Over against this socially circumscribed brahmanical model that restricts access to the Vedic mantras to those at the highest rungs of the socioreligious hierarchy, Kṛṣṇadāsa, expanding on the socially inclusive model of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, portrays Caitanya as forming a new type of social body constituted not by the differential norms of varṇāśrama-dharma but by the socially open practices of the bhakta-saṅgha in which the purifying and liberating power of the divine name is extended to all people, irrespective of gender, age, social class or caste, stage of life, or ethnicity: “Women, children, old men, even caṇḍālas [outcastes] and Yavanas [foreigners]—whoever once gains sight of you [Caitanya] takes the name of Kṛṣṇa, dances as if mad, and becomes a teacher and saves the world.”124 Kṛṣṇadāsa invokes examples from beyond the pale of the brahmanical system in order to demonstrate the invincible power of the name, which has the capacity to purify even the most impure outcastes, who are relegated to the margins of the brahmanical socioreligious hierarchy, and to liberate even Yavanas, who are outside of the brahmanical social body altogether.125 Kṛṣṇadāsa goes so far as to claim that the name’s liberating potency extends even beyond the limits of humankind and has the capacity to free all classes of jīvas, moving and nonmoving, within all the innumerable Brahmā-universes in the material realm.126
As part of his implicit challenge to brahmanical norms, Kṛṣṇadāsa, building on the formulations of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, establishes an alternative model of mantric efficacy based on the divine name that diverges from the dominant paradigm of Vedic recitation. In contrast to the norms of the Vedic recitative tradition, in which every sound and syllable of the Vedic mantras must be properly pronounced in order to be efficacious, Kṛṣṇadāsa, like the Bhāgavata, asserts that the divine name is efficacious even if it is incorrectly or inadvertently pronounced. He argues that the power of the name resides in the individual akṣaras (phones) that compose it, and the akṣaras retain their inherent potency even if they are separated from one another. He relates this point when recounting a conversation between Caitanya and Haridāsa Ṭhākura, a former Muslim who is portrayed in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta as a close companion of Caitanya and paradigmatic practitioner of nāma-kīrtana. Haridāsa insists that even Yavanas who inadvertently utter a semblance (ābhāsa) of the name will be freed by its liberating power, and he invokes in this context the Bhāgavata’s story of Ajāmila, who was liberated when, at the time of his death, he called out to his son and thereby inadvertently uttered the divine name “Nārāyaṇa.”
[A]ll the Yavanas will be easily freed. They say “Hārāma, hārāma,” and thus speak a semblance of the name. In profound prema, bhaktas say “hā rāma, hā rāma”; see the good fortune of the Yavanas, that they take the name. Even though the meaning is different, and though the intention of the name is other, still the power of the name is unconquerable. “Wounded by a boar’s tusk, a mleccha will again and again shout ‘hārāma!’ and thus gains release; what then of him who sings [the name] with faith?” [Nṛsiṃha Purāṇa]. Ajāmila called his son Nārāyaṇa, thus bringing the messenger of Viṣṇu, who freed him from his bonds. The two syllables of “rāma” are not separate; and the word “hā,” uttered in prema, is an ornament to them. This is the nature of all the syllables of the name, that even if they are separated they do not lose their own power.127
Prema-Rasa as the Fruit of the Name
The Kṛṣṇa-nāman, as the transcendent vibration of the svarūpa-śakti that is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa, is held to be full of sat-cit-ānanda and full of rasa, and therefore when this transcendent name self-manifests on the gross material plane as a nāma-avatāra it is ascribed transformative power as the vehicle through which the ambrosial nectar of prema-rasa is enlivened and cultivated in the hearts of bhaktas. In this perspective destruction of pāpas and liberation from saṃsāra are preliminary fruits of the name’s transformative power that are secondary to the supreme fruit (phala) of the name: prema-rasa, pure transcendent enjoyment of supreme love for Kṛṣṇa. The name’s functions as an instrument of purification and of liberation are considered secondary to its principal function as an instrument of psychophysical transformation that serves as a means of cultivating prema-rasa and re-figuring the body of bondage as a body of devotion.
Invoking the trope of light, Rūpa suggests that when the sun of the name shines forth, its first rays may destroy the darkness of ignorance and the bondage of saṃsāra, but its ultimate purpose is to bring the luminous effulgence of bhakti.
O sun-like name of Bhagavān, even the first light of your rising destroys the devouring darkness of material existence, and you grant sight that is productive of bhakti even to those who are blind to the truth.…128
Jīva similarly insists that the principal fruit (phala) of the name is bhakti characterized by preman for Kṛṣṇa. All other results, including purification of pāpas and liberation from saṃsāra, are secondary to this supreme goal of human existence. Invoking prooftexts from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Jīva emphasizes that through engaging the names of Kṛṣṇa the bhakta gains experiential knowledge of his attributes (guṇas) and develops passionate love (anurāga) for him. This in turn causes the heart of the bhakta to melt and manifest a variety of emotions (bhāvas) that find expression in external bodily gestures such as laughing, weeping, and dancing. The ultimate fruit of the name, according to Jīva, is direct realization (anubhava) of Bhagavān in his essential nature as sat-cit-ānanda, culminating in a state of supreme peace (paramā śānti).129
In his discussion of the transformative power of the name, Kṛṣṇadāsa, like Rūpa and Jīva, maintains that destruction of pāpas and liberation from saṃsāra are “secondary results of the name” and are not the ultimate goal. He elaborates on the trope of light and suggests that while the first rays of the sun of the name may dispel the darkness of the mound of pāpas and bring the light of mukti, when the sun arises fully it brings the full sunshine of preman. Kṛṣṇadāsa relates this point in the context of recounting a debate between Haridāsa and a group of pandits regarding the greatness of the name.
Ṭhākura [Haridāsa] made kīrtana with three lakhs [300,000] of names; and among the paṇḍitas the question of the greatness of the name arose. And some said, “From the name is the destruction of sins [pāpas],” and others said: “From the name is the release [mokṣa] of jīvas.” And Haridāsa said, “These are not the two fruits of the name; in the fruit of the name is the arising of prema to the feet of Kṛṣṇa.… The destruction of sins [pāpas] and mukti are secondary results of the name.… It is as the rising of the sun. While the sun is still not risen, the darkness begins to be dispelled, as do fear and terror of thieves and ghosts and rākṣasas [demons]; and when the sun rises there are manifested auspicious things and the doing of that which is proper. So at the beginning of the rising of the name, sins [pāpas] and the rest are dispelled; and when it is risen there is the manifestation of prema at the feet of Kṛṣṇa. Mukti is an insignificant result, from a hint of the name.”130
Over against the traditional brahmanical formulation of the four puruṣārthas, the four ends of human life—kāma, artha, dharma, and mokṣa131—Kṛṣṇadāsa asserts that preman is the fifth end that is the supreme goal of human existence and the supreme fruit (phala) of the name:
The fifth end of man is the sea of the nectar of the joy of prema; and the joys of mokṣa and the rest are less than a single drop of it. The fruit [phala] of the Kṛṣṇa-name is prema, so it is said in all the śāstras.132
Kṛṣṇadāsa maintains, moreover, that while the name of Rāma has the power to grant mukti, the name of Kṛṣṇa alone has the power to grant the consummate gift of preman.133
In discussing the mechanisms through which the name awakens and cultivates prema-rasa, Kṛṣṇadāsa suggests a progressive process of development:
One Kṛṣṇa-name destroys all sins [pāpas]; it manifests bhakti, which is the source of pre
ma. In the rise of prema is the transformation through prema, with sweat and trembling and gooseflesh, choking, and streams of tears.134
In this description we can isolate a number of different stages: (1) the name destroys pāpas; (2) through the elimination of pāpas, the name awakens bhakti, which Kṛṣṇadāsa describes elsewhere, using the rhetoric of bhakti-rasa theory, as the awakening of the sthāyi-bhāva of rati, love for Kṛṣṇa; (3) when bhakti or rati deepens, it finds fully mature expression in the bhakti-rasa of preman; (4) as preman deepens, it gradually transforms the psychophysical complex and is marked on the external body in a panoply of involuntary physical manifestations, which in the rhetoric of bhakti-rasa theory are termed sāttvika-bhāvas. The physical signs of preman mentioned by Kṛṣṇadāsa in the above passage—“sweat and trembling and gooseflesh, choking, and streams of tears”—correspond to five of the eight sāttvika-bhāvas enumerated in bhakti-rasa theory135 and recall the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s representations of the bhakta who is intoxicated with the madness of devotion.136 Caitanya himself, in the sixth verse of the Śikṣāṣṭaka cited earlier, mentions three of these physical signs—streams of tears, choking voice, and gooseflesh, or bristling body hair—as the transformative effects of the name to which he looks forward:
When, in taking up your name (nāman), will my eyes fill with streams of flowing tears, my voice choke with stammering speech, and my body (vapus) thrill with bristling body hair?137
AsI will explore more fully in a later section, the name is ascribed a central role in the process through which the bhakta’s material body is transformed into a devotional body marked with the signs of preman.
Fashioning Devotional Bodies and Social Bodies with the Name
The transformative power of the name is activated by engaging the various nāma-avatāras of Kṛṣṇa through the practices of sādhana-bhakti. As discussed in Chapter 2, the path of sādhana-bhakti involves fashioning a devotional body by means of two forms of devotional discipline: vaidhī-bhakti and rāgānugā-bhakti. In vaidhī-bhakti the bhakta performs external practices with the sādhaka-rūpa, the material psychophysical complex, that engage Kṛṣṇa through śravaṇa, kīrtana, and other modes of bodily practice in order to reconstitute the karmically bound biological body as a body of devotion. In rāgānugā-bhakti, an advanced form of sādhana-bhakti, the bhakta continues to perform external practices such as śravaṇa and kīrtana with the sādhaka-rūpa while also engaging in internal meditative practices such as dhyāna and smaraṇa in order to attain a siddha-rūpa, a perfected devotional body that is an eternal (nitya), nonmaterial (aprākṛta) body of bliss (ānanda).138
The name is engaged through a variety of perceptual, cognitive, and corporeal modalities in the practices of sādhana-bhakti, as delineated by Rūpa Gosvāmin in the Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu and elaborated by Jīva Gosvāmin in the Bhakti Sandarbha. Nāma-kīrtana or nāma-saṃkīrtana, singing the name, and nāma-śravaṇa, hearing the name, are the principal modes of reception through which the ambrosial rasa of the name is savored. As I will discuss in Chapter 6, the name is also internalized through meditative practices such as nāma-smaraṇa, contemplative recollection of the name, and mantra dhyāna or japa, silent repetition in meditation of a mantra that incorporates the name(s) of Kṛṣṇa. In addition, the letters of the divine name (nāmākṣaras) are inscribed on the forehead and body as a means of embodying Kṛṣṇa in the bhakta’s own flesh.139
Among the sixty-four practices of vaidhī-bhakti, Rūpa ascribes a special status to nāma-saṃkīrtana as one of the five most important practices for cultivating prema-rasa and manifesting Kṛṣṇa himself on the gross material plane.140 Jīva’s discussion of vaidhī-bhakti centers on the nine forms of bhakti celebrated in Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.5.23–24,141 mentioned earlier, and he suggests that nāma-kīrtana is the preeminent (parama) sādhana that is particularly efficacious in Kali Yuga.142 In their roles as founding theologians charged with perpetuating the bhakti movement inspired by Caitanya, Rūpa and Jīva are concerned to establish a comprehensive system of sādhana-bhakti comprising a network of diverse forms of practice through which bhaktas can engage Kṛṣṇa, and in this context they allot nāma-saṃkīrtana or nāma-kīrtana an important but not singular role. Kṛṣṇadāsa, in contrast, in constructing his hagiographic narrative in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta, follows Caitanya’s example, as expressed in the Śikṣāṣṭaka and as portrayed by earlier hagiographies, and assigns primacy of place to nāma-saṃkīrtana as the principal form of sādhana established by Caitanya himself. In the remainder of my analysis, I will focus on Kṛṣṇadāsa’s representations of nāma-saṃkīrtana as the highest form of sādhana-bhakti in Kali Yuga.
Nāma-Saṃkīrtana as the Dharma of Kali Yuga
In Kṛṣṇadāsa’s hagiographic narrative Caitanya is represented as giving precedence to nāma-saṃkīrtana as the most glorious (śreṣṭha) form of sādhana-bhakti that reigns supreme among the nine forms of bhakti.143 He is portrayed as prescribing nāma-saṃkīrtana as the highest form of sādhana for both householders and renunciants and as the highest form of bhakti-dharma that distinguishes the best among the Vaiṣṇavas.144 Kṛṣṇadāsa is concerned in particular to establish the unrivaled status of nāma-saṃkīrtana as the dharma of the current age of Kali Yuga in which two avatāras of Kṛṣṇa converge around a single practice: Kṛṣṇa descends as a yuga-avatāra in the form of Caitanya, and he descends as a nāma-avatāra in the form of the name, and in his human embodiment he celebrates his sound-embodiment by propagating nāma-saṃkīrtana as the yuga-dharma of Kali Yuga.145
Caitanya has appeared to propagate this dharma; for the dharma of the Kali age is the Kṛṣṇa nāma-saṃkīrtana. For he who worships with the sacrifice [yajña] of saṃkīrtana is wise; all others are destroyed by the Kali age.146
Kṛṣṇadāsa invokes the canonical authority of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa to ground his claims that the yuga-dharma of Kali Yuga is nāma-saṃkīrtana and that Caitanya is the yuga-avatāra who establishes it. With respect to the first claim, he cites as a prooftext Bhāgavata 12.3.51-52, quoted earlier:
Although Kali Yuga is a storehouse of faults, it has one great virtue: by kīrtana of Kṛṣṇa alone one is liberated from bondage (mukta-saṅga) and attains the supreme (para). That which is attained in Kṛta Yuga by meditation on Viṣṇu, in Tretā Yuga by offering sacrifices, and in Dvāpara Yuga by worship is attained in Kali Yuga by kīrtana of Hari.147
With respect to his second claim regarding the identity of the Kali Yuga avatāra, Kṛṣṇadāsa interprets the following description of this avatāra in Bhāgavata 11.5.32 as a reference to Caitanya:
Wise people worship, by means of sacrifices (yajñas) consisting mostly of saṃkīrtana, him who is black in color (kṛṣṇa-varṇa) though not black (akṛṣṇa) by virtue of his luster, with his limbs, ornaments, weapons, and associates.
As discussed in Chapter 1, Kṛṣṇadāsa interprets this verse as referring to Caitanya, who is “not black” but is rather light-colored due to his radiant golden (gaura) complexion. He emphasizes Caitanya’s unique status as the Kali Yuga avatāra in whom Kṛṣṇa appears as Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa together in a single body, and thus outwardly he is not black in that he assumes the golden color of Rādhā, while inwardly he is black in that he retains his essential nature as Kṛṣṇa.148
In discussing Caitanya’s role as the yuga-avatāra of Kali Yuga who establishes nāma-saṃkīrtana as the dharma of this age, Kṛṣṇadāsa expands on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s image of saṃkīrtana as yajña. He emphasizes that the “yajña of saṃkīrtana” supersedes the Vedic yajña as the preeminent practice of Kali Yuga, for the “yajña of the Kṛṣṇa-name” is the essence (sāra) of all yajñas and one Kṛṣṇa-name is worth more than ten million (one crore) aśvamedha sacrifices.149 Moreover, in contrast to the circumscribed social world of Vedic yajñas, which, as mentioned earlier, is closed to everyone but male members of the twice-born va
rṇas, Caitanya is represented as creating an open social body with permeable boundaries in which the yajña of nāma-saṃkīrtana is extended in principle to all people. “Women, children, old men, even caṇḍālas [outcastes] and Yavanas [foreigners]” are invited to take up the name of Kṛṣṇa and join the bhakta-saṅgha.150 “He carried the saṃkīrtana even to the caṇḍālas, and in this way wove and threaded a garland of nāma and prema to be worn throughout the world.”151 Caitanya is represented as insisting, in accordance with the teaching of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, that “there is no consideration of caste [jāti], family [kula], and such, in Kṛṣṇa-worship” and therefore an outcaste dog-eater (śva-paca) whose mind and heart are devoted to Kṛṣṇa is more fit for the yajña of nāma-saṃkīrtana than a proud brahmin of pure family who has turned away from Bhagavān.152
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