0.  In Patañjali’s terms, draṣṭuḥ svarūpe ’vasthānam, “the seer abiding in its own nature” (Yoga Sūtras I.2).

0.  He states this in his commentary to this verse of his uncle’s work.

0.  See Haberman (1994).

0.  For a good accessible secondary source on madhura bhakti, see Schweig (2005).

0.  We noted previously that the residents of Vaikuṇṭha and Goloka have bodies and forms made of Brahman rather than of the guṇas of prakṛti; this includes the minds of the inhabitants: these too are made of Brahman (see X.13.54 in part 3). This will be discussed further later.

0.  Therefore, when rāgātmika bhaktas engage in any of the nine processes of vaidhī bhakti such as hearing, chanting, or remembering, they do so spontaneously and naturally and not in the form of a prescribed discipline or cultivated practice.

0.  These bhaktas, of course, possess the requisite attainments from past-life bhakti practices in this material realm.

0.  As we will see, Kṛṣṇa is born in a cowherding community.

0.  For an excellent discussion of this phenomenon, see Haberman (1988).

0.  The text would have been heard orally in premodern times rather than read. Prior to the advent of the printing press, the Bhāgavata, as with the entire Purāṇa tradition, would have been orally transmitted. Only a relatively few brāhmaṇa scholars would have had access to costly written manuscripts, reproduced individually by hand, often under the patronage of a king.

0.  The verse states that the yamas, moral principles, are sārva-bhaumā, “universal,” which is an absolute term that needs no further qualification. That Patañjali proceeds to qualify them by specifying birth, place, time, and condition as nongrounds for anyone angling for exceptions is redundant and therefore out of place and technically anomolous in the curt minimalism of the sūtra genre. It therefore represents emphasis, unusual for Patañjali but underscoring his commitment to the indispensability of yama practices.

0.  It is only left-handed Tantra that proposes socially taboo behavior can be undermined in spiritual practice. But even then, this is done in a highly ritualized and meditative environment that seeks to transcend individualized notions of selfhood and the dualities of good and bad perceived through that egoistic, individualized state. Such environments quickly weed out those adopting the practice to enjoy mundane sensuality predicated on misidentifying with the ego (ahaṅkāra) that classical Tantra also seeks to transcend, just like all other yoga traditions. Much of what is being peddled and consumed under the name of Tantra in the modern West is, from the perspective of the premodern textual Tantra traditions, simply foolishness.

0.  For an examination of this recondite area of philosophy, free will, and agency in various Indic philosophical traditions, including that of the Gauḍīya tradition, see Dasti and Bryant (2014).

0.  There are five types of liberation listed in Vaiṣṇava sources such as the Bhāgavata, one of which is sāyūjya, “merging,” also known as sāmyam, the fourth type of liberation. Sāyūjya is not, in fact, acceptable to bhaktas, as it does not accommodate service. There are two types of sāyūjya, brahma-sāyūjya and Bhagavat-sāyūjya, described in the Prīti-sandarbha (anu 15). In Bhagavat-sāyūjya, the ātman enters into Kṛṣṇa’s body and remains there, relishing the bliss of Kṛṣṇa’s body, as is the case with Agha here. Jīva does not approve of either type of sāyūjya, as they do not accommodate service, but considers Bhagavat-sāyūjya the worse of the two because one is trying to enjoy Bhagavān rather than serve (my thanks to Satyanārāyaṇa Dāsa for this reference). On a related note, Rūpa comments that from the five types of liberation, those of the absorbed enemy and the loving bhakta are not actually identical: “The enemies of Hari usually merge into Brahman, but some, attaining a semblance of sārūpya liberation (achieving the same form as Īśvara), become immersed in happiness” (Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu Eastern Quadrant II.279). He also adds that just as the sun ray resembles the sun but is a far lesser entity, so Brahman resembles Kṛṣṇa but is obviously quantitatively and qualitatively far inferior (Eastern Quadrant II.278). The verses indicating that the enemies and friends of Kṛṣṇa both attain the same destination are to be understood similarly.

0.  Specifically, in this case, from the five types mentioned in the previous note, the type of liberation Kaṁsa attained was sārūpya, having the same form as the Lord.

0.  Bhāgavata VII.1.15–25; Gītā VII.12–13; Yoga Sūtras I.25.

0.  After all, our notions of our universe are nothing other than the range of our awareness of it (and hence this awareness of it keeps expanding as the instruments channeling our awareness become more sophisticated).

0.  According to the Gītā (VIII.6), whatever state of mind one is absorbed in at the moment of death conditions the next life.

0.  Jīva, and indeed the Bhāgavata itself, frequently uses this principle of kaimutya: “If x is the case, what then to speak of y” (which would be much more obviously the case).

0.  The Soma ritual was one of the most important Vedic rituals (even as, long before the earliest extant commentator’s Sāyaṇa’s time in the fourteenth century, no one knew exactly what plant corresponded to the soma mentioned in the early texts). Lower castes such as dog-eaters would not normally have been permitted near the sacred sacrificial premises in pre-bhakti Vedic orthopraxy.

0.  See note 29 in “The Practices of Bhakti” on Āryan.

0.  Jīva finds this verse quoted by the Vaiṣṇava theologian Madhva (verse reference not given, anu 320).

0.  This far surpasses the Gītā’s statement that women, normally marginalized in mainstream Vedic ritualistic orthopraxis, and excluded in Vedāntic textual studies, could also attain the “supreme destination” (IX.32), a statement that was itself radical for the time.

0.  Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu II.301–302. Reference not given.