The Object of Bhakti: Īśvara, Bhagavān, Brahman, and Divine Hierarchies

Bhakti and Other Paths of Yoga

As a prologue to discussing the nature of Īśvara, let us first consider a related topic Jīva raises: What is particular about bhakti from the perspective of yoga in general? There are numerous yoga paths claiming to free one from suffering and lead one to enlightenment; do they not all take one to the same goal? Here, we reiterate that the Bhāgavata shares the view common to all the yoga and other mokṣa (that is, soteriological, liberation-seeking) traditions of ancient India—namely, that ignorance of the true self is the cause of suffering, and it is suffering and frustration that initially prompt one to ponder whether there might be a state beyond suffering and hence consider a yoga path in the first place. After all, if one is perfectly content with one’s life, why would one wish to change—that is, seek a “path” to go somewhere else? Any yogic journey can begin only when there is a realization that all is not well, or at least when one cannot shake off some sort of simmering existential malaise.

This initial starting premise is most succinctly expressed in the sequential nature of the four Truths that became enshrined at the core of Buddhism but were a standard set of perspectives for almost all the mokṣa traditions.1 Here the “path” is the fourth Truth, but it is consequent on realization of the first Truth, sarvaṁ duḥkham, everything is suffering, or at least unfulfilling (which is then bolstered by the other two truths: that there is a cause for this suffering—desire—and subsequently the possibility of a state beyond suffering once the cause is removed).2 The realization of being unfulfilled lies at the core of the impetus to take up practice in the Yoga Sūtras (II.16) and is universally associated with the quest for mokṣa, liberation in the soteriological traditions of ancient India. As noted previously, the fourth- to fifth-century Sāṅkhya Kārikā comes out and states this plainly in its very first verse; it is precisely because of being subject to unfulfillment/suffering that one seeks knowledge. Indeed, terms such as mokṣa and mukti, “liberation,” denote nothing other than liberation from suffering or frustration—and Nyāya even defines yoga as such (I.1.22, IV.2.46), as does the Gītā in VI.23.

In terms of the metaphysics of suffering common to all yoga schools, when consciousness identifies with its subtle and gross prakṛtic coverings of mind and body due to māyā/avidyā (illusion/ignorance), and consequently sets out to seek happiness through the mind and senses by attempting to fulfill desires associated with these coverings, it experiences frustration, duḥkha, instead. This is due to the temporary and ephemeral nature of prakṛtic enjoyment and the vulnerability of the body and mind to various mental and physical disturbances, especially disease, old age, and death. It is also due to the fact that, for the Vedic-affiliated3 schools, the body and mind are not the true self, ātman, but inert material coverings.4 Desires gratify only these external coverings, leaving the innermost self neglected. Moreover, desires are never satiated but demand ever more or morph into some other form. And all actions initiated from a place of ignorance and desire plant seeds, good or bad—the law of karma—and these produce reactions. Since one cannot accommodate these reactions in one lifetime—and even if one did, one would simply re-react to them anew, planting a whole new generation of seeds with ever self-multiplying consequences—one must constantly return to receive one’s fruits. And this, of course, simply feeds the self-perpetuating process in a never-ending cycle of action, reaction, re-reaction, and so on. Saṁsāra is nothing other than this.

This overall pessimistic view of the quest for material enjoyment is broadly accepted by most Indic soteriological traditions, and the tales in part 2 will reinforce for the reader unfamiliar with Indic thought these basic presuppositions shared by the bhakti paths with the jñāna (knowledge), karma (unmotivated duty), dhyāna (meditation), and other yoga traditions of ancient India.5 For Jīva, the pursuit of yoga practice culminates in direct experience of (what for now we will call) “the Absolute,” as is typical of the yoga traditions, and it is only by dint of such direct experience that ignorance, desire, and their consequent suffering is fully dispelled. Here, with difference in terminology, he upholds the assumptions of all the yogic schools.6

So, then, given this common denominator starting premise, what about other yogas? Is bhakti not just one yoga path among many that can lead the living entity out of this entrapment by the senses and the consequent perpetuation of saṁsāra? The Bhāgavata condenses the various paths of yoga into three basic categories:7

Three types of yoga have been proclaimed by Me [Kṛṣṇa] out of a desire to bestow welfare on humankind: jñāna, karma, and bhakti; there are no other means anywhere. Jñāna is for those people who have become disgusted by actions in this world that are motivated out of personal desire (karma), and who have renounced them; karma yoga is for those who have desires, and have not yet become disgusted with actions associated with these; and, for that person in whom, by good fortune, faith in the narratives, etc., about Me has arisen, bhakti yoga bestows perfection. (XI.20.6–8)

However, as we will see, the Bhāgavata promotes bhakti as the highest path for everyone, not one among three. First of all (but less important), as is explicit in the Gītā (XII.1–6) and hinted at in the Yoga Sūtras (II.45), the Bhāgavata ubiquitously promotes bhakti as the easiest and most expedient yoga process. This is for the simple reason that here, as in the Gītā, the ātman’s veil of ignorance is a power (māyā-śakti) of Kṛṣṇa and hence can be removed only by His grace: “This divine māyā composed of the three guṇas, is Mine and is very hard to surpass, but one who surrenders to Me can cross over it” (Gītā VII.4). Because of grace, then, the path of bhakti is deemed easy, where other paths are fraught with difficulties (Gītā XII.1–6). The Bhāgavata too presents Uddhava soliciting “an easy method by which a person can quickly attain perfection, O lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa, as usually, when trying to control the mind, yogīs become exhausted in restraining it, and despondent when they cannot retain concentration” (XI.29.1–2). When exhausted by efforts based on one’s own yogic prowess in the attempt to still the mind, “one should worship Īśvara joyfully … as it is by this means that the cause of saṁsāra, the cycle of birth and death, ceases” (II.2.6). So as to transcend suffering and attain liberation, the yogī turns to Īśvara, given that māyā, the source of suffering, is Īśvara’s power, so it is only Īśvara who can effortlessly remove it.

But, more important than this—which, in essence, is nothing other than a practical consideration of ease—there is a more profound hierarchical issue at stake. For Jīva, the cause of suffering is not just ignorance of one’s ātman, but, more fundamentally still, ignorance of, or aversion to, a higher Supreme Ātman (Paramātman), Īśvara, God. This leads to the second reason bhakti differs from other yogas: the much more significant difference for the Bhāgavata is not ultimately just a prosaic matter of ease between yoga systems, but one of metaphysical hierarchy. There are different transcendent levels to the Ultimate Truth. The ātman may be the ultimate essence of an individual beyond the categories of body and mind, but Īśvara is a still higher Truth beyond the ātman. Realizing this, the bhakta redirects consciousness to Īśvara, rather than striving to direct it to its own inherent nature of objectless consciousness. This, in essence, is bhakti yoga. While some can indeed attain the ātman (also known as puruṣa) through yogic virtuosity and meditational prowess based on personal willpower, the attainment of Īśvara, a higher and Supreme Ātman, and entrance into Īśvara’s divine transcendent realm of Vaikuṇṭha, the personal abode of Viṣṇu, the Kingdom of God, is attainable only (but easily) by bhakti:

Those whose minds have become purified by the performance of mature bhakti by drinking the nectar of narrations about You, O Lord, attain knowledge, the essence of renunciation, and easily attain the divine realm of Vaikuṇṭha. Others, those who fix their minds … by the power of their yoga-samādhi, enter into You [in Your partial manifestation] as the puruṣa. But theirs is hard work, unlike through the path of service [that is, bhakti]. (III.5.45–46; see also IV.22.40)

So in addition to the “hard work” involved, the destination differs: other processes, for Jīva, such as the jñāna path of realizing the truths of scripture; aṣṭāṅga yoga, the path of stilling the mind; Sāṅkhya, the path of metaphysical analysis; and karma yoga, the path of selfless duty, can all awaken detachment and lead one to the ātman/Brahman aspect of the Absolute.8 From the perspective of the Bhāgavata, these other traditions provide exactly what they claim to provide: direct experience of the ātman beyond the guṇas (namely, realization of Brahman, the experience of pure, eternal, blissful consciousness devoid of all objects other than consciousness itself). But we will discuss in this section how the ātman aspect of the self, while transcendent, is not the ultimate expression of the Absolute Truth in the Bhāgavata, but only a part of it. As will become increasingly evident as we proceed, and as with the theistic readings of the Gītā,9 the Bhāgavata considers Īśvara, the Supreme Ātman, to be the highest aspect of Brahman. Īśvara is distinct, transcendent to, and eternally related as supreme cause to His reflections as the myriad individual ātmans. The individual ātman is only a part of, but not the entirety of, the Absolute. So bhakti is different from other yogas hierarchically in Bhāgavata theology; it leads to the highest and most complete level of Truth—God, the unlimited, eternal Supreme Being—where other yogas reveal only the individual ātman, which is a partial and limited expression of Truth (even as it can attain a state of infinity and eternality). In fact, if yoga or any spiritual practice does not lead to Īśvara, then it has very little ultimate value for the Bhāgavata.10 Jīva defines bhakti yoga in general as this basic refocusing of consciousness toward Īśvara. To understand Bhāgavata bhakti, therefore, we must first understand something more deeply about Īśvara.

Let us first briefly recall once more what we have called the “grammar” of bhakti. Bhakti itself as practice—linguistically a type of action noun—requires a subject or agent of the action—the bhakta who performs bhakti—and an object or recipient of the action—an Īśvara, Supreme Being, who receives the action of bhakti. Now, having discussed the former two ingredients, bhakti and the bhakta, in this section we will devote some focused attention to some of the principal ways Īśvara is construed in the various expressions of bhakti. This section will be unavoidably more philosophically dense than the previous sections and thus more challenging for the nonspecialist. Hence, while Jīva places it first in his work, we have placed it last in the hope that those not familiar with Indian thought will have developed some confidence by this point. But we do need to put some metaphysical building blocks in place in order to discuss the status of Īśvara as the object of bhakti, which are indispensable for anyone interested in understanding how the Bhāgavata understands God, Īśvara, the receiver of bhakti, in contrast with the philosophical context of other important Īśvara or theistic traditions of India. We will need to deal with sectarian differences here. After all, if we are called upon to devote our lives to bhakti, and if bhakti involves complete devotion to Īśvara (which almost always takes place in a sect-specific context), some attention needs to be directed to the philosophical discussions pertaining to the ontological position of Īśvara among the different schools even as this discussion will require a little more intellectual rigor and philosophical detail.

Let us begin with a brief definition of terms, which will serve as an initial semantic base whose modalities can then expand as the discussion continues. We will need to nuance the term Īśvara vis-à-vis the term Brahman, which is the prominent term referring to the Absolute Truth in the Upaniṣads and derivative Vedānta traditions. We will also contrast it with the term Bhagavān, which appears in the titles of both the Bhagavad Gītā and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Such issues will occupy us next, and we beg the indulgence of the reader unfamiliar with classical Indian thought, even as we will make every endeavor to present the material accessibly while attempting to maintain the integrity of the intellectual sophistication and subtleties of Vedānta thought. We also trust the reader more familiar with Indic philosophical categories will forgive some purposeful repetition of concepts here, adopted for those unfamiliar with the Indian metaphysical traditions in mind (and such specialists will know well that the mokṣa texts themselves can be very repetitive owing to their oral nature precisely with such pedagogical purposes in mind).

Definition of Īśvara, Bhagavān, and Brahman

The Īśvara (that is, theistic) element in Indic thought stretches back at least to the late Vedic period, circa 1000 B.C.E.11 After the emergence of the philosophical traditions, Īśvara (feminine, Īśvarī) becomes the term preferred in philosophical discourse concerning the existence (or not) of a creator God—somewhat generically conceived (akin to the God of natural theology). As noted previously, ontology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the basic and ultimate categories of reality and their relations—such as, in our case, God, the souls, and the world of matter. So in partial contrast to the term Bhagavān, Īśvara is often associated more with an ontological or metaphysical category when the term occurs in philosophical contexts rather than with specific and personal Supreme Beings with qualities, such as Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Kṛṣṇa, who all lay claim to the title Īśvara in Purāṇic and epic texts. So there were Īśvara-vāda (theistic) traditions, which defended the philosophical necessity of a creator God—most of the Vedic-derived traditions (Yoga, Vedānta, Nyāya, Purāṇa, Itihāsa, and most Sāṅkhya strains) and nir-Īśvara-vāda (nontheistic) traditions, which challenged the philosophical coherence of theistic arguments (Jainism, Buddhism, the Cārvāka materialists, and, from the Vedic traditions, Mīmāṁsā and [debatably] some Sāṅkhya strains12). Whether Īśvara-vāda or nir-Īśvara-vāda, everyone understood the term Īśvara to refer to the existence of some type of a Supreme Creator Being (variously construed) and hence raised reason-based arguments for or against the inferential necessity of such a postulate from the point of view of philosophical discourse and debate (anumāna).

Now, while this is by no means hard and fast, where the term Īśvara often refers to the ontological category of God as first Cause, prime Mover, Creator, Overseer, and so forth, as can be sensed from its etymology (from the root iś, to have extraordinary power and sovereignty), the term Bhagavān tends to be used when the personal form and qualities of Īśvara are referenced. Put simply and simplistically, Īśvara would be the term used in more philosophical environments and Bhagavān among the faithful, so to speak, in which milieus Īśvara, as an accepted entity, would usually be associated with the specifics of a divine form and personality. These more personal and quality-related associations inherent in the title Bhagavān can be sensed from the definition of the term in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa as the being who possesses the six qualities of knowledge, beauty, renunciation, majesty, potency, and fame in complete fullness (VI.5.73–7513). All theistic traditions accept that Īśvara can adopt unlimited forms and exhibit multifarious qualities—Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu, Śiva, Rāma, and various Goddess forms being the most commonly encountered—so the terms Bhagavān (and feminine Bhagavatī) surface most commonly when referring to these specific manifestations, each with unique and wonderful characteristics. A very clumsy parallel to these two terms might be the usage of the title “king,” which is a functional or political category, as opposed to the actual person sitting on the throne, with a unique name, form, and set of qualities, even as the two coincide as the same entity. Īśvara and Bhagavān are synonymous terms, then, referring to God the Supreme Being—the Purāṇic equivalent of Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah, and the like—but while this is by no means hard and fast, the choice of term may, depending on context, invoke these different valences. The special association of the term Bhagavān with the specific manifestation of Kṛṣṇa is evident in the titles of texts featuring Him—the Bhagavad Gītā and of course the Bhāgavata Purāṇa itself14—but it is used abundantly for Śiva (for example, IV.29.42), Viṣṇu, and other manifestations of Īśvara.15

The term Brahman, by the time of the Upaniṣads,16 signifies the Ultimate Truth underlying all reality. It is with this term that things get technical and rather more complicated. While Brahman is often described as beyond descriptive categories and conceptuality,17 the qualities typically associated with it are sat, literally “being”;18 cit, consciousness; and ānanda, bliss.19 Now in some places in the Upaniṣads, this Truth is depicted in nonpersonal terms as a qualityless and formless but conscious infinite omnipresence20—whereas in other places it is depicted in personal terms—as a thinking, willing individual who is the Supreme Creator God.21 Thus the simple term Brahman can refer to either an impersonal/nonpersonal Supreme Truth or a personal Supreme Truth, depending on different Upaniṣads (or, indeed, sections within an Upaniṣad)22 and, thereafter, on the partialities of the later Vedānta schools derived from them. We can refer to these possibilities as monistic (nonpersonal Absolute) and monotheistic (personal Absolute), respectively, or simply impersonalism and personalism. When the term Brahman is used in the latter sense, referring to a Supreme Being who is the God of Creation, it becomes equated and synonymous with Īśvara. Thus Brahman and Īśvara can also be synonyms, especially in the monotheistic traditions such the Vaiṣṇava ones. And in the Bhagavad Gītā and Bhāgavata, all these terms—Īśvara, Bhagavān, and Brahman—refer to one and the same Kṛṣṇa—as they do to Śiva in the Śaivite traditions and their feminine forms to Devī in the Goddess traditions (the relationship between these divine manifestations—a Purāṇa issue—will occupy us later, once we have our semantic and ontological building blocks—a Vedānta issue—in place).

The term ātman is inseparably associated with the term Brahman and usually (but by no means always) used when referring to Brahman as embodied in the individual micro living entities, where the term Brahman is usually used where the ultimate macro source Truth underpinning all reality is intended. The terms are often used interchangeably, however. Depending on the school (which again reflects partiality to differing Upaniṣadic references as we will discuss), ātman is either understood as completely identical with Brahman, rendering the two terms entirely synonymous, most notably with the “nonpersonal” monist schools such as advaita Vedānta;23 or perceived as a differentiated part of Brahman, qualitatively the same insofar as it comprises pure consciousness but nonetheless quantitatively a vastly lesser part or individualized portion of Brahman and an eternally distinct part. This latter view is the defining feature of Vaiṣṇavism, the cluster of “personalist,” monotheistic schools, such as that of the Vedānta of the twelth-century theologian Rāmānuja, whom we will quote frequently, the theological forerunner to Jīva’s own school.24

As a point of interest, the Krishnamacarya-derived yoga lineages that have spread the practice of āsana and basic yoga philosophy so widely in the West have their Vedānta roots in Rāmānuja’s Vedānta tradition, the philosophical name for which is viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. Krishnamacarya was a staunch adherent of this tradition, and his son Desikachar as well as his son-in-law Iyengar maintained their identity with it, even though very few students of these teachers have any awareness of this aspect of their guru’s philosophical and spiritual identity, as it was not stressed by them.25 The other great teacher associated through his disciples with the general spread of yoga in the West, Swami Śivānanda, was, in contrast, an adherent of advaita. This focus is clearly evident not only in his own writings, but in the teachings of his students Vishnudevananda and Satcitananda (there are, of course, always exceptions to such categorizations: Krishnamacarya’s disciple Pattabhi Jois, for example, was a follower of advaita).

In any event, for our present purposes, since Brahman can take either these personal or nonpersonal semantic inflections, where Īśvara is less ambiguous, as it is the term usually used when one specifically wishes to refer to the personal, individual, or, at least, distinct expression of Brahman as Creator Deity, Īśvara is the term I have primarily used here for God as the recipient of bhakti. The term is especially useful when one wishes to underscore the more generic trans-sectarian aspects of bhakti that would be recognized by other Īśvara traditions such as Śaivism, as opposed to Kṛṣṇa-specific expressions. We have also used the term Bhagavān in the same manner, as it is essentially synonymous with Īśvara, albeit with heightened personal inflections. The personal Being Kṛṣṇa, as we know, is synonymous with all three of these terms: Īśvara, Bhagavān, and Brahman (as are Śiva and Devī in their respective bhakti traditions). Having said all this, the reader must be prepared to encounter slippage and interchangeability among some of these terms but should soon develop an intuitive sense of contextual nuances.

Returning to the role of Īśvara as recipient of bhakti in Jīva’s system, there are a few important questions that need to be addressed if Jīva’s analysis of bhakti is to be considered systematic and rational rather than dogmatic. The first is the existence or necessity of any sort of Īśvara as Creator God in the first place. Second, if this can be established, or at least defended on rational grounds, what is the precise relationship between the personal aspect of Brahman as Īśvara/Bhagavān, a Being distinctive by form and qualities, and the nonpersonal expression of Brahman, devoid of form and qualities? And third, given that in Hindu bhakti, Īśvara, being unlimited, can and does adopt unlimited forms, and given that Hindu bhakti is not polytheistic, what is the justification for the Bhāgavata’s prioritization of Kṛṣṇa as the ultimate causal Īśvara—the source of all other Īśvara forms and manifestations—as opposed to other claimants to this position, most specifically Śiva or Viṣṇu? We stress here, on this latter score, that the question is not who is the one true Īśvara with the implication that other claimants are somehow “false gods,” but who is the source Īśvara from whom other Īśvara forms emanate or are derived? In other words, given that all Vedānta schools whether monist or monotheist accept a plethora of Īśvara forms on some level, whether these are primary expressions of Brahman or secondary expressions (we will explain this below), then what is the ontological relationship between all these eternal Īśvaras? Hence, although technical, this section is indispensable in gaining a sense of the various ways bhakti yoga can be understood and practiced, given that bhakti requires an Īśvara, howsoever construed, as recipient.

With regard to the first issue raised above, the necessity of positing a creator Īśvara in the first place, the history of Indian theistic (and antitheistic) argumentation—frankly as vigorous and inconclusive an intellectual enterprise in ancient India as it has been in the West—understandably takes us far beyond our focus here. We will simply note that Jīva is heir to much of this history, which had long been fine-tuned by predecessor Vedāntins (followers of Vedānta), who defended the theism of the Upaniṣads,26 prioritizing hermeneutics (scriptural analysis)27 as method, as well as by Nyāya, the school of logicians, who defended theism on rational grounds, prioritizing inference (anumāna).28 (As a point of interest, Caitanya, the founder of Jīva’s lineage, prior to becoming an ecstatic mystic, is said to have been an outstanding teacher of Nyāya in Navadvīpa, the stronghold of the new school of Nyāya that reached its peak in the sixteenth century, when and where he was born.29) As is the case in the West, some of the most brilliant intellectual minds of ancient India had used reason and logic in defense of the necessity of an Īśvara as the ultimate intelligent cause of reality, on the one hand, and in a refutation of any such postulate on the other. But by the sixteenth century, various forms of theisms had long dominated the intellectual traditions of the subcontinent, and Jīva inherits theistic currents that had been built on long-established philosophical rationales and argumentation (see “The Object of Bhakti,” note 71, for an example of these).

Nonetheless, with regard to these theistic traditions, we made the claim in the introduction that understanding one expression of bhakti provides us with a template, which can usefully be applied to other expressions. This is especially true for many of the practices of bhakti, as well as some of the psychological states it engenders, but much less true philosophically, in terms of the ontology of theism, that is, Īśvara’s relationship with the ultimate ingredients of reality. There are important and fundamental differences as to whether the Being Īśvara is the ultimate causal entity in terms of tracing all effects in reality back to their ultimate causes—the cause of all other causes or final “STOP sign,” so to speak—or whether Īśvara is a partially Supreme and causal Entity but one who, in turn, is Himself also derived from some higher, nonpersonal, even more ultimate causal Absolute and hence not the final “STOP sign.”

So despite the many commonalities in the various bhakti traditions, there are significant differences in the ultimacy assigned to Īśvara. To be absolutely clear about how we are using our terms, and connecting all this with the term Brahman, is Īśvara, who as the object of bhakti is a distinct supreme sort of personalized ātman,30 the primary and final expression of Brahman,31 or is Īśvara a secondary truth who is himself derivative of a higher nonpersonal source, which also lays claim to the term Brahman and thus also something that is eventually transcended? And, for that matter, what kind of ultimacy is assigned to the individual ātman as bhakta—is this individuality also ultimate and eternal or merely an illusory condition of embodiment in saṁsāra that dissolves in liberation? These issues have occupied the Vedānta traditions stemming from the ancient Upaniṣads for well over two millennia, with no consensus—Bādarāyaṇa’s Vedānta Sūtras of the second century C.E. makes reference to differences among predecessor Vedāntins throughout.32

These concerns are not merely intellectualism: let us consider the devotional implications of these positions. If the individuality of the ātman is eternal, and Īśvara is also an eternal Supreme Being and Ultimate Truth, then the relationship between them—bhakti—can also be eternal. This would require an eternal trans-prakṛti Brahman realm or dimension wherein this relationship can take place and modalities whereby bhakti between the ātman and Īśvara can be expressed—a “Kingdom of God,” such as, in Jiva’s case, Vaikuṇṭha or Goloka replete with the rāgātmika liberated souls. If, on the other hand, the individuality of the ātman is contingent on embodiment and ultimately dissolves in liberation, and if the personal Īśvara too is ultimately derived from a higher nonpersonal Brahman Truth—a lesser manifestation or representation of some more Ultimate Truth—then bhakti is not eternal, but merely a temporal practice relevant in saṁsāra only as a method for freeing oneself from the ephemeral world of prakṛti. It is thus jettisoned upon liberation, a state of transpersonal, formless, and qualityless oneness, where there is no individuality and thus no ontological space for devotional relationships. So the issue deals with not only ultimate categories of reality, but the ultimate status of bhakti, and it is certainly relevant to the eternal destiny of the ātman and, thus, of considerable import.

Perhaps we can now understand more clearly, given all this, why different schools are going to assign great value and attention to deliberations and debates on these most important of issues and why we must perforce encounter the sectarian nature of the Vedānta or Purāṇa traditions in order to understand some of the various possible modalities of bhakti and some of the different ways in which Īśvara is conceived in Hinduism. And all this requires technical attention and a modicum of philosophical rigor.

Prakṛti and the Three Guṇas: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas

Before we proceed with this, since we are setting out ubiquitously occurring terms and concepts here, let us interrupt our flow for a moment and take the opportunity to briefly discuss the metaphysics of prakṛti, the world of matter, the third entity in the triad of Īśvara, ātman, and the created world. In fact, this is not unrelated to our overall concerns at this point, as Īśvara is commonly conceived in the theistic traditions as the creator of the material world of prakṛti (physical reality)33 and bhakti as nothing other than the offering of ingredients of prakṛti (including one’s prakṛtic body and mind) to Īśvara. With regard to the essential makeup of prakṛti, the Bhāgavata accepts the overall schema of the metaphysics of the Sāṅkhya (literally “numeration”) system,34 although it subsumes the evolutes of prakṛti as completely subordinate to and derived from Īśvara. But bracketing the position of Īśvara for a moment, in Sāṅkhya metaphysics, the universe of animate and inanimate entities is perceived as ultimately the product of two ontologically distinct entities coming together. These two entities are prakṛti, or the primordial unconscious material matrix of the physical universe,35 and puruṣa, a term synonymous with ātman, the innumerable conscious souls or selves embedded within it.

As a result of the interaction between these two entities, the material universe evolves in a series of stages. The actual catalysts in this evolutionary process are the three guṇas, literally “strands” or “qualities,” which are inherent in prakṛti. While it is impossible to translate these terms into a one-word English equivalent, three prominent qualities associated with each of these, respectively, are sattva, “tranquillity”; rajas, “action”; and tamas, “inertia.”36 These guṇas are sometimes compared with the threads that underpin the existence of a rope; just as a rope is actually a combination of threads, so all manifest reality actually consists of a combination of the guṇas. These guṇas are mentioned incessantly throughout the Bhāgavata, as are the various evolutes from prakṛti, and thus require some attention in order to navigate the frequent references to them in our translations in parts 2 and 3.

Given the meditative focus of the text, the guṇas are especially significant to the Yoga tradition in terms of their psychological manifestations; in Yoga, since the mind and therefore all psychological/cognitive dispositions and functions are products of prakṛti, they are also made up of the guṇas—the only difference between the subtle mind and grosser matter being that the former has a larger preponderance of sattva and the latter of tamas. Therefore, according to the specific intermixture and proportionality of the guṇas, living beings exhibit different types of mind-sets and psychological dispositions. Thus, when sattva is predominant in an individual, the qualities of lucidity, tranquillity, wisdom, discrimination, detachment, peacefulness, and happiness manifest; when rajas is predominant, hankering, attachment, energetic endeavor, passion, power, restlessness, creative activity, and, ultimately, frustration and unfulfillment result (the term rāga comes from the same root); and when tamas, the guṇa least favorable for Yoga, is predominant, sleep, ignorance, delusion, disinterest, lethargy, depression, destructive behavior, and disinclination toward constructive activity ensue.

Just as there are an unlimited variety of colors stemming from the intermixture of the three primary colors, different hues being simply expressions of the specific proportionality of red, yellow, and blue, so the unlimited psychological dispositions of living creatures (and of physical material forms) stem from the intermixture of the guṇas, specific states of mind being the products of the particular proportionality of the intermixture of the three guṇas. The guṇas are continually interacting and competing with one another, one guṇa becoming prominent for a while and overpowering the others, only to be dominated in turn by the increase of one of the other guṇas (Gītā XIV.10). The Sāṅkhya text, the Yuktidīpikā, compares them with the wick, fire, and oil of the lamp, which, while opposed to one another in their nature, come together to produce light (13). Clearly, sattva is the guṇa most favorable to Yoga in general, and one for which there is no excess, where the other two, in excess, are obstacles (even as some degree of rajas and tamas is indispensable for embodied existence37). Much yoga practice in general, then, occupies itself with maximizing sattva.

Not only do the guṇas underpin the philosophy of mind in Yoga, but the activation and interaction of these guṇa qualities result in the production of the entirety of physical forms that also evolve from the primordial material matrix, prakṛti, under the same principle.38 Thus the physical compositions of objects such as air, fire, water, stone, and so on differ because of the differing constitutional makeup of specific guṇas underpinning these elements: air contains more of the buoyancy of sattva, stones more of the denseness of the tamas element, and fire more of the energy of rajas. The guṇas allow for the infinite plasticity of prakṛti and the objects of the world. The process by which the universe evolves from prakṛti is usefully compared with the churning of milk: when milk receives a citric catalyst, yogurt, curds, or butter emerge. These immediate products, in turn, can be further manipulated to produce a tertiary series of products—toffee, milk desserts, cheese, and the like.39 And, again, connecting all this to our present discussion, prakṛti with its guṇas is a śakti, power, of Īśvara, and thus all these permutations are the immanent aspect of Īśvara, God as world (Gītā VII.4–7, 17).

The Nature of Īśvara in Vedānta: Primary or Derivative?

With these basic definitions and metaphysical infrastructure in place, we can return to our questions pertaining to the transcendent aspect of Īśvara as object of bhakti and whether this Being is the ultimate aspect of Brahman or not. For our purposes here, we can identify two general spheres of discussion or contention pertaining to the nature of Īśvara in the Vedānta and Purāṇa traditions that have spanned two millennia, both with their roots in the Vedic (Upaniṣad) texts and both revolving around issues of cause and effect. One, touched on above, pertains to whether Īśvara is the highest feature of Brahman, the Ultimate, the personal source from which everything else is manifest, or whether Īśvara represents a secondary aspect of Brahman, derived from a higher nonpersonal expression of Brahman beyond all forms and qualities. Put differently, the question is whether the ultimate causal expression of Brahman is personal or nonpersonal. This is primarily a Vedāntic issue. The second and subsequent discussion is, irrespective of whether Īśvara is primary and causal or whether secondary and derived, which specific Divine Being, Bhagavān, is the ultimate causal Īśvara from whom all other Īśvaras derive or, at least, are sustained? This is more a Purāṇic issue.

We note that almost all traditions stemming from these textual traditions accept that Brahman, if it is to be complete (and also to account for the fact that yogic practice and experiences attest to two primary modes of encountering the Ultimate), must have both personal and nonpersonal features: almost all followers of the Vedānta and the Purāṇas accept some sort of Īśvara as well as some type of nonpersonal aspect to the Absolute.40 So the first question is whether Īśvara is primary and foundational or a secondary-derived manifestation from a higher Truth, and the second question relates to the hierarchical relationship among the various Īśvara forms and manifestations. And it is important to reiterate with regard to the second question that the various followers of the Vedānta and the Purāṇas all accept that Īśvara takes many different forms, which are all Īśvara, so when considering which Īśvara is ultimate and causal to the others, there is no implication that the others are not true Īśvaras. Put differently, since bhakti is embedded in traditions that are either monistic (subscribing to a “nonpersonal” Absolute) or monotheistic (subscribing to a “personal” Absolute),41 and in both cases rejects the label of polytheism, then there cannot be a plurality of independent and autonomous Īśvaras, as is the case with polytheism.42 In polytheism, the gods—small “g,” perhaps better termed demigods (the devas in the Indic case, whom we have been calling “celestials”)—are more or less equal or, at best, there is a minor hierarchy among them. In Hinduism, such gods, devas, are retained, but they are nontranscendent but rather embodied beings, relegated to the temporal celestial spheres of saṁsāra, where they too are bound by their (exceptionally good) karma and hence retain their positions only temporarily. They are eternally subordinate to the various forms of Īśvara. So with polytheism discounted, either the various manifestations of Īśvara are all derivative of a higher, qualityless Brahman (nonpersonalism or monism), or they are all secondary manifestations from one supreme source Iśvara (personalism or monotheism).

On this first question, by the end of the first millennium and thereafter (but with roots in the Upaniṣad texts, Mahābhārata epic, and Gītā, dating back several centuries prior to the Common Era), the Vedānta tradition broadly split into two major streams with multiple substreams: the advaita, or monist tradition, and its offshoots, which consider the highest Brahman to be ultimately devoid of form and qualities; and the monotheist Vaiṣṇava traditions, which hold the highest Brahman to be the eternal personal Īśvara who possesses unlimited forms and qualities. A-dvaita means “no duality” (and is thus more or less synonymous with the term “monism”; “a” prefixed to a noun in Sanskrit negates the noun, as in atheist in English). According to this Vedānta lineage, there is precisely only the one nonpersonal, formless, qualityless Brahman. Indeed, this tradition goes a significant step further than this—anything else is ultimately unreal. There are absolutely no dualities whatsoever in Brahman. So the apparently plural and individual ātmans are illusory, the product of ignorance; they are, in fact, nothing other than the one undivided Brahman.43 And, more, the world of prakṛti, with all its forms and dualities, including the bodies that appear to individualize and differentiate the ātmans containing them and the minds that characterize them, are all also false: an illusion. In the language of advaita, they are a superimposition (adhyāsa) on the one undivided Brahman, like an image superimposed upon another in photography or, using the standard advaita metaphor, the notion of a snake superimposed because of defective perception upon what is actually a rope lying on the road. Thus, for advaita, all manifest forms (that is, all creation), although appearing apparently real, are ultimately illusory, appearing real only because of being superimposed upon the formless Brahman by māyā, illusion. They are in essence like the forms in a mirage.

For our purposes, consequent on this, if the creation is illusory, then so, ultimately, is the notion of a Creator for advaita Vedānta. Īśvara is apparently real only to the extent the world of created forms is conventionally real (vyavahāra), but from the perspective of the highest reality (paramārtha), neither the world nor Īśvara ultimately exists. Just as in the world of the mirage, there may appear to be an oasis with water and palm trees, but when correct perception is attained one realizes there is only desert, so the creation, along with its creatures and creator, appears real only in conventional reality, but all are dispelled when awareness of ultimate reality dawns. Īśvara thus also proves to be as much a part of the illusory superimposition upon Brahman as anything else. In actuality, there is only the nondifferentiated (advaita) Brahman; any perceived differences or dualities are the product of avidyā, ignorance.

Importantly for our purposes, following on these presuppositions, the bhakti yoga performed by an embodied ātman to Īśvara, for advaita Vedānta, is useful as a preliminary aid in the pursuit of enlightenment for those still laboring under the grip of the illusion of dualities but eventually becomes discarded along with the very notion of an Īśvara once knowledge of the one formless nonindividualized Absolute dawns. Put succinctly, neither bhakta, bhakti yoga, nor Īśvara as object of bhakti has a factual existence in the fully enlightened, postmortem liberated state.44 There are simply no dualities whatsoever in the Supreme reality, hence a-dvaita. In sum, although the advaita traditions may perform with serious intent and devotional vigor all the processes of bhakti that we discussed previously, bhakti in these traditions is, at the end of the day, method, not goal.

With one important exception, the Vaiṣṇava traditions such as the Bhāgavata (and some Śaivite traditions) also consider themselves to be nondualists, insofar as they accept everything as an expression of the one Truth, but hold that the nonduality of the Absolute nonetheless has real differences inherent within it.45 This is amply reflected in the name given by Rāmānuja, who was the first Vaiṣṇava theologian to write a commentary on the Vedānta Sūtras, to his Vedānta school: viśiṣṭa-advaita.46 Here, the advaita signification is retained but prefixed with the term viśiṣṭa, “differentiated.” Brahman is indeed nondual, but there are “differences” inherent within it, distinct components within the oneness of Brahman—namely, an ontologically real world with real souls. For the Vaiṣṇavas, while Brahman does indeed have nonpersonal qualities and powers (śaktis)—such as prakṛti and the guṇas—in contrast with advaita, it is understood, in its highest causal expression, to be personal, Īśvara. This Person is Viṣṇu/Nārāyaṇa/Kṛṣṇa. Īśvara is a distinct Supreme Being, who, while an individual, is unlimited in names, forms, qualities, and deeds. Hence these traditions can be considered robustly monotheistic (even as this Person can also manifest in other derivative Īśvara forms such as Śiva and Devī, as will be explained later).

The ātmans are manifestations of Īśvara and thus, as parts, are similar to their cause in their inherent makeup as eternal conscious beings. But they are distinct individual entities, even as their constitutional dependence on Īśvara requires that they be relationally connected with Īśvara. This relationality can manifest either, ideally, in a direct relationship of eternal bhakti, previously discussed, or, indirectly and perversely, by being subject to Īśvara’s power of ignorance and illusion, māyā/avidyā, in saṁsāra, embodied life. These options reflect the free will and choices of the ātman. And the world, like the ātmans, is real and emanated. Within this variegation of the one Absolute, the personal Īśvara is the highest expression and the support of all other aspects of reality (that is, of the world and the souls). All of these entities, in contrast with advaita, are inherently real; they are not false superimpositions.

Perhaps we can say that Rāmānuja’s Brahman is “holistic”—where parts and differences exist, but in a holistic harmony—and Śaṅkara’s is “homogeneous”—there are no parts.47 Curiously, this means that, ontologically, in terms of its understanding of the basic ingredients of reality—God, world, souls, with the last distinct from but derived from the first—Vaiṣṇavism is much closer theologically to the Abrahamic monotheistic traditions, despite the geographic, cultural, and textual disparities, than the fellow Vedānta traditions of advaita, despite sharing the same locus, religious and cultural ethos and practices, and identical scriptural traditions with the latter. And, as an aside, these Vaiṣṇava (and some Śaivite) traditions undermine the ill-informed and culturally myopic notion that monotheism is a uniquely theological development of the Abrahamic traditions.

Therefore, in Vaiṣṇavism, the divine forms of Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu, and Śiva and their feminine consorts and counterparts—Lakṣmī and Parvatī and so on—are not illusory. They are ultimate, transcendent Beings, and it is they who are the source of all nonpersonal powers (śaktis) and entities such as prakṛti and the ātmans. Moreover, since these Beings are eternal and transcendent to prakṛti, they occupy non-prakṛtic realms within Brahman, Vaikuṇṭha—the Kingdom of God, within which, for the Gauḍīya tradition, lies Goloka, the realm exclusive to Kṛṣṇa, and also Śiva-loka. Consequently—connecting all this to the theme of this volume—bhakti is not simply a utilitarian process relevant for those embodied in ignorance in this world: it is never discarded but can continue eternally in the postmortem liberated state in these divine realms. Now we have a more grounded philosophical basis to understand our discussion on the rāgātmikas: the loving exchanges and interactions and reciprocal service between Kṛṣṇa and His bhaktas, when He incarnated into this world as described in the tenth book of the Bhāgavata and featured here in part 3, serve as a window into the eternal relationships that can transpire between Kṛṣṇa and the liberated bhaktas in the divine realm of Goloka. Bhakti, in these traditions, is thus both method and goal.

And there are all sorts of variants. Given our focus on Kṛṣṇa, we again wish to refer, albeit summarily, to Kaśmir Śaivism, by way of an example of non-Vaiṣṇava theism. We can now situate it as occupying an interesting location somewhere between these two Vedānta streams. We should note that Vedānta, whether monist or monotheist, has been primarily a Vaiṣṇava enterprise. But although Śaiva philosophy has not been included in most of the official doxographies (compilations of philosophical schools),48 the notion of the “six schools of Indian philosophy” that eventually becomes reified as standard is something of an artificiality.49 For whatever reason, the Śākta/Tantra/Siddha cluster of traditions did not make it into the final list, but these are intellectually rich and metaphysically sophisticated traditions, with very ancient roots,50 so their exclusion has likely a lot more to do with the partialities and influence of elitist caste-sensitive scholastic traditions than a lack of philosophical coherence and theological vigor on the part of the Śaiva/Śākta traditions.

In any event, Kaśmir Śaivism is monistic, insofar as the ultimate highest Truth (parama-Śiva) is transpersonal and the individuality of the ātman is illusory. But this tradition does hold the world to be real and not illusory, as also the personal form of Śiva, and strongly rebuts advaita Vedānta on that score. All form and individualism are products of śakti, vibrational creative consciousness, real but emanating from an ultimate higher nonpersonal expression of Śiva. So these traditions are monistic, but this is not the extreme monism of advaita Vedānta. Nonetheless, here too bhakti, while usually performed in a much more robust manner than in advaita given that the person Śiva, while secondary to a higher impersonal Absolute, is decidedly real and not illusory, is still ultimately made redundant when one realizes one’s oneness with the ultimate Supreme aspect of formless Śiva.51

This type of qualified monism of Kaśmir Śaivism is in contrast with another Śaiva tradition, the dualist Śaiva Siddhānta, where bhakti constitutes the eternal relationship between Śiva and the ātman, two individuals united in the oneness of love. The ātman does not merge into Śiva and lose its individuality in this tradition. Therefore, as we have noted, Śaiva Siddhānta is thus closer to Vaiṣṇavism on the Vedānta spectrum, as it upholds an eternal distinction between Śiva and His devoted ātmans, even as the focus on the forms, qualities, and deeds of Īśvara and His bhaktas in the liberated state are less evident in Śaiva Siddhānta, if at all.

Let us consider a spectrum between radical nonpersonalism, a Brahman completely devoid of all qualities and forms as represented by advaita on the one hand,52 and, on the other, Jīva’s Gauḍīya Vedānta tradition, with its full-blown personalism, the ultimate expression of which is Kṛṣṇa and his rāgātmika bhaktas in Goloka, a realm of pure consciousness bursting with transcendent forms and qualities. Kaśmir Śaivism might be located somewhere in the center of this spectrum, and Śaiva Siddhānta center right, veering slightly more toward Jīva’s modality. Rāmānuja’s viśiṣṭādvaita school is very close to Jīva’s, along with that of the twelth-century theologian Madhva. These schools are both sister (or perhaps more accurately parent) traditions to Jīva’s Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, except that in Rāmānuja and Madhva’s tradition, Kṛṣṇa is an incarnation of Viṣṇu/Nārāyaṇa, assumed only when the latter wishes to incarnate into the world and not vice versa.53 It is Viṣṇu and His divine realm of Vaikuṇṭha that are ultimate here.

While, as we have seen, Jīva and Rūpa take great pains to substantiate their understanding of bhakti with quotes from the Bhāgavata, the notion of Goloka with its rāgātmikā modes of love of God is, to all intents and purposes, a new “revelation” imparted by Caitanya to his disciples, who in turn “theologize” it systematically through a massive output of devotional literature in the sixteenth century, as discussed in the introduction. The philosophical name of the Caitanya (Gauḍīya) school is acintya-bheda-abheda (inconceivably one and different), acintya-bheda-abheda points to the position that the world and the souls are one with Kṛṣṇa (abheda) but also different (bheda). This relationship is inconceivable (acintya) and beyond the capability of human intelligence to comprehend (however, Jīva invests as much philosophical energy as any other Vedāntin in arguing why this must be so). All this is very similar to Rāmānuja’s viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified nondualism) tradition—differing in terms of its metaphysical basics on technical details of interest only to scholastics. There is no doubt that the Gauḍīya tradition rests its theological superstructure on the substructural foundations established by Rāmānuja, along with the later twelfth-century theistic Vedāntin Madhva, two highly revered predecessors of the tradition.

Madhva, briefly introduced (as the Gauḍīya tradition formally situates itself within this lineage),54 established a radical dualist school in explicit oppositional contrast with Śaṅkara’s advaita. Indeed, his school is polemically called dvaita (dualist)55 Vedānta. A powerful and provocative philosopher,56 Madhva argued that there are five eternal fundamental differences among the ultimate “reals,”57 or ingredients of reality (we use the term “reals,” as Madhva vigorously opposes Śaṅkara’s illusionism pertaining to the unreality of prakṛti and the individuality of the ātman).58 There are eternal differences between Viṣṇu and the world, between Him and the souls, among individual souls themselves, and among the atoms of the world. For our purposes, Madhva differs marginally from the other Vaiṣṇava traditions in that, given the above metaphysics, he deems the world and souls not to emanate from God, but to be eternal coexistents, even as the former requires Viṣṇu as their support, instigator, and enabler in all things. There are other Vaiṣṇava lineages in addition to the ones we have touched upon.59

Such fundamental disagreements over the metaphysical location and status of Īśvara have been central to Vedānta since certainly the time of Śaṅkara, whose advaita commentaries on the Vedānta texts in the eighth to the ninth century made him a figurehead of that tradition. But these issues are referenced throughout the Vedānta Sūtras of the second century C.E. and ultimately have their genesis in the Upaniṣads spanning much of the first millennium B.C.E. The roots of the problem, if we can call it such, originate in the fact that the Upaniṣads appear to make conflicting statements. In some places, these texts suggest that the highest Brahman is a personal being (for example, see Śvetāsvatara III.1ff.), in others that it is nonpersonal (for instance, in Kena I.4–5). Likewise, some places imply that the ātman and Brahman are nondifferent (as in Chāndogya VI.8.7ff.), others that they are nondifferent insofar as they are Brahman yet simultaneously still separate as individuals and hierarchically distinct (such as in Chāndogya VI.2.3; Śvetāśvatāra I.6–10). And, again, there are references that can be read to suggest the world is unreal (see Bṛhadāraṇyaka IV.4.9), and others that it is real (Chāndogya VI.3.2). The debates among the modern representatives of these lineages on such issues continue to the present day and are, indeed, part of the traditional training in the schools. Such debates mostly prioritize and revolve around scriptural exegesis but also engage reason and argument in substantial ways.

For text-critical academic scholars such differences are natural, reflecting the composition of the Upaniṣads over the course of several centuries and thus of different thinkers expressing distinct views that are diachronically as well as synchronically various. An orthodox Vedānta thinker, however, does not perceive the Upaniṣads either as chronologically evolving or as synchronically authored by different humans: as discussed in appendix 1, they are considered Śruti, eternal divine revelation not composed by humans (apauruṣeya).60 Consequently, from a traditional perspective, as transcendent scripture, they cannot be contradictory or imperfect in any way, but are a priori consistent (Vedānta Sūtras 1.4). Since the vagaries of human historical context and composition are not an option, then any supposed internal contradictions can only be apparently so but in fact must stem from an imperfect understanding or reading of these texts. That being the case, an interpretative lens is required—one that will organize the apparently contradictory or inconsistent statements into meaningful harmony. Hermeneutics refers to the methods applied in scriptural interpretation, and a good deal of traditional Vedānta hermeneutics is nothing other than applying such a lens. In fact, it is with the intention of systematizing the Upaniṣadic statements into a cohesive set of teachings61 that the Vedānta Sūtras (also known as the Uttara Mīmāṁsā or Brahma Sūtras) was written in the first place and its authorship assigned to our sage Vyāsa (Bādarāyaṇa), whom we will encounter in the tales.

This, however, did not exactly solve the problem, as the Vedānta Sūtras are so minimalist in content, frugal in explanatory detail, and cryptic in meaning62 that they are incomprehensible in their own right without commentaries. They too require clarification. This leads to the requirement of a third tier or layer of what has come to constitute the Vedānta corpus: the commentaries (bhāṣya), but now on both the Upaniṣads themselves as well as the Sūtras that were ostensibly written to clarify them. These commentaries, however, further compounded the problem rather than resolving it, but for different reasons. Although, unlike the previous two Vedānta strata, the commentaries are extensive, clear, internally consistent, and comprehensible, the new dilemma they introduce is that the interpretative lenses the different schools adopt to clarify the Upaniṣads produce explanations that differ radically from each other on the most fundamental of ontological issues. Put more precisely, what we might call the Vaiṣṇava-associated lineages differ significantly from the advaita Vedānta–derived ones,63 along the lines we have touched upon above.

After all, broadly and simplistically put, much human intellectual endeavor, irrespective of time or place, or whether philosophical, religious, or scientific, is directed toward attempting to understand the nature of the physical world, the nature of life and the living entities within it, and the nature of its cause. Put into Vedānta categories: Is the ultimate cause, Brahman, personal or nonpersonal? Is the living entity, ātman, unequivocally nondifferent from Brahman, or is it individualized and thus distinct in some way? And is the physical world, prakṛti, real and actual, or is it an illusory, false superimposition? These are the most basic, essential, primordial, and universal of intellectual issues, yet ones over which the Vedānta lineages differ about as radically as it is possible to differ.

Thus, for example, Śaṅkara (following a Buddhist schema64) creates harmony from the apparently conflicting statements of the Upaniṣads by organizing them into a two-tiered hierarchy. From this advaita perspective, when the Vedānta texts65 speak of the ātman as individual, Brahman as personal (Īśvara/Bhagavān), and the world as real, they are speaking from the perspective of vyavahārika, lower conventional reality. As we know, conventional reality in advaita is ultimately false and illusory. On the other hand, the statements indicating Brahman to be nonpersonal and nondual, the individualism of the ātman illusory, and the world false, are speaking from the perspective of paramārthika, higher absolute reality, and thus ultimately true. He can thus accept all the statements in the Vedānta texts as absolute and true (as he is bound to do as an orthodox Vedāntin) by relegating conflicting statements to one or other of his two hierarchical strata, lower and higher.

For Rāmānuja, in stark contrast, the vigorous opponent of Śaṅkara, when the texts speak of Brahman as nondual, they intend that everything emanates from the Brahman and is thus of one essence. But this does not preclude differences within the oneness (that is, the viśiṣṭa, “differentiation,” within the advaita), and thus the oneness is rather a “holistic” than an absolute, nondifferentiated oneness. Likewise with the individual ātman: it may be nondual from Brahman, as part to whole, but this does not negate its individuality. Along the same lines, when Brahman is spoken of as without qualities, this points to a lack of prakṛtic qualities of the three guṇas: it does not preclude divine (Brahman) qualities and forms.66 When described as impersonal, Brahman’s all-pervasive energies (śaktis) are intended (like the light vis-à-vis the sun), and when depicted as personal, Brahman’s ultimate feature as Viṣṇu is signified. And the unreality of the world points to its temporality, not its illusionality. Thus, Rāmānuja’s interpretative lens also allows him to accept all the apparently conflicting textual statements to be absolute and true. But rather than resolving this through a two-tiered hierarchical model like Śaṅkara—conventional (lower) and ultimate (higher)—he relegates them to different modalities of Brahman: some statements refer to Brahman as Īśvara, some to Brahman as the world, and some to Brahman as the individual ātman in saṁsāra.

So the interpretative lenses the traditions apply to harmonize the apparently conflicting statements of the Upaniṣads work well in terms of appearing convincing for those who already subscribe to that lineage (that is, using the language of Yoga psychology, those whose saṁskāras have been trained to align with that viewpoint). And certainly an extensive and impressive amount of hermeneutical energy is invested in them. But the fact is, other equally carefully crafted lenses can be, and obviously have been, formulated with their own harmonizing persuasiveness. At the end of the day, the relative merit of these interpretative lenses ends up being evaluated along sectarian lines.

So, in summary, because the Upaniṣads appear contradictory and unsystematic, the Vedānta Sūtras cryptic and incomprehensible, and the commentaries, at least of the two streams noted above, conflicting and in radical disagreement among themselves,67 the various Vedānta traditions have engaged in debate for centuries on these basic ontological issues. Indeed, they continue to do so and, in fact, this has become part of their very mandate and preparatory training for lineage initiates (and new Vedānta schools periodically emerge).68 These debates prioritize and revolve around hermeneutics and exegesis (scriptural interpretation) but engage logic, nyāya, in substantial ways. In fact, since Indic philosophy rarely proceeds without a refutation of opposing views, the pūrva-pakṣa, the argumentation honed around these issues, has been one of the primary issues defining the various schools, particularly, but by no means exclusively, within Vedānta circles.69 One need only consider the massive amount of attention the twelth-century theologian Rāmānuja directs against the advaita position right at the very outset of his commentary on the Vedānta Sūtras (I.1.1), which takes up about a fifth of his bulky commentary on the entire text,70 to get a sense of how philosophically problematic—and theologically offensive—the Vaiṣṇavas find this attempt to deny ultimate ontological reality to their beloved Īśvara.

Jīva is heir to a number of anti-advaita arguments, which, along with so much else, we have noted are inherited from the great theologians Rāmānuja and Madhva by the later Vaiṣṇava schools. An exposition of them would be extensive and beyond the scope of our focus.71 But we hope the reader who has been patient enough to endure the modicum of background philosophical information outlined above has a better sense of some of the different ways of understanding Īśvara and their origins. Hopefully it is also clear by now why the status assigned to Īśvara will be pivotal to understanding the different ways bhakti is understood in these various traditions, keeping in mind our framing of the syntactical nature of bhakti as involving an Īśvara as distinct object of bhakti, a bhakta as a distinct agent of bhakti, and bhakti yoga itself as the performance of devotional acts in a phenomenal world.

In this regard, before proceeding, I suggest that the friction such arguments generate is more than mere standard interschool polemics. For our purposes in understanding Kṛṣṇa bhakti, the perennial impulse to defend the ultimacy of Īśvara can perhaps also be understood as a reflection of the deep devotion of the Vaiṣṇavas, and the eternality of the loving relationship with Īśvara that they envision for themselves forevermore, such that they will vigorously contest any suggestion “that Īśvara has been imagined by the jīva (ātman) under the spell of avidyā” (Bhakti Sandarbha anu 40). Hence Jīva, after presenting his personalist, individualist, realist, and monotheistic arguments, concludes: “Since the distinction between Īśvara, the support of māyā, and the jīva who is deluded by māyā, is established, it can be concluded that devotional activity, bhajana (bhakti),72 is the method of attaining perfection” (anu 44). Indeed, the main concern of his Sandarbhas is to marshal philosophy and hermeneutics in support of bhakti as both method and goal.

Finally, and not at all irrelevant to the Bhāgavata’s self-perception, as well as its verdict on these differing possible monistic and monotheistic readings of the Vedānta texts, is the fact that it presents itself as being written by the great Vyāsa (also known as Bādarāyaṇa). As noted previously (and discussed further in appendix 1), Vyāsa is the same person whom tradition assigns as author of the Vedānta Sūtras itself, the commentary on the Upaniṣads that was intended to clarify all such philosophical differences. We will discover, in the Tale of Vyāsa, that he was despondent after writing the Vedānta Sūtras, as well as all his other works, including the Vedas and Upaniṣads, precisely because he had not clearly and unambiguously elaborated on Īśvara as the highest eternal reality: “Having compiled the collection of Purāṇas, and composed the Vedānta Sūtras, he remained dissatisfied; thus he composed the Bhāgavata as the natural commentary on his own Vedānta Sūtras” (Tattva Sandarbha, 19). In this way, the Bhāgavata positions itself as “the essence of all Vedānta,” a clarificatory commentarial elaboration on the Vedānta by the same author and thus the last word in regard to all these issues (XII.13.15).

A Three-Tiered Hierarchy of Brahman

We now turn to the position of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa itself on all this, which will open up a further dimension pertaining to an issue we have skirted repeatedly: the experiential difference between exclusive absorption of the consciousness of the ātman in its own nature as pure consciousness and exclusive absorption of the consciousness of the ātman in Īśvara and, specifically, in the specifics of a personal relationship with Him. In other words, it will probe the hierarchy within the transcendent Absolute Truth itself as argued by the Vaiṣṇava Vedānta theologians (the “differentiation” of Rāmānuja’s viśiṣṭādvaita). Here we introduce the most important Bhāgavata verse dealing with the ontology (the basic categories of existence) of Jīva’s Kṛṣṇa tradition:

Those who know the Truth speak of the knowledge of that nondual Truth (advaya)73 as being known as Brahman, Paramātman, and Bhagavān.” (I.2.11)74

This verse is essential in understanding this tradition’s metaphysics of bhakti, because the three terms it contains are not synonyms, but ontological hierarchies. Before commencing the Bhakti Sandarbha, Jīva had dedicated the previous four Sandarbhas to discussing the differences among these three expressions of the Absolute mentioned in this verse: Brahman, Paramātman, and Bhagavān. This subject is understandably too extensive to detain us in great detail here, but we can partly summarize things by noting that while the Absolute Truth is indeed nondual (advaya, more typically referred to as advaita or abheda), this does not preclude differences within that one reality, as we have encountered with Rāmānuja. There are differences between Īśvara and His powers, śaktis. Just as, in a favorite Vaiṣṇava simile,75 the sun and its powers are in one sense nondual—that is, the sun is one with its powers of light and heat—yet they are also in some sense distinct (one is causal, the other derivative, diminished, and secondary), so, likewise, there are differentiations within the nonduality of the Absolute (Tattva Sandarbha anu 43). Additionally, says Jīva, continuing the metaphor, just as the individual particles of light rays are always distinct from one another, so is the case with the plurality of eternally individual ātmans.

Incidentally, Vaiṣṇavism shares this latter view—the irreducible individuality of the ātman—with almost all schools of Hindu philosophy, including all the so-called six classical schools of Hindu philosophy except the advaita sub-branch of Vedānta: Yoga, Sāṅkhya, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣiká, Mīmāṁsā, and, from Vedānta, the “Vaiṣṇava” strains noted above all defend the individuality of the ātman on philosophical grounds. The ātman may be infinite in terms of the potential spread of its awareness, like the light of a solitary lightbulb were there no atmospheric or other blockages, but it is an irreducible and individual spiritual quantum, distinct from other ātmans. This holds true even as there is no awareness of any distinctions or “otherness” in pure consciousness when it is immersed in its own nature—there is only an awareness of infinite, eternal, nondual awareness itself. While it is prevalent in both domestic and exported neo-Hindu expressions, the advaita sub-branch of Vedānta is not representative from the perspective of the classical schools of premodern Indic philosophy—including Jain and Buddhist thought—in terms of not recognizing the individuality of consciousness (although, as discussed, the Śākta traditions are also monistic when it comes to the individuality of the ātman). This is not to say that it did not become a very important school, as is underscored by the fact that all the other later schools had to respond to its tenets in some form or fashion.

Within this tripartite hierarchy of Bhāgavata I.2.11 quoted above, for Jīva, the Brahman aspect is nonpersonal consciousness—the ātman/puruṣa goal of some of the Upaniṣads, the Yoga Sūtras, and most other ātman-seeking traditions, including advaita Vedānta.76 In the sun metaphor, it can be analogized with the formless, qualityless, all-pervading light: “You are also that Brahman, the supreme light, spread out like the ether” (Bhāgavata IV.24.60). But the point in this analogy is that light emanates from a higher source, the sun. Nonetheless, within this impersonal effulgence, there are myriad individualized ātmans that, like the sun-ray particles, can partake of and “merge into” the greater body of the all-pervading light. Thus, this experience is one of eternality and infinity, devoid of all objects other than blissful consciousness itself. As the light of numerous small autonomous flames can radiate out and coextensively “merge” into one greater generic body of light, while yet remaining the light of multiple individual flames, so the consciousness of myriad ātmans can all “merge” into Brahman, sharing in one infinite, blissful, eternal experience of pure contentless awareness itself, while yet remaining distinct ātmans, according to Vaiṣṇava thought (and, for that matter, the philosophies of Sāṅkhya and Yoga).

The Bhāgavata joins other traditions in calling the experience of this aspect of Brahman “jñāna, the perception of the nondual ātman” (XI.19.27). In other words, since the ātman is an eternal part of Brahman, when it becomes aware of its own nature as pure consciousness, this is tantamount to awareness (jñāna) of Brahman itself (albeit of only one expression of Brahman), hence the synonymity of labeling this experience either Brahman awareness or ātman awareness (brahma-jñāna/ātma-jñāna, or sometimes just jñāna). Indeed, there are many passages in the text that focus on this nondual type of experience in very advaitic language.77 But for Vaiṣṇava theologians, this merging of the sun ray into its light does not necessarily lead to an experience of the source of light, the sun itself. Likewise, the ātman’s “merging” into the impersonal Brahman effulgence does not lead to an experience of Bhagavān, as we will see.

We need not concern ourselves here with the second aspect of the Absolute mentioned in the verse, Paramātman, to which Jīva has dedicated an entire Sandarbha, the Paramātma Sandarbha (the third from the six), other than to note that it refers to the plethora of derivative Viṣṇu forms.78 However, beyond even these, and certainly beyond the nonpersonal, nondual Brahman/ātman expression of pure consciousness, in hierarchical turn, is the third item quoted, Bhagavān, who is Īśvara, the Supreme Person in complete fullness, the source and possessor of all powers, including both the ātman and prakṛti.79 In our metaphor, Kṛṣṇa is the source sun, from whom all derivative powers and entities such as prakṛti and the ātmans emanate and are sustained (Gītā VII.4–7). It is this very personal Bhagavān abiding in His Brahman realm of Goloka that is the object of bhakti in the Kṛṣṇa traditions.

The Absolute is thus not monolithic, standardized, or, so to speak, one-size-fits-all. The aspect of the Absolute that appears coherent and appealing to any particular individual is a reflection of that person’s presuppositions (which, in yoga categories, are nothing other than previously cultivated saṁskāras, mental imprints, embedded in the citta, quite likely from previous lives). In actuality, one generally simply accepts the theological and metaphysical specifics of the tradition to which one connects, either because of inherited cultural or family reasons or because of being inspired by a charismatic guru figure whose lineage one simply adopts out of faith, as noted previously. In any event, the aspect of the Absolute one perceives is a reflection of the perceiver: “Although Bhagavān is one, he is approached through different mind-sets and perspectives [of the perceivers] and so perceived variously as the person Īśvara, as Paramātman or as Brahman, pure consciousness” (III.32.26). As with everything else, free will plays a role here: “The sages see [the absolute] differently and in a particular way according to their desire” (anu 7). There are choices to be made. One can seek the reimmersion of pure consciousness in its own nature as ātman/Brahman—the goal of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali80 and of Sāṅkhya and, as we know, of advaita Vedānta, irrespective of whether it is individualized or not (anyway a scholastic issue, of interest to the prakṛtic mind). Or one can seek an eternal loving relationship with a personal God who encompasses but transcends the individual ātman—the goal of the Bhāgavata and the Vaiṣṇava reading of the Bhagavad Gītā.

This highest personal Truth of Bhagavān, then, for those selecting this latter option, being supremely independent, cannot be captured by yoga virtuosity and diligence, as can the ātman, but can be attained only by grace. We can now better appreciate the previous discussion as to why this grace is incurred only by bhakti: “Neither Yoga, nor Sāṅkhya, nor dharma, nor study (svādhyāya), nor austerity (tapas), nor renunciation can attain Me, O Uddhava, as can intense bhakti to Me” (XI.14.20; see also Gītā XI.53–54). These other paths are by no means erroneous or incorrect, but they are deemed partial in the goals they provide according to their own reckonings of these goals. Put differently, in Bhāgavata theology, since the ātman is only an aspect of the Absolute,81 one experiencing the ātman through other yoga systems has experienced that aspect of the Absolute, but not the Supreme Person Himself (Puruṣa-uttama82). Īśvara, Bhagavān. Bhagavān supports but transcends the ātman and thus constitutes the full and complete entirety of the Absolute. We will continue to expand below on all this ontology, but note, for now, that through bhakti, realization of the ātman (ātma-jñāna) is anyway picked up unsolicited along the way:83 “Because of the insurmountable bliss of bhakti, although the bhaktas have no interest even in final liberation, which is the supreme goal of life, liberation anyway manifests itself, so all goals are fulfilled by dint of devotion to Bhagavān” (V.6.17); “Bhakti yoga performed for Bhagavān Vāsudeva quickly bestows detachment (vairāgya) and causeless knowledge, jñāna [of the ātman]” (I.2.7). But the bhakta, either realizing that this is not the end of the journey, or, as will be exemplified below, encountering fortuitously the narrations of Īśvara, keeps going, as his or her interest is the Supreme Ātman beyond, Paramātman84 Bhagavān, the Godhead who sustains but transcends the individual ātman.

The Rejection of Brahman

Ultimately, the reason the bhakta is interested in Bhagavān rather than solely the individual ātman boils down to a simple fact: whatever bliss (ānanda) is inherent in the ātman (Brahman) pales in comparison with the bliss experienced when coming in contact with the source of all bliss, Bhagavān. Rūpa states that “if the bliss of Brahman were multiplied billions of times, it would not equal a drop in the ocean of the happiness of bhakti!” (Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu Eastern Quadrant I.1.38). This is a response to the Upaniṣads, where the bliss of Brahman is itself billions of times greater than the highest imaginable bliss in the world (Bṛhadāraṇyaka IV.3.32–33; Taittirīya II.8).

All living beings ultimately seek bliss, ānanda, in some form or fashion, but what constitutes bliss is evaluated differently. For those ignorant of the ātman, it is determined in accordance with the guṇas prominent in the mind. So, following the Gītā, for those in sattva, happiness comes from tranquillity of mind, and even though cultivating this in the beginning is unpalatable (typically because old rājasic and tāmasic saṁskāras forcefully protest at the outset as one struggles to break their impulses), it develops into nectar in the end (XVIII.37).85 For those in rajas, happiness is sought from sensual indulgences, and although this appears like nectar in the beginning, it ends as poison (XVIII.38). Sensual pleasures are temporal, and one becomes frustrated when they come to an end or when they cannot be attained in the first place; moreover, there is always a hidden and unexpected price tag on sensual indulgences. Happiness in tamas is sought in sleep, laziness, and intoxication, and these delude the self both in the beginning and in the end (XVIII.39). Thus, while the happiness of sattva is deemed to be the highest attainable by the material mind, as Patañjali states, the wise perceive that all happiness produced by the guṇas is actually suffering, even that of sattva. This is because such happiness is always temporary and subject to change, and it is always afflicted by the inevitable unwelcome intrusions and inconveniences of embodied life (II.15). So all happiness derived from the guṇas binds the ātman (Gītā XIV.5ff.).

For those pursuing knowledge of the self, who reject these types of so-called happiness temporarily produced by the guṇas (Gītā V.21–22), happiness is identified as lying beyond the mind, as the “infinite bliss” inherent in the ātman itself (Gītā VI.21–22). The paths of generic yoga and jñāna strive for this bliss (or, with Nyāya, freedom from suffering86). But bhakti proposes an even higher state of bliss attainable by the devotionalized mind. First of all, even before attaining its grand finale of a vision of Bhagavān and a direct personal relationship with Him, simply initiating the practices of bhakti yoga is joyful in comparison with other processes, precisely because of its connection with Bhagavān, who is the source of bliss.87 Compared with this, “even pure knowledge (jñāna) [of the ātman] is unattractive when devoid of love for Kṛṣṇa” (I.5.12). For the Bhāgavata, the path of jñāna and nondevotional yoga is, in actuality, dry, tedious, frustrating, and seemingly never-ending in comparison: “Those who have rejected bhakti, the most beneficial path, toil hard to obtain knowledge [of the ātman] exclusively. For them toil itself is the only outcome, nothing else, just like those who thresh the coarse outer husks of grain” (X.14.4).

In fact, the text goes so far as to suggest that those who realize the ātman may not in fact even be able to remain in that state if they neglect bhakti: “Others, O lotus-eyed One [Kṛṣṇa], consider themselves liberated, but their minds are impure because of turning away from You. They attain the highest destination [realization of the ātman] with difficulty, but, since their minds are indifferent to Your lotus feet, they fall back down” (X.2.32). In other words, the latent desires (kleśas) of the mind may be in a state of suppression (nirodhaḥ) for prolonged periods, but without bhakti, they may resurface and compel consciousness back into the realm of prakṛti. We note that even Patāñjali includes Īśvara-praṇidhāna, devotion to Īśvara—which Vyāsa in his commentary glosses as bhakti viśeṣa, “a special type of bhakti”—as a requisite practice for removing the kleśas (II.1–2). This position that even mokṣa can be attained only by the grace of Iśvara in fact has much earlier precedents (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad VI.15; Mokṣadharma 300.3).

But the Bhāgavata takes a significant step further still: some yogīs who have already attained the state beyond the guṇas—whose minds have been suppressed such that consciousness can be exclusively immersed in its own nature of consciousness, ātma-jñāna (in other words, who have attained the goal of classical yoga)—relinquish this state and voluntarily reconnect with their senses and minds in order to hear, study, and speak about the pastimes (līlās) of Kṛṣṇa. The goal of traditions such as that of Patañjali is precisely to disconnect from the mind and senses in order to reimmerse consciousness in its own nature.88 But numerous ātman-realized yogīs who have actually attained this state, if they somehow encounter Bhagavān and consequently become bhaktas, opt to reconnect with the very mind and senses they had previously endeavored so arduously to transcend. This is in order to be able to become immersed in thoughts of Bhagavān, specifically of His form, qualities, and deeds, for which they need the mind and senses of perception (we will discuss the spiritual Brahman mind and senses attained in the postmortem liberated state later). King Parīkṣit, the recipient of the Bhāgavata, is confused by sage Śuka’s exemplification of this anomaly:

“Śuka had renounced all worldly activities, and was without attachments, and indifferent to everything, O sage. He was absorbed in the bliss of the ātman self. Why did he then study this huge work [the Bhāgavata]?”

Sage Saunaka replies:

“Sages who delight in the ātman self, who are without worldly bonds, perform devotion to Hari without any motive, such is the nature of His qualities. Therefore, Śuka, son of Bādarāyaṇa [Vyāsa], whose mind had become captured by the qualities of Hari, studied this great narration.” (I.7.9–11)

This is repeated again at the end of the text: “Śuka’s consciousness (ceta) was fixed in the bliss of his own self and he had cast off all notions of duality. Nonetheless, his fixity was drawn away by the delightful līlās, pastimes, of the infallible Ajita [Kṛṣṇa]” (12.12.68). And, indeed, Śuka states this about himself: “Although I was fixed in the state beyond the guṇas, my mind was captured by the līlās of Kṛṣṇa; and so I learned about His pastimes” (2.1.9). His father, too, the great Vyāsa, “although he was fixed in the bliss of the self and devoid of any other thought, his heart was attracted to the enchanting līlās of the infallible Kṛṣṇa; out of kindness [for others], he then composed this Bhāgavata Purāṇa” (XII.12.68).

As will be especially encountered in the tenth book, then, the Bhāgavata, promotes the bliss of sensual contact with Kṛṣṇa as far superior to any bliss inherent in the ātman when immersed in its own nature after uncoupling from the prakṛtic guṇas. Such contact with Kṛṣṇa can be attained either directly for those who had accumulated enough merit to have been born during His incarnation or, for those born thereafter, indirectly by means of hearing about His pastimes from the tenth book (or, of course, eternally in the post-liberated realm of Goloka or Vaikuṇṭha). Either way, the bliss received by means of the senses and mind, whether made of prakṛti or Brahman, from contact with Īśvara, including hearing about His activities through the ear, is held to eclipse the bliss of the ātman’s self-absorption. We can recall that one of the characteristics of bhakti delineated by Rūpa is that it minimizes interest in mokṣa—Brahman/ātman-centered liberation. This is a theme repeated again and again in the Bhāgavata.89 The text is simply pervaded with claims to the effect that mokṣa is rejected by the bhaktas who are fully satisfied serving Kṛṣṇa,90 or simply hearing or chanting about and meditating on Him,91 and especially rejected if it means separation from Kṛṣṇa.92 Put more dramatically, devoid of the presence of the beloved Lord, mokṣa is, in fact, equal to hell (VI.17.28). This phenomenon, in turn, leads to another of the six characteristics of bhakti identified by Rūpa—the difficulty of the attainment of real (unmixed) bhakti: “Among tens of millions of those perfected beings who have attained mukti, liberation, one who is devoted to Nārāyaṇa is very hard to find” (VI.14.5). Here, the Bhāgavata is echoing the Gītā: “Among thousands of people, hardly any strive for perfection. And of those striving and even from those who have attained perfection, hardly any know Me in truth” (VII.3). The flip side of this is that “until the yogī does not become disillusioned with the various other paths of yoga, he or she will not develop attraction for the stories of Kṛṣṇa” (IV.23.12).93

Who Is the Supreme Īśvara?: The Purāṇic Context

Moving on to the second fundamental issue we raised at the beginning of this section concerning Īśvara as the object or recipient of bhakti, what is the Bhāgavata’s justification for identifying the highest expression of Īśvara as Kṛṣṇa, as opposed to other claimants to this position, most specifically, Śiva or Viṣṇu? In other words, given that most Hindu traditions, including advaita Vedānta, accept Īśvara in some sort of sense, then, bracketing the issue touched upon above as to whether Īśvara is the ultimate and causal entity or a nonultimate and derivative entity (or, as per advaita, a superimposition on the Absolute), since everyone accepts an Īśvara at some level, then who is the ultimate Īśvara? This discussion plays out more in Purāṇa-related than in Vedānta contexts. At the risk of repetition (given the common misperception of Hinduism as polytheistic), Hindu theists of all bhakti schools hold that Īśvara, if unlimited, can assume unlimited Īśvara forms (irrespective of whether these are ultimately true, as per the Vaiṣṇavas, or only relatively true, as per advaita). So the question is not who is the real and true Īśvara and who is not, but which of these forms is the source, causal Īśvara from whom the other Īśvaras emanate—or, in the language of the Bhāgavata, the seed from which other avatāras emerge (III.9.2)? Readers familiar with the various streams of post-Vedic bhakti know that these are not polytheistic, but either monotheistic or monistic. Therefore, these Īśvara forms are not independent autonomous equals, as is (more or less) the case with polytheism, but emanate from one source. Either this source is monistic—reflecting the discussion above, where Īśvara (whether real or illusory) is held to be nonultimate and derived from a higher Absolute—which in its highest and ultimate expression is a qualityless, nonindividualized Truth, or this source is monotheistic, which requires one original, ultimate, Supreme Īśvara. So both monism and monotheism in their very different ways constitute a “mono-source,” not a “poly-source.” But either way, one still has to account for the relationship among the multifarious Īśvaras. Accordingly, most traditions (even, in his own way, Śaṅkara) end up subscribing to one particular form of Īśvara as the fountainhead of all other Īśvara emanations. And, once again, we are referring exclusively to Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu and His incarnations, Śiva, and their consorts (God on high with a capital “G”)—not to the lower-level celestials in saṁsāra (gods with a small “g”), whose worship in the Vedic period can in fact be seen as constituting a type of polytheism.94

We should also note that this is a scholastic issue: the vast majority of Hindus offer devotion to numerous forms and personalities of Īśvara, especially in cultural contexts such as participating in the major celebratory days associated with the different forms of Īśvara—for example, janmāṣṭami, Kṛṣṇa’s birthday; Rāma-navamī, Rāma’s birthday; and Śivarātrī, sacred to Śiva.95 Even though most Hindus, and certainly most who have a serious bhakti practice, will orient their own personal and private everyday devotion toward one particular form, the iṣṭa-devatā, Lord of the heart (noted, for instance, in Yoga Sūtras II.44), the question of which Īśvara is primary and ultimate and which derivative and emanational is far more a feature of scholastic and lineage-bearing96 bhakti than the generic bhakti encountered on a grassroots level. Nonetheless, emerging traditions needed to establish their credentials and sectarian partialities based on the intellectual and epistemological criteria of the time. This, in Vedānta circles, as we can see with Jīva’s defense of the authority of the Bhāgavata itself (see appendix 1), meant quoting scripture, the Śrūti and Smṛti.97 And this, in turn, required a significant degree of scholasticism.

Before we engage some of the intellectual issues that have been (and remain) important to the theologians of the various bhakti sects, let us consider Īśvara from a heart (nonscholastic) perspective—one much more reflective of the on-the-ground bhakti of the practitioner. Ultimately, one’s preference for a particular Īśvara form, the iṣṭa-devatā (worshipful Lord) such as Kṛṣṇa or Śiva, over any other should reflect the heart inclination of the devotee and nothing more. There are various ways one can encounter and subsequently develop such an emotional relationship with who becomes one’s iṣṭa-devatā. Often, for example, this may simply be inherited from one’s family tradition, or local culture, and thus reflects one’s karma in the form of birth (jati), and geography (deśa), along the lines of Yoga Sūtras II.13. For those perhaps more dedicated to pursuing a path less preconditioned by the accidents of familial or regional culture, one’s iṣṭa-devatā is most often simply inherited from one’s guru, as discussed previously. In other words, one first becomes attracted by a charismatic individual whose spiritual qualities one wishes to emulate, and then, as this relationship deepens into a guru-disciple relationship, one subsequently adopts the Īśvara form—and in fact entire edifice of theological and ritual specificities associated with that form—from this guru’s lineage. This is by far the most common manner of connecting to a form of Īśvara for those stepping outside of their birth traditions, including Westerners. (We see, in the West, the partiality of Neem Karoli Baba’s followers to Rāma and Hanumān, for example, Swami Muktānanda’s to Śiva, and Bhaktivedānta Swami’s to Kṛṣṇa, the disciples typically following the preference or lineage deity of their guru.)

Attraction to one’s iṣṭa-devatā may also be born from reading the stories connected with the various Īśvara incarnations and manifestations, as per Patañjali’s svādhyāyād iṣṭa-devatā-samprayogaḥ, “from study, one encounters one’s Lord of the heart” (II.44). Just as in romantic relationships in the human realm (at least in their idealized form), a person looking for love or for a spouse might undertake a dating spree in order to seek opportunities to become acquainted with a suitable person, so in bhakti one can seek one’s iṣṭa-devatā by undertaking a study project of the respective texts associated with the various Īśvara options—Kṛṣṇa, Śiva, Rāma, the Goddess, and so on. As in human relationships, from all the available possible romantic partners, an eventual attraction evolves from association and from discovering more and more about the qualities and attributes of one particular person, and this (ideally) develops into love, so, in divine relationships, an attraction to a particular Īśvara form can be accomplished by svādhyāya, study. One explores the universe of various Īśvara forms by immersing oneself in their stories, forms, qualities, deeds, and modes of interaction with their devotees (for instance, by reading the Bhāgavata, Rāmāyaṇa, and Śiva- and Devī-centered texts), and eventually one’s heart becomes naturally especially attracted to one specific manifestation of Īśvara. He or She becomes one’s iṣṭa-devatā. This usually means that one subsequently adopts that manifestation’s specific name as one’s japa mantra and engages in worship of His or Her deity form following the specifics of ritual associated with that form98—in other words, one engages the nine processes of bhakti (or sectarian variants of them) centered on that form. For most Hindus, it is these types of natural and spontaneous attractions for a particular form of Īśvara—always appreciative of and ready to honor and participate in the worship of other forms, but privately devoted to one’s own cherished iṣṭa-devatā—that lies at the heart of the dedicated bhakti yoga of the committed practitioner.

There is a touching story in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta underscoring the personal and heart nature of true bhakti, where love for an adored form of Īśvara transcends all social or cultural legislation and, in this case, even the presence of an enormously powerful guru charismatic (indeed, one considered an incarnation of Kṛṣṇa Himself in Jīva’s Gauḍīya tradition), Śrī Caitanya. Caitanya lovingly recounts the immovable faith of Murāri Gupta in Śrī Rāma, despite his testing this by persistently promoting the unsurpassed superexcellence of Kṛṣṇa:

Once I tried to tempt him again and again, “Most sweet, O Gupta is Vrajendrakumāra [Kṛṣṇa], Bhagavān Himself;… His actions are sweet, the līlā of Kṛṣṇa is sweet. Worship that Kṛṣṇa, take refuge in that Kṛṣṇa; there is no worship in the heart apart from that Kṛṣṇa.” In this way again and again he listened to my words, and because of my praise, his mind was turned a little … he went to his home and he reflected, into the night, and he thought anxiously about his abandonment of Raghunātha [Rāma]. “How shall I abandon the feet of Raghunātha? Kill me, O Rāma, tonight!” Thus he wept the whole night; he had no peace of mind, and he was awake all the night. In the morning he came and held my feet, and weeping he pleaded with me thus. “I have laid my head at the feet of Raghunātha. I cannot take my head away, there is pain in my heart.… Tell me what I should do. In this situation, give mercy to me, O you who are full of mercy; let me die before you, let this indecision be over.” When I heard this, I was very happy in my mind, and I raised him up and embraced him. “O most perfect Gupta, your faith is very deep; your heart has not been shaken by my words … to know the firmness of your bhāva (love) I have tempted you again and again. You are a servant of Rāma like the incarnate Hanumān; how could you abandon His lotus feet?” That Murāri Gupta is like my own heart; when I hear of his humility, my heart bursts. (Caitanya Caritāmṛta, Mādhya līlā 15.138–57)

The point is, just as in human romantic affairs, although one may personally find the qualities and appearance of one’s intimate beloved the most attractive, there is no need to disparage other candidates or seek to lure someone away from his or her heart’s different choice. Likewise, one can have an intense relationship with one’s iṣṭa-devatā without the need for any sectarian exclusivism (or, for that matter, the inclusivistic hierarchization that we will encounter with Jīva that is so typical of Hinduism). This author’s own teacher, just as an example of this, despite being a lifelong ascetic bhakta of Kṛṣṇa and ultraorthodox ācārya lineage bearer of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, initiates his last published work99 with the following invocation:

Mādhavomādhavāv īśau sarva-siddhi-vidhāyinau

Vande parasparātmānau paraspara-nati-prīyau

I offer my obeisances to the two Īśvaras—Kṛṣṇa, the husband of Mā100 (Lakṣmī), and Śiva, the husband of Umā (Parvatī), who are the source of all perfection.

They are always united, and filled with mutual love and respect for each other.

Such catholic spirit is not just a cultural matter, and certainly not anything to do with modern notions of political correctness: all schools accept that the different manifestations of Īśvara are factually and ontologically the same Supreme Being. Consider the Bhāgavata story of sage Atri (IV.1.19–30), who performed intense austerities on one foot (eka-pāda-āsana), meditating on “the Īśvara of the universe” (jagad-Īśvara). Eventually, Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Brahmā all appeared before him. Confused, he told them that he had supplicated “the one Bhagavān.” Why had three of them come? Smiling, they replied, “We are that one!” This multiplicity-in-oneness is the Vaiṣṇava form of monotheism.

Nonetheless, if one has been entrusted with the dharma of safeguarding the parameters of a sect’s theological specifics, as is the case with Jīva, one must rise up to establish the bona fides of one’s tradition in accordance with the methodologies and epistemologies of one’s time, lest it be belittled by opposing schools or ridiculed as emotional foolishness. And the Gauḍīya tradition, while honoring and relishing all the divine manifestations, is entrusted by its founder, Śrī Caitanya, with spreading the sweetness of rāgānugā bhakti to Śrī Kṛṣṇa as the highest expression of personal love of God (a goal deemed not only to be the summum bonum of life and human existence, but the solution to all human problems). Perhaps we can consider this feature of Hindu bhakti a type of eclectic sectarianism. Jīva and the other Gosvāmīs perceive their dedication to making these teachings of bhakti available in accordance with the scholastic and intellectual criteria of their day as the highest welfare work for human well-being. Apart from the belief that the sweetness of Kṛṣṇa bhakti produces the highest possible ecstasy attainable by the ātman, these bhakti teachings are, of course, embedded within the generic yoga perspective that the ultimate cause of the suffering of all embodied beings stems from the pursuit of desires pertaining to the body/mind temporal self, as we have discussed. Teaching about such things is their solution to suffering and the human condition. But while Vaiṣṇavas accept the standard yogic notion that the only ultimate solution is knowledge of the true ātman self, they additionally identify the even more fundamental cause of suffering as aversion toward Īśvara. The Gosvāmīs are thus entrusted to present these teachings—especially the unparalleled sweetness of Kṛṣṇa bhakti—as their contribution to ultimate human welfare. Hence the enormous investment Jīva and Rūpa devoted to their writings and to justifying their prioritization of Kṛṣṇa by recourse to reason and scriptural engagement, where they could easily have followed the life of other bābās (ascetics) of their day and simply immersed themselves in their japa, kīrtana, and pūjās in solitude. This is their service.

Before returning to our scholastic and sectarian questions pertaining to the source Īśvara, let us linger on this for another moment: from the point of view of theologians like Jīva, scholasticism itself is perceived as a spiritual service to humanity. Even though Īśvara is beyond the grasp of the intellect, formulating coherent and systematic theologies is seen as a service for those who need some degree of rationality to underpin their foray into the transrational. Intellectuality, scholasticism, or the articulation of lineage-specific theologies and practices need not be, in and of themselves, spiritually oppressive, limiting, or stifling to spiritual reality, as they are sometimes depicted, or somehow blockages to or overlays over the experience of unfettered Truth. Those intellectually inclined need at least a preliminary rational platform from which to take that leap of faith into a domain beyond reason. This is all the more so since bhakti traditions are often condescendingly portrayed as emotional religiosity for the populous masses devoid of any intellectual substance (and this was so even in the sixteenth century in Jīva’s time, as in the eleventh century in Rāmānuja’s before him).101 In addition to this, certain scholastics may be entrusted with preserving the logic, rationale, and time-tested value of lineage-specific rituals, practices, and protocols lest these become diluted in the name of eclecticism. All this is the dharma of the theologian, which, like any dharma, becomes bhakti when performed with devotion and offered to Īśvara. Bhakti, as we know from the Gītā (for instance, see IX.27), entails offering whatever one possesses and whatever assets one is endowed with to Īśvara. Thus, there are those with intellectual gifts and inclinations, who are moved by their love and devotion to the form of Īśvara with which they are enamored to attempt to articulate the superexcellence of their beloved and justify their devotion in accordance with the standard sources of knowledge of the time (such as sense perception, reason, and a consistent interpretation of the sacred texts).102

This is what Jīva is doing here and what others have done for other bhakti traditions, such as the brilliant scholar-practitioner Abhinavagupta for Kaśmir Śaivism, and Rāmānuja for Śrī Vaiṣṇavism, and so forth. Reason and argument, then, like art, dance, poetry, or anything else—indeed, like the modest leaf, fruit, flower, or water of Gītā IX.26—can be offered in devotion to one’s beloved Īśvara as bhakti. With Jīva as our exemplar, then, the following discussion grants us a glimpse at the concerns of one such scholastic practitioner in the sixteenth century, who had been entrusted with articulating a theology centered on Kṛṣṇa bhakti that could form the bedrock for the fledgling Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition that was beginning to define itself after the passing away of Śrī Caitanya and thus needed to find scriptural authority to substantiate the tradition’s exclusive focus on Kṛṣṇa as Supreme Īśvara.

Drawing from sources long predating the Common Era, the Purāṇa tradition develops into two or perhaps three basic streams: those holding Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa to be the Ultimate Īśvara, the Vaiṣṇavas, and those holding Śiva as Ultimate Īśvara, the Śaivites.103 Overlapping with the latter, and sometimes subsumed within it, a later Śākta stream emerged in literary form (but also with roots in the hoary past), some major expressions of which hold the Goddess to be the Ultimate source Being.104 We have painted all this with very broad, simplistic strokes here, since our purpose is just to give a flavor of the landscape within which the Bhāgavata is negotiating its position. There are all sorts of cross-fertilizing permutations of some of the elements noted above.105

The position taken by the various sects on such issues is not assumed but must be substantiated by scriptural reference for a lineage to be taken seriously in the vibrant heterogeneous landscape of the bhakti traditions. Summarizing briefly, in his first Sandarbha, the Tattva (anu 17), where he defends the supremacy of Kṛṣṇa over other forms of Īśvara, Jīva enlists the support of other Purāṇas, beginning with a sequence of verses in the Matsya Purāṇa. In this text, we find the Purāṇa corpus divided according to the guṇas, with those glorifying Viṣṇu (Hari) considered to be Purāṇas associated with sattva, and those Śiva, with tamas.106 In another Purāṇa, the Padma (CCXXXVI. 18–21), the specific names of the eighteen Purāṇas107 are allocated to their respective guṇas, with the Bhāgavata and other Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas placed in the sattva category, and the Śaivite ones placed in the tamas one. Part of the reason for these associations, in the larger epic and Purāṇa framework, is that Hari/Viṣṇu/Kṛṣṇa is typically associated with sattva and the maintenance of the universe, maintenance being a quality of sattva, and Śiva with its destruction, a quality of tamas.108

Since sattva is a prerequisite for knowledge (see, for example, Gītā XIV.17), Jīva feels justified in asserting the supremacy of the Purāṇas in the sattva category. He can now quote the sāttvic Bhāgavata itself with less risk of circularity:

Sattva, rajas, and tamas are the guṇas of prakṛti. There is one Supreme Being who directs these for the purpose of creation, maintenance, and destruction of this universe. He is named Hari [Viṣṇu], Viriṇci [Brahmā], and Hara [Śiva]. From these, the ultimate good is derived from the One whose form is sattva [that is, Viṣṇu].109 [Just as, for the performance of Vedic ritual,] smoke is higher than wood, and fire is higher than that, as it lies at the essence of the [rituals prescribed in the] three Vedas,110 [so] rajas is higher than tamas, and sattva is higher than that, as it bestows the vision of Brahman. In the beginning, the sages worshipped Bhagavān Viṣṇu, who is pure sattva (viśuddha-sattva).111 Those who follow their example are eligible for liberation. (I.2.23–25)

Having argued for the primacy of Īśvara, the personal Godhead, over His derivative nonpersonal powers on the basis of Vedānta texts, and then advocated the supremacy of Viṣṇu as ultimate Īśvara over other forms of Īśvara on the basis of the Purāṇa texts, Jīva had one further step. The Vaiṣṇava schools differ as to whether Viṣṇu is the Ultimate and Supreme Bhagavān, who periodically incarnates into the world in various forms, one of which is Kṛṣṇa, or whether Kṛṣṇa is the source Being and Viṣṇu a derivative Being manifest from Him for the purpose of the creation and maintenance of the cosmic order (as the Paramātman touched upon previously). Following the opinion of the Mahābhārata epic, Hairivaṃśa,112 and Viṣṇu Purāṇa, the former position is held by the older Vaiṣṇava sects dominant in the south, noteworthy among which are the tenth- to eleventh-century Rāmānuja and twelfth-century Madhva traditions, whose theologies we know paved the way for and significantly underpin the Gauḍīya one. The latter position, based on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and Bhagavad Gītā, surfaces most conspicuously across the north of the subcontinent in the sixteenth century, particularly in the form of Jīva’s own school founded by Caitanya, as well as the spiritually cognate tradition stemming from Caitanya’s contemporary Vallabha, the founder of the puṣṭi mārga.113 In addition to this identification of Kṛṣṇa as the First Cause of all causes, these latter schools especially stress the unsurpassed nature of Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness compared with all other Īśvara forms.114 Once again, all schools ultimately hold both Kṛṣṇa and Viṣṇu—and Śiva—to be manifestations of the same transcendent “One Supreme Being” who has one form but appears in many forms (X.40.7), so in terms of who came first, the difference is something of a plant-and-seed situation and one mostly of scholarly concern.

The crucial verse in the Bhāgavata used by the Kṛṣṇa theologians to justify this preeminence of Kṛṣṇa over all other manifestations of the Godhead is I.3.18. Situated after a number of verses listing Viṣṇu’s previous incarnations, this verse states: “These [other incarnations] are partial derived incarnations (aṁśa, or kalā), but Kṛṣṇa is Bhagavān, God, Himself (Kṛṣṇas-tu Bhagavān svayam).” Aṁśa means a “portion” or “partial incarnation.” Similar to the relationship between God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in the Christian trinity, the sense of the term is that Kṛṣṇa, as the Supreme Godhead, can maintain His own presence, while simultaneously manifesting some aspect of Himself elsewhere in a separate and distinct presence (or any number of presences). Those secondary or derivative manifestations exhibit a part but not the full characteristics or potency of the source Being (the term kalā has similar connotations).115 This concept is very important for understanding the difference between polytheism, where beings are completely separate and more or less equal ontological entities, and the plethora of divine presences in Kṛṣṇa monotheism, which can be thought of as an unlimitedly prolific parallel of the Christian trinity concept: a “multiplicity in one,” so to speak.

This verse becomes something of a mahāvākya, a “most important expression” or pivotal, foundational statement,116 for the theology of the Kṛṣṇa sects: all other incarnations are aṁśas or kalās, partial incarnations, but Kṛṣṇa is Bhagavān Himself, the original Being and source of the other incarnations. The importance of I.3.28 for the Bhāgavata tradition cannot be overestimated, and it overrides all other conflicting statements: the commentators consider it to be a paribhāṣā sūtra, an explanatory assertion that, while occurring in only one verse, illuminates the entire text, like a lamp that, although situated in only one place, illuminates an entire house. And, again relevant here, and just as was the case with the Vedānta Sūtras, since all the Purāṇas are deemed compiled by sage Vyāsa, as we will see in his tale, with the Bhāgavata as his grand finale, so to speak, it is consequently taken by Jīva as Vyāsa’s final word not only on all such issues of personal versus nonpersonal modalities of Brahman, but also on the hierarchies among Īśvaras. And the Bhāgavata promotes Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme causal Īśvara.

We must stress once more that while this type of argumentation is clearly sectarian, the bhakti traditions are inclusivistic sectarianism, not exclusivistic. The Bhāgavata, for example, extols Śiva, using similar categories it elsewhere directs to Viṣṇu:

I know you, Rudra [Śiva] are the Lord, the undivided Brahman, beyond Śiva and Śakti117 who are the seed and womb of the universe. You are Bhagavān who, like a spider with its web, playfully create, maintain, and destroy this universe in the forms of Śiva and Śakti, who are one essence. (IV.6.42–43)

This is typical of Hinduism, and examples are ubiquitous. In the Mahābhārata epic, for example, Viṣṇu says to Śiva: “He who knows You, knows Me. He who follows You, follows Me. There is not the slightest difference between Us both. Let there be no judgment otherwise” (Mokṣadharma CCCXLII.233). The verse is repeated verbatim earlier, adding: “Their reality (sattva) is one, their forms are two” (CCCXLI.16). While the Bhāgavata generally does not waver about who is the ultimate source Supreme Being,118 it allows those devoted to Śiva to perceive and eulogize Śiva as not only the Supreme Being, but even as the source of Viṣṇu (VIII.7.23), the creator, protector, and destroyer of the universe (IV.6.42–43), the originator of the guṇas and everything in existence (VIII.7.21–35), whose abode is inaccessible even to Viṣṇu. The eulogy to Śiva of the prajāpatis (VIII.7.21ff.) could have come right out of the Purāṇas that prioritize Śiva—the Śiva, Liṅga, and Skandha Purāṇas. Ultimately, the Bhāgavata allows everyone to follow their own devotional inclinations: “One should worship the Supreme Being in accordance with the preference of one’s mind” (XI.3.48). And, reciprocally, it allows that the Supreme Being assumes forms not only according to functions (Śiva, as we know, is typically accorded the role of the destroyer in the overall Purāṇic schema), but also in accordance with the particular desires of individual devotees: “You assume whatever form Your devotees meditate upon” (III.9.11); “Whatever forms please Your devotees, are pleasing to You, O Lord” (III.24.31). So this sectarianism is of an eclectic and inclusivistic nature, typical of the bhakti of the Purāṇas.

Īśvara, Pure Bhakti, and Motivated Bhakti

Continuing thematically with the differences among the various Īśvara forms, another way of differentiating between the bhakti performed for Kṛṣṇa and that performed for some of the other divine manifestations, according to the Bhāgavata tradition, is that since Kṛṣṇa is pure sattva, those who seek the fulfillment of prakṛti-related desires are naturally more likely to approach and offer bhakti to those other forms of the Divine, which are associated with the fulfillment of those desires. We know from the Gītā (XVIII.9 and 23) that sattva is associated with freedom from desire and detachment from the fruit of action; rajas with desire and attachment to the fruit of desire (indeed, the word for desire, rāga, comes from the same root); and tamas with apathy toward the fulfillment of desire in general (XVIII.24–25). In the overall Hindu hierarchization of divine plenitude, different types of beings, not all of whom are divine or even benevolent, become associated with different modes of worship and the attainment of different material goals:

Those desiring liberation reject the ghastly forms of [other] powerful beings119 and, free from envy, worship the peaceful manifestations of Nārāyaṇa. Those whose natures and characteristics are rājasic and tāmasic, desiring offspring, power, and opulence, worship the celestial beings, ancestors, and ghosts, etc. (I.2.26–27)

This principle is illustrated in the Bhāgavata in the story of Vṛka. This demon approaches Nārada and, upon asking him which of the great Deities is most easily propitiated, is informed: “Worship Lord Śiva, and you will quickly attain success. He can be easily pleased or easily angered by a small amount of either merit or fault” (X.88.15). Nārada points out that the great demon Rāvaṇa who kidnapped Sītā in the Rāmāyaṇa epic attained his power from worshipping Śiva, as did numerous other demons.120 The point here is that those with tāmasic malintentions tend to worship forms of Śiva, who, being highly benevolent and easily gratified, accepts such worship, where Viṣṇu, being pure sattva, would not (generally121), nor would His worship likely attract those in tamas. Vṛka proceeded to worship Śiva through ghastly austerities—offering the flesh from his own limbs and preparing to sever his own head—and did indeed attain a tāmasic boon—the ability to kill anyone by merely laying a hand on that person (X.88). Since the preamble to this story narrated by Śuka to Parīkṣit amply illustrates the Bhāgavata’s perspective on the differentiation among Divine Beings and their appeal to different types of worshippers, it is worth quoting at length:

Those among the gods, demons, and mortals who worship the austere Śiva are often wealthy and lead a life of enjoyment. But this is not the case with those who worship Hari even though He is the Lord of Lakṣmī, the Goddess of Fortune.… The end results are different for the worshippers of these two Lords, whose personalities are so opposite.… Śiva is always associated with His śakti powers. He is enveloped by the guṇas, with their three characteristics.122 … So anyone having recourse [to Śiva] enjoys the acquisition of all riches. Hari, however, is untouched by the guṇas. He is the Supreme Person beyond prakṛti. He is the witness, the seer of everything. One who worships Him becomes free from the guṇas … your grandfather, King Yudhiṣṭhira … asked Kṛṣṇa the same question [you, Parīkṣit, have asked].… Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa replied as follows … “I will deprive the person whom I favor of his wealth. At this, his own family members abandon the person who has become poverty-stricken and afflicted by suffering. When his endeavors come to nothing, and he becomes despondent in his attempts to [gain] wealth, then I bestow my favor on him, once he has formed friendship with those devoted to Me.… But, because I am so hard to worship, people reject Me and worship other gods.” (X.88.1–10)

Hopefully the point is clear: the idea that the Supreme Īśvara assumes different personae to cater to the different inclinations and desires of humans would be accepted by most bhakti sects. The Bhāgavata allows Śiva Himself to state that those who have attained equanimity of perception “do not see even a speck of difference between He Himself and Viṣṇu.” But those with more intense desires perfectly naturally worship the Being who can most quickly fulfill those desires (as indicated in the Gītā IV.12), and Śiva is supremely munificent and easily satisfied, asutoṣa.123 The Bhāgavata certainly recognizes that Śiva is the same Īśvara who can bestow liberation (VIII.7.22), that there are realized yogīs dedicated to Him who are liberated124 (IV.6.45–46), and that there are “gurus delighting in the ātman who contemplate Śiva in their hearts” (VIII.7.33). So clearly it does not consider all of His devotees to be motivated by mundane prakṛtic needs. But it does associate at least most of His followers with those who still have some level of interest in the enjoyments of prakṛti.

We will no more than again cursorily note here that some forms of Śiva devotion, such as the Kaśmir Śaivism of the Siddha tradition, promote a goal of complete identification with and the eventual reimmersion of the ātman into its potential and inherent Śiva nature, from which vantage point it can, in fact, enjoy the spectacle of prakṛti. After all, in Kaśmir Śaivism, prakṛti is the citi-śākti energy of the Divine—pure vibrational consciousness—so for this tradition it is not prakṛti that should be renounced, but the sense of self as an enjoyer separate from Śiva. Once prakṛti is fully and actually realized as nondifferent from Śiva, what is there to renounce? Such Śākta schools are philosophically rich and coherent traditions, with considerable theological sophistication. Engaging a robust form of Śiva bhakti as method, they promote one of their ultimate goals precisely as the enjoyment of the creative spectacle of prakṛti once the practitioner has transcended the limitations of personal ego, ahaṅkāra, and realized his or her own true Śiva nature (svarūpa).

But this is not the goal sought by the Kṛṣṇa bhaktas of Jīva’s tradition. Of course he does not reject the soteriological possibility of such liberation, as becoming one with Śiva can certainly be accommodated in Bhāgavata ontology, given the Vaiṣṇava equivalent in one or two of the five basic types of liberation we have discussed (ekatvam with sārūpya flavorings). But the reason Jīva deems any form of liberation from the various options discussed previously—or their Śaivite parallels—to be of no interest to true bhaktas, even if available, is that they do not facilitate eternal service to Īśvara. Service is the sign of true love. And as the other main Śaivite tradition, Śaiva Siddhānta, would agree, eternal service requires an eternal distinction between Īśvara as object of bhakti and the worshipful bhakta. According to the Bhāgavata, the worship of the pure forms of Viṣṇu and Kṛṣṇa are attractive to those who are without desire to enjoy prakṛti from any vantage point whatsoever (other than by means of offering prakṛti in love and devotion to their beloved). Such bhaktas aspire for what for them is the ultimate perfection of bhakti free from all personal motives of enjoyment. This perfection is service to the beloved that culminates in an eternal relationship with Bhagavān assuming the form of their preference in the trans-prakṛtic realms within Brahman itself, Vaikuṇṭha and Goloka.

Again, this partiality or preference does not imply that Vaiṣṇavas would deny the possibility of the specific type of liberation proposed by Kaśmir Śaivism or any other such tradition, since, as we have discussed, Vaiṣṇavas accept a parallel type of liberation: Kṛṣṇa bhaktas too can merge into Kṛṣṇa (as we will see in the Agha story). Why not, then, a parallel option for Śiva bhaktas?125 But since, in the Bhāgavata, Śiva is accepted as an eternal transcendent Being abiding in His own abode with His liberated bhaktas, Jīva’s form of bhakti finds a closer Śaivite spiritual cognate with Śaiva Siddhānta, since the equivalent of sārūpya liberation in that tradition is a state where the liberated ātman attains a divine form and qualities identical to Śiva’s but distinct from His. Their relationship is both a dualism—as here the soul retains its individuality—and a oneness, since it is inseparably united with Śiva with the bond of love.126 It is such love shared between an individual soul and an eternal Īśvara that Kṛṣṇa bhaktas seek.

Having said all this, we have applied a Kṛṣṇa-centered lens for our case study to exemplify with some depth one expression of bhakti, but we must in fairness note that other Purāṇas express different hierarchies and relationships on such issues: certainly the three main Śaivite Purāṇas, the Śiva and the Liṅga, especially, and also the Skanda, all promote Śiva’s ultimate supremacy over Viṣṇu in various passages,127 as does the Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa on behalf of the Goddess.128 Much of this type of sectarian rhetoric from all sides, Vaiṣṇava and Śaivite, is not likely to appeal to those who are not already deeply committed to a specific sect. But, by way of a conclusion to all this, the various Purāṇic sects do accept and respect all forms of Īśvara. The sectarian hierarchization among the various Īśvara forms that becomes important to the scholastic theologians of the various traditions can be seen as expressions of their intense devotion, bhakti, for their own iṣṭa-devatā. It also reflects their duties as lineage bearers to justify this devotion according to the standard epistemological methodologies of their day for the sake of their followers and for the intellectual dignity of their traditions. But most of all, from a bhakti perspective, all this can perhaps be best relished as something of a līlā, divine play, among the traditions reflecting the playful exchanges among the divinities themselves described in the various stories of the different Purāṇas as manifestations of what all agree is the one Supreme Being. The bottom line is that Īśvara will bestow faith in whatever form is attractive to the bhakta (Gītā VII.21), and ultimately, if that faith becomes pure, unflinching, and all-consuming, Īśvara will appear to the faithful bhakta in that form: “You appear in that very form in which they contemplate You, O glorious One” (Bhāgavata III.9.11).

Materialistic Religiosity

Given the division of the Purāṇas according to the three guṇas noted in the Matsya and Padma Purāṇas discussed above, the question could now be raised as to why the various Purāṇas and, we can add, Vedic sacred texts bother to prescribe forms of bhakti religiosity to cater to fulfilling the desires of those in rajas and tamas in the first place. Isn’t this sending mixed messages? As with any yoga worldview, and indeed (almost) all Indic soteriological systems, the very cause of bondage is desire,129 and thus desire must be renounced for liberation to become possible.130 So don’t scriptural prescriptions catering to fulfilling desire counter the spiritual well-being of those following them and, even worse, do so insidiously since they are embedded in sacred texts and thus claim the aura of being sacrosanct (as Nārada suggests in the Tale of Vyāsa within)? We can also mention here that in addition to the various bhakti paths associated with different forms of Īśvara in the Purāṇas, the older Vedic texts are laden with prescriptions for rites to the celestial beings (devas)131 promoting various material boons. These rites are also focused on fulfilling desire and require a type of bhakti to the devas for their fulfillment. Here too the same basic question remains: Since Kṛṣṇa is the Vedas (Gītā IX.17), and their knower (XV.15), and seems to condone Vedic sacrifice (III.10–14), why did He bother to compose them, only to then urge Arjuna to renounce their “flowery words” (II.42–43)?132

The Bhāgavata takes the view that full renunciation of self-centered desire is not (except in occasional grace-related contexts) instantaneous. One needs to gradually progress through the guṇas by discipline and sacrifice. As the Gītā informs us, this usually takes lifetimes (VI.45). People cannot be expected to renounce desire overnight (Gītā III.26). Thus, the religious rites and boons associated with non-sattva modes of bhakti may indeed be legitimizing the fulfillment of desires, but they nonetheless do so embedded in disciplinary regimens that prescribe the worship of a form of Īśvara, or at least of some higher celestial power, and that require some form of discipline and austerity for their accomplishment. We know from the Yoga Sūtras that from the performance of discipline (tapas), and surrender to Īśvara (praṇidhāna), the kleśas, impurities—including desire—are weakened (II.1–2). By offering various desire-related boons that nonetheless come with this type of discreet price tag, these texts thereby entice those in the lower guṇas to at least begin this process of discipline and (“mixed”) bhakti to some entity higher than themselves, as this will eventually lead toward purification and consequent ultimate well-being. In the words of the Bhāgavata:

The Vedic utterances conceal their meaning. They prescribe ritual activity (karma) for the purpose of becoming free from karma just as medicine [is covered by something sweet] for the healing of children. If an ignorant person with uncontrolled senses does not follow the injunctions of the Vedas, he attains death after death [in saṁsāra] because of the adharma incurred from forbidden actions. The material fruits offered in the Vedas are for the purpose of attracting [people to prescribed actions]. And if one [eventually] follows the prescriptions of the Vedas without attachment, and offers them to Īśvara, that person [eventually] attains the perfection of being free from karma. (XI.3.44)

This, then, can perhaps be considered a form of upāya, skillful means: the promise of prakṛti-related boons coaxes embodied beings toward dharma, righteous actions, that are regulated and connected to higher beings. Thus, one is enticed away from non-dharma that will simply perpetuate the lower destinations of saṁsāra (even if, as with Vṛka, one starts from a place of adharma and deepest tamas). Satisfying desires under these regulated conditions, rather than observing no restrictions whatsoever, one begins one’s ascent through the guṇas. In time, as one approaches sattva, and thus its qualities of insight and wisdom, one eventually realizes one is seeking to overcome suffering by fulfilling desires, but it is actually those very desires themselves that are the cause of suffering and bondage (Gītā V.22, XIV.17; Yoga Sūtras II.15ff.). At this point, renunciation from desire becomes obvious and liberating.

To conclude this section on Īśvara, in terms of the most suitable object of bhakti, then, the culmination of all these lines of reasoning for the Bhāgavata tradition is that “one desiring freedom from fear, should hear about, glorify, and remember Hari, who is Bhagavān, Īśvara, the soul of everything” (II.1.5). It is Kṛṣṇa, as Ultimate Being, who is ultimately both the source and goal of all religious activity:

Vāsudeva [Kṛṣṇa] is the ultimate goal of the Veda, Vāsudeva is the ultimate goal of ritual sacrifices, Vāsudeva is the ultimate goal of yoga, Vāsudeva is the ultimate goal of actions. Vāsudeva is the ultimate goal of knowledge, Vāsudeva is the ultimate goal of austerity (tapas), Vāsudeva is the ultimate goal of dharma, Vāsudeva is the ultimate goal. (I.2.28–29)133

Or, in the words of the Gītā: “After many births, a wise person takes refuge in Me, knowing that ‘Vāsudeva is everything.’ Such a great soul is very rare indeed” (VII.19).