Bhakti and Embodiment

by Barbara A Holdrege

  Radich’s critique of the materialist assumptions that constrain contemporary body theories in the Western academy brings into sharp relief two critical points regarding constructions of embodiment in premodern religious traditions that are amply illustrated by the Gauḍīya case. First, while the Gauḍīya discourse of embodiment takes as its starting-point the notion of an ordinary material human body, the entire Gauḍīya project is aimed at transforming bodily identities and attaining realization of a perfected form of embodiment that is nonmaterial. In this context the early Gauḍīya authorities introduce an important distinction between “body” and “matter” that transgresses the materialist limits of contemporary body theories. Second, the Gauḍīya discourse of embodiment not only challenges the privileging of material bodies; it also challenges the privileging of human bodies as the default template by positing a multiform array of divine bodies beyond the human realm and giving precedence to the absolute body of Kṛṣṇa, the supreme Godhead, as the paradigmatic body in relation to which all other bodies—divine as well as human—are classified and ranked.

  Divine Bodies beyond Matter

  In contrast to contemporary body theories that are predicated on the ordinary human body made of matter, in the Gauḍīya discourse of embodiment the bodies that matter the most on both the human and divine planes are those that are beyond matter. The Gauḍīya discourse pertaining to human bodies is constructed as a second-level discourse that is founded upon a first-level discourse pertaining to the divine bodies of Kṛṣṇa, for the entire Gauḍīya project is aimed at fashioning perfected embodied persons with nonmaterial devotional bodies that are modeled after the paradigmatic nonmaterial body—the vigraha, absolute body, of Kṛṣṇa—and whose raison d’être is to revel in eternal relationship with the divine Person, Kṛṣṇa, embodied in his vigraha.

  The Gauḍīya distinction between material and nonmaterial bodies is grounded in a more fundamental distinction between material and nonmaterial domains that is a defining feature of Gauḍīya cosmography. This cosmography, as articulated by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, posits three principal domains. One of these domains is the realm of prakṛti, matter, which is governed by the māyā-śakti and is populated by innumerable jīva bodies made of gross or subtle matter. The other two domains are Kṛṣṇaloka and Paravyoman, which are transcendent domains beyond the realm of matter that are eternal, nonmaterial manifestations of the svarūpa-śakti and are populated by the nonmaterial divine bodies of Kṛṣṇa along with the nonmaterial bodies of his eternally perfect associates and of realized jīvas.

  The material realm of prakṛti is represented as comprising limitless Brahmā-universes, or cosmos bodies, each of which contains a hierarchy of fourteen material worlds, with the earth, bhūr-loka, in the middle and six subtle material worlds above the earth and seven subtle material worlds beneath the earth. While the earth is populated by human beings, animals, and plants that possess physical bodies made of gross matter, the subtle material worlds above and below the earth are populated by various classes of gods (devas) and other subtle beings whose bodies are made of subtle matter, including pitṛs (ancestors), gandharvas (celestial musicians), apsarases (celestial dancing nymphs), nāgas (semidivine serpents), yakṣas (chthonic spirits), rākṣasas (demons), and pretas (ghosts).

  In this cosmography the transcendent domains of Kṛṣṇaloka and Paravyoman are represented as a thousand-petaled lotus-maṇḍala beyond the material space-time continuum of prakṛti, with Kṛṣṇaloka portrayed as the pericarp of the lotus and Paravyoman as the petals that encircle the pericarp. In a striking image that serves to demarcate the boundary between the realm of matter and the transcendent domains beyond matter, the lotus-maṇḍala comprising Kṛṣṇaloka and Paravyoman is represented as encircled by a radiant ring of light, identified as the effulgence of Brahman, which is in turn encircled by the moat of the ocean of causality that separates the nonmaterial transcendent domain of Paravyoman from the material realm of prakṛti. On one side of the moat is the realm of matter teaming with innumerable material jīva bodies. On the other side of the moat is the impersonal, formless Brahman, which one must go beyond in order to enter the lotus-maṇḍala teaming with innumerable nonmaterial bodies. The ultimate goal, as envisioned in this Gauḍīya cosmography, is to penetrate beyond the outer petals to the pericarp of the lotus where the supremely personal Godhead in his self-luminous absolute body shines forth as the source from which the formless effulgence of Brahman and the innumerable divine bodies emanate.

  Kṛṣṇa abides in the pericarp of the lotus in the singularity of his absolute body in the innermost dhāman of Kṛṣṇaloka, Goloka-Vṛndāvana, the transcendent Vraja-dhāman. The early Gauḍīya authorities emphasize that on this transcosmic level there is no distinction between the svarūpa, essential nature, of the divine Person, and his vigraha, absolute body, for both the body and the possessor of the body are nonmaterial, eternal, and constituted by sat-cit-ānanda, being, consciousness, and bliss. Moreover, they maintain that in Goloka-Vṛndāvana the personhood of the supreme Bhagavān is characterized above all by mādhurya, pure sweetness, which is reflected in the svayaṃ-rūpa, essential form, of his absolute body, in which he appears in the shape of a human being (narākāra or narākṛti) and more specifically in the youthful form of a ravishingly beautiful gopa, cowherd boy. In articulating their hierarchical taxonomy of divine forms, the early Gauḍīya authorities are concerned to establish that, out of the multifarious array of corporeal shapes, features, colors, and ages that the polymorphous, polychromatic Godhead assumes in his manifold bodily manifestations as ananta-rūpa, the highly particularized form that he displays in Goloka-Vṛndāvana—as a youthful cowherd boy with two arms (dvi-bhuja), blue-black color, lotus-like eyes, and distinctive body marks on his chest and feet—most perfectly embodies his mādhurya nature and is therefore his svayaṃ-rūpa, essential form. All other divine bodies are relegated to the status of secondary manifestations of this essential form, including the four-armed (catur-bhuja) form of the princely Vāsudeva through which Kṛṣṇa expresses his aiśvarya, divine majesty, in the outer dhāmans of Kṛṣṇaloka, Mathurā and Dvārakā, and the thousand-armed (sahasra-bhuja) cosmic form of viśva-rūpa that he manifests to the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield during the Mahābhārata war.

  While as eka-rūpa Kṛṣṇa maintains the integrity of his singular vigraha, as ananta-rūpa he assumes a myriad array of divine bodies that are classified in the Gauḍīya taxonomy as aṃśas, partial manifestations, of his vigraha and that abide either in the outer dhāmans of Kṛṣṇaloka, Mathurā and Dvārakā, in the case of the prābhava-vilāsas, or in the petals of Paravyoman, in the case of the vaibhava-vilāsas and svāṃśa avatāras. The early Gauḍīya authorities celebrate the diversity of bodily forms that Kṛṣṇa displays in the partial manifestations of his vigraha—ranging from the bodies of gods and semidivine ṛṣis to human bodies, animal bodies, and hybrid human/animal bodies—while at the same time they emphasize that all of these bodies, like the vigraha, are nonmaterial and composed of sat-cit-ānanda. Moreover, in the Gauḍīya taxonomy of divine forms these partial manifestations of the vigraha, as different configurations of sat-cit-ānanda, are ranked according to the extent to which their bodily shapes and features conform to or diverge from the paradigmatic svayaṃ-rūpa of the absolute body.

  Human Bodies beyond Matter

  In the Gauḍīya discourse of human embodiment the ultimate goal of human existence is envisioned as an eternal relationship between embodied persons—the divine Person and the realized human jīva—both of whom abide eternally in nonmaterial bodies in Goloka-Vṛndāvana, the transcendent Vraja-dhāman, beyond the realm of matter. The path to the attainment of this goal is delineated in the Gauḍīya regimen of sādhana-bhakti, which is designed to transform the material human body and catalyze the realization of a perfected nonmaterial body through the three-phase process of re-figuring bodily identities an
alyzed earlier in this study: from (1) the ascribed identity associated with the karmically constructed material body to (2) the inscribed identity in which the karmically bound body of bondage is reconstituted as a body of devotion to (3) the re-membered identity in which the jīva awakens from the sleep of ignorance and realizes a perfected devotional body that is nonmaterial and eternal.

  Ascribed Identity: The Material Body of Bondage. The Gauḍīya discourse of human embodiment begins with the notion of an ascribed identity that is determined at birth and circumscribed by the material body, which is sexually marked as either male or female and may be further classified as part of an ethnocultural community, social class (varṇa), and caste (jāti). The ordinary material body is termed sādhaka-rūpa, the practitioner’s body, which Jīva Gosvāmin glosses as the “body as it is” (yathāvastitha-deha). However, even with respect to their representations of the sādhaka-rūpa, the formulations of the early Gauḍīya authorities challenge contemporary Western constructions of the material body in three significant ways. First, in contrast to the mind/body dichotomy that continues to haunt the categories and models of many Western theorists, the Gauḍīyas represent the sādhaka-rūpa as a psychophysical continuum that includes not only the gross physical body but also the senses and the psychic faculties—mind, intellect, and ego—that are subtle forms of materiality. Second, in the Gauḍīya perspective the material body is neither a naturally given datum nor a social construction, but it is rather a karmic construction that is one in a series of material bodies that the jīva temporarily inhabits during its transmigratory journey in saṃsāra, the endless cycle of birth and death. The jīva’s ascribed identity in any given lifetime is circumscribed by the sexually marked material body into which it enters at the time of birth and that is constructed by the residual karmic impressions (saṃskāras) accumulated from previous births. Third, in contrast to Western theorists for whom the ordinary material body demarcates the beginning and the end of their theorizing, for the early Gauḍīya authorities the material body that is constituted by the jīva’s karmic heritage and is born through biological reproduction is only the starting-point for reflection. In Gauḍīya formulations the jīva’s mistaken identification with the material psychophysical complex is the root cause of bondage, and thus the sādhaka-rūpa is deemed the body of bondage prior to its transformation through the Gauḍīya regimen of sādhana-bhakti. The jīva must cast off its false sense of atomistic personal identity tied to the material psychophysical organism in order to realize a radically alternative form of perfected embodiment that is beyond materiality altogether.

  Inscribed Identity: The Transformed Material Body. In the Gauḍīya tradition, as in other Hindu traditions, the material human body functions not as an “individual” self-contained entity but rather as “dividual”—to return to Marriott’s term. In Gauḍīya constructions the human body is an open, permeable constellation of substances and processes that is continually engaged in an intricate network of transactions with the vast array of bodies—jīva bodies, cosmos bodies, and divine bodies—that constitute the cosmic ecosystem. This dividual human body can assume a variety of modalities, which I term “processual bodies,” each of which is constituted by a specific regimen of practices and is distinguished by a particular configuration of transactions with other bodies.7 Among the various processual bodies, the early Gauḍīya authorities are concerned to fashion a devotional body by means of the regimen of sādhana-bhakti. More specifically, through the practices of vaidhī-bhakti, the initial phase of sādhana-bhakti, they are concerned to reconstitute the karmically bound material body that is delimited by the markers of ascribed identity as a “devotionally informed body” that is inscribed with the socioreligious taxonomies of the Gauḍīya bhakta-saṅgha. My framing of this phase of inscribed identity as a “devotionally informed body” evokes Bourdieu’s notion of a “socially informed body” (habitus), in which through the “logic of practice” the sociocultural taxonomies of a particular social field are inscribed in the body in a system of bodily dispositions that manifests itself in “a durable way of standing, speaking, walking, and thereby of feeling and thinking.… in posture, in the gestures and movements of the body.”8 However, in the Gauḍīya case the logic of practice extends beyond the realm of social transactions with the network of human bodies that constitute the social field—the bhakta-saṅgha—for in order to be fully in-corporated in the bhakta-saṅgha the material body must be reconstituted as a body of devotion through a regimen of devotional transactions with the divine bodies of Kṛṣṇa in his manifold manifestations. In this community the paradigmatic bhakta is one whose sādhaka-rūpa, material psychophysical complex, has been transformed through the practices of vaidhī-bhakti into an instrument of devotion in which every thought, word, and action is a consecrated offering to the supreme Bhagavān in the multiplicity of his divine forms.

  He engaged his mind on the lotus-feet of Kṛṣṇa, his words in recounting the virtues of Vaikuṇṭha, his hands in cleaning the temple of Hari, his ears in hearing glorious stories about Acyuta, his eyes in seeing the images and temples of Mukunda, his sense of touch in touching the bodies of his servants, his nose in smelling the fragrance of the tulasī leaves placed at his lotus-feet, his tongue in tasting the food that had been offered to him, his feet in traveling by foot to the holy places of Hari, his head in bowing to the feet of Hṛṣīkeśa.…9

  Re-membered Identity: The Nonmaterial Body. In the Gauḍīya discourse of human embodiment the process of re-figuring bodily identities is brought to fruition in rāgānugā-bhakti, the advanced phase of sādhana-bhakti, in which the bhakta engages in a regimen of meditative practices that is designed to catalyze the final shift from the inscribed identity of a devotionally informed material body to the re-membered identity of a perfected nonmaterial devotional body. In this final stage of transformation the jīva casts off the last vestiges of atomistic personal identity tied to the material psychophysical organism and re-members (smaraṇa) its true identity, true personhood, as defined by its svarūpa, unique essential nature, and the corresponding form of its siddha-rūpa, eternal, nonmaterial body, which is ontologically distinct from the transformed sādhaka-rūpa. The early Gauḍīya authorities represent this final stage as an embodied state of realization in which the bhakta becomes a samprāpta-siddha, a perfected mahā-bhāgavata, who inwardly identifies with the siddha-rūpa, the nonmaterial body, while outwardly continuing to perform practices with the sādhaka-rūpa, the transformed material body. Moreover, they claim that although the sādhaka-rūpa ceases at the time of death, the realized jīva continues to maintain its nonmaterial personal and bodily identity in the form of its unique svarūpa and siddha-rūpa, by means of which it revels in eternal relationship with the supremely personal Godhead, Kṛṣṇa.

  The Gauḍīya discourse of human embodiment, in its formulations regarding the final state of realization, thus poses a significant challenge to contemporary theories of the body that are predicated on the ordinary human body composed of flesh and blood. In contrast to theories that are founded on the assumption that human bodies are made of matter, this discourse is founded on a distinction between bodies and materiality that challenges us to imagine the possibility of human bodies that are not composed of flesh and blood. The early Gauḍīya authorities posit an innumerable number of human jīvas, each of whom possesses a siddha-rūpa, eternal, nonmaterial body, that is modeled after the paradigmatic vigraha, absolute body, of Kṛṣṇa. Just as the absolute body of the supreme Bhagavān that exists eternally in Goloka-Vṛndāvana, the transcendent Vraja-dhāman, has a human-like shape with two arms and is composed of sat-cit-ānanda, being, consciousness, and bliss, in the same way every human jīva has a nonmaterial body that exists eternally in the transcendent Vraja-dhāman and is like the absolute body of Bhagavān in that it has a human-like shape with two arms and, as an aṃśa of the divine effulgence, is composed of cit and ānanda, consciousness and bliss. In Gauḍ
īya formulations these nonmaterial siddha-rūpas are not subsumed within the absolute body of Kṛṣṇa as a singular, distinctionless totality, but rather they retain their distinct identities as perfected devotional bodies that remain eternally in a relationship of inconceivable difference-in-nondifference, acintya-bhedābheda, with his absolute body. On the one hand, in their status as aṃśas they are nondifferent (abheda) in that they are characterized as partaking of the cit and ānanda aspects of Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body, while, on the other hand, they are different (bheda) in that they are not characterized as partaking of the sat, being, aspect—which I would suggest is a strategic omission on the part of the early Gauḍīya authorities in order to maintain an ontological distinction between Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body in its all-encompassing totality and the siddha-rūpas that are its aṃśas.

  Each siddha-rūpa is represented in the Gauḍīya discourse of human embodiment as ontologically distinct not only from the absolute body of Kṛṣṇa but also from all other siddha-rūpas. Just as the svayaṃ-rūpa, essential form, of Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body reflects his svarūpa, essential nature, in the same way the distinctive form of each jīva’s siddha-rūpa, nonmaterial body, reflects its distinctive svarūpa, essential nature. In Gauḍīya formulations each jīva’s siddha-rūpa has a particularized bodily form that, in accordance with its svarūpa, is eternally gendered as either female or male in relation to the male Godhead and is distinguished by a particular age, complexion, mode of dress, and other bodily features.