One can remember the deity by reciting and/or meditating upon the whole or parts of such eulogies as the sahasranāmas, of course. Some traditions of standard devotional practice, as also most if not all systems of Tantra, encourage a discipline of detailed, contemplative visualization of the form(s) of the Supreme Being. The content of this meditative act is provided by scriptural or other authoritative sources (the votary's imagination is not allowed free rein in the matter). By constant practice one or more forms of the deity, thus pictured, are impressed upon or evoked by the imagination.
Whether this is a genuinely ‘devotional’ practice in (each case of ) Tantric ritual is debatable, as we have seen. If the primary meaning of bhakti includes reference to certain emotional sentiments (that we might describe as ‘devotion’), then at least some phases of Tantric practice in some traditions may well be included; if bhakti, however, is to be understood as a form of continual ‘attachment’ to the deity in some way, then much of (Hindu) Tantric ritual may fall into this category. Though Tantric ritual is not generally described as practice of bhakti in the literature, we may tentatively do so if we stick to attachment’ as a rendering for ‘āsakti’ (as a synonym for ‘bhakti’) in our sūtra. In any event, such doubts show how complex and debatable discerning what bhakti may be is in certain cases; the matter is not as straightforward as one might expect.
Doubts about describing Tantra as authentically ‘devotional’ (at least in some instances) apart, here is how the Tantric theologian, Abhinavagupta (whom we have encountered before), describes an instance of the visualization of the deity. The reader should bear in mind that, as part of the practice, the Supreme Goddess in her various forms must be mentally installed’ in the practitioner's body, the intention being to identify with each form of the Supreme Goddess in progressive stages of the discipline. In this way, the practitioner passes progressively from being a living temple of the Godhead to (finally) becoming a living icon of the Godhead itself.
[The practitioner] should [mentally] install [= nyāsa] the three Bhairavas [male consorts] and the three goddesses as follows: Bhairavasadbhāva on the central [lotus], Ratiśekhara on the [lotus to his] right, and Navātman on the [lotus to his] left; then [the goddess] Parā [who is white] as the full moon on the central [lotus], Parāparā on [her] right, red and somewhat ferocious but not terrifying, and Aparā on the [lotus of the] cuspid on her left, terrifying and red-black. He should then subject them to the same double six-fold mantra-installation to which he has already subjected his body. Thereafter, he may contemplate [the goddesses in detail, visualizing] whichever of their desiderative forms may be appropriate, i.e. with two, four, six or more arms, according to which of the various goals of worship he is pursuing; and [in that case] he should variously dispose in their left and right hands such attributes as the skull-bowl, the trident, the skull-staff, the gestures of generosity and protection, and the jar [of nectar].
In reality, these goddesses are consciousness itself. They are therefore embodied as everything that exists. Consequently, if they are to bestow liberation [through their worship], they must be [contemplated as being] essentially this same, unlimited, uninflected consciousness.
(Sanderson 1990:64, 67; I have omitted the Sanskrit insertions)
Now follows a passage describing the visualization of the deity with loving devotion unmistakably in view. It is taken from a treatise written by the theologian Rāmānuja (eleventh century), whose description of Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa's heavenly form, which delights the company of the liberated, has been guided by descriptions in the Upaniṣads and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (compare the tone of the two passages):
[Viṣṇu's] splendour is like that of a colossal mountain of molten gold and His brilliance that of the rays of hundreds of thousands of suns. His long eyes are spotless like the petals of the lotus which ... blossoms in the rays of the sun. His eyes and His forehead and His nose are beautiful. His coral-like lips smile graciously, and His soft cheeks are beaming. His neck is as delicately shaped as a conch-shell and His bud-like divine ears, beautifully formed, hang down on his stalwart shoulders. His arms are thick, round and long and He is adorned with fingers that are reddened by nails of a most becoming reddish tinge. His body, with its slender waist and broad chest, is well-proportioned in all parts ... His colour is pleasing ... He wears a yellow robe that suits Him and He is adorned with ... divine ornaments – a spotless diadem, earrings, necklaces, the Kausthuba gem, bracelets, anklets, belt etc. – and with Conch, Disc, Club, Sword, the Bow Sārga, the curl Śrīvatsa [on the breast] and the garland Vanamālā ... He overflows the entire creation of animate and inanimate beings with the nectar of His comeliness. His youth is exceedingly wonderful, unimaginable and eternal ... He perfumes the infinite space between the cardinal points with the odour of holiness. He looks upon the hosts of His devotees with loving eyes, filled with compassion and affection ... All evil is foreign to him – He is the treasury of all beautiful qualities and He is essentially different from all other entities. He is the Supreme Spirit, the Supreme Brahman, Nārāyaṇa.
(Translation by van Buitenen, 1956:289–90)
The aim is to make the remembrance (smaraṇa) of this divine form, which is the result of disciplined meditation, as vivid and uninterrupted as reasonably possible – like a steady flow of oil’ – so that, heaven being brought down to earth, one may live in the (imagined) presence of the deity (= anu- smṛti). At its best, it is like seeing (the celestial form of ) God. Note, incidentally, that the description of the anthropomorphic celestial form given above, though nominally male, is not aggressively so; in effect, it is a blend of male and female characteristics, which is supposed to represent the ideal human being. The devotion of remembrance in its various aspects constitutes a popular form of bhakti in Hindu tradition.
(5) Attachment to the Service of the deity
Relating to the deity as a familiar servant is a well-known mode of bhakti. Rāmānuja may be regarded as a thinker who has provided a theological rationale for this approach (Lipner 1986a). For Rāmānuja, the whole world collectively, and each soul, including the embodied self, individually, can be reckoned as the ‘body’ (śarīra) of God in the technical sense that God is the Support, Controller and Master of such being. We exist ultimately to serve and praise God. There are different dimensions to service (kaiṃkarya, dāsya) of the Divine Being: service in the temple, in the home, through various walks of life. This kind of bhakti usually does not involve an attitude of awe towards the deity; on the contrary, it represents an affectionate, familiar form of service, by means of which one can even take liberties with and relyupon the grace of the Master served; nor must we think that this kind of attachment necessarily supersedes other devotional modes – it can coexist and blend with these. In modern times, service to one's country, especially through patriotism, and more universally, service to one's neighbour, have been regarded as some of the highest expressions of service to God. Thus, the Bengali novelist and thinker, Bankim Chatterji (1838–94), wrote in his treatise, Dharmatattva (‘The Essence of Dharma’):
Love for one's country is not the furthest limit of love's development (sphūrtti). There is a step beyond that. Love for the whole world is the furthest limit of love's expression and that is true dharma. So long as love does not embrace the whole world, it remains incomplete, and dharma too remains incomplete ... The Christian God (īśvar) is independent of the world. No doubt he is Lord of the world, but just as the king of Germany or Russia is an individual separate from all Germans and Russians, the Christian God is likewise separate. He too, remaining separate like a mundane king, protects and governs his kingdom, chastising the wicked and protecting the virtuous, and like a policeman keeps track of what people do. To love him one must do what pleases Him just as in the case of a mundane king.
The Hindu God is not like that. He pervades everything (sarvabhūtamay); it is He who is the inner Self (antarātmā) of all things. He is not the material world, being differen
t from it, but the world exists in Him alone. Like the thread of a necklace, like wind in space, even so He exists in the world. No human being exists independently of Him; He is present in everyone. He is present in me. In loving myself, I love Him, and in not loving Him, I fail to love myself. And in loving Him, I love every human being. In not loving every human being, I have failed to love Him and myself. In other words, love (prīti) cannot exist without love of the whole world. So long as I do not grasp the fact that the whole world is myself, that the universe is not different from me, I have not acquired knowledge, or dharma, or devotion (bhakti), or love (prīti). Therefore love for the world lies at the very root of Hindu dharma, and there can be no Hinduness (hindutva) without this indivisible, non-separate, universal love.
(see Chapter 21; my translation)
In other words, one cannot truly love and serve God without loving and serving the whole world, and one cannot love the world (and good/dharma) without loving the God who upholds and permeates the world. This ethic is based on, and is an extension of – in so far as it stresses service – the tat tvam asi ethic we spoke of in connection with Swami Vivekananda (see Chapter 4).
In some denominations, e.g. from among the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, devotees who are conscious of their obligation to serve the Supreme Being single-mindedly at all times add the suffix dāsa (masculine) or dāsī (feminine), viz.‘servant’, to their religious names.
(6) Attachment to the divine Companionship/Friendship (sakhya)
Here, the devotee relates to the deity in the role of an intimate friend (masculine: sakhā, feminine: sakhī), which can lead to expressions of great familiarity. The main Indian languages generally have three forms for ‘you’. The first is used for a superior, stranger or acquaintance to whom one wishes to show formal courtesy or respect. The second is used to address equals or even one's seniors (e.g. relatives) as familiars. The third form is used to express studied contempt or abuse on the one hand, or indeed, intimate familiarity on the other (as when a mother addresses her child, or when school friends address each other). Hindus generally address the deity by the second form; though sometimes they may do so by the first, and rarely, even by the third.
The love of friendship can even extend to insulting or scolding the deity, in its expression of familiarity. There is a technical term for this – nindā-stuti, viz. ‘the (sarcastic) praise of abuse’, or ninda-bhakti, devotion through abuse’. We do this, for instance, when we call a child affectionately, ‘madcap’, ‘rascal’, ‘scamp’ etc., or an adult good-humouredly, ‘You twit’ and so on (or use even stronger terms of abuse!). Here is an example taken from a poem to the Goddess Kali, attributed to the still popular Bengali poet-saint, Ramprasad Sen (eighteenth century):
Kali, why are you naked again? Come on, where is your modesty?
You wear no splendid apparel, Ma [= Mother], yet you boast of being a king's daughter. And Ma, is this standing on your husband [Śiva] a demonstration of your aristocracy?
You are naked, and your husband is naked. You wander about the cremation grounds.
Ma, we are dying of shame! Put your clothes back on.
You have cast aside your necklace of jewels, Ma. A garland of human skulls glistens at your throat.
[Ram]Prasad says: Even the Naked Lord [= Śiva] fears you in this form, Ma.
(see O'Flaherty 1988:167)
But not Ramprasad! Affectionate love to the point of such familiarity seems to have driven out fear.
Now, by way of contrast, let us point to an attitude to the deity recognised in the literature rather extraordinarily as dveṣa-bhakti, i.e.’hate-bhakti. Surely, no genuine sentiments of devotion for the Supreme Person are involved here, which supports our earlier decision to interpret bhakti as ‘attachment’ in the broadest terms. As the reader will see, dveṣa-bhakti is certainly a form of single-minded'attachment’ to the deity! In fact, dveṣa-bhakti is unrelenting, focused animosity towards God! The enemy of God hates God so much that he or she can think of nothing else; it becomes a lifelong obsession. This means that God absorbs their thoughts continually. The idea here is that even such a form of attachment to the deity eventually saves the hater. No one who thinks of the Divine Being so single-mindedly can be finally lost, for God's compassionate grace can work to turn the hatred into a recognition of God's sovereignty and goodness and so save the (erstwhile) hater even at the point of death.
For an example of ‘saving’ dveṣa-bhakti in action, we can turn to the Mahābhārata (2.37f. of the critical edition). Here the great king of the Cedis, śiśupāla, noted for his cruel deeds, berates Kṛṣṇa in a fiery speech, reviling and pouring scorn upon him. One can detect here, under the guise of royal rivalry, a theological clash between Kṛṣṇa's claims to divine supremacy and their rejection by the likes of śiśupāla. Bhīṣṭma, the venerated elder of the Kauravas, first makes a short statement lauding Kṛṣṇa, in which Kṛṣṇa's claim to divine sovereignty is hinted at. Thus Bhīṣṭma refers to Kṛṣṇa by the terms acyuta, ‘unfallen’ and adhokṣaja, ‘beyond perception. Interestingly, the first term is used in association with Kṛṣṇa already in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (3.17.6) andtoaddress Kṛṣṇa directlythriceinthe Bhagavad Gītā (1.21,11.42,18.73); the second term becomes a devotional epithet for Kṛṣṇa in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (10.29.13). Bhīṣṭma ends his statement as follows:’[Kṛṣṇa] is the very beginning and end of everything – of the four kinds of beings in the three worlds’ (2.37.14);in their enlarged context, there seems little doubt that Bhīṣṭma's attestation is more than a hint at Kṛṣṇa's divinity!
Śiśupāla is enraged by such praise, and launches into his ferocious condemnation of both Bhīṣṭma and Kṛṣṇa. Śiśupāla finally threatens to kill Kṛṣṇa and his friends, the Pāṇḍavas, so that Kṛṣṇa is forced to kill him first by cutting off his head with his discus. Śiśupāla crashes to earth. Then the assembled kings ‘saw a great radiance (tejas) arising from the body of the king of the Cedis, like the sun rises from the sky; it worshipped (vavande) the lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa, who is venerated by the worlds, and then entered him’ (2.42.22–3). The sense seems to be that Śiśupāla's essence or soul returned to its acknowledged source. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa interprets this as Śiśupāla's having found salvation: If the king of the Cedis could attain the goal (siddhi) even though hating (dviṣan) [Kṛṣṇa], how much more those who are dear to Adhokṣaja [= Kṛṣṇa]?’(10.29.13).
This idea of dvesa-bhakti has not been worked out theologically at any length, but it seems to be a way of indicating: (i) that God's grace is persistent and supreme, (ii) that Hindus tend to abhor the idea of a permanent hell in the face of the divine initiative and mercy, and (iii) that the psychology of absorbing hatred and love is a complex matter where dividing lines are not always clear (especially when the Divine Being is directly involved).
(7) The Attachment of Parental Affection (vātsalya)
This is a very popular mode of bhakti. Note that from the human point of view, vātsalya – the term is derived from the palpable affection the mother cow shows to her calf – can be expressed both ways, that is, as if God is one's child, or as if one is God's child. So, for example, devotees love to place themselves in the role of Kṛṣṇa's (foster-) mother, Yaśodā, or (foster-) father, Nanda, and imagine how they might treat him in different circumstances – scold him lovingly when he was naughty, play with him, teach him things, embrace him. Or they live vicariously as Kṛṣṇa's parents. Sūrdās, a fifteenth-century Sant composing in Hindi, is noted for such sentiments:
Watching Krishna walk gives joy to Mother Yashoda [refrain].
On all fours now, close to the floor, Krishna flounders.
His mother sees the scene and points it out to all.
He makes it to the doorway, then comes back the other way again.
He trips and he falls – doesn't manage to cross –
Which makes the sages wonder.
Ten millions of worlds he c
reates in a flash, and can destroy them just as fast.
But he's picked up by Nanda's wife,
Who sets him down, plays games with him,
Then with her hand supports him while he steps outside the door.
When they see Sūr's Lord, gods, men and sages lose track of their minds.
(O'Flaherty 1988:143)
Conversely, the devotee considers herself or himself to be God's child, and delights in the divine protective love. We saw how Ramprasad used to refer to Kālī as ‘Ma’ (an affectionate form of ‘Mother’). The Ligāyat Basavaṇṇa (twelfth century) says:
As a mother runs
close behind her child
with his hand on a cobra
or a fire,
the Lord of the meeting rivers [= Śiva]
stays with me
every step of the way,
and looks after me.
(Ramanujan 1973:71)
So this form of devotion cuts across the denominational divides. Parāśara Bhaṭṭar, a twelfth-century Śrī Vaiṣṇava theologian, says when interpreting vatsala/vātsalya in his commentary on the divine names of Viṣṇu:
Though God has been acquainted with [those who have taken refuge in Him] for a long time, for some reason He wanders about (seeking to do some favour for His devotees) like a cow that has just delivered a calf, bellowing because her teats are irritated by the fullness of her udders and perplexed as to what she should do. This state of God is known even in the case of Rāvaṇa [the ogre-king of Laka, who abducted Sītā].
Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices) Page 63