Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

by Julius Lipner

  (Carman 1974:196)

  God's solicitous, saving love is extended to everyone without exception, even to those who do evil.

  (8) The Attachment of the Beloved

  Here the relationship endorsed between the Divine Person and the devotee is that between lovers, and the love affair can be conducted with great, even wanton, realism, and in terms of explicit erotic imagery. The Beloved (either from God's or the devotee's point of view) may be related to as husband or wife, or even paramour. There can be an uninhibitedness, even indeco-rousness, in this devotional relationship that can surface again and again.

  Chandidasa (fifteenth century?), a poet-saint composing in Bengali, evokes the passion of union between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa vicariously with the devotee in mind, as follows:

  [Rādhā’s] cloud of hair eclipses the lustre of her face,

  like Rahu greedy for the moon.

  The garland glitters in her unbound hair, a wave

  of the Ganges [=light] in the waters of the Yamunā [=dark].

  How beautiful the deliberate, sensuous union of the two;

  The girl playing this time the active role,

  Riding her lover's [Kṛṣṇa's] outstretched body in delight.

  Her smiling lips shine with drops of sweat: the god of love

  offering pearls to the moon.

  She of beautiful face hotly kisses the mouth of her beloved: the moon,

  with face bent down, drinks of the lotus.

  The garland hanging on her heavy breasts seems like a stream

  of milk from golden jars,

  The tinkling of bells which decorate her hips sound the triumphal music

  of the god of love.

  She speaks:

  Beloved, what more shall I say to you?

  In life and in death, in birth after birth

  You are the lord of my life.

  A noose of love binds

  My heart to your feet.

  My mind fixed on you alone,

  I have offered you everything.

  In truth, I have become your slave ...

  While my eyes blink, and I do not see you,

  I feel the heart within me die.

  (Dimock and Levertov 1967:56–7)

  In this lyric, Rādhā is Kṛṣṇa's paramour, not his wife. This kind of union is supposed to show that besides being uniquely personal, vital and intense, love for God may well defy worldly conventions. We are speaking of a form of bhakti for God that involves emotional, almost mystical union; it is not meant to encourage illicit sex between human lovers. We have considered in similar vein, too, the intensity of union with Kṛṣṇa that the milkmaids or gopīs crave in the Rāsa Līlā of Vṛdāban, as depicted in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (cf. Chapter 13). There may be more of the love of separation’ in this latter case, and we shall return to this form of bhakti in due course.

  Here we may mention too the love that the early sixteenth-century woman-saint, Mirabai, is famous for expressing towards Kṛṣṇa, whom she took spiritually for her beloved husband (according to the mode of devotion that has been described as pati-bhāva).10 In an account of her life distilled by Nancy Martin from various sources, Mirabai, who seems to have been born at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was ‘the daughter of the Rathor Rajput royal house of Merta within the feudal kingdom of Marwar (western Rajasthan). Even as a child, she already showed signs of great devotion to God. When she came of age, her marriage was arranged – against her will, by most accounts – into the Sisodiya Rajput royal family of the kingdom of Mewar (southern Rajasthan)’ (Martin in Bryant 2007:242). But Mirabai rejected her earthly husband, preferring to lavish her devotion on the Lord Kṛṣṇa, whom she took to be her spiritual husband. In this attitude she steadfastly persevered, notwithstanding much persecution from her in-laws and several attempts to kill her, until finally she left her marital home and eventually reached ‘the city of Dvaraka, where Kṛṣṇa is said to have established his kingdom after leaving the cow-herding community of his youth to fulfil his destiny’ (ibid.:243). In the end, she is prevailed upon to return by a delegation sent by the ruler of Mewar. ‘She asks only to visit the temple [in Dvaraka] one last time before departing, in order to take leave of Kṛṣṇa. When others come looking for her within the temple, however, she is nowhere to be found, and only her clothing remains, draped across the image. Kṛṣṇa has absorbed her into himself, the story goes, freeing her from the world's persecution and liberating her through a union with him’ (ibid.:243).

  Here is a lyric attributed to Mirabai in pati-bhāva, the attitude one has towards the husband (pati); in this case, Mira refers to Kṛṣṇa as her divine husband:

  Sister, in a dream

  I married the Protector of the Poor [Kṛṣṇa].

  Five hundred sixty million strong the wedding party,

  The beautiful Lord of Braj, the groom.

  In a dream, the wedding arch was raised,

  In a dream, He grasped my hand.

  In a dream, my wedding came to pass,

  Making me ever the auspicious bride.

  Mira obtained the Mountain Bearer [Kṛṣṇa] –

  Her destiny of lives gone by.

  (Martin in Bryant 2007:249–50)

  In other lyrics attributed to Mirabai, the love of separation from Kṛṣṇa is emphasized. We shall consider this mode of bhakti presently.

  (9) The Attachment of Self-Offering

  This form of bhakti can also be understood in two ways: either as the deity's self-offering to the devotee as an expression of unbounded, constant love, or vice versa, as the votary's unconditional love for the deity. The quotation from Parāśara Bhaṭṭar, given under Section 7, may be interpreted as viewing the divine love from the standpoint of this mode. God loves us so much that he can even be regarded as suffering agitation in his desire to help us. Conversely, human self-offering to God has many distinctive expressions in the various traditions. Thus, Śrī Vaiṣṇavas speak of prapatti, complete self-surrender in love, to Viṣṇu, taking their cue from such texts as Gītā 2.7, where a confused Arjuna requests Kṛṣṇa for guidance in making the right decision: ‘With mind confused about dharma, I ask you which is the better course. Tell me clearly. I am your disciple. Teach me who come to you for refuge (śādhi māṃ tvāṃ prapannam)’.

  In time, Śrī Vaiṣṇava theology developed the concept of prapatti as interpreted by two schools of thought, or in the earlier stages of the doctrinal controversy, two emphases, perhaps. According to the ‘Northern’ school (the Vaṭagalais), prapatti, which implies self-surrender to God, no doubt, is a path one follows when other available devotional paths accredited by the community become unfeasible in some way. It involves a ritual component, and as such requires some effort on the part of the devotee to respond to God's saving action. For the Tekalais, or those of the ‘Southern’ school, on the other hand, prapatti is the only acceptable way to attain salvation. Here it has no necessary ritual component. It implies ‘the resignation of all self-effort towards attaining liberation. Hence to do prapatti was to do nothing, for any effort was an impediment to the working of God's grace’ (Raman 2007:11). Much later in the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition, perhaps by some time in the nineteenth century, after the theological and other divisions between the two groups had hardened irrevocably, this distinction was illustrated graphically in terms of an analogy, viz. for the Vaṭagalais the relationship between the devotee's self-surrender and God's saving action was analogous to the way a baby monkey needed to cling to its mother's underbelly for protection, i.e. some effort towards saving oneself was required;11 for the Tekalais, however, this relationship was akin to that between the helpless kitten and the mother cat. The baby kitten can do nothing to save itself; only by dangling helplessly in its mother's mouth can it be taken out of harm's way. Some writers have seen the theological controversy relating to this distinction as similar to that concerning the role of ‘works’ and ‘faith’ as the means to salvation in the
history of Christian doctrine.12

  (10) The Attachment of being Suffused

  Thus, tan-maya, ‘suffused by/with,’ ‘consisting of’ ‘that’, or the Supreme Being. This way focuses on the bhakti of ‘merging’, of being interpenetrated by, or perhaps as Tantra would have it, of being consubstantial with, the Divine Person. Under this rubric, one could ‘merge’ with the deity as having form(s), or as being formless.

  The Ligāyat Dasimayya (ca. tenth century), whose goal was continuous intimacy with his Lord, was scornful of the idea of designated auspicious times for seeking union with the deity as emphasized in conventional worship, when he declared:

  To the utterly at-one with Śiva,

  there's no dawn, no new moon,

  no noonday, nor equinoxes,

  nor sunsets, nor full moons.

  His front yard is the true Benares,

  O Rāmanātha [Śiva].

  (Ramanujan 1973:105)

  Here is Dasimayya again:

  I'm the one who has the body,

  You're the one who holds the breath.

  You know the secret of my body,

  I know the secret of your breath.

  That's why your body is in mine.

  You know and I know, Ramanatha,

  The miracle of your breath in my body.

  (Ramanujan 1973:106)

  Now hear the Sant, Kabīr:

  No more separate am I.

  All is submerged in Thee!

  Now, O Brother, like molten iron

  He and I are fused together.

  There are no distinctions to be made.

  (Kumar1984:134)

  It is important to note that in genuinely devotional context at least, we are not speaking here of a kind of ‘pantheism’ in which the devotee loses all sense of a separate personal identity. Rather, we are speaking, through the language of devotion, of the experience of a form of intense mystical union, of profound intimacy with God. It is on this basis that Hindu sages have been able to affirm, across the denominational divides, that God is one's antar-ātmā or ‘inner self’. Hindus do not like to posit imaginatively – though they may do so theologically – that there is an existential ‘chasm’ of some kind between God as the source of all being and creaturely existents; psychologically, this would give rise to the experience of feeling cut off from God. As a result, there is a tendency to describe the products of divine originative causality as emanations’ or ‘projections’ of some kind from the divine source. For Hindus, we arise from God and continue to exist in God, else how could we exist at all? To the uninitiated this may smack of ‘pantheism’, but it is not really so. Hindus are quick to distinguish, in discursive context, between the level of the Godhead, which they characterize by such qualities as omni presence, omnipotence, purity from sin and other forms of limitation, omniscience, benevolence, etc., and the level of creaturely existence which is marked by such attributes as karma, repeated birth, wrongdoing, ignorance and so on. Theologically, there is a world of difference between the two.

  (11) The Attachment of the most profound Separation (viraha)

  There is some ambiguity as to how the Sanskrit of this heading should be translated: parama. viraha.āsakti. This could be ‘the attachment of separation from the Highest One (parama)’, or the attachment of the highest or most profound (parama) separation (from the Supreme Being)’. Perhaps the ambiguity is not that significant, since in the end this form of bhakti has to do with the experience of separation from God. Here we encounter another paradox. In the intensity of feeling the heartache of separation from the deity, the devotee experiences the sweetest pangs of love. In one's earthly state, before the final consummation of heavenly union, all experiences of communion with God, however intimate or exalted, are transient. Yet this transience itself generates a yearning for union that is desirable, for it continues to increase one's love for God, engendering fresh pangs of separation. Extraordinary descriptions are given in the literature of the emotional frenzy of this underlying pain of separation, which may include sweating, swooning, choking, ecstasy at the prospect of union coupled with agony at the expectation of parting. Perhaps the emotionalism of viraha-bhakti has been developed most in Vaiṣṇava traditions. Here is a poem by Govinda-dāsa, translated from the Bengali again, giving a description of this condition:

  When they had made love,

  She lay in his arms in the kunja grove.

  Suddenly she called his name

  and wept – as if she burned in the fire of separation.

  The gold was in her anchal [end-piece of her sari]

  But she looked afar for it!

  – Where has he gone? Where has my love gone?

  O why has he left me alone?

  And she writhed on the ground in despair.

  Only her pain kept her from fainting.

  Kṛṣṇa was astonished and could not speak.

  (Dimock & Levertov 1967:23)

  Yet Rādhā lay in Kṛṣṇa's arms! In this world, the love of union with the divine Lover carries with it the pain of separation. Let us recall the Rāsa Līlā of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as another type of viraha-bhakti available to all earnest devotees of Kṛṣṇa.

  Vaiṣṇava thinkers have subjected viraha-bhakti to detailed analysis so as to delve deep into its rich emotional symbolism:

  The kind of lyric exemplified above is divided ‘into two broad categories: vipralambha, the lovers in separation, and sambhoga, the lovers’ enjoyment in union. The point is, however, that these two categories are not entirely separable, for separation is latent in union, and union latent in separation ... Vipralambha is in its turn divided into four main subsections:

  (a)

  pūrva-rāga, in which condition desire is aroused in each of the lovers ...

  (b)

  māna ... in which the girl feels that ... her pride has been injured ... because her lover has been paying attention to other women;

  (c)

  premavaicittya ... in which simultaneous satisfaction and pain of longing are present

  (d)

  Pravāsa, the pain of separation aroused in the girl because of her lover's departure ...

  These categories are further subdivided according to their numerous possible variations ... the lyrics are arranged to reflect a human love affair against a metaphysical [theological] screen.’

  (Dimock & Levertov 1967:xviii–xix)

  There comes a stage of analysis and subdivision, no doubt, when the wood ceases to be visible for the trees, and the sap of devotion evaporates! From the devotee's point of view, however, the intention is to enter into the experience of intimacy with one's Lord with all its poignancy, and to leave the emotional death meted out by a thousand analytic qualifications to the theologians!

  All the modes of bhakti discussed in the sections above, taken either separately or in combination, have their practitioners and analysts across the denominational divides in the history of Hinduism. Though the goal may be to practise these forms of bhakti selflessly (as parā bhakti), the reality is not that ambitious. Most devotees are able to rise most of the time to a level that is a mixture of lower-order and selfless or higher-order bhakti, viz. aparaparā bhakti. But this does not act as a deterrent for the true devotee who is aware that the God of devotion is an understanding and accommodating God. Further, it is generally believed that true bhakti, whether aparā or parā, has a socially benevolent dimension, and that it is sustained by the devotee's seeking the company of like-minded practitioners, called satsaga; this enables one to give and receive advice and encouragement along the devotional path.

  The sociality of bhakti is declared in the Nārada Bhakti sūtras: ‘The one who is non-acquisitive (nirmamaḥ) ... who gives up the fruit of action [to God] (karmaphalaṃ tyajati)... It is such a one, such a one indeed, who crosses [the delusion], and enables the worlds to cross as well’ (see sūtras 46–50). This idea is developed in subsequent sūtras so as to make the point that such single-minded lovers of G
od sanctify their families and the world, and validate sacred places, good works and the scriptures themselves! By the quality and example of their lives, they make all these things meaningful and worthwhile. For such people, there are no distinctions of birth, learning, appearance, family, possessions, livelihood and so on. Their love is even-handed, selfless, concerned, efficacious and beneficial to all (see sūtras 68–72).

  The typology of the ultimate state or liberation (mokṣa/mukti) in Hinduism

  Some commentators appear to seek to limit the use of the word mokṣa to the final emancipation described by the monists, but this is unwarranted, and we are using the word here to refer generically to ‘salvation’ or the ultimate state of fulfilment in Hinduism. Typologically, there are three kinds of Mokṣa in the tradition.

  (i) Kaivalya or ‘Enstasy’

  Kaivalya literally means ‘aloneness’ (hence ‘enstasy’ or ‘abiding within oneself’), and this is the goal of the Yoga of Patañjali and of Sāṃkhya. If the path to kaivalya is successfully followed – this entails cultivating certain qualities such as non-injury and benevolence towards all, truthfulness, non-acquisitiveness, celibacy, sense-restraint and the mastering of certain meditative techniques by means of which mind and body can be integrated and brought under control – then the state of kaivalya is attained while the yogi is still alive. In this condition, though the yogi lives a bodily life in the realm of prakṛti or materiality and empirical consciousness, the spirit (puruṣa) has mastered this realm and is no longer enslaved by sensual attachment and similar prakritic propensities: the yogi lives thus in the world but is not of the world. Generally, the yogi is encouraged to seek to attain this state by living in seclusion, the physical quality of this condition reflecting the all-round detachment and isolation (‘aloneness’) that is the final goal.