Bhakti and Embodiment

by Barbara A Holdrege

  Kṛṣṇa’s Transcendent Abode

  The Bhāgavata Purāṇa distinguishes Kṛṣṇa’s earthly abodes—Mathurā, Vraja, and Dvārakā—where he resides during his sojourn on the material plane in Dvāpara Yuga, from his transcendent abode, or dhāman, to which he returns at the end of his earthly sojourn.59 The dhāman of Kṛṣṇa, the supreme Bhagavān, is also called his loka, pada, gati, or kāṣṭhā60 and is at times designated by the name Vaikuṇṭha.61

  Kṛṣṇa’s dhāman is represented in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as a transcendent (parama) domain, which is the supreme (para) realm above (upari) all other lokas, including not only the earthly domain of mortals (nṛ-loka) but also the celestial worlds of the gods. In contrast to Kṛṣṇa’s earthly abode in the land of Vraja, where his līlā unfolds within the finite boundaries of space and time, his transcendent abode is extolled as beyond the material realm of prakṛti constituted by the three guṇas and beyond the reach of time (kāla) and the illusory power of māyā.62 Moreover, the residents of Kṛṣṇa’s transcendent abode are held to have nonmaterial forms (mūrtis) similar to that of the Lord of Vaikuṇṭha himself.63

  A distinction between Kṛṣṇa’s terrestrial and transcendent abodes is established in Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.28.11–17 in which the gopas, who reside with Kṛṣṇa on the material plane in Vraja, ask him to reveal to them his imperceptible abode. He complies by revealing to them his transcendent loka beyond the three guṇas that constitute the material realm of prakṛti. In this passage the loka of Bhagavān is identified with the loka of Brahman and is represented as a limitless (ananta), eternal (sanātana) domain beyond the guṇas where Kṛṣṇa is perpetually glorified by the Vedas. As I will discuss in a later section of this chapter, this passage is commented on by Jīva Gosvāmin and serves as a critical prooftext in his analysis of the relationship between the earthly and transcendent dimensions of Kṛṣṇa’s dhāman.64

  Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.28.11–17 suggests that, in contrast to Kṛṣṇa’s earthly abode in Vraja, which is visible to the material senses, his transcendent abode is not accessible to ordinary perception. However, the Bhāgavata emphasizes in this passage and several others that Kṛṣṇa’s loka can be directly “seen” (root dṛś) by becoming established through meditation in a state of samādhi beyond the guṇas. Great bhaktas such as Uddhava are held to have attained through meditation ecstatic absorption in the transcendent loka of Bhagavān.

  For the period of a muhūrta (approximately forty-eight minutes), he [Uddhava] remained silent, deeply satisfied, immersed by means of intense bhakti-yoga in the nectar from Kṛṣṇa’s feet. The hair of his body was bristling all over and tears flowed forth from his closed eyes.… He slowly returned from the loka of Bhagavān to the realm of mortals (nṛ-loka).…65

  The ultimate goal of bhakti-yoga, according to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, is to attain the transcendent abode of Kṛṣṇa as a permanent state of realization, reveling for all eternity in the bliss of Bhagavān.66 The gopīs of Vraja are represented as the paradigmatic exemplars of this path, for their passionate, all-consuming devotion to the cowherd of Vṛndāvana in his earthly abode ultimately found fruition in the bliss of eternal union with Bhagavān in his transcendent abode.67

  Vraja as a Pilgrimage Place

  While the Bhāgavata Purāṇa celebrates Vraja as a mythic space, a literary construction embedded in its narratives of the life and līlā of Kṛṣṇa, other Purāṇas extol Vraja as a place of pilgrimage. Among the extant Purāṇas, five Purāṇas contain Māhātmyas celebrating Mathurā or Vṛndāvana:68 Varāha Purāṇa, Skanda Purāṇa, Nārada Purāṇa, Ādi Purāṇa, and Padma Purāṇa. My analysis in this section will focus on the Mathurā Māhātmya of the extant Varāha Purāṇa, which provides the most detailed representations of the region of Mathurā as a pilgrimage place. I will then turn in the following section to an analysis of the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya of the Padma Purāṇa, which incorporates elaborate maṇḍala imagery into its representations of Vṛndāvana as an object of meditation.69

  Among the Māhātmyas extolling the glories of Mathurā as a pilgrimage place, the oldest datable version is included in the Kṛtyakalpataru, an extensive digest (nibandha) of scriptural verses compiled by Lakṣmīdhara in the twelfth century ce. As Entwistle notes, all but the last six verses in Lakṣmīdhara’s Mathurā Māhātmya are ascribed to a version of the Varāha Purāṇa that is no longer available and that differs significantly from the extant Varāha Purāṇa. A number of the later Māhātmyas, including the Mathurā Māhātmya of the extant Varāha Purāṇa and the Mathurā Māhātmya attributed to Rūpa Gosvāmin, appear to have drawn some of their material from this original version of the Varāha Purāṇa.70

  The Mathurā Māhātmya of the extant Varāha Purāṇa is an independent unit consisting of twenty-nine chapters (150–178) that appears to be one of the latest sections interpolated into this Purāṇa. The Māhātmya was most likely composed by the beginning of the sixteenth century, prior to the landmark developments later in the century that led to the transformation of the landscape and culture of Vraja by the leaders of the Gauḍīya Sampradāya and the Puṣṭi Mārga. In contrast to the more systematically organized Māhātmyas that derive from the middle of the sixteenth century, such as the Mathurā Māhātmya attributed to Rūpa Gosvāmin, the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa is a haphazardly arranged compilation of verses based on older material that may derive in part from the original version of the Varāha Purāṇa that has since been lost. Its eulogistic verses extol the fruits (phala) of pilgrimage to the city of Mathurā and the surrounding area and provide a randomly ordered litany of sites associated with the līlā activities of Kṛṣṇa, but they do not present a coherent vision of an encompassing pilgrimage circuit that traverses the entire area.71 Regarding the provenance and date of the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa, Entwistle concludes:

  The detail it contains about places in Mathura and the immediate vicinity, its lack of any concept of a circuit encompassing the whole of Braj, its retention of “archaic” material, and the inclusion of passages in praise of the local Chaturvedi brahmins suggest that it is a revised version of an earlier māhātmya made by a pilgrimage priest (tīrthapurohita) of Mathura who had not been influenced by the works of the Vrindaban Goswamis.… [I]n the absence of any evidence to the contrary, a plausible and cautious estimation of its date of composition would be around 1500 or somewhat earlier.72

  The Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa is presented in the form of a conversation between Pṛthivī, the goddess of the earth, and Varāha, the boar avatāra, in which she asks him which is the greatest of all tīrthas. Varāha then proceeds to extol the unsurpassed glories of the region of Mathurā, where the supreme Godhead, of whom Varāha himself is a partial manifestation, will be born when he descends to earth as Kṛṣṇa in Dvāpara Yuga:

  O Vasuṃdharā [Pṛthivī], neither in the heavens nor the nether regions nor the earth is there a place equal to Mathurā, for it is dear to me.… Hear in full, narrated by me, why my supreme abode (kṣetra) known as Mathurā, which is the highly lauded and delightful place of my birth (janma-bhūmi), is dear to me.73

  The region of Mathurā, which includes the city of Mathurā along with the surrounding area that is designated as Vraja in the works of the Gosvāmins, is celebrated in particular as the geographic place where the ṛṣis established temples and shrines to visibly mark as tīrthas the sites of Kṛṣṇa’s play (krīḍana or krīḍā) with the gopas and gopīs during his sojourn on earth, transforming the landscape into a place of pilgrimage.74 The entire ground is considered sacred because it has been purified by the touch of his lotus-feet:

  There is no place greater than Mathurā in the three worlds, O Devī, for I reside eternally (sarvadā) in Mathurā. Among all the tīrthas, O Devī, Mathurā is unsurpassed in its greatness because Kṛṣṇa played (root krīḍ) there and purified it, step by step. The entire land
is marked by the footsteps of Kṛṣṇa.75

  Mathurā-Maṇḍala as a Lotus

  The region of Mathurā is represented in the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa as a maṇḍala, or circle, with a circumference of twenty yojanas (approximately 160 miles) that surrounds the city of Mathurā. Mathurā-maṇḍala is depicted in the shape of a lotus, with mūrtis (ritual images) of five manifestations of Kṛṣṇa stationed at key locations on the lotus as the presiding deities of Mathurā-maṇḍala: the mūrti of Keśava at Kṛṣṇa’s birthplace (janma-bhūmi) in the city of Mathurā is located in the pericarp (karṇikā), the seed-vessel in the center of the lotus; the mūrti of Harideva in Govardhana is on the western petal; the mūrti of Govinda in Vṛndāvana is on the northern petal; the mūrti of Viśrānti at the Viśrānti-tīrtha on the Yamunā River is on the eastern petal; and the mūrti of Varāha is on the southern petal.

  My Mathurā-maṇḍala is twenty yojanas, and this lotus bestows mukti (liberation) on all, O most fortunate one. Keśava, the destroyer of afflictions (kleśas), is stationed in its pericarp (karṇikā), O Devī. The pericarp is one yojana, and I abide there perpetually (sadā). Those people who die while in the pericarp are eligible for mukti, O Vasuṃdharā [Pṛthivī], and those who die while anywhere in [the lotus] also attain mukti. Having seen the deity Hari, the Lord of lords, who resides in Govardhana on the western [petal], one’s mind is purified. Having seen the most auspicious deity Govinda on the northern [petal], one does not fall again into saṃsāra until the time of the final deluge. Having seen the deity known as Viśrānti who is stationed on the eastern petal, a person attains mukti, of this there is no doubt. On the southern [petal] there is an image (pratimā) of me [Varāha], which is divine in form, great in stature, and beautiful, resembling the appearance of Keśava. Having seen that image, O Devī, a person delights in the company of Brahmā.76

  This passage, which is also found in the Mathurā Māhātmya attributed to Rūpa Gosvāmin,77 presents an incipient “maṇḍalization” of the region of Mathurā that is more fully elaborated in formulations found in the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya of the Padma Purāṇa and in Jīva Gosvāmin’s commentaries on the lotus-maṇḍala imagery of the Brahma Saṃhitā, which I will discuss later in this chapter.78 In this passage from the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa, the image of a lotus-maṇḍala is superimposed on the geographic area of Mathurā, investing the area with the qualities of a transmundane space, but at the same time the overall emphasis in the Māhātmya’s representations of the Mathurā region is on its role as a pilgrimage maṇḍala, a circuit of pilgrimage sites to be circumambulated on foot, not on its role as a meditation maṇḍala to be visualized in the mind. The simple image of the four-petaled lotus stands in stark contrast to the later formulations of the Padma Purāṇa and Jīva Gosvāmin in which, as we shall see, the lotus is represented as a complex geometric diagram that functions as a meditation maṇḍala to facilitate experiential realization of Kṛṣṇa in his transcendent abode.

  This passage, which is also found in the Mathurā Māhātmya attributed to Rūpa Gosvāmin,77 presents an incipient “maṇḍalization” of the region of Mathurā that is more fully elaborated in formulations found in the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya of the Padma Purāṇa and in Jīva Gosvāmin’s commentaries on the lotus-maṇḍala imagery of the Brahma Saṃhitā, which I will discuss later in this chapter.78 In this passage from the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa, the image of a lotus-maṇḍala is superimposed on the geographic area of Mathurā, investing the area with the qualities of a transmundane space, but at the same time the overall emphasis in the Māhātmya’s representations of the Mathurā region is on its role as a pilgrimage maṇḍala, a circuit of pilgrimage sites to be circumambulated on foot, not on its role as a meditation maṇḍala to be visualized in the mind. The simple image of the four-petaled lotus stands in stark contrast to the later formulations of the Padma Purāṇa and Jīva Gosvāmin in which, as we shall see, the lotus is represented as a complex geometric diagram that functions as a meditation maṇḍala to facilitate experiential realization of Kṛṣṇa in his transcendent abode.

  Pilgrimage Networks

  The Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa emphasizes the extraordinary fruits (phala) that can be obtained by visiting the pilgrimage sites associated with the five mūrtis on the lotus-maṇḍala: Keśava in the pericarp, Harideva on the western petal, Govinda on the northern petal, Viśrānti on the eastern petal, and Varāha on the southern petal.79 Although the Māhātmya does not provide a coherent vision of a single encompassing pilgrimage circuit that interconnects all the sites in Mathurā-maṇḍala, it does discuss a number of discrete pilgrimage networks in different regions of the maṇḍala, and four of the five mūrtis on the lotus function as key nodes in these networks: Keśava and Viśrānti are associated with the pilgrimage network of the city of Mathurā, Govinda is associated with the pilgrimage network of Vṛndāvana, and Harideva is associated with the pilgrimage network of Govardhana. With respect to the mūrti of Varāha that the Māhātmya locates in the southern area of the lotus-maṇḍala, the specific location and role of this mūrti in the pilgrimage itinerary are not defined and the mūrti itself appears to have since been lost.80

  The Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa devotes three chapters (156–158) to the procedure and benefits of circumambulating (pradakṣinā or parikrama) the city of Mathurā, which is represented as the center of the lotus-maṇḍala. It begins by extolling the benefits of circumambulating the mūrti of Keśava at Kṛṣṇa’s birthplace (janma-bhūmi) in Mathurā, which is celebrated as the center of the center: the central node in the pericarp of the lotus-maṇḍala,81 the navel of the universe from which the supreme Godhead himself is born. Having circumambulated the mūrti of Keśava and obtained his darśana, the pilgrim is enjoined to perform pūjā to the deity with ghee lamps and other offerings and to sing his glories in kīrtana.82

  The mūrti of the “deity known as Viśrānti” on the eastern petal of the lotus-maṇḍala is represented in the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa as another major node in the pilgrimage network of the city of Mathurā. This mūrti has not survived, and hence we do not know which specific manifestation of Kṛṣṇa is intended when the text speaks of the “deity known as Viśrānti.”83 The Māhātmya identifies the mūrti’s location as Viśrānti-tīrtha, which is represented as the center of a network of twenty-four bathing tīrthas that are arranged in the shape of a half moon on the western bank of the Yamunā River, with twelve tīrthas lying to the south of Viśrānti-tīrtha and twelve tīrthas lying to its north.84 According to the Māhātmya, the fruits (phala) that are attained by bathing in all the tīrthas are attained by bathing in Viśrānti-tīrtha and obtaining darśana of the mūrti at that site, which is known as Viśrānti because Kṛṣṇa is held to have taken rest (viśrāma) there.85 According to the prevailing pilgrimage itinerary that is still followed by contemporary pilgrims today, the traditional starting-point for circumambulation of the city of Mathurā and of the whole of Vraja is Viśrānti-tīrtha, and the Varāha Purāṇa’s account accords with this itinerary by recommending that the pilgrim inaugurate the circumambulation of the city of Mathurā by bathing in Viśrānti-tīrtha and obtaining darśana of the mūrti there, after which he or she should visit the mūrti of Keśava.86

  The mūrti of Govinda on the northern petal of the lotus-maṇḍala is the central node in the pilgrimage network of Vṛndāvana. Vṛndāvana itself is represented in the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa as part of a larger pilgrimage network comprising the twelve forests that surround the city of Mathurā: Madhuvana, Tālavana, Kundavana (Kumudavana), Kāmyakavana (Kāmyavana), Bahulavana (Bahulāvana), Bhadravana, Khādiravana (Khadiravana), Mahāvana, Lohajaṅghavana (Lohavana), Bilvavana, Bhāṇḍīravana, and Vṛndāvana.87 As Haberman notes, “Whatever it indicates about actual pilgrimage activity in the area of Braj prior to…the sixteenth cen
tury, this list of twelve forests indicates the heart of an ideal itinerary which provided a framework for later developments.”88 In contrast to its cursory treatment of the other eleven forests, the Māhātmya devotes an entire chapter (154) to Vṛndāvana, which is celebrated as the culmination of the twelve-forest schema and a network of pilgrimage sites in its own right. Vṛndāvana is represented as the luxuriant forest where Kṛṣṇa romped and played with the gopas, gopīs, and cows in crystalline ponds and vine-laden groves and engaged in heroic exploits in which he vanquished various demons.89 According to the Māhātmya, pilgrims who visit Mathurā-maṇḍala should journey to Vṛndāvana north of the city of Mathurā and obtain darśana of the mūrti of Govinda.90 Among other tīrthas in Vṛndāvana that the pilgrim is enjoined to visit, the Māhātmya mentions in particular Keśi-tīrtha, the site where Kṛṣṇa slew the horse-demon Keśī; Kāliya-hrada, the pool where he subdued the serpent Kāliya; and Dvādaśāditya, the site where Kṛṣṇa, his body chilled from his bout with Kāliya in the water, warmed himself with the heat radiated by the twelve Ādityas, sun deities.91

  The mūrti of Harideva on the western petal of the lotus-maṇḍala is the central node in Govardhana, which, like Vṛndāvana, is represented as a discrete pilgrimage network within Mathurā-maṇḍala to which the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa devotes an entire chapter (162). The pilgrim is enjoined to travel to the area of Govardhana to the west of the city of Mathurā and to bathe in an unnamed kuṇḍa there—called Brahma-kuṇḍa in the Mathurā Māhātmya of Rūpa Gosvāmin—that has bathing tīrthas on its four sides guarded by the deities Indra (east), Yama (south), Varuṇa (west), and Kubera (north).92 The pilgrim is then instructed to embark on a circumambulation (pradakṣinā or parikrama) of Mount Govardhana, which is celebrated as the mountain that Kṛṣṇa lifted up as an umbrella to shelter the cowherds, cowmaidens, and cows from the torrents of Indra’s rain. According to the Māhātmya, the pilgrim should first bathe in the pond known as Mānasa-Gaṅgā and obtain darśana of the mūrti of Harideva,93 after which he or she should proceed to circumambulate Mount Govardhana and visit the various tīrthas along the pilgrimage path. The circumambulation includes a visit to Ariṣṭa-kuṇḍa and Rādhā-kuṇḍa, which the Māhātmya extols as the sites where Kṛṣṇa slew the bull-demon Ariṣṭa and created a pond in which he bathed to absolve himself of the sin of slaying a bull, after which, at the behest of Rādhā, he named an adjacent pond in her honor.94