After reflecting on the transcendent and immanent nature of Vṛndāvana, the Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā embarks on its portrayal of the thousand-petaled lotus-maṇḍala, beginning with the following description of the yoga-pīṭha in the pericarp of the lotus, which once again bears striking resemblance to the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya’s description of the yoga-pīṭha quoted earlier:
In the center of the forest of Vṛndāvana is my supreme pīṭha.… A ruby-laden pavilion (maṇḍapa) adorned with a canopy and banner is located there. In its center is a yoga-pīṭha. Fashioned with eight corners, it is resplendent with manifold gems.… On it is a beautiful throne laden with rubies. A great eight-petaled [lotus] is shining forth there in the pericarp (karṇikā) with its filaments. That is the beloved abode (sthāna) of Govinda. How can its glory be described?139
The Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā recommends meditating (root smṛ) on Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā in the pericarp, after which it proceeds with an account of the seven concentric rings that constitute the thousand-petaled lotus-maṇḍala, with the first six rings corresponding to the first six rings of the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya’s lotus-maṇḍala. The Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā begins with a description of the innermost ring of eight petals that surrounds Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā on the throne and provides an enumeration of the eight gopīs seated on the eight petals that is nearly identical, with minor variants, to the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya’s enumeration.140 It then provides an enumeration of the second group of eight gopīs who are stationed in the second ring of sixteen petals and who together with the eight gopīs in the innermost ring are celebrated as the sixteen prakṛtis.141 The Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā continues with a description of the myriads of female devotees in the third ring of the lotus-maṇḍala, including the gopīs who revel with Kṛṣṇa in the rāsa-līlā, and provides an account of the various categories of maidens that overlaps with, but differs in detail from, that found in the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya.142
The Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā, like the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya, signals a shift in the cosmographic hierarchy by distinguishing between those who are inside Kṛṣṇa’s palace—his retinue of female devotees in the inner three rings of the lotus-maṇḍala—and those who are “outside the palace” (mandirasya bāhye).143 It allots the fourth ring to the four gopas who are the guardians of the four doors of the palace, using language that is strikingly similar to that used in the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya.144 Like the Māhātmya, it also allots the fifth ring to the myriads of gopas and their herds of cows.145 At this point the Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā formally marks the end of its account of the five rings that constitute the Vṛndāvana portion of the lotus-maṇḍala by including a brief discussion that has no parallel in the corresponding section of the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya. It reflects on the efficacy of the lotus-maṇḍala as a meditation device and maintains that those who draw a maṇḍala of Vṛndāvana, like the one it has just described, and worship it while meditating (root dhyā) on Kṛṣṇa engaged in līlā with the gopīs and gopas will attain Kṛṣṇa’s transcendent abode (parama pada) in Goloka when they cast off their material bodies (tanus).146
The Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā’s account continues with a description of the sixth ring of the lotus-maṇḍala, which, like the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya, it allots to the abodes of the four vyūhas: Vāsudeva, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha. It explicitly states that the abode (sthāna) of Vāsudeva is “below” (adhas) Kṛṣṇa’s abode in Goloka and positions the abode of each of the subsequent vyūhas below that of the previous one.147
While the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya’s account of the first six rings of the lotus-maṇḍala thus closely conforms to—and I would argue is directly modeled after—the Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā’s account, it is in their respective descriptions of the seventh and final ring that the two texts part ways. The Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā provides an elaborate description of the seventh ring, which it allots to the abode of Nārāyaṇa, the supreme Godhead, in its increasingly sublime fourfold manifestations (caturdhā vyūha) as Vaikuṇṭha, Viṣṇuloka, Śvetadvīpa, and the Ocean of Milk (kṣīra-sāgara or dugdhābdhi).148 Whereas in its account of the first six rings of the lotus-maṇḍala, the Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā represents the movement from the center towards the periphery of the maṇḍala as a movement from higher to lower realms, in the case of the seventh ring it reverses the hierarchy and represents Nārāyaṇa’s fourfold abode in the final ring as the supreme (para) dhāman that is the culmination of the entire cosmographic schema. In the perspective of this Pāñcarātra text, Kṛṣṇa is a manifestation (vibhava) of Nārāyaṇa, and therefore even though his abode in Goloka is higher than the domain of the vyūhas, it is surpassed in greatness by the supreme dhāman of Nārāyaṇa, which is limitless in extent (ananta-pāra).149 The Vṛndāvana Māhātmya, in adapting the Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā’s account to its own sectarian perspective in which Nārāyaṇa is a “one-tenth portion” of Kṛṣṇa, jettisons the final section that describes Nārāyaṇa’s fourfold abode and substitutes its own hermeneutical reframing in which it asserts the seventh ring’s peripheral status as the outermost ring that is also the lowest rung in the cosmographic hierarchy: the place where Nārāyaṇa manifests in his subordinate role as four Viṣṇus who are the outermost doorkeepers of the maṇḍala.
The lotus-maṇḍala with its seven concentric rings functions in the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya not only as a cosmographic maṇḍala that maps and hierarchizes the realms and retinues that constitute Kṛṣṇa’s transcendent abode; it also functions as a meditation maṇḍala that is designed to support the process of visualization and thereby catalyze experiential realization of the transcendent dhāman of Kṛṣṇa. As I will discuss in Chapter 6, the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya ascribes primacy of place to meditation (dhyāna) as the preeminent means to realize Kṛṣṇa, and in chapter 72 it describes a particular method of meditation, which it refers to as the “meditation of the ṛṣis” (ṛṣi-dhyāna), that involves visualizing a simplified version of the cosmographic maṇḍala.150
Geographic Place as Transcendent Space: Vraja-Dhāman in the Gauḍīya Tradition
The early Gauḍīya authorities appropriated and re-visioned Purāṇic representations of Vraja and contributed in two significant ways to the discursive and cultural reconstructions of Vraja in the sixteenth century. First, Caitanya and his followers—in particular, the six Gosvāmins of Vṛndāvana and Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa—assumed critical roles in the cultural reclamation of Vraja, mapping the narratives of Kṛṣṇa’s life in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa onto specific geographic locales and transforming Vraja from a mythic space into a pilgrimage place interwoven with tīrthas identifying the sites of Kṛṣṇa’s playful exploits. Rūpa Gosvāmin contributed to this process not only through his role in recovering and restoring the lost līlā-sthalas of Vraja but also through writing his own Mathurā Māhātmya in which he reconfigures the form and content of a Purāṇic Māhātmya to promulgate Gauḍīya constructions of pilgrimage that reflect the mid-sixteenth-century transformations of the Vraja region in which he himself participated.
The second major contribution of the early Gauḍīya authorities was in providing an analytical framework to support their discursive reimagining of Vraja as a bimodal domain that functions simultaneously as a geographic place and as a transcendent space. The earliest known representations of Vraja, or Vṛndāvana, as having both earthly and transcendent dimensions are found in the Bṛhadbrahma Saṃhitā, which, as discussed in the previous section, appears to have directly influenced the Vṛndāvana Māhātmya of the Padma Purāṇa and to have indirectly influenced the early Gauḍīya authorities through the mediation of the Brahma Saṃhitā. The Gauḍīyas’ distinctive contribution is in developing an analytical framework to elucidate the ontological status of the transcendent Vraja-dhāman and its relationship to its earthly counterpart. The critical foundation of this analytical framework is provided by the categories of praka�
�a līlā, manifest līlā, and aprakaṭa līlā, unmanifest līlā, which Rūpa Gosvāmin introduces in his Laghubhāgavatāmṛta and Jīva Gosvāmin elaborates on in his Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha. This distinction between prakaṭa līlā and aprakaṭa līlā allows Rūpa and Jīva to (re)read the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s account of Kṛṣṇa’s līlā on two levels corresponding to the earthly and transcosmic planes. On the earthly plane, the Bhāgavata’s account is read as a narrative of the manifest līlā that occurs in the material space-time continuum when Kṛṣṇa descends to earth in Dvāpara Yuga. In the manifest līlā Kṛṣṇa travels through time between three geographic places on earth—the city of Mathurā; the pastoral region designated as Vraja, Gokula, or Vṛndāvana; and the city of Dvārakā—and unfolds his play in a progressive sequence of events. On the transcosmic plane, the Bhāgavata’s account is read as a narrative of the unmanifest līlā that goes on eternally in the transcendent dhāman of the supreme Bhagavān beyond the material space-time continuum and beyond Brahman. As discussed in Chapter 1, this transcendent dhāman—which is not named by Rūpa but is called “Kṛṣṇaloka” by Jīva, Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, and later Gauḍīya authorities—is the center of Gauḍīya cosmography and is subdivided into three dhāmans.151 The innermost dhāman is the transcendent Vraja-dhāman, variously called Goloka, Gokula, Vṛndāvana, or Goloka-Vṛndāvana, which has an earthly counterpart in the geographic region of North India that is variously designated as Vraja, Gokula, or Vṛndāvana. The two outer dhāmans of Kṛṣṇaloka are the transcendent domains of Mathurā and Dvārakā, which have earthly counterparts in the cities of Mathurā and Dvārakā.
Expanding on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s representations of Kṛṣṇa’s bodily investment in the land of Vraja, the Gauḍīya discourse of embodiment, as we shall see, re-visions and extends the notion of embodiment to include Vraja-dhāman in both of its dimensions—not only as a geographic place, but also as a transcendent space. On the transcosmic plane, the transcendent Vraja-dhāman, Goloka-Vṛndāvana, is represented as an extension of Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body (vigraha) and is identified with the form of Bhagavān (bhagavad-rūpa). On the earthly plane, the terrestrial Vraja-dhaman is represented as the body (deha or vigraha) and essential form (svarūpa) of Kṛṣṇa and functions as what I term a dhāma-avatāra through which Kṛṣṇa descends to earth and becomes embodied as a geographic place.
In the following analysis I will begin with a brief examination of the contributions of Caitanya and the early Gauḍīya authorities to the reclamation and restoration of Vraja. I will then provide an analysis of the contributions of the Mathurā Māhātmya of Rūpa Gosvāmin to Gauḍīya constructions of Vraja as a pilgrimage place that is invested with transcendent features. After briefly surveying representations of the sacred geography of Vraja as the body of Kṛṣṇa, I will devote the major portion of my analysis to the arguments developed by Jīva in the Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha, which build on the framework developed by Rūpa in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta. Jīva uses philosophical arguments as well as prooftexts from various śāstras to establish (1) the ontological status of the three transcendent dhāmans that constitute Kṛṣṇaloka; (2) the relationship between the transcendent dhāmans and their earthly counterparts; and (3) the special status of Vraja-dhāman as the supreme dhāman of Kṛṣṇa that functions not only as his abode but also as an extension of his body on both the transcosmic and earthly planes.
The Gauḍīya Reclamation of Vraja
Caitanya’s Pilgrimage to Vraja
The most authoritative account of Caitanya’s visit to Vraja in 1514 is given in Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s Caitanya Caritāmṛta, which recounts how Caitanya circumambulated Vraja-maṇḍala, traveling through the twelve forests and visiting the līlā-sthalas, the sites where particular episodes of Kṛṣṇa’s līlā are held to have occurred during his sojourn on earth.152 The Caitanya Caritāmṛta was completed by Kṛṣṇadāsa, who was a resident of Vraja, around 1615,153 and his account is thus a retrospective account that appears to have been influenced, on the one hand, by the discursive representations of Mathurā-maṇḍala in the Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāṇa and the Mathurā Māhātmya attributed to Rūpa Gosvāmin and, on the other hand, by the pilgrimage circuit established by Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa in the latter half of the sixteenth century, which I will discuss later. In any case, Kṛṣṇadāsa’s account, which represents Caitanya’s visit to Vraja as a paradigmatic pilgrimage, provided a framework for the Vana-Yātrā that has been followed by Gauḍīya pilgrims from the end of the sixteenth century to the present day.154
According to Kṛṣṇadāsa’s hagiographic narrative, as Caitanya approached Mathurā and saw the city, he fell to the ground and prostrated, filled with preman. Having arrived in Mathurā, he bathed in the Yamunā River at Viśrānti-tīrtha and then visited Kṛṣṇa’s birthplace (janma-sthāna) where he offered obeisance to the mūrti of Keśava. After bathing in the twenty-four bathing ghats along the Yamunā and visiting the tīrthas in Mathurā associated with the most important mūrtis of Kṛṣṇa, Caitanya toured the twelve forests of Vraja with the aid of his local brahmin guide, beginning with the forests closest to Mathurā: Madhuvana, Tālavana, Kumudavana, and Bahulāvana. Kṛṣṇadāsa’s account emphasizes Caitanya’s bodily engagement with the land of Vraja and the flora and fauna of the forests. His body thrilling with the ecstasy of preman, he bathed in the kuṇḍas along the path of his pilgrimage. He caressed the cows and deer, who responded by licking his body with great affection. He embraced the trees and creepers, and they in turn shed ecstatic tears of honey and offered their fruits and flowers at his feet. As Caitanya chanted, “Kṛṣṇa bol! Kṛṣṇa bol!” all creatures, moving and nonmoving, began to reverberate with the Kṛṣṇa-sound, echoing his deep voice. He danced with the peacocks and rolled on the ground, overflowing with preman as he reveled in the sacred landscape of Vraja.155
At the sight of Mathurā, his prema increased a thousand times, and when he was wandering in the forest, his prema increased a lakh [hundred thousand times]. In other countries, prema would arise at the name “Vṛndāvana,” and now he was actually roaming in that Vṛndāvana. Day and night his mind seethed in prema, and only out of habit did he succeed in bathing and eating and so on. In this way was his prema, as he wandered through the twelve forests.156
Kṛṣṇadāsa recounts how Caitanya then proceeded to Govardhana. At Āriṭagrāma, or Ariṣṭagrāma, the site where Kṛṣṇa slew the bull-demon Ariṣṭa, he inquired about the whereabouts of Rādhā-kuṇḍa, but no one could tell him. However, Caitanya, the “all-knowing Bhagavān,” knew the location of the lost tīrtha and went to bathe in a small pool that he identified as Rādhā-kuṇḍa, the pond where Kṛṣṇa played every day with his beloved Rādhā. Overwhelmed by preman, he danced on the bank, recalling the līlā of Kṛṣṇa’s love-play with Rādhā at the kuṇḍa, and he used the mud of the kuṇḍa to make a tilaka, auspicious mark, on his forehead. As he proceeded on the path of his pilgrimage, Caitanya saw Mount Govardhana, and, mad (unmatta) with devotion, he prostrated on the ground, took a stone (śilā) from the mountain, and hugged it as the body (vigraha or kalevara) of Kṛṣṇa.157 He visited the Harideva temple in the village of Govardhana and danced in ecstasy before the mūrti of Kṛṣṇa in his manifestation as Harideva Nārāyaṇa, who presides over the western petal of the lotus-maṇḍala of Vraja. After bathing in Brahma-kuṇḍa, he spent the night at Harideva temple. The next morning he bathed in Mānasa-Gaṅgā and proceeded to circumambulate Mount Govardhana. Although Caitanya was eager to obtain darśana of the mūrti of Gopāla whose temple was on the top of Mount Govardhana, he would not set foot on the sacred mountain because he considered it to be the body of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇadāsa recounts how Gopāla, out of love for Caitanya, caused his custodians to remove his mūrti from the temple on the mountain and take it to the village of Gāṅṭhuli. While bathing at Govinda-kuṇḍa, Caitanya heard that the
mūrti of Gopāla had been taken to Gāṅṭhuli, and he went there to receive darśana. Overcome with preman, he danced before the mūrti and sang praises of Gopāla’s playful exploit in which he effortlessly lifted up Mount Govardhana with his hand to protect the inhabitants of Vraja from Indra’s deluge.158
According to Kṛṣṇadāsa’s narrative, Caitanya proceeded to the forest of Kāmyavana, where he visited the sites of particular līlā episodes. He then went to Nandīśvara, the village of Nanda, and, after bathing in the kuṇḍas, he climbed the village hill and entered a cave where he obtained darśana of the mūrtis of the child Kṛṣṇa and his foster parents Nanda and Yaśodā. Caitanya then visited the forests of Khadiravana and Bhāṇḍīravana, after which he crossed the Yamunā and visited the forests of Bhadravana, Śrīvana (Bilvavana), and Lohavana on the east side of the river. He proceeded to the forest of Mahāvana, where he visited the sites associated with Kṛṣṇa’s early childhood, including the Yamalārjuna site where Kṛṣṇa, the mischievous butter thief, dragged a mortar between a pair of arjuna trees and uprooted them. Caitanya subsequently returned to Mathurā, but after seeing the crowds of people who had assembled there, he went to stay alone at Akrūra-tīrtha, a ghat on the Yamunā River located between Mathurā and Vṛndāvana.159
Kṛṣṇadāsa recounts how Caitanya, using Akrūra-tīrtha as his base, made several trips to Vṛndāvana during which he visited the sites associated with other līlā episodes. For example, he bathed at Kāliya-hrada, the pool where Kṛṣṇa subdued the serpent Kāliya, after which he visited Dvādaśāditya, the mound where Kṛṣṇa was warmed by the rays of the twelve Ādityas after subduing Kāliya. He subsequently visited Keśi-tīrtha, the site where Kṛṣṇa slew the horse-demon Keśī. He then saw the site where Kṛṣṇa performed the rāsa-līlā with the gopīs, and, overcome with preman, his internal state of rapture was expressed externally as anubhāvas, bodily gestures and movements such as rolling on the ground, laughing, dancing, and singing, and sāttvika-bhāvas, involuntary physical manifestations such as loss of external consciousness and weeping.
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