The Practitioner of Bhakti, the Bhakta

0.      There are twelve mahājanas, literally “great people,” or exemplar bhaktas enumerated in the Bhāgavata (VI.3.20–21). Prahlāda, in this verse, is in fact behaving as an exemplar—posing as an everyday person overwhelmed by mental defects—since his mind was actually always fixed on Viṣṇu and transcendent to the base qualities he mentions here.

0.      See XII.7 and XVIII.56, 58, 62.

0.      See II.45, and as early as Śvetāsvatara Upaniṣad (III.20).

0.      See also X.33.39.

0.      Compare this with kriyā yoga “weakening” the kleśas, rather than completely eradicating them (Yoga Sūtras II.2).

0.      See Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad VI.21; Mokṣadharma śānti parvan 250.10 and 306.19–22; Yoga Sūtras I.3, III.55, and IV.34; Gītā II.29, IX.1–2, and XI.54.

0.      Bhagavat-tattva-vijñāna.

0.      Daṇḍa-vat, like a stick, is full prostrations on the ground, with arms extended in front full length.

0.      Kaṭha Upaniṣad II.20.

0.    Jīva states that from the three sources of knowledge accepted by most schools (for example, Yoga Sūtras I.7; SāŽkhya Kārikā 4), the study of scripture removes the doubt about whether Truth can be realized; reason and argument, the doubts pertaining to opposing points of view; and personal experience, the doubt as to whether one is qualified to realize the Truth (anu 16).

0.    There are numerous verses in this regard: “Bondage cannot exist after seeing sādhus, who see everything with equanimity and whose selves are dedicated to Me [Kṛṣṇa], just as darkness cannot exist in the eyes of a person after seeing the sun” (X.10.41); and, again, “Let me always have the association of those great pure-hearted devotees, who are constantly immersed in devotion to You, O unlimited One. With this, I will become intoxicated with drinking the nectar of the narrations about You, and easily cross over the ocean of material existence, brimming with grave dangers” (IV.9.11).

0.    As Prahlāda noted earlier, Nārada is another of the twelve mahājanas, the only twelve beings who fully understand bhakti (VI.3.20–22).

0.    Ascetics eat one meal a day. Eating the remnants of their food, prasādam, is considered purifying, a reflection of the purity of saints.

0.    For example, the Mīmāṁsā tradition established that one can determine the primary intention behind a text, even if it appears to contain conflicting or contradictory passages, by considering six criteria of the text: its opening and closing statements; its repetition of a subject; extraordinary statements made in it; results to be attained promoted by it; its glorification of a subject; and logical argumentation undertaken by the text to support some conclusion. Of course, as an aside, such criteria did not prevent profound differences in interpretation and the subsequent formation of numerous Vedānta lineages, as we will see.

0.    Jīva here offers this Bhāgavata quote in support of those who experience spontaneous attraction: “From association with saints, realization of my power arises. These narratives of my activities become pleasing to the ears and the heart. By enjoying them, faith, love, and devotion quickly manifest consecutively on the path to liberation” (III.25.25). He contrasts this with the limitations of study: “Neither gods nor mortals, who have beginnings and ends, understand You, O most famous Lord. Considering this, those whose intelligence is pure abandon study of the Vedic texts” (VII.9.49).

0.    Termed sthita-dhī, or sthita-prajñā, in the second chapter of the Gītā.

0.    Arjuna’s question in the second chapter, using the language of the Vedānta philosophical tradition, is raised again in chapter 14, using the language of Sāṅkhya, with essentially the same response reworded accordingly.

0.    Rati-rasa.

0.    See also I.18.13.

0.    While this strikes us as a sexist comment in our modern day and age, as is the case with Gītā IX.32, we should remember that in Vedic orthopraxy, women were not allowed to study the sacred texts and could participate in Vedic rituals only in a secondary, passive role (Jamieson 1996), while laborers (śūdras) were barred from all such contexts. Likewise with formal lineage-embedded Vedānta study, traditionally an exclusive male preserve. Bhakti is thus an equalizer in gender as in social hierarchies and was socially revolutionary for its time (see Bhāgavata I.4.25 for an expression of this).

0.    See Haberman (1994) for a premodern example of scandal in the Krishna tradition.

0.    The yamas are listed and discussed in Yoga Sūtras II.30–45 as ahiṁsā, nonviolence; satya, truthfulness; brahmacarya, celibacy; asteya, nonstealing; and aprarigraha, noncoveting. The niyamas are listed as śauca, cleanliness; santośa, contentment; tapas, austerity; svādhyāya, study and mantra recitation; and Īśvara-praṇidhāna, surrender to Īśvara.

0.    Rūpa in verse 262 here is quoting the Skanda Purāṇa, reference not given.

0.    For a critique of the guru culture in a modern Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava expression, ISKCON (the Hare Krishna Movement), see relevant articles in Bryant and Ekstrand (2004). A few simple key word searches will bring up a plethora of scandals associated with numerous guru figures representing Eastern spirituality in the modern period.

0.    Sama-cittāḥ. Gītā II.48 defines yoga itself with a form of the same adjective used here: samatvam yogam ucyate, yoga is equanimity.

0.    Compare with Yoga Sūtras I.3.

0.    Compare with Gītā V.8–9.

0.    There are three types of karma accepted by the Yoga school: sañcita, already accumulated in the past and lying latent, awaiting its fructification in a future life; sañcīyamāna, ongoing (that is, being continuously accumulated in the present); and the type noted here, prārabdha. This latter category refers to karma that was activated at the moment of birth for this particular lifetime (the jāti, āyur, and bhoga, “family/species of birth, life span, and quality of life” of Yoga Sūtras I.13–14) and thus already set in motion. While the former two types of karma are annulled upon enlightenment, the prārabdha continues for the duration of that final life. In the Sāṅkhya Kārikā, the analogy of the potter’s wheel is used to illustrate this already activated karma: even when the potter takes his or her foot off the wheel, it will not immediately stop spinning owing to the kinetic energy already invested in it (LXVII). Likewise, if a person becomes enlightened in the middle of a lifetime, the remnant of the karma already accrued for that lifetime will still run its course.

0.    This is a reference to one of the implements Viṣṇu holds in His four arms, along with the conch shell, club, and lotus.

0.    Although often associated with Buddhism, these were generic: the Buddhist Saṁyutta Nikāya and Saṁyukta Āgama acknowledge that these were followed by non-Buddhist schools (Bronkhurst 1993, 93).

0.    This term was widely used by the ātman traditions before becoming associated in later times more exclusively with Buddhism (see, for instance, Gītā V.24–26 and VI.15).

0.    As a point of fact, as we will discuss later, the Sāṅkhya tradition posits bliss not as an attribute of the ātman, but as an absence of suffering (which might appear blissful to one newly released from pain). But here, too, it is the intellect that quibbles over such things.

0.    Although the Vedānta Sūtras limit this by noting that only Īśvara can create universes, the ātman cannot (IV.4.17); likewise, so do the Yoga Sūtras in the statement that Īśvara’s omniscience is unsurpassed (I.25). Thus, the liberated soul’s omnipotency and omniscience cannot surpass that of Īśvara.

0.    We will encounter several descriptions of these divine forms in part 2. For instance: “These attendants have brilliant dark hues, and lotus-petal eyes. They wear yellowish garments and have extremely attractive and beautiful forms. They are effulgent and decorated with the choicest ornaments and medallions of brilliant flawless gems. Their complexions are of coral, gems, or lotus fiber. They wear dazzling necklaces, crowns, and garlands.” (II.6.11)

0.    Jīva in Bhakti Sandarbha anu 234 and Rūpa in Eastern Quadrant II.55.

0.    Keeping in mind here that in Vaiṣṇavism the ātman is an eternal part, aṁśa, of the whole (Gītā XV.7 and references from the Vedānta Sūtras in I.4n81).

0.    As we touched upon earlier, this latter possibility was the liberation attained by some of Kṛṣṇa’s enemies in the tenth book. See, for instance, X.12.33, X.74–75, and X.78.9–10.

0.    For an example of this, see Mārkanḍadeva’s Śiva-jñāna-bodha XI; and Appayya Dīkṣita’s Śivādvaita-Nirṇaya 3.2355. See also Law and Palmer, 56.

0.    Nija-iṣṭa.

0.    Gopīparāṇadhana Dāsa (2002). This section of the text recounts the travels of Gopa-Kumāra through various realms of the universe and then beyond, into the transcendent realms within Brahman.

0.    For primary sources here, see the Devī Gītā, the Devī Bhāgavata, and the Devī Mahātmya; for secondary sources, Brooks (1990, 1992).

0.    See Gītā XII.1–4, XIV.27, XV.16–20.