantı̄ tatsvarūpatām | svayamprakāśarūpā ‘pi bhāsa-
. .
mānā prakāśyavat || vastutah. svayamāsvādasvarūpaiva ratis tv asau | kr.s.n.ādi-
karmakāsvādahetutvam. pratipadyate. Jı̄va glosses: tatpriyajanānām. manovr.ttāv āvirbhūya
tatsvarūpatām. tattādātmyam . vrajantı̄ tadvr.ttyā prakāśyavad bhāsamānā brahmavat tasyām .
sphurantı̄ (DS on BhRS 1.3.5). And Viśvanātha adds: atha ca brahmavat svayam.
prakāśarūpāpi cittavr.ttyā prakāśyavad bhāsamānā bhavati | vastutah. svādarūpāpi kr.s.n.asya
rūpagun.amādhuryakarmakāsvādasya hetutām. pratipadyate prāpnoti (Bhaktisārapradarśinı̄
on BhRS 1.3.5). See also DS on BhRS 1.1.11, quoted above, note 41.
44 UNM 4.3, 6; CC 2.8.123. See also CC 1.1, śloka 5; 1.4, śloka 8; 1.4.52, 61.
not only is bliss. In conjunction with Rādhā, his inseparable hlādinı̄-śakti,

he enjoys bliss – and that continually, in the form of mahābhāva, the
highest state of bhakti. Moreover, he empowers others to enjoy that bliss. In
this connection, Jı̄va Gosvāmı̄ formulates a theologically laden definition:
“That [power], abounding in consciousness, by which Bhagavān, though
having delight as His essential nature, experiences that delight and causes
[others] to experience [that delight] – that is hlādinı̄ ”.45
The process is summed up nicely by Jı̄va in his Bhaktisandarbha
(BhakS):
It may be asked, “How can the bliss of the Blessed Lord, whose essential nature is eternal,
unexcelled bliss, be increased by that [bhakti], since this would contradict the unexcelled
and eternal nature [of the Lord’s bliss]?” It is said [in response]: The scriptures do indeed
proclaim that the Blessed Lord is eternal and that He is unexcelled happiness, and likewise
that bhakti is the cause of [further] joy (prı̄ti) for Him. So things should be understood as
follows: Belonging to Him whose essential nature is supreme bliss only, the svarūpa-śakti,
which is called hlādinı̄, exists causing bliss for Himself and others (sva-para-ānandinı̄),
like a light that has the power of illuminating [both] itself and other things. As such, it
[hlādinı̄] is His highest function (tat-parama-vr.tti-rūpā). Furthermore, the Lord eternally
pours [literally, ‘hurls’] it [as bhakti] into His close companions, and – on account of their
intimate connection with Him – [thereby] causes excessive delight for Himself. Therefore,
it is declared [in scripture] that even for Him whose essential nature is delight, bhakti has
the power to produce delight.46
In their valorization of the idea of śakti, the Gosvāmı̄s exhibit a

marked philosophical inclination toward a tantric-style bipolar monism.47
45 bhagavān . . . hlādarūpo ‘pi yayā samvidutkatarūpayā tam hlādam samvetti
. . . .
samvedayati ca sā hlādinı̄, BhagS 118. Cf. CC 1.4.53; 2.8.120–121.
46 nanu niratiśayanityānandarūpasya bhagavatah katham tayā sukham utpadyeta,
. .
niratiśayatvanityatvayor virodhāt? ucyate, – śāstre khalu niratiśayānandatvam. nityatvañ
ca bhagavatah. śrūyate, bhakter api tathā tatprı̄tihetutvam . śrūyate, tata evam. gamyate,
– tasya paramānandaikarūpasya svaparānandinı̄ svarūpaśaktir yā hlādinı̄nāmı̄ vartate,
prakāśavastunah. svaparaprakāśanaśaktivat tatparamavr.ttirūpaivais.ā | tāñ ca bhagavān
svavr.nde niks.ipanneva nityam . vartate | tatsambandhena ca svayam atitarām . prı̄n.ātı̄ti | ata
eva tasya prı̄tirūpasyāpi bhaktiprı̄n.anı̄yatvam āha, BhakS 142. The reference seems to be
to BhP 5.15.13.
47 The debt that the Gosvāmı̄s owe to monistic tantric thought has been recognized. See
De, Early History, 20–21; J. L. Masson and M. V. Patwardhan, Aesthetic Rapture: The
Rasādhyāya of the Nātyaśāstra (Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Insti-
tute, 1970), I: 4; Edward C. Dimock, The Place of the Hidden Moon (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1989), 81–83. Shrivatsa Gosvami, a modern exponent of the Gaud.ı̄ya
tradition, writes: “A single non-dual Being effulgent with absolute bliss cannot enjoy
itself any more than sugar can taste its own sweetness. Hence the absolutely blissful one,
for the manifestation of its eternal self-enjoyment, polarizes its singularity into ‘he’ and
‘she’. Non-dual in essence, it becomes dual in function . . . this functional duality implies
the split of the Absolute into power or potency (śakti), . . . and the possessor of power
(śaktimān)” (“Rādhā: The Play and Perfection of Rasa”, in The Divine Consort: Rādhā and
360 LANCE E. NELSON
The śaktis, especially hlādinı̄, are not adventitious, but are part of
the Lord’s essential nature (svarūpa-bhūta, acintya-rūpa-bhāk).48 As
Kr.s.n.adāsa Kavirāja writes: “She [Rādhā] is the true form [svarūpa] of
Kr.s.n.a . . . ; as his śakti, she is one form [eka rūpa] with him”.49 In
terms of the Vais.n.avas’ mytho-metaphysical vision, Rādhā is separate
from Kr.s.n.a, yet tends to union, ultimate non-separation, even identity.
The fullness (pūrn.atā) of Deity is Rādhā-Kr.s.n.a; śakti is half of Kr.s.n.a’s
true form (ardha-svarūpa)’.50 All of this, of course, is very close to the
śakti-vāda of the tāntrikas, with Rādhā-Kr.s.n.a substituting for Śiva-Śakti
as the ultimate bipolar unity. The Gosvāmı̄s, however, retreat from the
abyss of monism, feeling compelled by the requirements of their practical
faith to retain, to some extent, the finality of difference and relationship,
which they regard as necessary for devotional spirituality. They manage
this through their doctrine of ‘inscrutable difference in non-difference’
(acintya-bhedābheda). The svābhāvikatva of the divine energies, their
being an essential part of the Lord’s nature (svabhāva), is tempered by
their acintyatva, the final ‘incomprehensibility’ of their relation with the
ultimate. This allows identity and difference to coexist.
From the standpoint of the present discussion, the most important
consequence of the doctrine of inscrutable difference and non-difference
is that it gives an exalted, even absolute ontological status to the divine
power of bliss and therefore, all the more, to bhakti, which is the highest
essence of that power. Devotion becomes Bhagavān’s own essential energy
and – by extension, since śakti and its possessor (śaktimān) are impossible
of separation – Bhagavān himself, appearing in the heart of the devotee.
Once bhakti is presented as such, described as an eternal relishing of divine
bliss in its most highly articulated form, and shown for these reasons to be
superior to moks.a both metaphysically and experientially, the claim that
it is the supreme goal of life seems a reasonable and, from within these
horizons, a defensible one.
the Goddesses of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff [Berkeley:
Graduate Theological Union, 1982], 74–75).
48 svarūpabhūtyā śaktyā, BhagS 3, p. 2 and passim; also BhRS 2.5.92, quoted above,
note 35.
49 . . . krsnera svarūpa | tāṅra śakti tāṅra saha haya ekarūpa, CC 1.4.74. trans. Dimock,
.. .
Caitanya Caritamr.ta, brackets mine.
50 “Calling him ‘nirviśesa’ [distinctionless], not honoring his cit-śakti, is not honoring
.
half his true form, and the fullness of him is lost” (taṅre ‘nirviśes.a’ kahi, cicchakti nā
māni | ardhasvarūpa nā mānile pūrn.atā haya hāni, CC 1.7.133, trans. Dimock, Caitanya
Caritamr.ta, brackets mine); “Rādhā and Kr.s.n.a were one soul [eka ātmā], but contained
in two bodies (rādhā-kr.s.n.a eka ātmā, dui deha dhāri, CC 1.4.49, trans. Dimock, Caitanya
Caritamr.ta, brackets mine). See also CC 1.1.42; 1.4.84–85.
DEVOTION IN THE THOUGHT OF MADHUSŪDANA

SARASVATĪ
Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄, the last and one of the most important of the
great post-Śaṅkara Advaitins, was born around the middle of the sixteenth
century C.E., about a century after Rūpa Gosvāmı̄, although it is possible
that their lives overlapped to some extent. While he spent his mature career
in Banaras, it seems likely that he was originally from Bengal. He is most
famous as the author of the Advaitasiddhi (AS), a ponderous and rigorously
dialectical defense of orthodox Advaita nondualism against attacks from
the theistic, devotionally oriented, and militantly dualistic Dvaita Vedānta
school of Madhva.
In view of our present topic, it is significant that, despite his serious
interest in bhakti, Madhusūdana is recognized as one of the great cham-
pions of orthodox Advaita. This reputation has been justly earned on the
basis of such works as the Siddhāntabindu (SB), the Vedāntakalpalatikā,
the Advaitaratnaraks. an.a, and of course, the Advaitasiddhi, all of which
are regarded as authoritative by the Advaita tradition. This is particu-
larly important in light of the fact that classical Nondualist Vedānta,
as I have already indicated, has historically held intuitive knowledge
(jñāna) of the identity of Self and Brahman to be the sole means to
moks.a, relegating bhakti to at best the subordinate role of preliminary
mental purification. While Śaṅkara condones image worship and related
expressions of bhakti spirituality as preparatory for advaitic knowledge,
in the end he seeks to undercut anything, including bhakti, that smacks of
dualism. Speaking for the benefit of his renouncer (sam . nyāsin) followers,
Śaṅkara teaches (BhGŚ 12.13) that any attitude that posits difference
between the Self and God (ātmeśvara-bheda) and a sense of reliance
on an external power (pāratantrya), is a serious hindrance on the steep
ascent to advaitic realization. Devotees are aware of a dependence upon
the Lord (ı̄śvarādhı̄na), while those who have ‘become the very Self
of God’ (ı̄śvarasya ātmabhūtāh. ) have attained a glorious independence
(svātantrya). “No one who has definitively known himself to be the Lord”,
Śaṅkara declares, “would seek out a state of subordination to anything,
for that would be contradictory”.51 Not surprisingly, the teachers of the
51 atra cātmeśvarabhedam āśritya viśvarūpa ı̄śvare cetahsamādhānalaksano yoga ukta
. . .
ı̄śvarārthaṁ karmānus.t.hānādi ca | “athaitad apy aśakto ‘si” ity ajñānakāryasūcanān
nābhedadarśino ‘ks.aropāsakasya karmayoga upapadyate iti darśayati | tathā
karmayogino ‘ks.aropāsanānupapattiṁ darśayati bhagavān “te prāpnuvanti mām
eva” iti | aks.aropāsakānāṁ kaivalyaprāptau svātantryam uktvetares.āṁ pāratanryam
ı̄śvarādhı̄natāṁ darśitavāṁs tes.ām ahaṁ samuddharteti | yadi hı̄śvarasyātmabhūtās te matā
abhedadarśitvād aks.ararūpā eva ta iti samuddharan.akarmavacanaṁ tān praty apeśalaṁ
362 LANCE E. NELSON
devotional schools felt considerable hostility towards Śaṅkara’s views and

considered it their duty to criticize, indeed to denounce them. A signifi-
cant portion of the vast literature of theistic, devotionally oriented Vedānta
(stemming from such teachers as Rāmānuja, Madhva, Vallabha, and the
Gaud.ı̄ya Gosvāmı̄s) is in fact made up of polemics against the advaitic
outlook.
This being the case, it is interesting that Madhusūdana, in addition
to being recognized as the last great expositor of classical Advaita and
as a brilliant polemicist against the Vais.n.ava Vedāntins, is also known,
perhaps paradoxically, as a fervent devotee of Kr.s.n.a. This devotion he
expresses in a number of well known devotional verses scattered through
his works, particularly in passages of his famous Gūd.hārthadı̄pikā (GAD)
commentary on the Bhagavadgı̄tā (BhG). Notable among these is one
in which the great Advaitin declares, “I know of no reality higher than
Kr.s.n.a”.52 Madhusūdana is, moreover, the author of the only independent
treatise on bhakti written by a major exponent of the classical Advaita
tradition. Titled the Bhaktirasāyana (BhR), or ‘Elixir of Devotion’,53 this
syāt | yasmāc cārjunasyātyantam eva hitais.ı̄ bhagavāṁs tasya samyagdarśanānanvitaṁ

karmayogaṁ bhedadr.s.t.imantam evopadiśati | na ca ātmānam ı̄śvaraṁ pramān.ato budhvā
kasyacid gun.abhāvaṁ jigamis.ati kaścid virodhāt, BhGŚ 12.13. Cf. Śaṅkara’s remark in the
introduction to his Vākyabhās. ya on the Kena Upanis.ad: “One who, having been lead to
Brahman, is consecrated to sovereignty does not wish to bow to anybody” (na hi svārājye
‘bhiks.ito brahmatvam. gamitah. kam . cana namitum icchati, Ten Principle Upanis.ads with
Śāṅkarabhās. ya, vol 1 of Works of Śaṅkarācārya in Original Sanskrit [Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1964], p. 37).
52 “I know of no higher reality than Krsna, whose hand is adorned by the flute.
.. .
His complexion is like a fresh dark cloud laden with water, and He wears beautiful
yellow silk. His reddish lips are like the bimba fruit, His face is as beautiful as
the full moon, His eyes are like lotuses (vam . śı̄bhūs.itakarān navanı̄radābhāt pı̄tāmbarād
arun.abimbaphalādharos. t.hāt | pūrn.endusundaramukhād aravindanetrāt kr.s.n.āt param . kim
api tattvam aham. na jāne, AS 2.7, p. 750). This verse, frequently quoted, is also found at the
end of the GAD, p. 775. Another example: “If the yogins, with their minds controlled by the
practice of meditation, see that indescribable Light – attributeless, actionless, and supreme
– let them see it! But as for me, may that wondrous blue Effulgence that itself runs about
and plays on the banks of the Yamunā long be the joy of my eyes” (dhyānābhyāsavaśı̄kr. tena
manasā tan nirgun.am . nis.kriyam . jyotih. kim. cana yoginah. yadi param. paśyanti paśyantu
te | asmākam. tu tad eva locanacamatkārāya bhūyāc ciram . kālindı̄pulinodare kim api
yan nı̄lam maho dhāvati, GAD 13, opening invocation). For further examples, see P. M.
Modi, trans., Siddhanta Bindu, Being Madhusudana’s Commentary on the Daśaśloki of
Śri Śankaracharya (Allahabad: Vohra Publishers, 1985), appendix IV.
53 The BhR itself at 1.2 gives a suggestive explanation of its title: “O wise ones, let
this inexhaustible Elixir of Devotion be drunk of abundantly by you who have long been
afflicted by the intense illness of worldly existence, for it is extremely efficacious in the
removal of that” (sam . sārarogen.a balı̄yasā ciram . nipı̄d.itaih. tat praśame ‘tiśiks.itam | idam.
bhavadbhir bahudhā vyayātigam. nipı̄yatām . bhakirasāyanam. budhāh.). The word rasāyana,
work expounds an advaitic theory of devotion and devotional sentiment

(bhakti-rasa) on the basis of the BhP, with the aid of abundant citations
therefrom. Madhusūdana’s discussion of bhakti in the BhR will be the
focus of the discussion that follows.
In both the GAD and BhR, while giving bhakti a central role, the author
makes great efforts to remain within the doctrinal boundaries of classical
Advaita. He stretches the limits here and there, but only oversteps them in
limited, well-defined ways, especially – as we shall soon see – in the area of
soteriology, and this particularly in the BhR. Even as he does so, however,
one would hesitate to judge that he has ceased to be an Advaitin, because
his ontological and epistemological framework remains orthodox.54 The
consequence is that Madhusūdana winds up trying to fit an elevated view of
bhakti into the confines of a system not designed to support it. His endeavor
becomes to that extent more problematic than that of the Gosvāmı̄s.
Devotion as an independent path

Probably the most striking and, from the view-point of classical Advaita,
most unorthodox aspects of Madhusūdana’s presentation of bhakti in the
BhR is his conception of bhakti-yoga as a distinct, independent spiritual
path not in need of completion by vedantic gnosis. Madhusūdana begins
his exposition of the spiritual ascent in his T.ı̄kā on BhR 1.1 by identifying
karma-yoga as a preliminary discipline that must be performed by all
aspirants until they have acquired sufficient purity of mind. The attainment
of this goal, Madhusūdana tells us, is followed by the pursuit of one of
two possible paths, knowledge or devotion (BhRT. 1.1). The rest of the
text makes clear that the author intends us to understand these paths as
independent, equally valid ways to the highest spiritual attainment.
“elixir”, comes from the technical vocabulary of Ayurveda, traditional Indic medicine.
Construed differently, however, the Sanskrit compound bhaktirasāyana could also mean
“The way, path, or course (ayana) of the sentiment (rasa) of bhakti. It could be construed,
on this analysis, as referring to the course of the development of bhaktirasa or, possibly,
as naming the cultivation of devotional sentiment as a distinct spiritual path. Sanskrit poets
delight in this kind of double and triple entendre, and there is no doubt that Madhusūdana
chose his title carefully and was conscious of its various possible meanings.
54 When evaluating Madhusūdana’s ‘orthodoxy’ as an Advaitin, one should remember
that the BhR was written after his SB and Vedāntakalpalatikā. Madhusūdana refers his
readers to both in the BhR, and both are straightforward expositions of Advaita doctrine,
regarded as authoritative by the tradition. At the same time, it is clear that the BhR was
written before Madhusūdana’s master works, the AS and GAD. These later texts refer to
each other, and the GAD (at 18.66) refers unapologetically to the BhR. On the chronology
of Madhusūdana’s works, see Divanji, Siddhantabindu, ii–xiii; Gupta, Studies, vii–xvi;
Modi, Siddhanta Bindu, 27–54.
364 LANCE E. NELSON
At first, this seems to be a flagrant contradiction of the orthodox

Advaita doctrine that liberation comes through knowledge alone. The fact
is, however, that the BhR nowhere promotes bhakti as a discipline aiming
specifically at liberation, nor does it truly accept the classical identification
of moks.a as the parama-purus. ārtha. One of the central teachings of the
BhR, enunciated repeatedly from the first verse onward, is that love for
God, bhakti, is itself the highest goal of life. So, while the teaching is
indeed that bhakti is an independent path to the final goal, that goal, at
least for the devotee, is not moks.a but rather bhakti itself. Following the
BhP, the BhR teaches that devotion is both the means and, in its higher
stages, the supreme end.
Devotion as the highest goal of life

Madhusūdana makes his estimate of the value of bhakti quite plain from
the outset, declaring at BhR 1.1 that it is the parama-purus.ārtha. In his
commentary, he writes of bhakti: “Those who know its essence and those
who have experienced it declare it to be the highest goal of life, beyond
which there is nothing greater”.55 This to be sure is the teaching of the BhP,
and the Gaud.ı̄ya Vais.n.avas would have no difficulty with it. Nevertheless,
it is a radical assertion for an Advaitin.56 It is necessary, therefore, to try
and determine exactly what he means when he makes this claim.
Madhusūdana’s approach to including bhakti among the purus.ārthas is,
we discover, quite different from that of the Gosvāmı̄s. He does not move
to expand the four-fold formula, as the Gosvāmı̄s did. Instead, he attempts
to by-pass it by showing that the classically recognized purus.ārthas are
so only figuratively, i.e., insofar as they are the means to bliss. “The bliss
arising from them”, says Madhusūdana, “is the goal of life”.57 The argu-
ment becomes rather convoluted, since a logician of the Nyāya school is
the ostensible interlocutor. What is important for our present purpose is its
outcome, which Madhusūdana states in the form: “Bliss unmixed with any
suffering is the highest goal of life”.58
55 tam paramaṁ niratiśayaṁ purusārthaṁ vadanti rasajñāh . . . tad anubhavitāraś ca,
. .
BhRT. 1.1, pp. 11–12.
56 Even as late as the seventeenth century, Dharmarāja writes: “moksa alone is the
.
supreme goal of life” (moks.a eva paramapurus.ārthah., Vedāntaparibhās.ā, edited and trans-
lated by S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri [Adyar: The Adyar Library and Research Centre,
1942], p. 2).
57 tajjanyasukhasyaiva purusārthatve, BhRT 1.1, p. 14.
. .
58 dukhāsambhinnasukhaṁ hi paramah purusārtha iti, BhRT 1.1, p. 12. Cf. “Bliss alone
. . .
is the goal of life” (sukham eva purus.ārthah., BhRT. 1.1, p. 13); “bliss, by itself, is the
independent goal of life” (sukhañ ca . . . tad eva svatantrah. purus.ārthah., BhRT. 1.1, p. 14);
“bliss alone is the goal of life (sukhamātram purus.ārthah., BhRT. 1.1, p. 16).
The phrase ‘unmixed with any suffering’ (duh.khāsambhinna) refers

us back to the first verse of the text, where Madhusūdana has already
described bhakti as ‘incomparably blissful Consciousness, untouched by
any suffering’.59 The final conclusion is not hard to draw: “Since it is
nothing more than bliss unmixed with suffering, the yoga of devotion to
the Blessed Lord is also the parama-purus. ārtha”.60 He uses the adverb
‘also’ (api) here because he has just concluded an elaborate argument to
show that moks.a is the parama-purus. ārtha ‘for the very reason that it is
supreme Bliss’, a view he acknowledges as the standard doctrine of the
Vedāntins.61 Because of the logical difficulties involved in asserting that
devotion and liberation are both the highest aim, we must understand him
as intending that they are both forms in which the actual highest goal of
life, pure Bliss (in Advaita to be identified with Brahman), can be realized.
As the T.ı̄kā indicates, the perfect meditation or enstasis (samādhi) sought
by yogins is another way in which this Bliss can be attained.62 Here the
Gosvāmı̄s would no doubt object, since as we have seen, they prefer a
clear-cut subordination of vedantic and yogic forms of moks.a to bhakti.
Still, it will eventually become apparent that for Madhusūdana, at least as
he writes the BhR, bhakti is the form in which the supreme Bliss can be
experienced most richly. Hence, for the devotee at any rate, no other form
of the parama-purus.ārtha is worth considering.
Devotion as a modality of the mind

In verse three of the text, Madhusūdana defines bhakti as “the modifica-
tion of the mind melted by the spiritual disciplines of the Lord’s devotees
(bhāgavata-dharmas) that has become a continuous, stream-like flow
directed toward the Lord of all (sarveśa)”.63 This definition is modeled
on that given at BhP 3.29.11–12. Madhusūdana, in his commentary, cites
that passage and takes pains to let the reader know that he is following its
authority.
59 nirupamasukhasaṁvidrūpam asprstaduhkham, BhRT 1.1, p. 1.
. .. . .
60 bhagavadbhaktiyogasyāpi duhkhāsambhinnasukhatvenaiva paramapurus ārthatvaṁ,
. .
BhRT. 1.1, p. 15.
61 moksasya . . . paramānandarūpatvena tu tasya purusārthatvaṁ vedāntavādino vadanti,
. .
BhRT. 1.1, p. 15.
62 “The bliss of devotion is the goal of life in its own right, just like the bliss of
perfect meditation” (samādhisukhasyeva bhaktisukhasyāpi svatantrapurus.ārthatvāt, BhRT.
1.1, p. 16). There is good indication that Madhusūdana, like Vidyāran.ya and perhaps other
later Advaitins, accepts yoga as an independent path to moks.a. See his introduction to the
GAD.
63 drutasya bhagavaddharmād dhārāvāhikatāṁ gatā | sarveśe manasi vrttir bhaktir ity
.
abhidhı̄yate, BhR 1.3.
366 LANCE E. NELSON
In both definitions, bhakti is identified as a modality of the individual

psyche; in the Purān.a it is a ‘flow of the mind’ (mano-gati), in the BhR,
a ‘modification’ (vr.tti) of the mind. It is, by Madhusūdana’s definition,
distinguished from other psychic modifications by several factors. First,
unlike ordinary waking consciousness, but like both yogic meditation
(dhyāna) and vedantic upāsana, it is a constant, unbroken stream of aware-
ness. Second, and now in contrast to meditation and upāsana, it occurs in
a mind that has been ‘melted’ (druta). The idea of the ‘melted mind’ (or
‘heart’, druta-citta) is one that Madhusūdana develops in the BhR and, so
far as I know, nowhere else. It has some resonance with a similar usage in
Sanskrit aesthetics, being used by Madhusūdana to suggest a heightened
state of emotional susceptibility associated with bhakti. The way of knowl-
edge, we read (BhRT. 1.1), is for those whose minds are unmelted (adruta),
while bhakti is for those whose minds are melted. The state of melting
(druti) is most typically cultivated by the ‘spiritual practices of the Lord’s
devotees’ (bhāgavata-dharmas), as enumerated at BhP 9.5.23–24. The
third distinguishing factor of devotion is that its object is the ‘Lord of all’,
Bhagavān or the ‘Blessed Lord’.
In his commentary, Madhusūdana defines the term vr.tti as ‘the mind’s
assumption of a particular form (ākāra)’.64 This allows him to define
bhakti more technically as the mind’s becoming receptive to, and taking
on, the ‘form’ (ākāra) of God. Thus we read: “The worship which consists
in the mind’s taking on the form of the Blessed Lord is devotion”, and
again, “Devotion is . . . the mind’s taking on the form of the Blessed
Lord”.65
Devotion as Bhagavān
The next step in the development of Madhusūdana’s conception of bhakti
is a subtle shift of emphasis, connected with his discussion of devotion
as aesthetic sentiment (rasa). Having introduced the concept of devotion
as a vr.tti that has assumed the form of the Lord, Madhusūdana begins to
focus his attention on the form itself, as present in the mind. Whatever
is apprehended while the mind is in its melted state, he says, becomes a
permanent impression. The form of the object, thus retained in the mind,
becomes the basis, the permanent emotion (sthāyi-bhāva), of rasa. The
form of the Lord (bhagavad-ākāra), then, is the permanent emotion which
develops into bhakti-rasa.
64 tadākārataiva hi sarvatra vrttiśabdārtho ‘smākaṁ darśane, BhRT 1.1, p. 34.

. . .
65 bhajanam antahkaranasya bhagavadākāratārūpaṁ bhaktih, BhRT 1.1, p. 21;
. . . .
dravı̄bhāvapūrvikā hi manaso bhagavadākāratā . . . bhaktih., BhRT. 1.1, p. 26–27.
Aesthetic categories are here inserted into the discussion, and this leads
to developments which are of considerable interest in their own right.
However, space does not here permit a detailed or even cursory discus-
sion of the theory of rasa, as developed by the Sanskrit aestheticians,
and its subsequent adoption by proponents of Kr.s.n.aite bhakti, including
Madhusūdana as well as the Gaud.ı̄ya Gosvāmı̄s.66 For our present purpose,
we can safely and accurately read bhakti-rasa and bhakti as synonyms,
especially when Madhusūdana is speaking about the highest level of
devotional experience, bhakti as parama-purus. ārtha.
Particularly interesting, in terms of the underlying advaitic conceptual
structure, is Madhusūdana’s use in this context of the ‘reflection theory’
(pratibimba-vāda), which he inserts into his discussion of bhakti in his
commentary on BhR 1.10:
It is said that a reflection is nothing but the original itself, apprehended within limiting
adjuncts. Reflected in the mind, the Lord, who is supreme Bliss, becomes a permanent
emotion (sthāyı̄-bhāva)67 and attains the status of rasa. Hence it is beyond question that
bhakti-rasa is supreme Bliss.68
In order to understand the function of this passage in the BhR, we

must appreciate the resonances it has for an audience schooled in Advaita.
The pratibimba-vāda was developed by two authors: Padmapāda, a pupil
of Śaṅkara, in his Pañcapākikā (PP), and Prakāśātman, who wrote the
Vivaran.a, the principle commentary on Padmapāda’s work. As analogical
model, it was intended to elucidate the relation between Brahman, Īśvara,
and jı̄va. As such, it was adopted and further elaborated by an important
66 For a fuller discussion, see Lance E. Nelson, “Bhakti-rasa for the Advaitin Renun-
ciant: Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄’s Theory of Devotional Sentiment”, Religious Traditions 12
(1989): 1–16.
67 In Sanskrit aesthetics, the permanent emotion (sthāyi-bhāva) is a latent feeling state
present in the mind of the appreciator of the work of art, particularly poetry or drama.
The words and events described or enacted in the piece evoke this latent emotion and
develop it into a full-blown aesthetic awareness known as rasa, which involves a state
of blissful, if temporary, self-transcendence. Both the Gosvāmı̄s and Madhusūdana adapt
this conceptual structure to their own purposes in their respective theories of bhakti-rasa,
in which the permanent emotion is love of God (kr.s.n.a-rati), or in Madhusūdana’s case,
the form of God (bhagavad-ākāra). This explicitly religious sthāyibhāva is developed by
such practices as hearing the stories and exploits of Kr.s.n.a, and imaginative participation
therein, until it blossoms in the blissful awareness of bhakti-rasa. See Nelson, “Bhakti-rasa
for the Advaitin Renunciant”; David Habennan, Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of
the Aesthetics of Bhakti (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), chap. 3; Delmonico,
“Sacred Rapture”.
68 bimbam eva hy upādhinisthatvena pratı̄yamānam pratibimbam ity ucyate |
.. .
paramānandaś ca bhagavān manasi pratibimbitah. sthāyibhāvatām āsādya rasatām
āsādayatı̄ti bhaktirasasya paramānandarūpatvam. nirvivādam, BhRT. 1.10, p. 45.
368 LANCE E. NELSON
segment of post-Śaṅkara Advaitins known as the Vivaran.a tradition.69 In

SB, Madhusūdana summarizes the pratibimba-vāda, in addition to several
other competing models. He says of it: “According to the author of the
Vivaran.a, Īśvara is the prototype-Consciousness (bimba-caitanya), which
is limited by [universal] ignorance, while jı̄va is [that] Consciousness
reflected in the ignorance circumscribed by the [individual] mind and its
impressions”.70 The clearest statement of Madhusūdana’s own take on the
reflection theory may be found in his commentary on BhG 7.14:
The beginningless ignorance, superimposed on the pure Consciousness – which is devoid
of the distinctions of jı̄va, Īśvara, and the world – takes upon itself the reflection of
Consciousness, . . . as a mirror takes on itself the reflection of a face. As a result, there is
the Supreme Lord (parameśvara), serving as the prototype (bimba), unburdened with the
defects of limiting adjuncts, and the jı̄va, standing as the reflection (pratibimba), burdened
with the defects of limiting adjuncts.71
It is this model, with certain modifications, that Madhusūdana draws upon

in the BhR in his explanation of bhakti, thus packing it with theological/
metaphysical implications for the benefit of the discerning reader.
What are we to make of Madhusūdana’s exposition? First, it should
be noted that our author is no longer speaking of devotion as a vr.tti, but
as the reflection of Bhagavān in the vr.tti. (Later, in chapter three of the
BhR, he makes explicit the important distinction between rasa and the vr.tti
that manifests it.72 ) Observe also that he is careful to start by defining his
69 The supporters of this model trace it back to the use of reflection analogies in scripture
(Br.hadāran.yaka Upanis.ad 2.5.19, Brahmahindu (a.k.a. Amr.tabindu) Upanis.ad 12), in the
Brahmasūtras (2.3.50, 3.2.18–20), and in the writings of Śaṅkara (BSŚ on the sūtras just
mentioned, also BSŚ 2.3.46, commentary on ChU 6.8.1, and Upadeśasāhasrı̄ 1.18, vv. 43,
63, 87). The theory has several variations. Some authors regard both Īśvara and jı̄va as
reflections of the pure Brahman, the former in the universal, cosmic ignorance (avidyā)
or māyā, and the latter in individual ignorance or, in come cases, in the individual mind
(antah.karan.a). See Appaya Dı̄ks.ita’s Siddhāntaleśasam . graha, ed. S. S. Suryanarayana
Sastri (Madras: University of Madras, 1937), vol. II, pp. 35–42, 161–170. In his SB (pp. 67,
93, 96–97, 111, 124, 236ff.), Madhusūdana summarizes these various theories without,
however, arguing in favor of any one.
70 ajñānopahitam bimbacaitanyam ı̄śvarah, antahkaranatatsamskārāvacchinnājñāna-
. . . . .
pratibimbitam . caitanyam. jı̄va iti vivaran.akārāh., SB, p. 29.
71 jı̄veśvarajagadvibhāgaśūnye śuddhe caitanye ‘dhyastā ‘nādir avidyā . . . darpana
.
iva mukhābhāsam. cidābhāsam āgr.hn.āti | tataś ca bimbasthānı̄yah. parameśvara
upādhidos. ānāskanditah. pratibimbasthānı̄yaś ca jı̄va upādhidos.āskanditah., GAD 7.14.
72 “Because [the] bliss [of rasa] is nothing less than the Self, it has no locus, but the
[locus of] the mental modification that manifests that [bliss] is the mind of the spectator”
(sukhasyātmasvarūpatvāt tadādhāro na vidyate | tadvyañjakāyā vr.ttes tu sāmājikamano
prati, BhR 3.3). In his works on orthodox Advaita also, when discussing the prati-
bimbavāda, he makes a distinction between the Consciousness that is reflected and the
mind that receives the reflection. Thus in the SB he writes: “It’s [the reflection’s] being
key term so that we know exactly what he is talking about: “A reflection

is nothing but the original itself (bimbam eva hi), apprehended within
limiting adjuncts”.73 This definition, which clearly echoes the discourse
of Madhusūdana’s more orthodox treatises on Advaita, as well as the
language of the Vivaran.a school, can only be intended to alert the reader
to the fact that the author is making use of the pratibimba-vāda. More
specifically, it is designed to bring to mind one of the important distin-
guishing features of that doctrine, the idea that the ‘reflection is nothing but
the original itself’. Unlike the appearance theory (ābhāsa-vāda), its closest
rival, the reflection theory regards the pratibimba as real and identical with
the bimba. This strategy goes back to Padmapāda, who writes:
Regarding the analogy of the reflection of a face in a mirror, or of the moon in water, it is
[intended] to point out that the ‘not this’ portion of the ego-sense [i.e., the Ātman] is not
a reality different from Brahman, just as the reflection is [not different] from the original.
One is precisely the other (tad eva tat), what is false being only the seeming separation
[between them] and their [apparently] contrary nature.74
Madhusūdana himself echoes: “The reflection of Consciousness (cit-

pratibimba) is the prototype-Consciousness itself that is only imagined to
be situated within the limiting adjunct”.75
different from the insentient [mind] is established by scripture and experience” (acetana-
vilaks.an.atvan tu tasya śrutisiddham anubhavasiddham. ca, SB, p. 16). On the above,
Purus.ottama comments: “Then it turns out that the reflection is sentient . . . Because
of [expressions such as] ‘like a mirror’, the inner organ (antah.karan.a), as being the
receptor (grāhaka) of the reflection of Consciousness, is the receptacle (āśraya) of true
knowledge” (tarhi pratibimbasya cetanatvam āpatitam . . . . | darpan.ādivadityādinā yac
citpratibimbagrāhakatvena pramāśrayatvam uktam antan.karan.asya, SB, p. 16). See also
Madhusūdana’s comments on Sam . kśepaśārı̄raka 3.279 and Padmapāda’s remarks quoted
in note 74.
73 bimbam eva hi upādhinisthatvena pratı̄yamānaṁ pratibimbam, BhRT 1.10, p. 45.
.. .
74 He continues: “How can one be precisely the other? Because they are seen to have
a single set of essential characteristics . . . Moreover, common usage in authoritative texts
shows that the reflection is in reality (pāramārthikam eva) identical with the prototype”.
The whole passage: yat punah. darpan.ajalādis.u mukhacandrādipratibimbodāharan. am, tat
ahaṅkartur anidamam . śo bimbād iva pratibimbam . na brahman.o vastvantaram, kim . tu tad
eva tat, pr.thagavabhāsaviparyayasvarūpatāmātram. mithyā iti darśayitum | katham . puna.s
tad eva tat? ekasvalaks.an.atāvagamāt . . . kim . ca – śāstrı̄yo vyavahārah. pratibimbasya
pāramārthikam eva bimbaikarūpatvam. darśayati, PP, pp. 104, 107.
75 cit-pratibimbaś . . . pratibimbapaks e bimbacaitanya evopādhisthatvamātrasya
.
kalpitatvāt, GAD 7.14. See also Madhusūdana’s treatment in the SB: “According to
the adherents of the pratibimba-vāda, the reflection is completely real” (tasya ca
pratibimbasya satyam eveti pratibimbavādinah., SB, p. 16); and again, “Because the
reflection is absolutely real” (pratibimbasya ca pāramārthikātvāt, SB, p. 28).
370 LANCE E. NELSON
Normally, of course, the point of the pratibimba-vāda’s identification

of reflection and original is to establish the identity of jı̄va and Brahman.76
But Madhusūdana is here utilizing the doctrine in an analysis of devotion,
with Bhagavān as the bimba and his form as pratibimba. Since he is a
master expositor of the various conflicting schools of thought in post-
Śaṅkara Advaita, we can be sure that he is well aware of the theoretical
implications of the reflection theory and the consequences of its applica-
tion here. He is acting deliberately, expecting his readers to recognize the
most important of these consequences, namely, that bhakti, as reflection,
should be regarded as identified with Bhagavān, the original.
Although he does it without any announcement, Madhusūdana here
makes a further shift from he BhP’s simple definition of devotion as a
mode of the mind. As he strives to arrive at a clearer conception of bhakti
from an advaitic standpoint, he allows it to become, at least implicitly,
identical with the Lord himself. Consider the sequence of thought and the
grammatical structure in his sentences: “A reflection is nothing but the
original itself . . . Reflected in the mind, the Lord [subject] . . . becomes a
permanent emotion and attains the status of rasa”.77 Curiously, however,
Madhusūdana proceeds to feign disavowal of the more radical implications
of this teaching. “The distinction between the reflection and the original”,
he writes, “is well-established in the everyday world (vyavahāra-siddha),
like the distinction between jı̄va and Īśvara”.78 But if anyone is aware that,
76 AS 2.33 (pp. 847–851) contains an elaborate argument refuting all possible objec-
tions to the idea of the identity of the pratibimba and the bimba, beginning: “Thus, the
non-difference of jı̄va and Brahman is to be understood, on account of being reflection
and original, like the reflection of a face and the [original] face” (tathā jı̄vabrahmayor
mukhapratimukhavat bimbapratibimbarūpatvād apy abhedo ‘vagantavyah., p. 847). It
concludes: “Hence, the oneness (aikya) of the reflection and the original being established,
the identity of the all jı̄vas with Brahman is proven, because of [their] being reflections.
Thus in the Advaitasiddhi identity is established according to the rule of reflection and
original” (tad evam . pratibimbasya bimbenaikye vyavasthite | brahmaikyam. jı̄vajātasya
siddham. tatpratibimbanāt || ity advaitasiddhau bimbapratibimbanyāyenaikyasiddhih. ,
p. 851).
77 For Sanskrit, see above, note 68.
78 nāpi ālambanavibhāvasthāyibhāvayor aikyam, bimbapratibimbabhāvena bhedasya
vyavahārasiddhatvād iśvarajı̄vayor iva, BhRT. 1.10, p. 45. In Madhusūdana’s adaption of
the categories of Sanskrit aesthetics to bhakti, the ālambanavibhāva (objective cause) of
bhakti-rasa is Bhagavān. The sthāyibhāva (permanent emotion) is the form of Bhagavān.
From the point of view of aesthetic theory, any suggestion of identity between the objective
causes of rasa – say, the lovers in a play – and the permanent emotion in the spectator –
for example, an erotic sensibility – would be ruled out. Madhusūdana here seems to be
trying to sidestep this potential criticism of his religious re-conceptualization of rasa, in
which the objective cause (bhagavān) and the permanent emotion (bhagavad-ākāra) are
in fact ultimately one. Note that the bhakti-rasa theory of the Gosvāmı̄s would be subject
in Advaita, what is vyavahāra-siddha is not necessarily paramārtha-satya

(‘ultimate truth’), it must surely be Madhusūdana himself.79 Gopeśvara,
writing a century or so later as a representative of the Kr.s.n.aite Vallabha
sampradāya, did not fail to see the full implications of Madhusūdana’s use
of the pratibimba-vāda. In his Bhaktimārtan.d.a (BhM), he criticizes the
view that bhakti is ‘the form of the Lord reflected in the melted mind’, a
position that can only be Madhusūdana’s. He writes: “Others, with much
zealous ado, accept that the permanent emotion called rati is the mani-
fest form of the Lord (vyakta-bhagavad-ākāratā) . . . This cannot be so”.
Gopeśvara here (at least for polemical purposes) confines his definition of
devotion to the psychological level. Bhakti is sneha, loving attachment,
which his school takes to be an attribute of mind (mano-dharma). Its iden-
tification with the very form of God, he complains, is illegitimate: “How
can the two be equated?”80
I must therefore agree in substance with Sanjukta Gupta, who writes:
Madhusūdana started with his pledge to the Bhāgavata and thus declared cittavr.tti [the
mental mode] to be bhakti. But later on . . . he almost unconsciously landed into [a] spiritual
region where bhakti becomes Bhagavat Himself and not a mere cittavr.tti.81
Madhusūdana is forced in this direction for two related reasons, though

I am not at all sure that they are unconscious. They are, in fact, closely
related to the rationale that lies behind the Gosvāmı̄s’ identification of
bhakti with Kr.s.n.a’s śakti. First, in his desire to establish that it is the
parama-purus. ārtha and the highest rasa, Madhusūdana wishes to identify
bhakti with supreme Bliss. A mere mental mode, a product of māyā, cannot
be Bliss, so Madhusūdana has to establish that bhakti is something greater.
criticism on the same grounds, since as we have seen, the sthāyibhāva in their system is
also Bhagavān, or at least part of Bhagavān, viz. his śakti.
79 Commenting on BhG 5.15, Madhusūdana twice speaks of the idea of the “differ-
ence between jı̄va, Īśvara, and the world” being, from the viewpoint of ultimate
truth (paramārthatah. ), an error (bhrama) and a delusion (moha), experienced by
the deluded (mūd.ha): paramārthatah. . . . jñānam . jı̄veśvarajagadbhramādhis. t.hānabhūtam.
nityam. svaprakāśam. saccidānandarūpam advitı̄yam . paramārthasatyam. . . . jı̄veśvarajagad-
bhedabhramah. pratı̄yamāno vartate mūd.hānām, GAD 5.15. On 13.2, he writes: “The differ-
ence between jı̄va and Īśvara is based on ignorance, while the final truth (pāramārthika)
is non-difference. The arguments for this have been explained by the Commentator
[Śaṅkara]” (jı̄veśvarayor āvidyako bhedah. pāramārthikas tv abhedah. ity atra yuktayo
bhās.yakr.dbhir varn.itāh., GAD 13.2).
80 aparas tu mahatā samrambhena vyaktabhagavadākāratārūparatyākhlyasthāyibhāvam
.
aṅgı̄kr.tya paramānandasāks. ātkāro bhaktirasa ity āha | tan na | bhagavadākāratāyā
ratitvābhāvāt | sā hi bhavatā dravı̄bhūte cetasi pratibimbitabhagavadrūpatvenāṅgı̄kr. tā,
ratipadam. ca snehe rūd.ham iti katham anayoh. sāmānādhikaran.yam iti, BhM, p. 103.
81 Sanjukta Gupta, Studies in the Philosophy of Madhusudana Sarasvati (Calcutta:
Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1966), 204–205.
372 LANCE E. NELSON
But it is axiomatic in Advaita that only Brahman and Īśvara (or, in the
language of the BhR, Bhagavān) can be said to be beyond māyā, and only
they are to be defined as supreme Bliss. On this account alone, then, bhakti
must be identified with either Brahman or Bhagavān.
Second, Madhusūdana – like the Gosvāmı̄s – wants to give devotion
an ontological status that is, at the very least, commensurate with that
of moks.a. But how can a citta-vr.tti be placed on a par with liberation,
especially when the latter has been identified by Śaṅkara as equivalent to
the unchanging Absolute? So again, bhakti must somehow be assimilated
to the supreme principle. While the Gosvāmı̄s give bhakti a near-absolute
status by equating it with the Lord’s highest śakti, this route is not open to
Madhusūdana. As an Advaitin, he must hold that Brahman’s only śakti is
māyā, which is insentient (jad.a), like the vr.tti, and in the final analysis
not fully real. Given the options, then, the identification of bhakti and
Bhagavān is Madhusūdana’s natural and indeed only recourse.
He is assisted in this, in a round about way, by his use of the
categories of Sanskrit aesthetics and his identification of bhakti as the
highest rasa. Like the Gaud.ı̄ya Vais.n.avas, Madhusūdhana in the BhR
(3.22) places considerable weight on Taitirı̄ya Upanis.ad 2.7.1, which
famously proclaims, ‘raso vai sah., He [i.e., Brahman] verily is rasa’.
The equation, ‘rasa equals Brahman’, then supports the thesis, ‘bhakti
equals Bhagavān’. While the secular rasas are ‘not causes of reaching
the full Bliss’ (pūrn.a-sukhāsparśitva-kāran. āt, 2.76), bhakti-rasa ‘consists
of supreme Bliss’ (parānanda-maya, 2.12). Moreover, as Madhusūdana
proclaims, “this Bliss has no external support (ādhāra), because it is
nothing less than the Ātman”.82
All of this enables Madhusūdana to claim, regarding his now ‘ontolo-
gized’ bhakti:
When the melted mind grasps the Blessed Lord – who is omnipresent, eternal, full, and of
the nature of Consciousness and Bliss – what else remains? . . . Because the numberless
forms of objects that have entered the mind since beginningless time are destroyed by such
a form of the Lord [that is] contained in the mind (bhagavad-ākāren. a mano-gatena), and
He alone shines forth, the purpose of life is accomplished.83
82 sukhasyātmasvarūpatvāt tadādhāro na vidyate, BhR 3.3.

83 yad grhnāti drutam cittam, kim anyad avaśisyate . . . etādrśena bhagavadākāren a
. . . . . . .
manogatenānādikālapravis. t.āsam
. khyavis.ayākārān.ām
. kavalı̄karan.āt tanmātraparisphūrtyā
kr.takr.tyo bhavati, BhR 1.30 and T.ı̄kā thereon, pp. 64–65.
The nature of Bhagavān

This of course raises the question as to how Madhusūdana understands
the nature of Bhagavān, and the relation of Bhagavān to Brahman. We
have already considered the passage from the GAD, a later work, in
which Madhusūdana defines Parameśvara as the pure Consciousness that
is Brahman, differing only insofar as, unlike the utterly transcendent
Brahman, Parameśvara exists in relation to cosmic ignorance (avidyā) by
way of being reflected therein. What does Madhusūdana say about the
nature of Bhagavān in the BhR? Considering the numerous quotations
from the BhP found in the BhR and the loving descriptions of the form
of Kr.s.n.a found in the devotional verses Madhusūdana included in other
works such as the AS and GAD, we might conclude that his Blessed Lord
is an anthropomorphically conceived, sagun.a Deity and that the highest
devotional experience is some type of mystical apprehension of a personal
form. But the fact is that the first and most important chapter of the BhR
is almost completely lacking in a personalized concept of the Godhead.
It cannot be without significance, of course, that Madhusūdana in that
chapter constantly refers to the object of devotion as Bhagavān, and not,
say, as Īśvara, the standard advaitic designation of the personal God. The
term bhagavān by itself already evokes images of a beloved and compas-
sionate Deity. Its use, however, is only to be expected in a text that centers
itself so completely on the BhP. Nevertheless, the fact is that in BhR 1
Bhagavān is described in the richly particularized form of Kr.s.n.a, and asso-
ciated with the earthly lı̄lās recounted in the BhP, only in the numerous
verses from that text that Madhusūdana quotes. Otherwise, while the iden-
tity of Bhagavān and Kr.s.n.a is assumed, it is evoked in name only. In the
first stanza, Madhusūdana speaks of devotion to ‘Mukunda’ as the highest
goal of life, and later in his commentary, he glosses the same stanza as
follows:
The name ‘Mukunda’ indicates the object of the yoga of devotion. It will be stated that He
alone, the inner controller and Lord of all, is the objective cause of bhakti-rasa.84
Elsewhere in remarks on chapter one (BhRT. 1.32), he writes of Bhagavān

as Vāsudeva. At the beginning of chapter two, Madhusūdana defines
devotion as the ‘form of Govinda that has entered permanently into the
melted mind’.85 He then goes on to analyze the different types of bhakti
in terms of the experience of the various participants in the Kr.s.n.a-lı̄lā,
84 mukunda iti bhaktiyogasya visayanirdeśah | sarvāntaryāmı̄ sarveśvara eva bhak-
. .
tirasālambanavibhāva iti vaks.yate, BhRT. 1.1, p. 16. For the notion of objective cause
(ālambanavibhāva), see note 78.
85 drute citte pravistā yā govindākāratā sthirā | yā bhaktir ity abhihitā . . ., BhR 2.1.
..
374 LANCE E. NELSON
as recounted in the BhP. Careful reading yields, however, no descriptions

in Madhusūdana’s own words of Kr.s.n.a’s form, beauty, or other qualities,
such as are so familiar in the bhakti literature, even in these later chapters.
So – although (1) ‘Mukunda’, ‘Vasudeva’, and ‘Govinda’ are all well-
known names of Kr.s.n.a, and (2) it is certain that Madhusūdana is a devotee
of that Deity, and (3) Madhusūdana discusses various aspects of the devo-
tional moods of famous Kr.s.n.a bhaktas of the BhP, such as the gopı̄s – it
remains true that we cannot determine from such references how he, as
he writes the BhR, understands Kr.s.n.a’s nature, either as Deity or as object
of devotion. We must depend on careful reading of the rest of the text to
gather clues about this.
As we search for such indications, it is important to note that
Madhusūdana makes no explicit use in the BhR of the standard Advaita
framework for explaining Īśvara, Brahman, and their relationship: namely,
the sagun.a-nirgun.a distinction. The terms simply do not appear in the
text. We may want to assume that the author, as an Advaitin, takes this
distinction for granted, but there is hardly any evidence for this if we take
the BhR by itself.
Indeed, there is material that suggests, to the contrary, that
Madhusūdana is doing rather the opposite – that he is in fact seeking
to minimize the distinction between Bhagavān and Brahman that is so
common in the discourse of post-Śaṅkara Advaita. He finds it comfort-
able to speak of Bhagavān, and knowledge of Bhagavān, in ways
that precisely mimic the language an Advaitin would normally use in
reference to the supreme Brahman. At several places, Madhusūdana
describes Bhagavān as ‘Consciousness and Bliss’ (cid-ānanda-ghana,
BhRT. 1.13; bodhasukhātmaka, BhR 1.30). This could conceivably refer
to a sagun.a reality, but it is language that Advaita typically uses for the
nirgun.a Brahman. Again in his T.ı̄kā on 1.30, he describes Bhagavān
as ‘the substratum of the whole illusion of duality’ (sarva-dvaita-
bhramādhis..thāna, p. 64). This is emphatically Brahman language. There
are, moreover, a good number of extraordinary examples in chapter one
of Madhusūdana’s deliberate insertion of the term bhāgavān, in discourse
that is otherwise unambiguously advaitic, where we would normally, were
this not a bhakti text, expect to find the word brahman (or ātman). Thus
his commentary on 1.32, he writes:
The objects which imprint their forms in the mind are not distinct from Bhagavān, because
they are superimposed on Him. For all objects appear as existent – as [for example] ‘an
existing pot’ or ‘an existing cloth’ – because they participate in the existence of Bhagavān
Himself.
Of Śaṅkara’s thought, Hacker says, ‘the term ı̄śvara can be replaced for
brahman everywhere’.86 The same appears to be true of Madhusūdana in
the BhR. He continues:
According to the upanisadic text, “All this, verily, is Brahman, in origin, duration, and
dissolution’ [ChU 3.14.1], all things arise from Bhagavān alone, exist in Bhagavān alone,
and dissolve into Bhagavān alone, because they are known to be non-different [from
Bhagavān], like pots from clay, and will be contradicted [by true knowledge] like the
manifestations of the dream state, etc.87
We cannot but be struck here to see a text on Brahman, indeed the

venerable Brahman-Ātman language of the Chāndogya Upanis.ad (ChU)
itself, being glossed as a reference to Bhagavān, treating Brahman and
Bhagavān as interchangeable terms. Elsewhere in this remarkable passage,
Madhusūdana cites verses from Sureśvarācārya, that most orthodox of
advaitic authorities, asserting the mind’s ‘pervasion by the consciousness
that is the Self’ (ātma-sambodha-vyāpti, Sambandhavārttika 543–545).
Yet Madhusūdana brings this citation forward in support of the idea that
the form of the Lord (bhagavad-ākāra) is inherent in the mind.
Madhusūdana’s T.ı̄kā on BhR 1.32 also contains language that repre-
sents the closest the author gets to a definition of Bhagavān. Great
detachment arises, he tells us, ‘for one who has determined, by reason-
ings such as these, that the Blessed Lord is the non-dual Self, a mass of
perfect Being, Consciousness, and Bliss, the pure Existence which is the
86 Paul Hacker, “Distinctive Features of the Doctrine and Terminology of Śaṅkara:
Avidyā, Nāmarūpa, Māyā, Īśvara”, in Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Tradi-
tional and Modern Vedanta, ed. by Wilhelm Halbfass (Albany, N.Y.: State University of
New York Press, 1995), 91. See also pp. 85–96 of the same article and Hacker’s “Relations
of Early Advaitins to Vais.n.avism” in the same volume, pp. 33–39, as also Sengaku Mayeda,
“The Authenticity of the Bhagavadgı̄tābhās. ya Ascribed to Śaṅkara”, Wiener Zeitschrift
für die Kunde Sud- und Ostasiens und Archiv für Indische Philosophie 9 (1965), 183–185;
G. A. Jacob, ed., The Vedāntasāra of Sadānanda (Bombay: Tukaram Javaji, 1894), vii–
ix; Rudolf Otto, Mysticism East and West (New York, Macmillan, 1932), 127; Raimundo
Panikkar, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism (Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis Books, 1981), 112,
114. Hacker, echoing Jacob, writes, “Śaṅkara again and again ignored the distinction
between param . brahma and ı̄śvara” (“Relations of Early Advaitins”, 33). Mayeda lists
some fifteen instances of this theologically pregnant conceptual slurring in Śaṅkara’s
Gı̄tābhās.ya alone. Again Hacker: “Īśvara is for Ś[aṅkara] a concept that stands vaguely
between param . and aparam . Brahma. Mostly He is the former, infrequently the latter, and
in some cases one is reluctant to decide” (“Distinctive Features”, 96).
87 citte svākārasamarpakā ye visayās te bhagavadvyatiriktā na bhavanti, bhagavaty
.
adhyastatvāt, bhagavata eva sadrūpatayā ghat.ah. san pat.ah. sann ityādisadākāren.aiva
sarvavis.ayān.ām. sphuran.āt, “sarvam. khalv idam brahma tajjalān” (ChU 3.14.1) iti śrutyā
bhagavadekodbhavatvena bhagavadekasthititvena bhagavadekalayatvena ca mr.dghat.avad
abhedabodhanāt, svapnādiprapañcavad bādhyatvāc ca, BhRT. 1.32, p. 76.
376 LANCE E. NELSON
substratum of all”.88 The distinction between Bhagavān and the advaitic

ultimate seems here to have completely collapsed.
In his Sam. ks.epaśārı̄rakasārasam. graha (SŚSS), Madhusūdana writes
that the nondual Brahman, which is realized in samādhi by liberated sages,
was born in Vr.ndāvana as the flute-carrying son of Nanda ‘for the joy of
all’.89 At 3.265 in the same text, he reaffirms this idea, asserting that the
‘son of Ānakadundubhi’ (i.e., Kr.s.n.a) is the avatāra of ‘the pure Conscious-
ness that is without origin or destruction, transcending mind’.90 This
identification of Kr.s.n.a, as avatāra, with the advaitic absolute is affirmed
by Madhusūdana in the GAD, where he asserts that the embodiment of the
Lord as avatāra is less than real, that Kr.s.n.a should not be identified with
any concrete form, since he is nothing less than ‘the eternal, all-pervading,
pure Being-Consciousness-Bliss, perfect, nirgun.a, the Supreme Self’.91
Later in the passage the author expresses the same idea in Kr.s.n.a’s voice:
It is nothing but māyā when [embodied] form is seen in Me, Bhagavān Vāsudeva, the
pure, the unqualified (nirgun.a), the essence of Being, Consciousness, and Bliss through
and through, who is devoid of the relationship of body and embodied.92
We note that Kr.s.n.a is in these instances explicitly identified with the

nirgun.a Brahman. Indeed, in the GAD (unlike the earlier BhR) Madhusū-
dana readily employs the distinction between the nirgun.a and the sagun.a
Brahman. Significantly, however, the Lord is much more frequently iden-
tified with the former than with the latter. There are, by the nature of
the text, numerous passages in the Gı̄tā in which Kr.s.n.a employs personal
pronouns referring to himself. In the GAD, Madhusūdana explains almost
all of these as references to the ultimate of Advaita. Kr.s.n.a’s self-referential
‘I’ or ‘Me’ is glossed as the ‘Supreme self’ (paramātman), the ‘Self
of all’ (sarvātman), the ‘pure Being-Consciousness-Bliss’ (viśuddha-
88 etādrśayuktyanusandhānena sarvādhis.t.hānasanmātram. paripūrn.asaccidānanda-
.
ghanam. bhagavantam advayam ātmānam niścitavatah. . . . vairāgyam. mahad upajāyate
vaśı̄kārākhyam, BhRT. 1.32, p. 77.
89 satyam jñānam anantam advayasukham yad brahma gatvā gurum | matvā labdha-
. . .
samādhibhir munivarair moks.āya s.āks.ātkr.tam || jātam . nandatapobalāt tad akhilānandāya
vr.ndāvane | ven.um. vādayad indusundaramukham. vande ‘ravindeks.anam, SŚSS 1.1, p. 3.
90 Samksepaśārı̄raka 3.265 reads: api tu vaidikavāṅmanasātigānuditaluptacidekarasāt
. .
prabhoh. | abhavad ānakadundubhinandanād amatipūrvam idam . sakal.am . jagat. M.
comments: tasyaivāvatāritvaprakhyāpanāyānakadundubhinandanād ity uktam, SŚSS,
p. 303.
91 anye tu parameśvare dehadehibhāvam na manyante kimtu yaś ca nityo vibhuh
. . .
saccidānandaghano bhagavān vāsudevah. paripūr.n.o nirgun.ah. paramātmā sa eva tadvigraho
nānyah. kaścid bhautiko māyiko veti asmin paks.e yojanā, GAD 4.6.
92 nirgune śuddhe saccidānandarasaghane mayi bhagavati vāsudeve dehadehibhā-
.
vaśūnye tadrūpen.a pratı̄tir māyāmātram ity arthah., GAD 4.6.
sacccidānanda-ghana), and so on. By means of repeated apposition,

Madhusūdana clearly equates the reality designated by these terms with
Bhagavān, who in the process becomes characterized as free from limiting
adjuncts (nirupādhika, sarvopādhivirahita), unconditioned (nirvikalpaka),
and so on. In this, of course, he follows Śaṅkara, who almost invariably
reads the voice of Kr.s.n.a in the Gı̄tā as the voice of the supreme Brahman.
One final, and striking, example:
Of that again, the Brahman with limiting adjuncts which is the cause, Bhagavān Kr.s.n.a is
the ultimate substance, the essence in the form of Existence, . . . because Bhagavān Kr.s.n.a,
being the ground of all constructions, is the Brahman which is the highest truth, free from
all limiting adjuncts (paramārthasatya-nirupādhi-brahma).93
It is not surprising, then, that Madhusūdana is able to speak of Bhagavān as

being the object of the highest vedantic intuition and referent of the word
‘That’ (tat) in the hallowed upanisadic saying, ‘That you are’ (tat tvam asi,
ChU 6.8–15).94
In this connection, it is interesting to note that the Vais.n.ava critic
Gopeśvara attacks Madhusūdana’s definition of bhakti as a reflection of
the form of God on the grounds that ‘a reflection of that which is without
form (nı̄rūpa) is impossible’.95 Now, Madhusūdana nowhere says in so
many words that Bhagavān is formless. But given Madhusūdana’s delib-
erate use of Brahman language in relation to Bhagavān, in the BhR and
elsewhere, Gopeśvara can perhaps be excused for drawing conclusions.
Indeed – whether or not one would wish to quibble about the possibility of
a reflection of something that is formless96 – one might well question how,
when Bhagavān is identified so closely with the highest Brahman, bhakti
can legitimately be distinguished from vedantic gnosis.
Madhusūdana himself clearly anticipated this doubt, for in his
commentary on BhR 1.1 he makes his rhetorical interlocutor (pūrvapaks. in)
93 brahmanas tatpadavācyasya sopādhikasya jagadutpattisthitilayahetoh. pratis.t.hā
.
pāramārthikam. nirvikalpakam. saccidānandātmakam. nirupādhikam. tatpadalaks.yam aham.
nirvikalpako vāsudevah. , pratitis.t.haty atreti pratis.t.hā, kalpitarūparahitam akalpitam .
rūpam. ato yo mām anupādhikam. brahma sevate sa brahmabhūyāya kalpata iti
yuktam eva | . . . tasyāpi bhavatah. kāran.asya sopādhikasya brahman.o bhāvārthah.
sattārūpo ‘rtho bhagavān kr.s.n.ah. . . . bhagavatah. kr.s.n.asya ca sarvakalpanādhis. t.hānatvena
paramārthasatyanirupādhibrahmarūpatvāt, GAD 14.27.
94 bhagavān paramānandas tatpadārtho ‘vadhāryate (GAD introductory śloka 9). See
also GAD 9.14, quoted below, note 103.
95 kim ca | sthyāyibhāva eva svaparipos e rasatām etı̄ti prasiddham | evam ca
. . .
bhavadaṅgı̄kr. tarateh. paripos.en.a paramānandasāks. āt.kārātmakatvam. sambhavati | api tu
pratibimbaparipos.en.a tadātmakatvam iti | kim . ca | pratibimbāsambhavān nı̄rūpasya | na ca
rūpavattvam. na pratibimbaprayojakam. , rūpapratibimbadarśanād iti bhramitavyam (BhM,
p. 103).
96 Madhusūdana gives an answer to this objection in his SB, pp. 14–15.
378 LANCE E. NELSON
remark dismissively, “Devotion to the Lord is, then, merely knowledge

of Brahman by another name, . . . so this whole discussion is useless”.97
In response, Madhusūdana expends considerable effort in defining and
defending the difference between bhakti and brahma-vidyā. Devotion, he
says, is a determinate (savikalpaka) mental modification, having Bhagavān
as its object, and occurring in a mind that has first been ‘melted’ (dravı̄-
bhāva-pūrvikā) by devotional disciplines. Knowledge of Brahman, on the
other hand, is an indeterminate (nirvikalpaka) mental modification, the
object of which is ‘the secondless Self only’ (advitı̄yātma-mātra), and
it is not characterized by the condition of melting.98 Several points are
important here. First, this discussion occurs relatively early in the text,
before stanza 1.10 where Madhusūdana makes a clear shift from talking of
bhakti as a vr.tti to conceptualizing it as the form of the Lord itself, reflected
in the mind. Second, within that framework, Madhusūdana distinguishes
the bhakti-vr. tti and the vr.tti that culminates in knowledge of Brahman
by making a distinction between their objects: respectively, the Lord and
the Absolute Self or Brahman. In other words, he suggests that they are
different, in some way, because their objects are different. But how is this
difference to be explained, given Madhusūdana’s use of Brahman language
for Bhagavān (‘the Blessed Lord is the non-dual Self’, etc.), discussed
above? The answer must lie in part in what he says about the difference in
the kinds of cognition involved. To characterize a mode of awareness, as
Madhusūdana does, is also to characterize its object. If bhakti is a determi-
nate (savikalpaka) experience, Bhagavān, its object, must be a determinate
or conditioned reality. Likewise, if spiritual knowledge is an indeterminate
(nirvikalpaka) experience, Brahman, its object, must be indeterminate.
Certainly, for late post-Śaṅkara Advaitins, savikalpaka means conditioned
by ‘name and form’ (nāma-rūpa). Only intuitive awareness of the undif-
ferentiated, objectless Consciousness – i.e., Brahman – is nirvikalpaka, or
unconditioned.99
97 nanu tarhi nāmāntaren.a brahmavidyaiva bhagavadbhaktir . . . vyartho ‘yam .
vicārārambhah., BhRT. 1.1, p. 26.
98 dravı̄bhāvapūrvikā hi manaso bhagavadākāratā savikalpakavrttirūpā bhaktih,
. .
dravı̄bhāvānupetā ‘dvitı̄yātmamātragocarā nirvikalpakamanovr. ttir brahmavidyā, BhRT.
1.1, pp. 26–27.
99 “The most distinctive note in Advaita is probably that of pure, undifferentiated or
objectless consciousness. To be sure, a distinction between two kinds of awareness –
nirvikalpaka or construction-free and savikalpaka or construction-filled – is a common
one in Indian philosophy by Śaṅkara’s time, especially as found in the Yoga systems of
Buddhism and Hinduism. But Advaita elevates the distinction to new heights by identifying
construction-free awareness with reality, Brahman” (Karl Potter, Advaita Vedānta up to
Śaṅkara and His Pupils, vol. 3 of Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies [Delhi, Motilal
Banarsidass, 1981], 92).
What Madhusūdana seems to be suggesting here is a homology, but

not an identity, between the mental states associated with bhakti and
brahma-vidyā. In orthodox Advaita, we have the akhan.d.ākāra-cittavr. tti,
the ‘mental mode taking on the form of the Undivided’, that leads to
realization of Brahman and destruction of ignorance (and of itself). There
is, Madhusūdana wants us to understand, a parallel structure in bhakti.
The bhagavad-ākāra-cittavr. tti, ‘the mental mode taking the form of the
Blessed Lord’, leads to the manifestation of supreme Bliss as Bhagavān,
and incidentally, as we shall see, the destruction of ignorance (though
perhaps not its own destruction). That Madhusūdana understands these
two to be homologous is confirmed by the idea that the bhagavad-ākāra,
the form of Bhagavān, is ‘generated by scripture’.100 Indeed, he asserts
the parallel directly: “The hearing (śravan.a) of compositions which bring
together the exalted qualities of the Blessed Lord is the means to devo-
tion, while the means to knowledge of Brahman is the great sayings
(mahāvākya) of the Upanis.ads, such as, ‘You are That’ [ChU 6.9.4]”.101
Madhusūdana does not specify which scripture thus provides the cata-
lyst for devotion, but given the flood of quotations from the BhP, it
is not hard to guess his intention. Thus, both brahma-vidyā and bhakti
are evoked by scripture, Brahman-knowledge arising through the well-
known practice of the śravana (‘hearing’) of the great sayings of the
Upanis.ads, bhakti through the ‘hearing of the glories of the Blessed Lord’
(bhagavad-gun. a-śravan.a) from the scriptures of bhakti, preeminently the
BhP.102
Does this distinction, and especially the savikalpaka nature of bhakti,
decide the question as to the nature of Bhagavān in the BhR? Perhaps,
but Madhusūdana is frustratingly vague. Given the abundant evidence
cited above that Madhusūdana views Kr.s.n.a as equivalent in some sense
to the supreme Brahman, shall we conclude that the object of bhakti
is precisely that supreme Brahman, but brought to awareness somehow
in a savikalpaka way? My sense is that the key lies in Madhusūdana’s
conception of ‘melting’ (dravı̄-bhāva), which we have already encountered
several times. It would appear that Bhagavān is the supreme Brahman
brought to awareness in a savikalpaka modality, the latter precisely
100 śāstrajanyā, BhRT 1.32, p. 71.

.
101 bhagavadgunagarimagranthanarūpagranthaśravan am bhaktisādhanam, tattvamasyā-
. . .
divedāntamahāvākyam. brahmavidyāsādhanam, BhRT. 1.1, p. 27.
102 See in addition BhR 1.3 and 1.34, and the Tikā on both. Earlier in his commentary,
.
Madhusūdana writes that the melting of the mind itself is generated by hearing the
scriptures of bhakti: bhagavadgun. agarimagranthanarūpagranthaśravan. ajanitadrutirūpāyām.
manovr.ttau, BhRT. 1.1, p. 10.
380 LANCE E. NELSON
because of the mind’s melted condition. Bhakti then is that Bhagavān, so

realized.
If this is the correct interpretation, is the Bhagavān appearing in (or
as) bhakti possessed of ontological ultimacy? Madhusūdana’s language
suggests that it is. Indeed, for bhakti to be the parama-purus.ārtha it must
be, as Jı̄va Gosvāmı̄ suggests in the quotation that heads this article. But
we are here stretching the resources of Advaita, for where in that system
is the conceptual structure to support a savikalpaka experience of anything
but the sagun.a Brahman? I think we must avoid reducing the Bhagavān
of the BhR to the sopādhika, penultimate, sagun.a reality expounded so
commonly in post-Śaṅkara Advaita. The language of the BhR would resist
such a simplistic diminishment. It rather seems to suggest the ambiguous
usage of Śaṅkara, already mentioned, which tends to equate Brahman and
Īśvara, following – or perhaps reviving – the usage of the master. True,
Madhusūdana in the GAD does bring the sagun.a-nirgun.a distinction into
play, as we have seen. And he sometimes, though in fact much less often,
identifies Kr.s.n.a with the sagun.a. For example, he notes that Kr.s.n.a in BhG
9.14 uses the personal pronoun ‘Me’ twice. The repetition does not create
redundancy, says Madhusūdana; for Bhagavān has a sagun.a aspect as well
as a nirgun.a:
Praising Me, who am taught in all the Upanis.ads, whose essential nature is Brahman (brah-
masvarūpa) . . . and rendering homage to Me, the Blessed Lord Vāsudeva, the abode of all
auspicious qualities (kalyānagun. a), who abides in the form of the chosen deity (is..tadevatā)
and guru . . . Here, the second instance of [the word] ‘Me’ is for the sake of indicating the
qualified (sagun.a) [aspect]. Otherwise, it would be redundant.103
Also in the GAD, Madhusūdana does give a description of what can only
be described as a richly sagun.a awareness of Kr.s.n.a:
Those saintly ones who have Me as their sole support take refuge in – the meaning should
be ‘see’ – ‘Me alone’, the Blessed Lord Vāsudeva, the complete essence of infinite beauty,
the abode of all refinements, whose feet surpass the entire splendor of fresh rain clouds,
whose form is supreme Bliss through and through. Passing their days thinking constantly
[of Me] as such, with their minds immersed in the great ocean of Bliss which is love of
Me, they are not overpowered by all the transformations of the gun.as of māyā.104
103 mām sarvopanisatpratipādyam brahmasvarūpam kı̄rtayantah . . . namaskurvantaś ca
. . . . .
mām. bhagavantam. vāsudevam. sakalakalyān.agun.anidhānam is.t.adevatārūpena gururūpena
ca sthitam | . . . atra mām iti punarvacanam. sagun.arūpaparāmarśārtham | anyathā
vaiyarthyaprasaṅgāt, GAD 9.14.
104 prapaśyantı̄ti vaktavye prapādyanta ity ukte ‘rthe madekaśaranah santah mām eva
. . .
bhagavantam. vāsudevam ı̄dr.śam anantasaundaryasārasarvasvam akhilakalākalāpanilayam
abhinava . . . jaladaśobhāsarvasvaharan. aparamānandaghanamayamūrtim . . . te matpre-
mamahānandasamudramagnamanastayā samastamāyāgun. avikārair nābhibhūyante, GAD
7.14. Interestingly, the edition I am using includes as a possible reading a string of
However, when we ask who it is that has this richly qualified experience
of Bhagavān, our quest for simple distinctions is again thwarted: “Those”,
answers Madhusūdana’s Kr.s.n.a, “who surrender to Me, the undivided true
Self that is Consciousness and Bliss, devoid of all limiting adjuncts, [i.e.,
those] who make [Me] an object of the mental modification that suppresses
ignorance and all its effects, . . . that is generated by the Vedānta texts
and is the form of an immediate, unconditioned realization (nirvikalpaka-
sāks.ātkāra), in the form of inexpressible pure Consciousness”.105 This
kind of shifting focus, which we also see in the BhR should give us
pause. Madhusūdana’s thought in this respect, as in others, has a way of
frustrating any desire for formulaic precision.
Devotion and liberation

While distinguishing devotion from knowledge of Brahman in the passage
just considered, Madhusūdana states one additional difference, namely,
the results of each. The fruit of bhakti is ‘an abundance of love (prema-
prakars.a) for the Blessed Lord’, while brahma-vidyā results in the destruc-
tion of ignorance.106 This at first seems to imply that bhakti does not have
the latter virtue. Yet we read in BhRT. 1.32 that the manifestation of God in
bhakti brings about what amounts to the same result: it puts an end to the
experience of all other objects. Madhusūdana says:
The form of the Lord that is generated by scripture, though appearing as if remote at the
beginning of practice, gradually removes the forms of objects from the mind and, when
lead through the advanced levels of practice to immediacy, completely destroys them.107
There follows a typically advaitic discussion of the process by which

external objects are falsely superimposed on Consciousness. Indeed, we
have looked at this passage already as an illustration of Madhusūdana’s
habit in the BhR of using Brahman language in relation to Bhagavān.
Madhusūdana concludes: “Because that which is superimposed is annulled
descriptors even more indicative of sagun.a awareness (delights in playing on the flute,
holds up the Govardhana Mountain, etc.), of which the editor says in a note: “This orna-
mented portion is not accepted in some manuscripts” (evam. kun.d.alito bhāgah. kes.ucid
ādarśes.u nopāttah.).
105 mām eva sarvopādhivirahitam cidānandasadātmānam akhandam ye prapadyante
. .. .
vedāntavākyajanyayā nirvikalpakasāks.ātkārarūpayā nirvacanānarhaśuddhacidākāratva-
dharmaviśis.t.ayā . . . cetovr.ttyā sarvājñānatatkāryavirodhinyā vaśı̄kurvanti, GAD 7.14.
106 bhagavadvis ayakapremaprakarso bhaktiphalam, sarvānarthamūlājñānanivr ttir brah-
. . .
mavidyāphalam, BhRT. 1.1, p. 27.
107 bhagavadākāratā . . . śāstrajanyā tu sādhanopakrame parokseva bhāsamānā
.
‘bhyāsakramen.a viśayākāratāṁ śanaiśśanais tirodadhati sādhanaparipāken. āparoks.atāṁ
nı̄tā satı̄ tāṁ samūlaghātam upahanti, BhRT. 1.32, p. 71. See also the quote from BhRT.
1.30, note 83 above.
382 LANCE E. NELSON
by the knowledge of its substratum, all things vanish at the manifestation

of the Lord and merge in Him”.108 It is clear from this that, despite the
distinctions he has made, Madhusūdana believes that the consequences
of genuine devotion include the ends of brahma-vidyā – namely, the
destruction of ignorance, the revelation of Brahman/Bhagavān as the
underlying Consciousness, and – as an unstated but presumably inevitable
consequence in the context of Advaita – the attainment of moks.a.
Further on in his T.ı̄kā on BhR 1.32, Madhusūdana discusses the relation
of knowledge, non-attachment, and devotion; he comes to the interesting
conclusion that the higher non-attachment which is a prerequisite for
perfect bhakti cannot exist without knowledge. “First comes knowledge of
the Lord”, he says, “then there arises the higher non-attachment, and then
the devotion which is of the nature of ecstatic love (preman)”.109 He must
of course specify what he means here by ‘knowledge of the Lord’. Is it
reverent awareness of God’s greatness (māhātmya-jñāna), as in Vallabha’s
definition of bhakti? Although such an understanding of knowledge might
be expected in a devotional treatise, it is not what Madhusūdana has in
mind. He describes the realization that must come prior to the attainment
of the highest levels of devotion as follows:
Everything other than Bhagavān, because it is transient, is false (māyika) like a dream. It
is devoid of true significance, painful, and to be shunned. Bhagavān alone is real; He is
the supreme Bliss, self-luminous, eternal, the one to be sought after. This is the kind of
knowledge spoken of.110
Even if Brahman has here, under the influence of devotion, become

Bhagavān, this awareness retains all the characteristics of the Advaitins’
direct realization of the Supreme. To confirm Madhusūdana’s intention,
we need only note that he quotes by way of illustration a series of verses
from the BhP (11.9.2–3, 11.19.7) and the BhG (7.16–19) in which the word
jñānin (‘possessor of knowledge’) appears no less than seven times.
To say, however, that such knowledge must precede the full develop-
ment of bhakti is, since true gnosis is equivalent to moks.a, the same as
saying that the highest state of devotion comes only after liberation. So
again we find the teaching of the BhR to be pushing the limits of classical
108 ayam atra niskarsah – citte svākārasamarpakā ye visayās te bhagavadvyatiriktā na
. . . .
bhavanti, bhagavaty adhyastatvāt . . . | ata eva bhagavadākārasphūrtyā te sarve nivartamānās
tadrūpā eva bhavati, adhis.t.hānajñānanivartyatvād adhyastānām, BhRT. 1.32, p. 76.
109 prathamaṁ bhagavatprabodhas tatah paraṁ vairāgyaṁ tatah premalaksanā bhaktih,
. . . . .
BhRT. 1.32, p. 85.
110 bhagavadvyatiriktaṁ sarvam āgamāpāyitvāt svapnavan māyikaṁ tucchaṁ
duh.kharūpañ ca heyam | bhagavān eva satyas svaprakāśaparamānandarūpo nityo
vibhuś copādeya iti jñānam ity arthah., BhRT. 1.32, pp. 86–87.
Advaita soteriology. As I have argued elsewhere, knowledge and moks.a

for Śaṅkara entail the abolition of all duality, and any suggestion that
after realization there might be devotion of any sort, not to speak of a
further heightening of the devotional experience, is out of the question.111
Yet, although Madhusūdana does not spell out explicitly here the full
implications of what he is saying, confirmation of the BhR’s unorthodox
conception of the spiritual goal is not difficult to find. We need only look
at Madhusūdana’s account of the eleven stages of devotional experience
(bhakti-bhūmikā), which he gives at BhR 1.34–36, and his commentary
thereon.
The description of the sixth stage in this hierarchy is particularly
important for the present discussion. It is preceded by four stages of spiri-
tual preparation, and a fifth which consists of the initial manifestation in
the mind of the form of the Lord as the ‘sprout of love’.112 Stage six,
called the ‘Realization of the Essential Nature’ (svarūpādhigati), is not a
devotional experience as such. Rather it turns out to be nothing less than
the immediate intuition of the ultimate that is the goal of Advaita or, as
Madhusūdana explains it, “the direct realization of the essential nature of
the inner Self (pratyagātman)”. It includes, he says, the knowledge of the
fundamental identity of jı̄va and Brahman taught by the ‘great saying’
of the Upanis.ad, ‘That you are’.113 This realization, in turn, generates
the intense non-attachment required for the full manifestation of bhakti.
“Without it”, Madhusūdana tells us, “love (rati), even though it is present,
will not reach its full development due to the distractions of the body and
senses’.114
111 See Lance E. Nelson, “Theism for the Masses, Non-dualism for the Monastic Elite:
A Fresh Look at Śaṅkara’s Trans-theistic Spirituality”, in The Struggle Over the Past:
Fundamentalism in the Modern World, edited by William Shea (Latham, MD: University
Press of America, 1993), 61–77.
112 tato ratyaṅkurotpattih | ratir nāma bhaktirasasthāyibhāvo drutacittapravistabhagavad-
. ..
ākāratārūpasam.skāraviśes.a iti vaks.yate, BhRT. 1.35, p. 124.
113 pratyagātmasvarūpasya sthūlasūksmadehadvayātiriktatvena sāksātkāras sasthı̄
. . . . ..
bhūmikā, BhRT. 1.33–36, p. 126; evaṁ śuddhe tvampadalaks.ye ‘vagate tatpadalaks.yen.a
sahābhedajñānaṁ bhavati, BhRT. 1.33–36, p. 128.
114 anyathā dehendriyādiviks epena jātāyā api rater anirvāhāt, BhRT 1.33–36, pp. 126–
. . .
127. It appears that Madhusūdana’s system of eleven stages represents an expan-
sion of a scheme found in BhP 1.5, as interpreted by Śrı̄dhara in his commen-
tary, the Bhāvārthabodhinı̄ (BhAB). Under BhP 1.5.34, Śrı̄dhara lists nine stages of
bhakti, of which 1–8 correspond almost exactly to the first eight of Madhusūdana’s
eleven. Śrı̄dhara: ata ca prathamam. mahatsevā, tataś ca tatkr.pā, tatas taddharma-
śraddhā, tato bhagavatkathāśravan. am . , tato bhagavati ratih., tayā ca dehadvayavivekātma-
jñānam., tato dr.d.hā bhaktih., tato bhagavattatvajñānam. , tatas tatkr.payā sarvajñatvādi-
bagavadgun. āvirbhāva iti kramo darśitah., BhAB on 1.5.34.
384 LANCE E. NELSON
The inescapable conclusion is that Madhusūdana is teaching that the

higher levels of devotion are only experienced by one who, as a kind of
by-product of bhakti, has attained the immediate realization of the Self and
become – if the basic assumptions of Advaita still hold – a jı̄vanmukta,
one who enjoys liberation while still dwelling in a human body. The
clear implication, in other words, is that the state of living liberation,115
which itself presupposes knowledge of Brahman, is a prerequisite for the
culmination of bhakti. Such a doctrine certainly represents a triumph for
the cause of devotionalism in the Śaṅkara school. It may seem a strange
teaching to come from the pen of the author who went on to write the AS,
but it is important to remember that he clearly articulates the possibility
of devotion in the state of living liberation in his GAD, as well as in the
BhR.116
Devotion superior to liberation

Aside from Madhusūdana’s close verbal identification of Bhagavān and the
inner Self, and the consequent abstractness of his image of the former, his
analysis of the relation between bhakti and moks.a is strikingly similar to
that presented by the Gaud.ı̄ya Vais.n.avas. As we have seen, the Gosvāmı̄s
regard the emancipation of the soul from the bondage of māyā-śakti as
preliminary to the emergence of true bhakti. The underlying rationale of
Madhusūdana’s sixth stage is exactly the same, and it accomplishes a
similar end: overcoming, through realization of the ātman, the hindrances
to devotion imposed by bondage to ordinary psychophysical existence. The
conception of ātman is of course different, but in each case it must be
realized in preparation for the highest experience of bhakti.117
115 On the conception of jı̄vanmukti or living liberation in Śaṅkara and classical Advaita,
see Lance E. Nelson, “Living Liberation in Śaṅkara and Classical Advaita: Sharing the
Holy Waiting of God”, in Living Liberation in Indian Thought, edited by Andrew O. Fort
and Patricia Y. Mumme (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1996), 17–62.
116 jı̄vanmuktānām api bhagavadbhaktipratipādanāt, BhRT 1.1, p. 32; GAD introductory
.
ślokas 36–39. See Lance E. Nelson, “Bhakti Preempted: Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ on
Devotion for the Advaitin Renouncer”, Journal of Vais.n.ava Studies 6 (Winter 1998):
53–74.
117 This kind of thinking is common among Vaisnavas, with the difference of course
..
that they do not regard the jı̄va or ātman to be identical with Brahman. Yāmuna, at
Gı̄tārthasam . graha 26, writes: “Having realized the ātman as subservient to the Supreme,
with all one’s ignorance removed, one acquires supreme devotion (parām . bhaktim. ) and by
that obtains the highest state” (nirastanikhilājñāno dr.s.t.vātmānam. parānugam | pratilabhya
parām. bhaktim . tayaivāpnoti tatpadam, Svami Adidevananda, ed. and trans., Śrı̄ Rāmānuja
Gı̄tā Bhās.ya [Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, n.d.], 7 [my translation]). In his introduction
to chapter three of the BhG, Rāmānuja says that a realization of the real nature of the ātman
On the principle that mystic realization in its nirviśes.a (‘qualityless’)

form is much less blissful than saviśes.a (‘qualified’) realization, the
Gosvāmı̄s – as we have seen – regard union with Brahman to be far inferior
to the vision of Bhagavān. Again, Madhusūdana’s analysis of the stages of
bhakti reflects a similar conception. It suggests what for an Advaitin is
an almost heretical conclusion, namely, that the nirvikalpaka realization is
less, at least experientially speaking, than the savikalpaka. Having defined
bhakti as supreme Bliss (paramānanda), he later on in the BhR begins to
talk of it as preman (‘ecstatic love’), a key term of the bhakti schools,
including the Gaud.ı̄ya, as we have seen. He alludes in passing to ‘the
devotion which is of the nature of ecstatic love’118 and goes on to designate
his eleventh and highest stage of bhakti as ‘the Supreme Limit of Ecstatic
Love’.119 Preman, it would seem, is the Bliss that is Bhagavān, not just
attained, but experienced fully and richly in the style of the great devotees
of the Bhāgavata. This further development and articulation of the ecstatic
bliss experience, which occurs after the attainment of advaitic gnosis, is
the chief interest of Madhusūdana’s theory of bhakti-rasa.
One is tempted to understand Madhusūdana here as inadvertently anti-
cipating, and proleptically countering, an objection to Advaita offered
famously by the eighteenth century devotee of the Goddess Kālı̄,
Rāmprasād Sen. By way of asserting the superiority of his concept of
bhakti to the Advaitin’s notion of mukti, Rāmprasād proclaims, “I want
to taste sugar; I don’t want to become sugar”.120 Rāmprasād builds here
on the idea that any ‘tasting’ would imply dualism, which the Advaitin
disallows in mukti. This is not a sentiment that the Bengal Vais.n.avas would
disagree with. But Madhusūdana, it would seem, wants to do both: to taste
sugar and become sugar, or vice versa. With the realization of the nondual
Self at stage six of the BhR’s eleven stages of bhakti, one presumably has
already become sugar, i.e., realized one’s identity with the ultimate, that
one is the Supreme Bliss itself. But the author the BhR is not content
with this. He wants to go on experiencing bliss in its most sumptuously
articulated forms.
(ātmano yāthātmadarśana. m), which is attained by the yoga of knowledge, is preliminary

(aṅga) to bhakti-yoga (ibid., 115–116; see also his introduction to BhG 7, ibid., 240).
118 premalaksanā bhaktih, BhRT 1.32, p. 85.
. . . .
119 premno ‘tha paramā kāsthā, BhR 1.36.
. ..
120 This saying, made popular by Ramakrishna, has a wide circulation in contemporary
Hindu devotional literature. For its source, see Jadunath Sinha, trans, Rama Prasada’s
Devotional Songs: The Cult of Shakti (Calcutta: Sinha Publishing House, 1966), 12; Clint
Seely and Leonard Nathan, trans., Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair: Poems to the Mother
Goddess by Ramprasad Sen (Boulder: Great Eastern, 1982), 62.
386 LANCE E. NELSON
In this connection, there is a verse traditionally attributed to

Madhusūdana:
Before realization of true knowledge, duality is the cause of delusion. But once knowledge
has arises through intuition, duality can be assumed for the sake of devotion.121
I have not been able to find this verse in any of Madhusūdana’s published
works, nor has he, so far as I know, presented any theoretical exposition of
such ‘assumed’ dualistic awareness. Nevertheless, it may well encapsulate
what Madhusūdana is finally about.
Still, the question of how all this can be justified in terms of Advaita
remains. Indeed it is here, precisely where Madhusūdana’s glorification
of bhakti reaches its zenith, that the conceptual problems of supporting
bhakti as parama-purus. ārtha within a nondualist horizon become most
apparent. Whether or not the jı̄vanmukta can retain a dualistic awareness,
the concept of moks.a in Advaita extends, of course, beyond the state of
embodied liberation. When the mukta’s karma is utterly exhausted, the
liberated one attains videha-mukti, ‘disembodied liberation’. Since in this
state the mukta’s individuality, psychic as well as physical, is dissolved
without remainder, and only the supreme Brahman, with which moks.a
is finally identified, remains, it is often referred to as kaivalya, abso-
lute ‘isolation’, or videha-kaivalya, ‘disembodied aloneness’. Here one
becomes sugar most thoroughly, so to say, but loses completely the ability
to taste it. Even for the jı̄vanmukta who is also a bhakta, Advaita should
predict this kind of absolute liberation from phenomenality upon death,
as a natural consequence of the liberated devotee’s being liberated. What
Madhusūdana in the end completely fails to explain is how bhakti can,
for the erstwhile jı̄vanmukta-bhakta, continue beyond death, in a state in
which the mind, melted or otherwise, must have been left behind. Even
in the BhR, Madhusūdana admits that at the point of moks.a there is a
complete dissolution of the mind (manaso layāt).122 So where and how in
the post-mortem existence of the liberated bhakta is there scope for bhakti?
Madhusūdana does indeed suggest that bhakti continues after death.
After all, how could it not and still remain the parama-purus. ārtha? He has
121 dvaitam mohāya bodhāt prāk jāte bodhe manı̄sayā | bhaktyartham kalpitam dvaitam
. . . .
advaitād api sundaram, quoted by Chakravarti, Philosophical Foundations, 190 n. 65; and
Swami Smarananda, “The Place of Bhakti in Advaita Vedanta”, Prabuddha Bharata 79
(1974): 300. There is another similar verse, also attributed to Madhusūdana: “The highest
truth is nonduality, but duality is necessary for worship. If there is that kind of bhakti,
it is a hundred times superior to liberation” (pāramārthikam advaitam. dvaitam bhajana-
hetave | tādr.śı̄ yadi bhaktih. syāt sā tu muktiśatādhikā, quoted by Chakravarti, Philosophical
Foundations, 190 n. 64).
122 Explaining BS 4.2.8, BhRT 1.32, p. 69.
.
his objector raise that point that, if bhakti is distinct from knowledge of
Brahman, then like heaven (svarga), it cannot be the highest goal of life.
Madhusūdana responds:
Heaven and other such goals cannot be enjoyed forever. They can be experienced only
at certain limited times and places through certain specific bodies and sense organs, and
they are, moreover, pervaded by the two-fold pain of perishability and contingency. So
they are certainly not ultimate. The uninterrupted flow of the Bliss of devotion, however, is
justifiably ultimate because it may be enjoyed equally in all times and places, in all bodies
and through all sense organs, like the fruit of knowledge of Brahman, and because it does
not suffer the two-fold pain of perishability and contingency.123
Bhakti must continue beyond death for it to be the parama-purus. ārtha.

But, being a savikalpaka awareness, it is hard to see how it could continue
in the orthodox Advaitin’s videha-kaivalya. With this devotion that can
be ‘enjoyed equally in all times and place’, one wonders if Madhusūdana
is assuming, but reluctant to discuss explicitly, a kind of heavenly exist-
ence – like the Advaitins’ (temporary) brahma-loka or even the Vais.n.avas’
(permanent) goloka – for those who have attained the pinnacle of devotion
and then passed on? Perhaps, but for Advaitins heaven can only be a penul-
timate goal, suitable for those who have not quite made it and who must
therefore accept ‘liberation by stages’ (krama-mukti), a second prize at
best. Those who – like the sixth stage devotee described by Madhusūdana
in the BhR – have already have realized the truth of the great saying
‘That you are’, should enjoy the highest destiny. Śaṅkara, to whom all
this must go back, does in fact allow an exceptional continued existence
in a celestial form after death for the liberated individual designated an
adhikārapurus. a, a ‘person with a mission’, an enlightened soul whose
individuality continues after death to enable fulfillment of an assign-
ment given by God. In his commentary on Brahmasūtra (BS) 3.3.32, he
mentions sages such as Vyāsa, Nārada, and Sanatkumāra as examples of
such:
Exhausting their store of karma that has already begun bearing fruit, they wander at will
from one body to another, as if from one house to another, for the sake of the completion
of their missions, with recollection undiminished. They create [new] bodies through their
mastery of the material of the body and the senses, occupying them either successively or
simultaneously.124
123 svargāder niyatadeśakālaśarı̄rendriyādibhogyatvena sarvatropabhoktum aśakyatvāt
ks.ayitvapāratantryalaks.an.aduh.khadvayānuviddhatvena niratiśayābhāve ‘pi bhaktisukha-
dhārāyās sarvadeśakālaśarı̄rendriyādisādhāran. yena brahmavidyāphalavad upabhoktum.
śakyatvāt ks.ayitvapāratantryalaks.an.adu.h.khadvayānuvedhābhāvena niratiśayatvopapatteh.
BhRT. 1.1, pp. 29–30.
124 sakrtpravrttam eva hi te phaladānāya karmāśayam ativāhayantah svātantryenaiva
. . . .
gr.hād iva gr.hāntaram anyamanyam. deham . sam . carantah. svādhikāranirvartanāyāpari-
388 LANCE E. NELSON
Is this the type of postmortem existence Madhusūdana has in mind when

he asserts that bhakti is imperishable and enjoyable without reference to
time, place, or particular embodiment? The fact that Nārada, Vyāsa, and
Sanatkumāra play prominent roles as enlightened bhaktas in the BhP,
the ethos of which Madhusūdana claims to be representing in the BhR,
would argue in favor of this supposition. So as well would the fact that
Madhusūdana in chapter two of the BhR identifies such sages as the highest
exemplars of bhakti.125 But sooner or later, it is recognized, even those
long-lived sages will fully exhaust their karma and their mission will
come to an end; even they must inevitably attain kaivalya.126 So in the
final analysis, Madhusūdana’s exposition remains once again frustratingly
vague, leaving us guessing on key issues.
CONCLUSION
We have already mentioned that Madhusūdana was a Bengali, and a

younger contemporary of Rūpa Gosvāmı̄. Rūpa’s pioneering interest in
the theory of bhakti and bhakti-rasa is well-known, and more carefully
studied than Madhusūdana’s. Given the parallels between their ways of
conceptualizing bhakti, it is tempting to speculate that Madhusūdana, as
the younger of the two thinkers, must have been influenced by Rūpa. To
say that he may have been influenced by Rūpa’s younger cousin Jı̄va would
be more difficult, but it is possible. It remains to be seen, however, whether
or not convincing evidence can be found to give substance to such suppo-
sitions. What is clear is that both the Gosvāmı̄s and Madhusūdana were
intent on the same task: reconceptualizing bhakti in such a way that it
attained ontological parity with moks.a. If it is true – and I am tempted to
say it is – that Madhusūdana was aware of Rūpa’s work, if not Jı̄va’s, it is
also true that his thinking on bhakti was influence by others. There is clear
evidence, for example, that his conceptualization of the stages of bhakti
was heavily dependent on the (quasi-) Advaitin Śrı̄dhara.127
mus.itasmr.taya eva dehendriyaprakr. tivaśitvān nirmāya dehān yugapat kramen.a vā
‘dhitis.t.hanti, BSŚ 3.3.32.
125 See BhR 2.46, 2.64–65, 2.73; also Nelson, “Bhakti-rasa for the Advaitin Renunciant”.
126 As Śaṅkara emphasizes in at the end of the passage just quoted, “Therefore, the
attainment of absolute isolation is inevitable for those possessed of knowledge” (tasmād
aikāntikı̄ vidus.ah. kaivalyasiddhih., BSŚ 3.3.32). This is true despite the fact that Śaṅkara
does not wish to make liberation depend upon literal disembodiment: na hi “tat tvam
asi” ity asya vākyasyārthas tat tvam . mr.to bhavis.yası̄ty evam. parin.etum . śakyah. | . . .
samyagdarśanakālameva tatphalam . sarvātmatvam. darśayati, ibid.
127 See note 114.
In regard to non-Gaud.ı̄ya influences on Madhusūdana, there is a tradi-

tion that the great Advaitin met the Vais.n.ava ācārya Vallabha, who taught
Kr.s.n.a-bhakti from a nondualistic but nevertheless theistic perspective,
and who was also very much interested in the application of rasa theory
to bhakti. Vallabha, in fact, is said to have sent his son and successor
Vit.t.haleśa to Banaras to study with Madhusūdana. And as I have already
established, Gopeśvara, a later follower of Vallabha, was aware of and
criticized Madhusūdana’s work. A full review of Vallabhite thinking on
these issues cannot be attempted here. I can note, however, that in the
Bhaktyutkars. avāda of Purus.ottama (1668–1725), there are clear indica-
tions of a movement from psychology to ontology that precisely parallels
that in the conceptualization of bhakti of the Gosvāmı̄s and Madhusūdana.
The standard Vallabhite definition of bhakti as sneha, ‘loving attachment’,
considered a mano-dharma or attribute of the mind, seems in fact to
be only preliminary. The deeper understanding, to which Purus.ottama
leads us, is that this sneha is actually a brahma-dharma, an attribute of
Brahman or Bhagavān. As such, it is eternal (nitya) and unconditioned
(nirupādhika). Through the process of reflection on the Lord, it becomes
manifest in the mind (manasi tat-samāgamanena). “Bhakti is commonly
understood to be an attribute of mind”, Purus.ottarna writes, because of its
“being manifest in the mind (manasy āvirbhavantı̄), due to [the devotee’s]
close proximity to the Blessed Lord”. Again: “The Lord, having become
manifest in the heart by the means described in the rasa-texts, causes the
experience of rasa in oneself”.128 Was Purus.ottama reading the work of
128 Purusottama begins by reinterpreting the standard Vallabhite definition of bhakti:
.
Loving attachment (sneha) alone is bhakti toward the Blessed Lord, as in the Pañcarātra
[verse]: “Bhakti is said to be loving attachment that is very steady, surpassing all,
preceded by knowledge of [God’s] greatness, and mukti is not [to be obtained] in
any other way”. Here, “very steady” indicates that bhakti is an attribute of Brahman.
“Greater than all” indicates its being unconditioned (sneha eva ca bhagavati bhaktih. |
“mahātmajñānapurvas tu sudr.d.hah. sarvato ‘dhikah. | sneho bhaktir iti proktas tayā muktir
na cā’nyathe” ti pañcarātrāt | atra sudr.d.ha iti brahmadharmatvabodhakam | sarvato ‘dika iti
nirupādhitvabodhakam, BhUV, p. 210).
He then takes the analysis deeper:
As in the saying, ‘The ātman is in people’s minds’, in this case [as well] the Blessed Lord
is proclaimed in scripture to be in the mind on account of becoming manifest in the mind.
So also bhakti, being manifest in the mind on account of [the devotee’s] close proximity
to the Blessed Lord, is commonly understood to be an attribute of mind. Just as there
are gradations in the experience of heat because of gradations in the proximity to fire, so
there are gradations in the experience of bhakti because of gradations in proximity to the
Blessed Lord . . . Moreover, the Blessed Lord, described in scripture as being rasa [in the
text], “He, verily, is rasa”, [and] becoming manifest in the heart in the manner described in
the treatises on rasa, causes the experience of rasa [or: of (His) being rasa] in oneself’
390 LANCE E. NELSON
the Gosvāmı̄s or Madhusūdana? Was Madhusūdana reading Purus.ottama’s

predecessors? At this point, I cannot say. There are certainly intriguing
interconnections that need to be explored.
Certainly both the Gaud.ı̄ya Vais.n.avas and Madhusūdana were seeking
some kind of ontological certification of bhakti. And so were at least some
elements of the Vallabha tradition. To be sure, Madhusūdana’s attempt
is made much more complicated by his commitment to advaitic presup-
positions, so much so that it is difficult to decide whether or not he was
successful, even in his own terms. I would not presume to have worked
out a final estimate in so short a compass; much depends on one’s guess
as to what exactly Madhusūdana was trying to accomplish in the BhR. But
I think I have at least demonstrated how even one considered among the
greatest of Advaitin polemicists was caught up in this movement.
Meanwhile, we ourselves can remain intrigued by these carefully arti-
culated expressions of, not so much the idea that God is love, but rather
the more existentially interesting notion that the love that appears in our
hearts is nothing less than God.
ABBREVIATIONS
AS Advaitasiddhi of Madhusūdanasarasvatı̄. Edited by N. S.

Ananta Krishna Sastri. Delhi: Parimal Publications, 1982.
BhAB Bhāvārthabodhinı̄ of Śrı̄dhara Svāmin. See BhP.
BhagS Śrı̄ Bhagavatsandarbhah. by Śrı̄ Jı̄va Gosvāmı̄. Edited by Chin-
mayi Chatterjee. Calcutta: Jadavpur University, 1972.
BhakS Śrı̄bhaktisandarbha of Jı̄va Gosvāmı̄. Edited by Haridasa Sastri.
Vrndanvana: Sri Gadadharagaurahari Press, 1986.
BhG Bhagavadgı̄tā. See BhGŚ.
BhGŚ Śrı̄madbhagavadgı̄tā with the Commentaries Śrı̄mat-
Śānkarabhās. ya with Ānandagiri, Nı̄lakan..thı̄, Bhās.yotkars.a-
dı̄pikā of Dhanapati, Śridharı̄, Gı̄tārthasaṁgraha of
Abhinavaguptācārya, and Gūd.hārthadı̄pikā of Madhusūdana.
(yathā ca “sa mānası̄na ātmā janānām” ity atra manasyāvirbhāvād bhagavān mānası̄na
iti śrāvyate | tathā bhagavatsambandhanaikat. yān manasy āvirbhavantı̄ bhaktir api mano-
dharma iti vyavahriyate | yathā vanhinaikat.yatāratamyenos.n.asparśānubhavatāratamyam.
tathaiva bhagavannaikat. yatāratamyena bhaktyanubhavatāratamyam | . . . kim . ca “raso vai
sa” iti rasatvena śrāvito ‘pi bhagavān rasaśāstroktapran.ād.yā hr.dyāvirbhūta eva rasatām
.
svasminn anubhāvayati, BhUV, p. 211). I am indebted to Goswamy Shyam Manohar for
bringing this passage to my attention.
Edited by Wasudev Laxman Sastri Pansikar. 2d ed. Delhi:

Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1978.
BhM Bhaktimārtan.d.a of Gopeśvara. Edited by Ratna Gopala Bhatta.
Sūktiratnākara, no. 3. Benaras: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series
Office, 1908. I would like to express my thanks to the Adyar
Library and Research Center, Adyar, Chennai, for providing me
with a copy of this text.
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bodhinı̄ of Śrı̄dhara Svāmin. Edited by J. L. Sastri. Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1983.
BhR Śrı̄bhagavadbhaktirasāyana [Bhaktirasāyana] of Madhusūdana
Sarasvatı̄. Edited with the author’s T.ı̄kā and the editor’s
Hindi anuvāda by Janardana Sastri Pandeya. Banaras: Motilal
Banarsidass, c1961.
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Commentaries Durgamasam . gamanı̄ of Jı̄vagosvāmin and
Bhaktisārapradarśinı̄ of Viśvanāthacakravartin. Edited with the
Hindi commentary Harikr.pābodhinı̄ by Syamadasa. Vrndavana:
Brajagaurava Prakasana, 1981.
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See BhR.
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s.ottama, edited by Ramnath Sastri. Bombay: Pustimargiya
Siddhanta Karyalay, 1920.
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Original Sanskrit, vol. 3. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985.
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Syamadasa. 3 vols. Vrndavana: Sriharinama Prema Sankirtana
Mandala, 1962–1965.
ChU Chāndogya Upanis.ad.
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BhGŚ.
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and S. R. Krishnamurthi Sastri. Madras Government Oriental
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392 LANCE E. NELSON
shekhar Divanji. Gaekwad’s Oriental Series LXIV. Baroda:

Oriental Institute, 1933.
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University of San Diego

Department of Theology and Religious Studies
5998 Alcala Parlk
San Diego, California 92110-2492
E-mail: lnelson@sandiego.edu

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LANCE E.

THE ONTOLOGY OF BHAKTI:

Journal of Indian Philosophy 32: 345–392, 2004.

DEVOTION IN BENGAL VAIS. N. AVISM

The fifth and highest goal of life

13 anyābhilāsitāśūnyaṁ jñānakarmādyanāvr tam | ānukūlyena krsnānuśı̄lanaṁ bhaktir

exclude reverent inquiry in to the worshipful nature of the Lord, which is

The stages of devotion

15 Jı̄va glosses Rūpa’s jñānakarmādyanāvr tam: jñānamātra nirbhedabrahmānu-

(‘means’ or ‘practice’), bhāva (literally, ‘emotion’), and preman(‘ecstatic

Preman, the third and highest level of bhakti, is simply an intensified

The levels of ecstatic love

Devotion identified as Kr.s.n.a’s highest power

30 Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Mayavati

And indeed, Rūpa does later declare that bhakti is a manifestation of

As such bhakti is nonphenomenal (aprākr.ta) in nature.41 Preman is defined

There is thus a kind of ‘step-down’ phenomenon, in which the Lord’s śakti

not only is bliss. In conjunction with Rādhā, his inseparable hlādinı̄-śakti,

In their valorization of the idea of śakti, the Gosvāmı̄s exhibit a

DEVOTION IN THE THOUGHT OF MADHUSŪDANA

devotional schools felt considerable hostility towards Śaṅkara’s views and

syāt | yasmāc cārjunasyātyantam eva hitais.ı̄ bhagavāṁs tasya samyagdarśanānanvitaṁ

work expounds an advaitic theory of devotion and devotional sentiment

Devotion as an independent path

At first, this seems to be a flagrant contradiction of the orthodox

Devotion as the highest goal of life

The phrase ‘unmixed with any suffering’ (duh.khāsambhinna) refers

Devotion as a modality of the mind

In both definitions, bhakti is identified as a modality of the individual

64 tadākārataiva hi sarvatra vrttiśabdārtho ‘smākaṁ darśane, BhRT 1.1, p. 34.

In order to understand the function of this passage in the BhR, we

segment of post-Śaṅkara Advaitins known as the Vivaran.a tradition.69 In

It is this model, with certain modifications, that Madhusūdana draws upon

key term so that we know exactly what he is talking about: “A reflection

Madhusūdana himself echoes: “The reflection of Consciousness (cit-

Normally, of course, the point of the pratibimba-vāda’s identification

in Advaita, what is vyavahāra-siddha is not necessarily paramārtha-satya

Madhusūdana is forced in this direction for two related reasons, though

82 sukhasyātmasvarūpatvāt tadādhāro na vidyate, BhR 3.3.

The nature of Bhagavān

Elsewhere in remarks on chapter one (BhRT. 1.32), he writes of Bhagavān

as recounted in the BhP. Careful reading yields, however, no descriptions

We cannot but be struck here to see a text on Brahman, indeed the

substratum of all”.88 The distinction between Bhagavān and the advaitic

We note that Kr.s.n.a is in these instances explicitly identified with the

sacccidānanda-ghana), and so on. By means of repeated apposition,

It is not surprising, then, that Madhusūdana is able to speak of Bhagavān as

remark dismissively, “Devotion to the Lord is, then, merely knowledge

What Madhusūdana seems to be suggesting here is a homology, but

100 śāstrajanyā, BhRT 1.32, p. 71.

because of the mind’s melted condition. Bhakti then is that Bhagavān, so

Devotion and liberation

There follows a typically advaitic discussion of the process by which

by the knowledge of its substratum, all things vanish at the manifestation

Even if Brahman has here, under the influence of devotion, become

Advaita soteriology. As I have argued elsewhere, knowledge and moks.a

The inescapable conclusion is that Madhusūdana is teaching that the

Devotion superior to liberation

On the principle that mystic realization in its nirviśes.a (‘qualityless’)

(ātmano yāthātmadarśana. m), which is attained by the yoga of knowledge, is preliminary

In this connection, there is a verse traditionally attributed to

Bhakti must continue beyond death for it to be the parama-purus. ārtha.

Is this the type of postmortem existence Madhusūdana has in mind when