24. Haberman 2003: lxiv.
25. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.3.8.
26. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.1.5.
27. Rūpa Gosvāmin devotes the five chapters of the Southern Quarter of the Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu (2.1–2.5) to a discussion of the vibhāvas, anubhāvas, sāttvika-bhāvas, vyabhicāri-bhāvas, and sthāyi-bhāvas, respectively. Jīva Gosvāmin also provides an analysis of these five aesthetic components in his discussion of bhakti-rasa in the Prīti Sandarbha.
28. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.1.16.
29. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.1.17–271.
30. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.1.22–23.
31. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.1.273–300.
32. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.1.301–384.
33. Rūpa Gosvāmin discusses the anubhāvas in the second chapter of the Southern Quarter of the Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu (2.2).
34. Rūpa Gosvāmin discusses the sāttvika-bhāvas in the third chapter of the Southern Quarter of the Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu (2.3). The eight sāttvika-bhāvas enumerated by Rūpa in Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.3.16 correspond to the standard list of eight sāttvika-bhāvas given in Nāṭya-Śāstra 6.22.
35. Rūpa Gosvāmin discusses the vyabhicāri-bhāvas in the fourth chapter of the Southern Quarter of the Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu (2.4).
36. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 2.5.79.
37. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.170; 1.2.172; 1.2.145; 1.2.147; 1.2.37; 1.2.178; 1.2.181. Jīva Gosvāmin discusses these practices in Bhakti Sandarbha 253–259, 268–269, 278–279. See also Bhakti Sandarbha 260–262, 275, in which Jīva extols the practices of Bhāgavata-śravaṇa, hearing the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and Bhāgavata-paṭhana, recitation of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, as the most efficacious means of engaging Kṛṣṇa’s līlā. Gauḍīya practices pertaining to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa will be discussed in Chapter 3.
38. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.4.4–5.
39. The two forms of sādhana-bhakti, vaidhī-bhakti and rāgānugā-bhakti, are discussed in Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2–1.4; Bhakti Sandarbha 235–340; Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.22.55–96.
40. The differential norms of varṇāśrama-dharma will be discussed in Chapter 4.
41. My notion of a “devotionally informed body” draws on Bourdieu’s (1977, 1990) notion of a “socially informed body” in which the sociocultural taxonomies of a particular social field are inscribed in the body through the “logic of practice.” I will examine in Chapter 4 the role of particular practices such as nāma-saṃkīrtana, communal singing of the divine names, in constituting “devotionally informed bodies” that have internalized the socioreligious taxonomies of the bhakta-saṅgha.
42. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.1.12.
43. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.94. In 1.2.72, before enumerating the sixty-four practices of vaidhī-bhakti, Rūpa Gosvāmin acknowledges his indebtedness to the Haribhaktivilāsa, the Gauḍīya ritual compendium that is ascribed to Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmin. The Haribhaktivilāsa will be discussed in Chapter 6.
44. See Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.266–268; Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.22.78, with ślokas 59–61. Both passages cite these verses from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (9.4.18–20).
45. For Rūpa Gosvāmin’s enumeration of the five practices, see Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.90–93, which in turn provides the basis for Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s enumeration in Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.22.74–75. See also Rūpa’s discussion of the five practices in Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.225–244.
46. See Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.244, quoted in Chapter 1, p. 77, with n. 136.
47. This expression derives from Ong 1981, 1982.
48. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.240; 1.2.170–173; 1.2.145–148; 1.2.37; 1.2.178–181; 1.2.91; 1.2.226–227; 1.2.210; Bhakti Sandarbha 248–275, esp. 260–262, 275.
49. For extended studies of rāsa-līlā performances, see Hein 1972; Hawley 1981, 1983: 181–257, 1995, 1999.
50. I will discuss Gauḍīya perspectives and practices pertaining to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in Chapter 3.
51. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.92; 1.2.230–234; 1.2.145–146; 1.1.21; 1.2.170–171; 1.2.242; 1.2.177; 1.2.85; 1.2.149–150; 1.2.185; 1.2.84; 1.2.123–124; Bhakti Sandarbha 262–265, 271–274, 248, 128, 276.
52. See, for example, Caitanya Caritāmṛta 1.7.90–93, with śloka 4, which cites Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.2.40. I will discuss Gauḍīya perspectives and practices pertaining to nāman in Chapter 4.
53. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.92; 1.2.235–237; 1.2.243; 1.2.88–89; 1.2.211–213; Bhakti Sandarbha 283, 286. I will discuss Gauḍīya perspectives and practices pertaining to Vraja-dhāman in Chapter 5.
54. I will discuss Gauḍīya perspectives on the role of meditation in the advanced phases of sādhana-bhakti in Chapter 6.
55. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.90; 1.2.225; 1.2.239; 1.2.81; 1.2.84–87; 1.2.118; 1.2.125–129; 1.2.134–143; 1.2.159–169; 1.2.185; Bhakti Sandarbha 283–303. For an extended study of the theology and practice of mūrti-sevā in the Gauḍīya tradition, see Valpey 2006. For an analysis of contemporary Gauḍīya practices of ornamentation of Kṛṣṇa’s mūrtis, see Packert 2010: 28–73, 123–175.
56. See, for example, Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.22.43; 3.4.183–185.
57. Rūpa Gosvāmin provides an overview of the progression from rāgānugā-bhakti to prema-bhakti in Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.270–1.4.21. See also Jīva Gosvāmin’s discussion of rāgānugā-bhakti in Bhakti Sandarbha 310–340 and of prema-bhakti, or prīti, in the Prīti Sandarbha. For an extended analysis of rāgānugā-bhakti, see Haberman 1988.
58. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.270.
59. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.294–295.
60. Jīva Gosvāmin’s commentary on Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.295.
61. Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.22.89–91. This passage invokes Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.294 and 1.2.295 as illustrative ślokas (ślokas 70 and 69, respectively).
62. See, for example, Prīti Sandarbha 10; Caitanya Caritāmṛta 3.4.183–185. For a discussion of Gauḍīya conceptions of the siddha-rūpa, see Haberman 1988: 86–93. Jīva Gosvāmin’s understanding of the siddha-rūpa will be discussed further in Chapter 6.
63. Regarding the central importance of the guru in the Gauḍīya tradition, see Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.74; 1.2.97–99, in which Rūpa Gosvāmin describes the first three practices among the sixty-four practices of vaidhī-bhakti as (1) taking refuge (āśraya) at the feet of a guru; (2) receiving initiation (dīkṣā) and instruction (śikṣaṇa) regarding Kṛṣṇa from the guru; and (3) serving (sevā) the guru with confidence. For Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s enumeration of these three practices, see Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.22.61, with n. 61. See also Bhakti Sandarbha 202–203, 206–213, 237, in which Jīva Gosvāmin discusses the roles of the śikṣā-guru and the dīkṣā-guru and emphasizes that taking refuge (śaraṇāpatti) in a realized guru is the critical foundation of the Gauḍīya path of sādhana-bhakti.
64. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.294. See also 1.2.87 and 1.2.175–177, in which Rūpa Gosvāmin includes smṛti, remembering, as one of the sixty-four practices of vaidhī-bhakti.
65. Bhakti Sandarbha 275–279.
66. Bhakti Sandarbha 278–279. See also Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 3.1.4–10, in which Rūpa Gosvāmin similarly suggests that although adherents of śānta-rasa may experience Kṛṣṇa’s four-armed aiśvarya form as Vāsudeva, or Viṣṇu, they do not experience his mind-captivating līlā. Jīva Gosvāmin’s analysis of the role of the meditative practices of smaraṇa and dhyāna in rāgānugā-bhakti will be discussed further in Chapter 6.
67. See in particular Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s Govindalīlāmṛta, the authoritative guidebook for the practice of līlā-smaraṇa visualization. Kṛṣṇadāsa’s 2,488-verse poem provides an extended account of the aṣṭa-kālīya-līlā, the eight periods of Kṛṣṇa’s līlā, which builds on Rūpa Gosvāmin’s eleven-verse formulation in the Aṣṭakālīyalīlāsmaraṇamaṅgalastotra. For an analy
sis of the role of līlā-smaraṇa in Gauḍīya traditions, along with a translation of Rūpa’s stotra, see Haberman 1988: 123–133, 161–163.
68. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.295, quoted earlier on p. 98.
69. For an analysis of Rūpa Kavirāja’s arguments, see Haberman 1988: 98–104.
70. See Haberman 1988: 137–139, 92.
71. For a discussion of Viśvanātha Cakravartin’s two-model solution, see Haberman 1988: 104–108.
72. This expression derives from Butler 1993.
73. The role of the sāttvika-bhāvas in the Gauḍīya theory of bhakti-rasa will be discussed further in Chapter 4.
74. Caitanya Caritāmṛta 1.7.84–87; cf. Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.241. The role of nāma-kīrtana, singing the name, in fashioning a devotional body that spontaneously manifests the sāttvika-bhāvas will be discussed in Chapter 4.
75. For a study of the role of divyonmāda, the divine madness of bhakti, in the Gauḍīya tradition, see McDaniel 1989: 29–85.
76. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.14.23–24.
77. For analyses of Śaṃkara’s perspectives on liberation and renunciation, see Fort 1998: 31–46; Nelson 1996; Sawai 1986. Among studies of Śaṃkara and classical Advaita Vedānta, see Potter 1981; Halbfass 1995; Timalsina 2009.
78. Whereas earlier scholarship on the Yoga-Sūtras of Patañjali tended to interpret kaivalya as a bodiless state of liberation that implies death of the physical body, more recent scholars such as Chapple (1996) and Whicher (1998, 2003) have argued that the Yoga-Sūtras support the notion of liberation while living as an embodied being. Among Rukmani’s many contributions to the study of Pātañjala Yoga, see Rukmani 1981–1989, 2001. Among recent extended studies of Pātañjala Yoga, see Whicher 1998; Larson and Bhattacharya 2008; Bryant 2009.
3 Bhāgavata Purāṇa as Text-Avatāra
1. Bhāgavata Māhātmya of the Padma Purāṇa (ĀnSS) Uttara 189.21; 191.63. These and other verses from the Bhāgavata Māhātmya of the Padma Purāṇa will be discussed in a later section of this chapter. All citations of the Bhāgavata Māhātmya refer to the Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series edition of the Padma Purāṇa, which I cite as “Bhāgavata Māhātmya of the Padma Purāṇa (ĀnSS).”
2. Caitanya Bhāgavata 2.21.14; Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.24.232; 2.25.218; Tattva Sandarbha 26.
3. For an overview of scholarly debates regarding the date and provenance of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, along with relevant references, see the Introduction, nn. 81–82.
4. Hardy 1983: esp. 36–43, 573.
5. This term derives from Stock 1983.
6. I will discuss Vedic notions of mantra in Chapter 4.
7. In opposition to the view of the Mīmāṃsakas and Vedāntins that the Vedas are nitya and apauruṣeya, the exponents of the Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, and Pātañjala Yoga schools use a variety of arguments to establish that the Vedas are anitya, noneternal, and pauruṣeya, created by the agency of a personal God, Īśvara. For an overview of the debates among the Darśanas, the six “orthodox” schools of Hindu philosophy, regarding the origin, ontology, and authority of the Vedas, see Holdrege 1996: 113–129. The positions of the Mīmāṃsakas and Vedāntins will be discussed later in this chapter.
8. See, for example, Renou and Filliozat 1947–1949: 381, 270; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957: xix; Dandekar 1958: 217; Gonda 1960: 107; Basham 1967: 112–113; Botto 1969: 294. For a discussion and critique of such characterizations of śruti and smṛti as a distinction between “revelation” and “tradition,” see Pollock 1997. Pollock’s views are discussed in n. 14.
9. Although the canon of śruti is technically closed, the category of Upaniṣads has remained somewhat permeable, with new Upaniṣads being added to the traditionally accepted 108 Upaniṣads until as late as the medieval period. Many of the later Upaniṣads are highly sectarian, and thus this phenomenon represents one of the strategies utilized by sectarian movements to legitimate their own texts through granting them the nominal status of śruti.
10. See Coburn’s (1984) illuminating discussion of the relationship between śruti and smṛti.
11. Heesterman 1978: 92–93. For a survey of the different attitudes, beliefs, and practices that major Indian texts, philosophical schools, and sectarian traditions have adopted with respect to the Veda in the course of its history, see Renou 1965. See also the discussion of the role and significance of the Veda in traditional Hindu self-understanding in Halbfass 1991: esp. 1–22. For a collection of essays on the role of Vedic authority in various Indian religious traditions that challenges a number of Renou’s conclusions, see Patton 1994.
12. For a detailed analysis of the cosmogonic, cosmological, and epistemological paradigms associated with the Veda in Vedic and post-Vedic texts, see Holdrege 1996.
13. See, for example, Mahābhārata 1.57.74; 12.327.18; Rāmāyaṇa 1.1.77; Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.4.20; 3.12.39; Skanda Purāṇa 5.3.1.18. For a discussion of the Mahābhārata’s representations of itself as the fifth Veda, see Fitzgerald 1985, 1996. For an analysis of how the Mahābhārata’s depiction of the sage Vyāsa serves to legitimate its claim to be the fifth Veda, see B. Sullivan 1990: esp. 29–31, 81–101, 112–117. The strategies deployed by the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and other Purāṇas to establish their Vedic status will be discussed later.
14. Pollock (1997, 1990: 322–328) has brought to light an essential mechanism whereby the domain of the Veda was extended to include not only śruti but also smṛti. He locates this mechanism in the definition of the terms śruti and smṛti themselves, which he argues have been incorrectly construed as representing a dichotomy between “revelation” and “tradition.” He maintains rather that, according to the etymology derived from the Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā school that is still prevalent among certain traditional brahmanical teachers, śruti refers to the extant Vedic texts that can be “heard” in recitation, whereas smṛti is an open-ended category that encompasses any teachings or practices pertaining to dharma that have been “remembered” from lost Vedic texts. The term Veda is thus extended through a process of “vedacization” and comes to include not only śruti but also smṛti texts. Carpenter (1992: esp. 58–63) has argued that the extension of the purview of Veda beyond the ritual practices delineated in the śruti texts to the broader domain of sociocultural practices laid out in smṛti texts was accomplished primarily by shifting the locus of Vedic authority from a circumscribed set of “texts” to the brahmanical custodians who were responsible for the “ritualized reproduction of the ‘divine speech’ of the Vedic tradition.” In the Dharma-Sūtras and the Dharma-Śāstras, the conduct of the brahmins became synonymous with śiṣṭācāra, the “practice of the learned,” and was ascribed normative status alongside śruti and smṛti as an authoritative source of dharma. Thus even when the teachings of the brahmins went beyond the teachings of the śruti texts, they were nevertheless deemed “Vedic,” for they were promulgated by those who, by virtue of their privileged role as transmitters of the Vedic recitative tradition, had become “living embodiments of the Veda.” For a discussion of the ways in which the Dharma-Sūtras and the Dharma-Śāstras utilize the theory of the lost Veda, the notion of śiṣṭācāra, and other mechanisms to invest smṛti teachings concerning dharma with the authority of Veda, see Holdrege 2004: 225–228.
15. A number of these modes of assimilation are discussed in Pollock 1990: 332.
16. The mechanisms of vedacization through which specific texts and traditions have sought to invest themselves with Vedic status have been explored in several scholarly forums, including the symposium “Whose Veda?,” held at the University of Florida in Gainesville (1996), and the panel “Whose Veda? Revelation and Authority in South Asian Religions,” held at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in New Orleans (1996). For references to the papers presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, see nn. 13, 19–21.
17. See Smith 1989: 3–29, esp. 20–29. Smith (1989: 26, 13–14) goes so far as to claim that “the
Veda functions as a touchstone for Hindu orthodoxy” and that Vedic authority is constitutive of “Hinduism” itself, including not only the brahmanical tradition but also bhakti traditions and tantric movements: “Hinduism is the religion of those humans who create, perpetuate, and transform traditions with legitimizing reference to the authority of the Veda.” Gonda (1965: 7) similarly defines Hinduism as “a complex of social-religious phenomena which are based on the authority of the ancient corpora, called Veda.” For statements by other Indologists concerning the authority of the Veda as the decisive criterion of Hindu orthodoxy, see Smith 1989: 18 n. 45.
18. See Subbu Reddiar 1977; Narayanan 1994.
19. For a discussion of the vedacization of the Rāmcaritmānas, and of Mānas recitation rituals in particular, see Lutgendorf 1990: 115–147, 1991. For more general reflections on the mechanisms of vedacization, see Lutgendorf 1996.
20. Thangaraj 1996.
21. Narayanan 1996.
22. For example, the vacana poets of the Vīraśaiva tradition, which originated in the Kannada-speaking region of South India in the twelfth century CE, were leaders of a protest movement that rejected the Vedic texts and rituals because of their association with the caste system and other brahmanical institutions. See Ramanujan 1973: 19–55. Certain left-handed tantric traditions such as the Kashmir Śaivas have not only rejected Vedic authority, but they have also treated the Veda as a symbol that is to be actively subverted by adhering to teachings and practices that directly transgress orthodox brahmanical traditions. Abhinavagupta (tenth to eleventh century CE), the most famous exponent of Kashmir Śaivism, asserts: “The wise sādhaka must not choose the word of the Veda as the ultimate authority because it is full of impurities and produces meager, unstable, and limited results. Rather, the sādhaka should elect the Śaivite scriptures as his source. Moreover, that which according to the Veda produces sin leads, according to the left-handed doctrine, promptly to perfection. The entire Vedic teaching is in fact tightly held in the grip of māyā (delusional power)” (Tantrāloka 37.10–12; cf. 15.595–599; cited in Muller-Ortega 1990: 49).
Bhakti and Embodiment Page 58