1  The Limitless Forms of Kṛṣṇa

Fashioning Divine Bodies

In the Introduction I briefly surveyed some of the new forms of divine embodiment that emerged in the Indian religiocultural landscape with the rise of bhakti traditions in the period between 200 BCE and the early centuries of the Common Era. In this chapter I will focus on the ways in which these general trends find robust and particularized expression in the discourse of divine embodiment developed by early Gauḍīya authorities in the sixteenth century CE. The Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment celebrates the deity Kṛṣṇa as ananta-rūpa, “he who has endless forms,” his limitless forms encompassing and interweaving the various planes of existence. This discourse is delineated by Rūpa Gosvāmin in his Laghubhāgavatāmṛta and is systematically elaborated by Jīva Gosvāmin in his Bhagavat Sandarbha, Paramātma Sandarbha, and Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja encapsulates the key elements of the Gosvāmins’ formulations in his Caitanya Caritāmṛta. As mentioned in the Introduction, in addition to providing an elaborate theory of Kṛṣṇa’s divine forms on the transcosmic, macrocosmic, and microcosmic planes, the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment includes a number of “mesocosmic,” or intermediary, forms that serve as concrete means through which bhaktas can encounter and engage the concentrated presence of the supreme Godhead in localized forms in the gross material realm.

The Absolute Body and Its Endless Manifestations: The Gauḍīya Discourse of Divine Embodiment

In his recent study of Jīva Gosvāmin’s contributions to Indian philosophy, Ravi Gupta argues that Jīva, as one of the principal architects of the Gauḍīya theological edifice, helped to construct a distinct system of theology—Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta, or Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta—by bringing into dialogue “four powerful streams of classical Hinduism: (1) the various systems of Vedānta; (2) the ecstatic bhakti movements; (3) the Purāṇic commentarial tradition; and (4) the aesthetic theory of Sanskrit poetics.”¹ I would contend that this integrative tendency is particularly evident in the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, as articulated not only by Jīva Gosvāmin but also by Rūpa Gosvāmin and Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja. Moreover, I would argue that this integrative tendency is itself at times used in the service of a broader principle, which I term the principle of “superordination.” Through this principle the Gauḍīya authorities attenuate the challenges posed by competing traditions by selectively appropriating and accommodating elements of those traditions’ teachings and integrating them into an encompassing hierarchical system that ultimately serves to domesticate and subordinate the competition. In the following analysis we shall see how this principle of superordination is at work in the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, which constructs a number of hierarchical taxonomies that classify and rank the multifarious divine forms of Kṛṣṇa as ananta-rūpa. In delineating these taxonomies the Gauḍīyas appropriate and subordinate elements of the teachings propounded by competing philosophical schools and bhakti traditions and establish a multidimensional hierarchy of ontologies, paths, and goals in which their own distinctive form of embodied Kṛṣṇa bhakti is represented as the pinnacle of spiritual realization.

Bhagavān’s Absolute Body and Self-Referral Play

The most important of the Gauḍīya taxonomies involves a hierarchical assessment of the three aspects of the supreme Godhead, from lowest to highest: Brahman, Paramātman, and Bhagavān. As we shall see, in allotting the highest place in their ontological hierarchy to Bhagavān, who is represented as a personal Godhead endowed with an absolute body, infinite qualities, and innumerable śaktis (energies), the early Gauḍīya authorities engage in a polemic that challenges the contending ontologies of two rival philosophical schools: the monistic ontology of Advaita Vedānta, which identifies the ultimate reality with the impersonal, formless Brahman, and the dualistic ontology of Pātañjala Yoga, which posits a plurality of nonchanging, formless puruṣas as the highest reality.

Brahman, Paramātman, and Bhagavān

To provide a scriptural basis for their hierarchical assessment of the three aspects of the Godhead, the Gauḍīyas invoke Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.2.11 and interpret the order of terms in the verse as indicating increasing ontological importance: “The knowers of reality declare the ultimate reality to be that which is nondual knowledge. It is called Brahman, Paramātman, and Bhagavān.”² In Gauḍīya formulations these three aspects of the Godhead are associated with different dimensions of embodiment. Brahman, the lowest aspect of the Godhead, is the impersonal, formless, attributeless, and undifferentiated ground of existence that is beyond the material realm of prakṛti and is the radiant effulgence of the absolute body of Bhagavān. Paramātman, the intermediary aspect of the Godhead, is the indwelling Self, who on the macrocosmic level animates the innumerable universes, or cosmos bodies, and on the microcosmic level resides in the hearts of all jīvas, embodied beings. Bhagavān, the highest aspect of the Godhead, is transcosmic—beyond both the macrocosmos and the microcosmos—and is personal, endowed with an absolute body (vigraha), replete with infinite qualities (guṇas), and possessed of innumerable śaktis. Bhagavān is ascribed the status of the Godhead in his complete fullness (pūrṇa), who encompasses within himself Brahman and Paramātman and is at the same time beyond both.

In the first seven sections (anucchedas) of the Bhagavat Sandarbha, Jīva Gosvāmin introduces the three aspects of the Godhead, Brahman, Paramātman, and Bhagavān. He then provides an extended analysis of the nature of Bhagavān in the remaining sections of the Bhagavat Sandarbha and an extended analysis of the nature of Paramātman in the Paramātma Sandarbha. In a not-so-veiled critique of Advaitin claims regarding the ultimacy of Brahman, Jīva insists that it is not necessary to devote a separate Sandarbha to an analysis of Brahman because the Bhagavat Sandarbha, by providing a full explication of the nature of Bhagavān, simultaneously serves to clarify the nature of Brahman as an incomplete manifestation (asamyag-āvirbhāva) of Bhagavān.³ After expounding the three aspects of the Godhead in the Bhagavat Sandarbha and Paramātma Sandarbha, Jīva’s principal concern in the Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha is to establish Kṛṣṇa’s supreme status as pūrṇa Bhagavān, the full and complete Godhead. In this context he invokes the declaration in Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.3.28 that “Kṛṣṇa is Bhagavān himself (Bhagavān svayam)” as the mahā-vākya, authoritative scriptural utterance, that is the definitive statement of the entire Purāṇa. Moreover, he goes even further and argues that because the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is the “sovereign of all śāstras (scriptures),”⁴ the canonical authority of the Bhāgavata’s mahā-vākya is indisputable and establishes the supreme truth at the basis of all śāstras, to which all apparently contradictory scriptural statements must be reconciled.⁵

Bhagavān’s Self-Referral Play with His Śaktis

The Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment emphasizes that Bhagavān is śaktimat, the possessor of innumerable śaktis, energies or powers. The three principal types of śakti are the svarūpa-śakti, māyā-śakti, and jīva-śakti. The svarūpa-śakti operates on the transcosmic level as the śakti that is intrinsic (antar-aṅga) to Bhagavān’s essential nature (svarūpa), comprising three aspects: saṃdhinī-śakti, the power of sat, being; saṃvit-śakti, the power of cit, consciousness; and hlādinī-śakti, the power of ānanda, bliss. The māyā-śakti operates on the macrocosmic level as the śakti that is extrinsic (bahir-aṅga) to Bhagavān and that is responsible for manifesting and regulating the material realm of prakṛti and for subjecting jīvas, individual living beings, to the bondage of saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death. The jīva-śakti operates on the microcosmic level as the intermediary (taṭasthā, literally, “standing on the border”) śakti that constitutes jīvas as, on the one hand, an aṃśa, or part, of Bhagavān in the svarūpa-śakti and, on the other hand, subject to the binding influence of the māyā-śakti.

Jīva introduces the three principal types of śakti in the Bhagavat Sandarbha and then focuses on the svarūpa-śakti that is intrinsic to Bhagavān’s essential nature. In the Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha, after establishing that Kṛṣṇa is svayaṃ Bhagavān, he further explicates the svarūpa-śakti through an extended analysis of Kṛṣṇa’s essential nature (svarūpa), absolute body (vigraha), transcendent abode (dhāman), and eternal associates (parikaras or pārṣadas). He provides an analysis of the functions of the māyā-śakti and the jīva-śakti in relation to Paramātman in the Paramātma Sandarbha.

In his discussions of the three types of śakti, Jīva provides the earliest formulation of the distinctive ontology of the Gauḍīya Sampradāya in which the relationship between Bhagavān, as the śaktimat, and his śaktis is represented as acintya-bhedābheda, inconceivable difference-in-nondifference. The śaktis exist in an inconceivable (acintya) relationship to the śaktimat in which they are held to be aṃśas, parts, of Bhagavān that are simultaneously nondifferent (abheda) from him, partaking of his divine nature, and distinct (bheda) from him, as parts of his encompassing wholeness. S. K. De emphasizes the significance of this ontological formulation, which serves to distinguish the Gauḍīya Sampradāya from other Vaiṣṇava schools:

[T]he relation between the Śaktis and the Possessor of the Śaktis is represented as an incomprehensible (acintya) relation of sameness and difference (bhedābheda), the whole theory thus receiving the designation of Acintya-bhedābheda-vāda (incomprehensible dualistic monism), a peculiar point of view which distinguishes the Bengal school from other Vaiṣṇava schools by the qualifying word acintya which brings in a mystical attitude. It speaks of the inconceivable existence of distinction and non-distinction. The Śaktis are non-different from the Bhagavat, inasmuch as they are parts or Aṃśas of the divine being; but the very fact that they are parts only makes the superlativeness of divine attributes inapplicable to them, and there is thus an inevitable difference.⁶

The section of Jīva’s analysis that is critical to our understanding of the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment concerns the structures and dynamics of the svarūpa-śakti. The svarūpa-śakti, as explicated by Jīva, assumes two forms: the svarūpa, which is Bhagavān himself in his essential nature and absolute body; and the svarūpa-vaibhava, which includes his transcendent abode, dhāman, and his eternal associates, parikaras or pārṣadas. The svarūpa-śakti also includes Kṛṣṇa’s līlā, divine play, as svayaṃ Bhagavān, which is represented as the spontaneous expression of the hlādinī-śakti, the bliss that is intrinsic to Bhagavān’s essential nature. The transcendent dhāman is called Kṛṣṇaloka and is the domain where Kṛṣṇa engages eternally in his līlā. Kṛṣṇaloka is subdivided into three dhāmans. The innermost dhāman is the transcendent Vraja-dhāman, which is also called Goloka, Gokula, Vṛndāvana, or Goloka-Vṛndāvana and is the transcosmic prototype of the earthly region in North India that is variously designated as Vraja, Gokula, or Vṛndāvana. The two outer dhāmans of Kṛṣṇaloka are called Mathurā and Dvārakā and are the transcosmic prototypes of the earthly cities of Mathurā and Dvārakā. Building on Rūpa Gosvāmin’s formulations in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta, Jīva seeks to establish that Kṛṣṇa’s līlā, which is recorded in narrative form in the tenth book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, occurs on both the manifest (prakaṭa) and unmanifest (aprakaṭa) levels. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa portrays Kṛṣṇa as descending to the material realm and unfolding his līlā on earth at a particular time and place in history: in the terrestrial region of Vraja in North India at the end of Dvāpara Yuga in the current manvantara (interval of Manu) known as Vaivasvata Manvantara in approximately 3000 BCE.⁷ In a hermeneutical turn that is critical to the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, Jīva interprets this earthly līlā as the manifest counterpart of the unmanifest līlā that goes on eternally within Bhagavān in Kṛṣṇaloka beyond the material realm of prakṛti and beyond Brahman. He also ascribes an eternal status to the cowherds (gopas), cowmaidens (gopīs), and other companions of Kṛṣṇa who are the key characters in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s literary account of the divine drama in Vraja. Kṛṣṇa’s foster parents Nanda and Yaśodā, attendants, cowherd friends, and cowmaiden lovers are represented as his eternal associates, parikaras or pārṣadas, eternally perfect beings who participate in his essential nature as part of the svarūpa-śakti and engage with him eternally in the unmanifest līlā in his transcendent Vraja-dhāman.¹

Jīva is concerned to illumine more specifically the relationship between Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs, the cowmaidens of Vraja, portrayed in the rāsa-pāñcādhyāyī, chapters 29 to 33 of the tenth book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which celebrate in lavish detail Kṛṣṇa’s love-play with the gopīs, culminating in the rāsa-līlā, the circle dance of Kṛṣṇa with his cowmaiden lovers.⁹ Jīva argues that the gopīs are the eternal expressions of the hlādinī-śakti, the blissful aspect of the svarūpa-śakti. Among the gopīs, he identifies Rādhā with the anonymous gopī who is singled out for Kṛṣṇa’s special attention in Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.30.24–44, and he invests her with the highest ontological status as Kṛṣṇa’s eternal consort who is the quintessential expression of the hlādinī-śakti and consummate embodiment of Kṛṣṇa’s bliss, from whom the other gopīs emanate as manifestations of that bliss. The unmanifest līlā of Kṛṣṇa with Rādhā and the gopīs is thus interpreted in terms of the inner dynamics of the Godhead as self-referral play within Bhagavān in which he revels eternally with the blissful impulses of his own nature.

When Kṛṣṇa descends to earth at the end of Dvāpara Yuga, Rādhā and the gopīs and the other eternal associates are represented as descending with him to the terrestrial region of Vraja in North India, where he displays his manifest līlā. The līlā is thus understood as a process of self-disclosure through which Kṛṣṇa revels on the unmanifest plane in the rapturous delights of his own divine play and expresses himself on the manifest plane in a series of episodes that display different aspects of the divine nature.

While the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment centers on the svarūpa-śakti, the discourse of human embodiment centers on the jīva-śakti and the mechanisms of liberation from the binding influence of the māyā-śakti. The ultimate goal of human existence, as I will explore more fully in Chapter 2, is represented as the attainment of a state of realization in which the jīva is liberated from the bondage of the māyā-śakti and awakens to the reality of Kṛṣṇa as svayaṃ Bhagavān and to its true identity as an aṃśa of Bhagavān in the svarūpa-śakti. The jīva attains direct experiential realization of its eternal relationship with Bhagavān in acintya-bhedābheda, inconceivable difference-in-nondifference. Having cast off the last vestiges of bondage to material existence, the realized jīva reclaims its distinctive role in the transcendent Vraja-dhāman as a participant in the unmanifest līlā and enjoys the bliss of preman, all-consuming love for Kṛṣṇa, in the eternal embrace of the supreme Godhead.

The Absolute Body of Bhagavān beyond the Formless Brahman

One of the most striking claims of the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment is its insistence that—contrary to the ontologies of competing philosophical schools that claim that the ultimate reality in its essential nature is formless—the highest aspect of the Godhead, Bhagavān, is not without form (nirākāra) but rather is endowed with an absolute body with distinctive bodily features that is at the same time nonmaterial (aprākṛta), unmanifest (avyakta), eternal (nitya), and self-luminous (svaprakāśa). This absolute body is designated by the term vigraha. The early Gauḍīya authorities emphasize that Bhagavān’s vigraha, like his svarūpa, essential nature, consists of being (sat), consciousness (cit), and bliss (ānanda). Thus in Bhagavān there is no distinction between body and essence, vigraha and svarūpa, for the body (deha) and the possessor of the body (dehin) are nondifferent.¹⁰ Indeed, in the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, the term svarūpa is used at times to refer to Bhagavān’s essential nature and at other times to refer to his essential form, which in the final analysis are considered identical.

The Gauḍīyas assert the paradoxical notion that Bhagavān’s absolute body, in its svayaṃ-rūpa or svarūpa, essential form, is the two-armed form of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, who is extolled in the tenth book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as descending to earth and carrying out his līlā in the form of a gopa, cowherd boy, in the area of Vraja in North India. It is the beautiful youthful form (kiśora-mūrti) of the cowherd Kṛṣṇa—with its distinctive blue-black color, body marks, dress, ornaments, and characteristic emblems such as the flute—that is celebrated by the Gauḍīyas as the absolute body, vigraha, that exists eternally in the transcendent Vraja-dhāman, Goloka-Vṛndāvana. Rūpa Gosvāmin gives the following description of Kṛṣṇa’s svayaṃ-rūpa:

The sweet form (mūrti) of the enemy of Madhu [Kṛṣṇa] brings me intense joy. His neck has three lines like a conch, his clever eyes are charming like lotuses, his blue-black limbs are more resplendent than the tamāla tree,…his chest displays the Śrīvatsa mark, and his hands are marked with the discus, conch, and other emblems.… This lover has a beautiful body (aṅga) and is endowed with all auspicious marks, radiant, luminous, powerful, eternally young.¹¹

In the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta Rūpa invokes the canonical authority of the śāstras to establish that the two-armed youthful form of the cowherd Kṛṣṇa, which is unsurpassed in its beauty (lāvaṇya) and its sweetness (mādhurya), is the svayaṃ-rūpa, essential form, of the sat-cit-ānanda-vigraha, Bhagavān’s absolute body consisting of being, consciousness, and bliss. He maintains, moreover, that although the svayaṃ-rūpa is eternal (nitya), nonmaterial (aprākṛta), unmanifest (avyakta), and invisible (adṛśya), through his self-manifesting śakti (prakāśatva-śakti) Kṛṣṇa reveals his gopa form so that it can be directly “seen” (root dṛś) even today by realized bhaktas, just as it was previously “seen” (root dṛś) by Vyāsa, the acclaimed ṛṣi (seer) who recorded his cognitions of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa in the form of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.¹²

Jīva Gosvāmin provides an extended analysis of Bhagavān’s vigraha in the Bhagavat Sandarbha.¹³ He then provides a series of arguments in the Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha, building on Rūpa’s arguments in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta, to establish that the essential form, svayaṃ-rūpa or svarūpa, of the vigraha in the transcendent Vraja-dhāman is the two-armed youthful form of a cowherd boy, which Kṛṣṇa manifests on the material plane when he descends to earth in Dvāpara Yuga and withdraws from manifestation when he returns to his transcendent dhāman after his sojourn on earth is completed. In order to establish the primacy of the gopa form, he considers three potential candidates for the svayaṃ-rūpa: (1) Kṛṣṇa’s appearance in the shape of a human being (narākāra or narākṛti) with two arms (dvi-bhuja), which is the principal form that he manifests as Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, the cowherd of Vraja; (2) Kṛṣṇa’s manifestation in the shape of a human being (narākāra or narākṛti) with four arms (catur-bhuja), which is the form that he displays at times in Mathurā and Dvārakā in his role as Vāsudeva, the Yādava prince who is the son of Vasudeva and Devakī; and (3) Kṛṣṇa’s manifestation before the warrior Arjuna in the cosmic form of viśva-rūpa with a thousand arms (sahasra-bhuja), as recounted in chapter 11 of the Bhagavad-Gītā. Jīva establishes an ontological hierarchy among these forms of Kṛṣṇa based on a series of successive dichotomies. First, he distinguishes between narākāra, Kṛṣṇa’s manifestations in the shape of a human being, and the viśva-rūpa and argues that the svayaṃ-rūpa is narākāra, not the thousand-armed viśva-rūpa, which is a secondary manifestation of this essential form. Second, among the narākāra manifestations, Jīva distinguishes between Kṛṣṇa’s two-armed, or dvi-bhuja, form, and his four-armed, or catur-bhuja, form and maintains that the svayaṃ-rūpa is Kṛṣṇa’s dvi-bhuja form, which occasionally manifests a secondary form that is catur-bhuja. Finally, among Kṛṣṇa’s dvi-bhuja manifestations, Jīva argues that the svayaṃ-rūpa in its most full and complete (pūrṇa) expression is the cowherd form of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa in Vraja, which is characterized by mādhurya, divine sweetness, and he maintains that the princely form of Vāsudeva through which Kṛṣṇa expresses his aiśvarya, divine majesty, in Mathurā and Dvārakā is a secondary manifestation of this essential form.¹⁴

This ontological hierarchy is thus used to establish that the two-armed form of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa that is the object of worship of the Gauḍīyas is the supreme (para) form of the Godhead. This hierarchy serves as a critical component of the theology of superordination by relegating to its lower rungs not only the formless Brahman of Advaita Vedānta and the formless puruṣas of Pātañjala Yoga but also the four-armed forms of Viṣṇu, such as Vāsudeva and Nārāyaṇa, that are worshiped by rival Vaiṣṇava movements. Invoking the canonical authority of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Jīva points out that although Brahmā the creator had seen Kṛṣṇa’s four-armed aiśvarya form as Vāsudeva many times, it is Kṛṣṇa’s svayaṃ-rūpa as the two-armed narākāra form of a youthful gopa that Brahmā chooses to glorify in all its particularity:

Even though he [Brahmā] had seen (root dṛś) the catur-bhuja form many times, for the purpose of praise he focuses specifically on the [dvi-bhuja] narākāra: “Brahmā declared: I offer praise to you, O praiseworthy one, the son of a cowherd, whose body (vapus) is dark like a rain-cloud, whose garments are dazzling like lightning, whose face is resplendent with guñjā berry earrings and a crest of peacock feathers, who wears a garland of forest flowers and has soft feet, and whose beauty is adorned with a flute, horn, staff, morsel of food, and other emblems.”¹⁵

Having established the supreme (para) status of the two-armed gopa form as Kṛṣṇa’s svayaṃ-rūpa, essential form, Jīva advances another critical component of his argument: although the form in which Kṛṣṇa appears during his sojourn on earth has a human shape, narākāra, it is not an ordinary material human body (prākṛta-mānuṣa) composed of flesh (māṃsa) and material elements (bhūta-maya)¹⁶ but is rather an eternal (nitya or sanātana), nonmaterial (aprākṛta) absolute body consisting of sat-cit-ānanda, being, consciousness, and bliss.¹⁷ Among the arguments that he uses to establish the eternality (nityatva, avasthāyitva, or avyabhicāritva) of the narākāra,¹⁸ Jīva argues that Kṛṣṇa, who is unborn (aja) in his essential nature as svayaṃ Bhagavān,¹⁹ was not born on earth as the son of Vasudeva and Devakī through the material process of procreation like an ordinary child, but rather his vigraha first entered into the mind of Vasudeva and thereafter was deposited by Vasudeva in the mind of Devakī.

His [Kṛṣṇa’s] appearance (prādur-bhāva) in Vasudeva…did not involve entering his semen as in the ordinary material process (prākṛtavat) [of procreation]. Rather, it involved his [Kṛṣṇa’s] vigraha consisting of sat-cit-ānanda entering (āveśa) into his [Vasudeva’s] mind (manas). This is declared [in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa]: “Thereafter, just as the eastern quarter bears the bliss-bestowing moon, Devakī conceived in her mind the imperishable Lord, the Self of all, who had been deposited there by Vasudeva.…”²⁰

According to Jīva, when Kṛṣṇa descends from his transcendent Vraja-dhāman to earth in Dvāpara Yuga, he manifests his eternal vigraha on the material plane for the duration of his earthly sojourn, after which he withdraws the manifestation of his vigraha from the earth. Jīva insists that, unlike ordinary mortals, Kṛṣṇa does not assume a temporary material body and then cast it off at the end of his sojourn. Rather he “appears” (root bhū + prādur, root bhū + āvir, or root as + āvir) on earth, making his imperishable absolute body visible (root dṛś) on the material plane for a period of time, and then he “disappears” (root dhā + antar), concealing his vigraha.²¹

Jīva maintains that, although the svayaṃ-rūpa of the vigraha, the two-armed narākāra form of the gopa of Vṛndāvana, is no longer visible to those whose vision is bound by materiality (prākṛta-dṛṣṭi), Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body can be “seen” (root dṛś) by those sages who are endowed with special divine vision (divya-dṛṣṭi) that is invested with the śakti of Bhagavān. Indeed, one of the key strategies that Jīva deploys to establish the eternality of the narākāra is to invoke the canonical authority of the śāstras, which he argues preserve the record of the sages’ direct experiences (vidvad-anubhava-śabda-siddha) of Kṛṣṇa’s essential form as the gopa of Vṛndāvana. He claims that sages throughout the ages have attained by means of meditation (dhyāna) direct visionary experience (sākṣāt-kāra) of the eternal absolute body of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa in his transcendent Vraja-dhāman, Goloka-Vṛndāvana, and they have recorded their experiences in the śāstras as authoritative testimonies for future generations.²²

Among the śāstras that Jīva frequently cites is the Gopālatāpanī Upaniṣad, one of the post-Vedic Vaiṣṇava Upaniṣads, which the Gauḍīyas invest with the transcendent authority of śruti as the record of that which was “heard” (root śru) and “seen” (root dṛś) by the ancient ṛṣịs (seers) through direct experiential realization of the supreme Godhead, Gopāla Kṛṣṇa. He invokes in particular the following verse from the Gopālatāpanī Upaniṣad in order to provide a scriptural basis for his claim that the essential form of the eternal vigraha consisting of sat-cit-ānanda is the two-armed form of the cowherd of Vṛndāvana:

I, along with the Maruts, constantly seek to please with a most excellent hymn of praise the one and only Govinda, whose…vigraha consists of sat-cit-ānanda and who is seated beneath a devadāru tree in Vṛndāvana.²³

Jīva is concerned above all to ground his arguments in the canonical authority of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the sovereign of all śāstras, which, as I will discuss in Chapter 3, he reveres as the eternal (nitya) and uncreated (apauruṣeya) record of the cognitions of Vyāsa, the acclaimed ṛṣi of ṛṣis. He maintains that Vyāsa, while immersed in samādhi in the depths of meditation, “saw” (root dṛś) the absolute body of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa in his transcendent Vraja-dhāman beyond the material realm of prakṛti and then recorded his cognitions in the form of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the śruti pertaining to Kṛṣṇa.²⁴ He invokes a passage from the Padma Purāṇa in which Vyāsa describes his cognition of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa’s eternal vigraha:

I was thrilled with intense rapture upon seeing (root dṛś) Gopāla, adorned with all his ornaments, rejoicing in the embrace of the [cowherd] women, playing on his flute. Then svayaṃ Bhagavān, as he roamed about Vṛndāvana, said to me: “That which is seen by you is my eternal (sanātana) divine form (divya rūpa), my vigraha consisting of sat-cit-ānanda, which is undivided (niṣkala), nonactive (niṣkriya), and tranquil (śānta). There is nothing greater than this perfect (pūrṇa) lotus-eyed form of mine. The Vedas declare this to be the cause of all causes.”²⁵

Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, building on the arguments of Rūpa and Jīva, includes in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta a number of extended reflections on the svayaṃ-rūpa of Kṛṣṇa as the youthful cowherd boy whose body consists of sat-cit-ānanda.

Hear…a discussion of the svarūpa of Kṛṣṇa: the truth of knowledge of the non-dual is the son of Vrajendra [Kṛṣṇa] in Vraja. He is the beginning of all things, the container of all things, the crown of youth [kiśora]; his body [deha] is cit and ānanda, the refuge of all, the Lord of all.²⁶

As I will discuss in a later section, one of Kṛṣṇadāsa’s principal concerns is to establish that although the vigraha of Bhagavān remains one, he has the capacity to assume limitless (ananta) divine forms on the various planes of existence.²⁷

The Gauḍīya Challenge to Advaita Vedānta and Pātañjala Yoga

In the course of the six Sandarbhas, Jīva Gosvāmin provides a systematic philosophical exposition of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta in which he seeks to elucidate not only the nature of the ultimate reality (sambandha) but also the goal of human existence (prayojana) and the means to the goal (abhideya).²⁸ In the process he constructs an encompassing hierarchical taxonomy that provides a ranked assessment of the contending ontologies, paths, and goals promulgated by rival philosophical schools. In particular, by allotting the highest place in the Gauḍīya ontological hierarchy to Bhagavān, the transcosmic personal Godhead, and relegating Brahman and Paramātman to subordinate positions as partial aspects of Bhagavān, Jīva engages in a polemic that is aimed both implicitly and explicitly at challenging the ontologies, paths, and goals advocated by the exponents of Advaita Vedānta and Pātañjala Yoga. In the Caitanya Caritāmṛta Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja recasts this polemic in the form of explicit debates in which Caitanya is portrayed as disputing and refuting exponents of Advaita Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, Pātañjala Yoga, and other philosophical schools.

The philosophers and Mīmāṃsikas and followers of the Māyāvāda [Advaitins], and Sāṃkhyas and Pātañjalas, and followers of smṛti and the purāṇas and āgamas—all were vastly learned in their own śāstras. Prabhu [Caitanya] examined them critically and faulted the opinions of all of them. Everywhere Prabhu established the Vaiṣṇava doctrines, and no one was able to fault the doctrines of Prabhu. Being defeated one after the other, they accepted Prabhu’s opinions.²⁹

Among the contending philosophical schools, the early Gauḍīya authorities are above all concerned to position themselves in relation to their archrivals, the Advaitins, and in this context they display contrasting attitudes towards the divergent forms of Advaita Vedānta that they encounter in classical Advaitin texts and in the Indian landscape. On the one hand, they reject the radically nondualist form of classical Advaita Vedānta expounded by Śaṃkara (c. 788–820 CE), which fosters a monistic ontology along with the theory of māyā (illusion) and champions jñāna—and more specifically Brahma-vidyā, knowledge of Brahman—as a distinct path, the jñāna-mārga, that is the only efficacious path to realization. On the other hand, they were directly influenced by certain bhakti-inflected forms of Advaita Vedānta that began to circulate from the fourteenth century CE on. These bhakti-oriented Advaitins include Śrīdhara Svāmin (c. fourteenth to fifteenth century CE), the author of Bhāvārthadīpikā, the acclaimed commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, who promulgates in his commentary a theistic nondualism that provides, as Daniel Sheridan has emphasized, “a good illustration of the inclusivity and accommodation of the later Advaitins with respect to theistic bhakti.”³⁰ Śrīdhara’s bhakti-inflected Advaita appears to have influenced certain Advaitins of the Purī order, one of the ten orders of saṃnyāsins (renunciants) established by Śaṃkara, which is associated with the Śṛṅgerī Maṭha in South India. Among the most prominent of the Vaiṣṇava-oriented Advaitins of the Purī order who exerted a decisive influence on Caitanya and his followers are Viṣṇu Purī (c. fifteenth century CE), the compiler of the Bhaktiratnāvalī, an anthology of Sanskrit verses from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa that was translated into Bengali, and Mādhavendra Purī (c. 1420–1490 CE), the celebrated parama-guru, supreme guru, of Caitanya and of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava movement inspired by him.³¹

Caitanya was formally introduced to this Vaiṣṇava-oriented tradition of Advaitin renunciants by his two immediate gurus, who are both included among the disciples of Mādhavendra Purī: Īśvara Purī, Caitanya’s dīkṣā-guru from whom he received initiation into the Kṛṣṇa-mantra, and Keśava Bhāratī, his saṃnyāsa-guru from whom he received initiation into the Bhāratī order of Advaitin saṃnyāsins, which, like the Purī order, is associated with the Śṛṅgerī Maṭha in South India.³² Īśvara Purī is represented in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta as a favorite disciple of Mādhavendra Purī, who, as the guru of Caitanya’s guru, is revered as the parama-guru from whom the many-branched tree of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava bhakti first sprouted:

Glory to Śrī Mādhava Purī, the stream of Kṛṣṇa-prema; he was the first sprout of the wishing-tree of bhakti. The sprout was nourished, in the form of Śrī Īśvara Purī; Caitanya-mālī [the gardener] himself became the main trunk; that trunk is the basic source of all the branches.³³

Although an Advaitin saṃnyāsin, Mādhavendra Purī is portrayed in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta as the embodiment of ecstatic bhakti who eschews the radical nondualism of Śaṃkara and extols the glories of Kṛṣṇa-preman over the “dry jñāna” of Brahma-vidyā.³⁴ In addition to Mādhavendra Purī, whom Friedhelm Hardy argues was “the figure of central importance for the bhakti of Caitanya,”³⁵ Caitanya is represented as holding in high esteem another bhakti-oriented Advaitin saṃnyāsin, Śrīdhara Svāmin. Caitanya defends the authority of Śrīdhara’s interpretations of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and declares, “We know the Bhāgavata through the grace of Śrīdhara Svāmī; Śrīdhara Svāmī is the guru of the world, and I honor him as guru.”³⁶

Even though Caitanya is represented in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta as affiliated with certain devotionally-oriented Advaitin saṃnyāsins, both through his lineage of gurus and through his own initiation into the Bhāratī samṇyāsin order, at the same time he is portrayed as denouncing those Advaitins whom he deems “māyāvādins” and “dry jñānins” devoid of bhakti who perpetuate the radical nondualism of Śaṃkara. Caitanya’s refutation of Śaṃkara’s teachings is vividly framed in the form of a debate with a group of Advaitin saṃnyāsins in Vārāṇasī headed by Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī, a renowned scholar of Vedānta. Prakāśānanda criticizes Caitanya for abandoning his dharma as a saṃnyāsin and, instead of engaging in the study of Vedānta, wasting his time dancing and singing the name of Kṛṣṇa in the company of “emotionalists” (bhāvukas). Caitanya responds by refuting Śaṃkara’s interpretation of the Brahma-Sūtras, or Vedānta-Sūtras, in his Brahma-Sūtra Bhāṣya, which he claims neglects the primary meaning (mukhya-vṛtti), the most direct and obvious meaning, and gives precedence instead to the secondary meaning (gauṇa-vṛtti).

The Vedānta Sūtra is the word of Īśvara [the Lord], which Śrī Nārāyaṇa spoke when in the form of Vyāsa. Error, confusion, contradiction, want of skill—these faults are not present in the word of Īśvara. Together with the Upaniṣads the sūtra speaks the truth, and that meaning is of the greatest excellence and is easily perceived. But the Ācārya [Śaṃkara] made the bhāṣya [commentary] according to the secondary meaning, and by listening to him all things are destroyed.… [H]e expounded the secondary meaning, hiding the primary one. The chief meaning in the word brahma[n] is Bhagavān, made up of cit and divinity and none is equal or superior to him.³⁷

While Caitanya is thus represented as denouncing the radically nondualist form of Advaita Vedānta advanced by Śaṃkara, Jīva Gosvāmin’s relationship to Śaṃkara’s teachings is more complex. In constructing Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta as a distinct system of theology, Jīva builds upon, while at the same diverging from, the contending systems of Vedānta expounded by Śaṅkara and the founders of the other principal Vedānta schools, Rāmānuja and Madhva. As Gupta has emphasized, Jīva is “heavily indebted to earlier teachers for his understanding of the Brahma-sūtra—specifically, Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara Svāmī, Madhva, and Śaṅkara,” and he “possesses an intimate working knowledge of his sources,” including Śaṃkara’s Brahma-Sūtra Bhāṣya.³⁸ He is particularly indebted to Śrīdhara Svāmin, whose commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa he frequently invokes, citing with approval his interpretations that “accord with pure Vaiṣṇava principles” while jettisoning any comments that promote a strictly monistic Advaitin ontology.³⁹ Jīva also selectively invokes Śaṃkara’s commentary on the Brahma-Sūtras, deploying at times his terminology, hermeneutical strategies, and modes of argumentation to support his own interpretations of the Brahma-Sūtras and to buttress his own arguments regarding such issues as the uncreated (apauruṣeya) and eternal (nitya) status of the Vedas.⁴⁰ At the same time, however, as I will discuss in the following sections, he rejects Śaṃkara’s ontological claims regarding the nature of the ultimate reality as well as his assertions regarding the goal of human existence and the most expedient path to the realization of the goal.

Contending Ontologies

The early Gauḍīya authorities deploy a series of arguments to challenge the monistic ontology of Advaita Vedānta and the dualistic ontology of Pātañjala Yoga, whose positions I discussed briefly in the Introduction.⁴¹

Classical Advaita Vedānta, as expounded by Śaṃkara, is based on a monistic ontology that identifies the ultimate reality with Brahman, an impersonal unitary reality that in its essential nature is nirguṇa, completely devoid of attributes, and as such is described as undifferentiated (nirviśeṣa), nonactive (niṣkriya), and formless (nirākāra). In refutation of the Advaitins’ characterizations of the ultimate reality, the early Gauḍīya authorities assert that, on the contrary, the highest aspect of the Godhead is personal, replete with infinite qualities (saguṇa), differentiated (saviśeṣa), possessed of innumerable śaktis (śaktimat), and endowed with an absolute body (vigraha) that is nonmaterial (aprākṛta). Moreover, in opposition to the Advaitin ontological hierarchy in which the personal God is identified with saguṇa Brahman and is associated with the domain of māyā as a lower manifestation of the impersonal nirguṇa Brahman, the Gauḍīyas maintain that the impersonal Brahman is itself subsumed within the supreme personal Godhead as an incomplete manifestation (asamyag-āvirbhāva) of Bhagavān. In the Gauḍīya perspective Brahman is simply the effulgence that shines forth from the self-luminous absolute body of Bhagavān (tanu-bhā or aṅga-prabhā). Moreover, they assert that the joy that arises from realization of the impersonal, formless Brahman is as insignificant as a tiny puddle of water contained in a cow’s hoofprint when compared to the pure ocean of bliss (āhlāda-viśuddhābdhi) that arises from direct visionary experience (sākṣāt-kāra) of Bhagavān’s absolute body.⁴² In addition to countering Advaitin perspectives on the nature of the ultimate reality, the early Gauḍīya authorities also develop arguments to refute their doctrines of māyā and ignorance (avidyā) and their claims regarding the identity of the jīva with Brahman.⁴³

The early Gauḍīya authorities also provide a critical assessment of the dualistic ontology advanced by the advocates of Pātañjala Yoga, which builds upon the ontology and epistemology of Sāṃkhya. In their hierarchical assessment of contending ontologies, the Gauḍīyas allot a higher place to the dualistic ontology of Pātañjala Yoga than to the monistic ontology of Advaita Vedānta. In the Gauḍīya perspective the Pātañjala Yoga goal of kaivalya, in which the yogin awakens to the reality of the nonchanging Self, puruṣa, as distinct from prakṛti and from other puruṣas, is a higher state of realization than the Advaitin goal of mokṣa, in which the jīvanmukta awakens to the reality of the universal Self, Ātman, as identical with the distinctionless unitary reality, Brahman. The Gauḍīyas understand the Pātañjala Yoga goal of realization of puruṣa as pointing to the realization of saviśeṣa (differentiated) Paramātman, which they assert is a higher state than the realization of nirviśeṣa (undifferentiated) Brahman. However, while the advocates of Pātañjala Yoga are viewed as avoiding the Advaitin extreme of absolute unity, they are critiqued for indulging in the opposite extreme of absolute separation. While they are applauded for maintaining the distinctions among the plurality of puruṣas—which the Gauḍīyas term jīvas—they are chided for failing to recognize that the individual jīvas are themselves parts (aṃśas) of a greater all-encompassing totality: Bhagavān, who is Puruṣottama, the supreme Puruṣa, and who subsumes within himself both saviśeṣa Paramātman and nirviśeṣa Brahman as partial aspects of his totality.

Contending Paths

The Gauḍīya critiques of Advaita Vedānta and Pātañjala Yoga are articulated as a contestation among paths (mārgas) to realization in which the bhakti-mārga, the path of devotion, emerges victorious as the supreme path that surpasses both the jñāna-mārga, the path of knowledge advocated by the Advaitins, and the yoga-mārga, the path of yoga advocated by the exponents of Pātañjala Yoga. The Gauḍīyas maintain that although those who follow the jñāna-mārga may realize their identity with nirviśeṣa Brahman, the lowest aspect of Kṛṣṇa, and those who follow the yoga-mārga may experience saviśeṣa Paramātman, the intermediary aspect of Kṛṣṇa, neither the jñānin nor the yogin realizes the highest aspect of Kṛṣṇa as Bhagavān, the supreme personal Godhead, who is attained through the bhakti-mārga alone.⁴⁴ Invoking the canonical authority of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Gauḍīyas declare that jñāna and yoga, when devoid of bhakti, are barren paths that cannot yield the highest fruit of realization in which one awakens to Kṛṣṇa as svayaṃ Bhagavān.

The śāstras say: abandon karma and jñāna and yoga. Kṛṣṇa is controlled by bhakti, and by bhakti he should be worshiped.… “Only that very powerful bhakti toward me [Kṛṣṇa] is able to compel me; I am not [compelled by] yoga, sāṃkhya, dharma, Vedic study, tapas,⁴⁵ or renunciation.”⁴⁶

The Gauḍīyas’ hierarchical analysis provides a striking example of what I term the theology of superordination in that, in contrast to a theology of supersessionism, the Gauḍīyas do not claim to exclude or replace the contending models of realization propounded by the exponents of Advaita Vedānta and Pātañjala Yoga, but rather they posit a model of realization that incorporates and domesticates the Advaitin and Pātañjala Yoga models by recasting them as lower levels of realization of their own all-encompassing Godhead.

Contending Goals

The Gauḍīya critiques of Advaita Vedānta and Pātañjala Yoga thus encompass not only the nature of their respective paths but also their formulations of the goal of human existence. For the Gauḍīyas acintya-bhedābheda, inconceivable difference-in-nondifference, is not simply an abstract ontological formulation but is the highest goal of realization in which the jīva awakens to the reality of its union-in-difference with Bhagavān. As part of their theology of superordination they relegate to subordinate positions as lower levels of realization both the goal of absolute unity or identity with Brahman advanced by the Advaitins and the goal of absolute separation or isolation (kaivalya) advanced by the exponents of Pātañjala Yoga. In this context they provide a critique of the formulations of liberation, mokṣa or mukti, propounded by both schools.

The Gauḍīyas’ critical assessment of mukti includes an analysis of five types of liberation, which they recast from a theistic perspective as five modes of realization of the deity: sālokya, in which one resides in the world (loka) of the deity; sārṣṭi, in which one enjoys the powers of the deity; sāmīpya, in which one lives near the deity; sārūpya, in which one assumes a form (rūpa) like that of the deity; and sāyujya, in which one attains undifferentiated unity with the deity. Invoking the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as their scriptural authority, the Gauḍīyas reject all five types of mukti—sālokya, sārṣṭi, sāmīpya, sārūpya, and sāyujya—and assert that true bhaktas do not desire any form of liberation but rather cherish bhakti, selfless devotion to Kṛṣṇa, as the highest end of human existence.

The distinguishing characteristic of unqualified bhakti-yoga is declared to be that devotion (bhakti) to the supreme Puruṣa [Kṛṣṇa] which is without motive and ceaseless. Even if sālokya, sārṣṭi, sāmīpya, sārūpya, and ekatva (unity) are offered, devotees do not accept anything except worship (sevana) of me. This very thing called bhakti-yoga is declared to be the highest end.⁴⁷

Among the various types of mukti, the Gauḍīyas disparage in particular sāyujya, or ekatva, for they consider it to be synonymous with the Advaitin goal of absolute unity in which the realized sage merges with the impersonal Brahman like a drop merging with the ocean.⁴⁸ In the Gauḍīya hierarchy of models of realization, the ultimate goal is not nonduality but rather union-in-difference in which some distinction between the subject (āśraya) and the divine object of devotion (viṣaya) is maintained so that the bhakta can enjoy eternally the bliss of preman, the fully mature state of supreme love for Kṛṣṇa. Having realized its true identity as an aṃśa of the supreme Godhead, the jīva savors the exhilarating sweetness of preman in eternal relationship with Bhagavān. Consistent with the principle of superordination, the Gauḍīyas assert that the realized bhakta who has attained Kṛṣṇa-preman is the “crest-jewel of muktas,”⁴⁹ for although liberation is not the goal of the bhakta, it is the natural byproduct of the perfected state of preman.

Ananta-Rūpa: The Limitless Forms of the Absolute Body

The Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, by providing a hierarchical assessment of the Godhead that relegates Brahman and Paramātman to subordinate positions as partial aspects of Bhagavān, thus serves to domesticate and subordinate the ontologies, paths, and goals of two competing philosophical schools, Advaita Vedānta and Pātañjala Yoga. The principle of superordination is also at work in a related Gauḍīya taxonomy, which provides a hierarchical assessment of the multifarious divine forms of Kṛṣṇa that accommodates and subordinates the contending notions of divinity promulgated by rival Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva bhakti movements.

The starting-point for Gauḍīya reflections on the divine forms is the notion that Kṛṣṇa, while maintaining the integrity of his vigraha, absolute body simultaneously assumes innumerable forms (sarva-rūpa-svabhāvatva) on the transcosmic, macrocosmic, and microcosmic planes of existence. Kṛṣṇa has only one vigraha, but the absolute body assumes a limitless (ananta) array of divine forms, termed rūpas, which all participate to a greater or lesser degree in the svarūpa, Kṛṣṇa’s essential form.⁵⁰ These divine forms are classified and ranked in a hierarchical taxonomy that distinguishes three principal categories of rūpas: prakāśas, vilāsas, and avatāras. As we shall see, prakāśa, vilāsa, and avatāra are the key terms in the complex technical vocabulary that is used to designate distinct classes of divine manifestations.

The basic categories of this hierarchical taxonomy of divine forms are delineated by Rūpa Gosvāmin in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta. Jīva Gosvāmin provides philosophical arguments to support the taxonomy in the Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha. In the Caitanya Caritāmṛta Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja expands on Rūpa’s taxonomy and seeks to provide an encompassing analytical framework that systematically and precisely defines the distinctive characteristics of each category of divine forms and its relationship to other categories. In the course of elaborating this taxonomy, the early Gauḍīya authorities selectively appropriate and recast a variety of Vaiṣṇava traditions, including the Pāñcarātra theory of vyūhas, divine emanations, which posits four principal vyūhas of the supreme Godhead, who is referred to as Nārāyaṇa or Viṣṇu: Vāsudeva, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha.⁵¹ The Gauḍīyas also reimagine Purāṇic theories of creation, cycles of time, and avatāra.⁵² In this section I will focus on Rūpa’s formulation of the taxonomy of divine forms in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta and on Kṛṣṇadāsa’s adaptation and expansion of Rūpa’s categories in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta.

The Source and Container of Avatāras

In their recasting of Purāṇic theories of avatāra the early Gauḍīya authorities emphasize that Kṛṣṇa, as svayaṃ Bhagavān, is not himself an avatāra, but rather he is the avatārin who is the source and container of all avatāras, descending to the material realm periodically and assuming a variety of forms in different cosmic cycles.⁵³ They provide scriptural evidence to ground this claim by invoking the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s account of twenty-two avatāras, which culminates in the mahā-vākya that “Kṛṣṇa is Bhagavān svayam”:

O brahmins, the avatāras of Hari, who is the ocean of being, are countless, like thousands of streams flowing from an inexhaustible lake.… All these are portions (aṃśas) or fractions of portions (kalās) of the supreme Person, but Kṛṣṇa is Bhagavān himself (Bhagavān svayam).⁵⁴

Building on the language and imagery of the Bhāgavata, the Gauḍīyas maintain that Kṛṣṇa, the inexhaustible plenitude of being, sends forth an endless stream of avatāras, which are partial manifestations—whether aṃśas, portions, or kalās, fractions of portions—of his absolute body consisting of sat-cit-ānanda.

Kṛṣṇa is the highest Īśvara, svayaṃ bhagavān, the container of avatāras, and the chief cause of everything. The infinite Vaikuṇṭha and the infinite avatāras, the infinite Brahmā-worlds—he is the receptacle of all of these. He is Vrajendranandana [the son of Nanda the lord of Vraja], whose body is sat, cit, and ānanda; he possesses all majesty, all śaktis, and is full of all rasa.⁵⁵

The Paradigmatic Vigraha and Its Manifold Bodily Forms

In the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, the paradigmatic body is the svayaṃ-rūpa, the essential form of the vigraha, which is distinguished by a number of bodily features and marks. Bhagavān’s svayaṃ-rūpa is that of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, who has the form of a cowherd boy (gopa-mūrti), with two arms (dvi-bhuja), eyes like lotuses (ambujākṣa), and a dark blue-black (śyāma) complexion the color of a rain-cloud. Gopāla Kṛṣṇa has distinctive body marks such as the Śrīvatsa mark on his chest and sixteen marks on his feet, wears yellow garments and a crest of peacock feathers on his head, is adorned with a garland of forest flowers and jeweled ornaments, and carries a flute (veṇu, vaṃśī, or muralī) as his most characteristic emblem. He is celebrated for the extraordinary beauty (saundarya or lāvaṇya) and sweetness (mādhurya) of his eternally youthful (kiśora) absolute body.

Kṛṣṇa is represented as the polymorphous Godhead who, while maintaining the integrity of his absolute body, multiplies himself and assumes an innumerable array of bodies in order to fulfill particular functions on the transcosmic, macrocosmic, and microcosmic planes. The Gauḍīyas maintain that these bodies, as aṃśas or kalās of Kṛṣṇa’s svayaṃ-rūpa, are not part of the material realm of prakṛti where the māyā-śakti reigns, but rather, like the svayaṃ-rūpa, they are nonmaterial (aprākṛta) and consist of sat-cit-ānanda. In the Gauḍīya taxonomy of divine forms, as we shall see, these bodies are classified in a complex multi-tiered schema with attention to the bodily features of each category and are ranked according to the extent to which these features conform to or diverge from the paradigmatic svayaṃ-rūpa. In this taxonomy Kṛṣṇa is represented as “appearing in” (root bhū + prādur, root bhū + āvir, root as + āvir, or root vyañj) or “assuming” (root dhṛ, root bhṛ, or root grah) or “entering” (root viś + ā) different types of bodies, which are variously termed mūrti, vapus, tanu, or deha. The range of corporeal forms includes not only the bodies of deities but also human bodies, animal bodies, and a variety of hybrid forms, such as half-human/half-animal bodies and semidivine forms. These bodily forms of Kṛṣṇa are distinguished according to their age (vayas), ranging from perpetual five-year-olds to the grandfather of the gods, and according to their color (varṇa), whether black, blue-black, green, golden, tawny, rose, red, or white. They are further distinguished by their number of heads (mukhas or śīrṣas), ranging from a single head to four or five heads to a thousand heads, and by their number of arms (bhujas or bāhus), which can range from two to four to a thousand. The other characteristics that distinguish Kṛṣṇa’s various bodily forms include specific body marks (aṅkas), modes of dress (veśa), ornaments (bhūṣaṇas) and embellishments (upāṅgas), weapons (astras), and other emblems (lakṣaṇas).

Divine Bodies and Space

In addition to their bodily features, a second factor that distinguishes Kṛṣṇa’s divine forms is their relationship to space as delineated in Gauḍīya cosmography, which maps the location and configuration of their respective abodes and spheres of influence. In this section I will provide a brief overview of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s representations of this cosmography in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta, in which he expands on Rūpa Gosvāmin’s reflections in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta. Later, in Chapter 5, I will examine the framework for Gauḍīya cosmography that is delineated by Rūpa in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta and elaborated on by Jīva Gosvāmin in the Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha, in which the Gosvāmins are concerned in particular with developing an ontology of the dhāmans (abodes) of Kṛṣṇa.

Gauḍīya cosmography, as represented by Kṛṣṇadāsa, appropriates and adapts certain aspects of Purāṇic cosmographies, particularly as elaborated in the Uttara Khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa, and is divided into three principal domains. Two of these domains—Kṛṣṇaloka and Paravyoman—are transcendent (parama), eternal (nitya), and nonmaterial (aprākṛta) manifestations of the svarūpa-śakti. Although spatial language and imagery are used at times to represent Kṛṣṇaloka as a transcendent space, both Kṛṣṇaloka and Paravyoman are considered beyond the material space-time continuum of prakṛti and beyond Brahman. The third domain is the material realm of prakṛti where jīvas dwell, which is delimited by the finite boundaries of time and space and governed by the māyā-śakti.⁵⁶

The center of Gauḍīya cosmography is Kṛṣṇaloka, the transcendent dhāman where Kṛṣṇa engages eternally in his unmanifest (aprakaṭa) līlā as svayaṃ Bhagavān. As mentioned earlier, Kṛṣṇaloka is subdivided into three dhāmans: the innermost dhāman of Goloka-Vṛndāvana, the transcendent Vraja, and the outer dhāmans of Mathurā and Dvārakā. According to this hierarchical cosmography, Kṛṣṇa manifests himself “most fully” (pūrṇatama) in Goloka-Vṛndāvana, where he engages in līlā that is characterized by mādhurya, divine sweetness; he manifests himself “more fully” (pūrṇatara) in Mathurā, where he engages in līlā that is characterized by a mixture of mādhurya and aiśvarya, divine majesty; and he manifests himself “fully” (pūrṇa) in Dvārakā, where he engages in līlā in which aiśvarya predominates.⁵⁷ Whereas in Goloka-Vṛndāvana he resides eternally in his svayaṃ-rūpa, his most full and complete form as Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, in Mathurā and Dvārakā he appears in four divine manifestations known as the ādi catur-vyūhas, which, as I will discuss later, are classified in the taxonomy of divine forms as prābhava-vilāsas. Kṛṣṇadāsa emphasizes that while Goloka-Vṛndāvana, Mathurā, and Dvārakā exist beyond the material space-time continuum as the transcendent (parama), infinite (ananta), and eternal (nitya) abodes of Kṛṣṇa’s unmanifest līlā, they appear within the circumscribed boundaries of space and time when Kṛṣṇa descends to the material realm and engages in his manifest līlā.⁵⁸ More specifically, the earthly region of Vraja in North India is understood to be the immanent counterpart of Kṛṣṇa’s transcendent Vraja-dhāman, Goloka-Vṛndāvana, and the site where he manifests his svayaṃ-rūpa, his two-armed form as a cowherd boy, in the material realm and displays his manifest līlā.

In Gauḍīya cosmography, as articulated by Kṛṣṇadāsa, Kṛṣṇaloka is surrounded by Paravyoman (or Paramavyoman), the transcendent domain beyond vyoman, the subtle element of space that is the finest level of objective material existence. Paravyoman is presided over by Kṛṣṇa in his four-armed form as Nārāyaṇa and is the domain of Kṛṣṇa’s innumerable divine rūpas that are classified in the taxonomy as vaibhava-vilāsas and avatāras, each of which has his own abode, or Vaikuṇṭha. The transcendent domains of Kṛṣṇaloka and Paravyoman are at times represented as a lotus-maṇḍala in which Kṛṣṇaloka is the pericarp (karṇikāra), the seed-vessel in the center of a lotus, and the Vaikuṇṭhas of Paravyoman are the countless petals that encircle the pericarp.⁵⁹ Paravyoman is in turn encircled by a luminous ring of light, which is the undifferentiated effulgence of Brahman that shines forth from Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body and which is called siddha-loka because it is the abode of those who have attained sāyujya and merged with Brahman.⁶⁰ Encircling the effulgence of Brahman is the endless ocean of causality, kāraṇābdhi or kāraṇārṇava, which is also known as Virajā and which is made of consciousness (cit) and acts as a moat separating Paravyoman from the material realm of prakṛti that is governed by the māyā-śakti. The material realm comprises limitless Brahmā-universes (brahmāṇḍas, literally, “Brahmā-eggs”), which are depicted as floating on the ocean of causality in the form of cosmic eggs, each of which contains its own Brahmā the creator.⁶¹ These Brahmā-universes each contain a hierarchy of fourteen material worlds (lokas or bhuvanas), with the earth, bhūr-loka, in the middle and six higher worlds above the earth and seven lower worlds beneath the earth.⁶² As we shall see, the avatāras of Kṛṣṇa are represented as descending periodically from their eternal abodes in Paravyoman to the material realm of the Brahmā-universes in order to fulfill specific cosmic functions.

Divine Bodies and Time

In addition to their bodily features and relationship to space, a third factor that distinguishes Kṛṣṇa’s divine forms is their relationship to time. The avatāras’ descent into the material realm of prakṛti is a descent into the material space-time continuum, and the various classes of avatāras are associated with different cycles of time. The early Gauḍīya authorities appropriate in this context Purāṇic cosmogonic conceptions in which creation occurs in endlessly repeating cycles of creation and dissolution. Purāṇic cosmogonies distinguish four basic units of time that compose these cycles: yugas, mahā-yugas, manvantaras, and kalpas. A mahā-yuga is a cycle of four yugas, or ages—Satya or Kṛta Yuga (1,728,000 years), Tretā Yuga (1,296,000 years), Dvāpara Yuga (864,000 years), and Kali Yuga (432,000 years)—comprising a total of 4,320,000 years. One thousand mahā-yugas (4,320,000,000 years) constitute a kalpa, a single day of the creator Brahmā. Every kalpa, or day of Brahmā, is also subdivided into fourteen manvantaras, or intervals of Manu, each comprising seventy-one and a fraction mahā-yugas. In Purāṇic cosmogonies these units of time are incorporated in a more encompassing framework that distinguishes between sargas, primary creations, and pratisargas, secondary creations. A sarga occurs at the beginning of each new lifetime of Brahmā, whereas a pratisarga occurs at the beginning of each new day in the life of Brahmā, or kalpa. At the end of each kalpa Brahmā sleeps for a night and a minor dissolution (pralaya) occurs, after which Brahmā awakens and initiates a new pratisarga. At the end of Brahmā’s lifetime, which consists of one hundred years of Brahmā days and nights, a major dissolution (mahā-pralaya) occurs, after which a new sarga begins As we shall see, the Gauḍīya taxonomy of divine forms correlates the five principal classes of avatāras with these Purāṇic cycles of time: the puruṣa-avatāras are ascribed a critical role in the sargas and pratisargas; the guṇa-avatāras, in the pratisargas; the līlā-avatāras, in the kalpas; the manvantara-avatāras, in the manvantaras; and the yuga-avatāras, in the yugas.

Taxonomy of Kṛṣṇa’s Divine Forms

I shall turn now to an analysis of the Gauḍīya classificatory system, focusing in particular on the ornate hierarchical taxonomy delineated by Kṛṣṇadāsa in Caitanya Caritāmṛta 2.20 and 1.5, which expands on and adapts the categories presented by Rūpa in the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta. This system, as delineated by both Rūpa and Kṛṣṇadāsa, distinguishes three encompassing categories of Kṛṣṇa’s rūpas—svayaṃ-rūpa, tadekātma-rūpa, and āveśa-rūpa—each of which is further divided and subdivided into a series of subsidiary categories.⁶³ An overview of this classificatory system is provided in Figure 2.

1  Svayaṃ-Rūpa. Rūpa defines svayaṃ-rūpa as “that rūpa which is not dependent on anything else (ananyāpekṣin).”⁶⁴ He identifies the svayaṃ-rūpa with Kṛṣṇa’s gopa form as Govinda, the keeper of cows, whose absolute body (vigraha) is described in Brahma Saṃhitā 5.1 as consisting of sat-cit-ānanda: “Kṛṣṇa is the supreme Īśvara, Govinda, whose body (vigraha) consists of sat, cit, and ānanda, who is beginningless yet the beginning of all, the cause of all causes.”⁶⁵ Kṛṣṇadāsa, building on Rūpa’s identification of the svayaṃ-rūpa with the vigraha, emphasizes the singular nature of Kṛṣṇa’s perfect form as a gopa, a two-armed flute-playing cowherd boy, who revels eternally in mādhurya, the sweetness of his unmanifest līlā in Goloka-Vṛndāvana, the transcendent Vraja-dhāman. He maintains, moreover, that the svayaṃ-rūpa appears in two forms: as the svayaṃ-rūpa itself and as prakāśa.⁶⁶

1.1  Svayaṃ-Rūpa. The svayaṃ-rūpa itself is one (eka) and undivided: Kṛṣṇa in the form of a gopa (gopa-mūrti) in Vraja.⁶⁷

1.2  Prakāśa. Prakāśa is a manifestation of the svayaṃ-rūpa that is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa’s essential form. Kṛṣṇadāsa further subdivides prakāśa into two categories: prābhava-prakāśa and vaibhava-prakāśa.

1.2.1  Prābhava-Prakāśa. Kṛṣṇadāsa’s understanding of prābhava-prakāśa draws on Rūpa’s definition of prakāśa, although Rūpa himself does not classify prakāśa as a subdivision of svayaṃ-rūpa: “The manifestation (prakaṭatā) of one body in many places at the same time, identical with the svarūpa in every respect, is called prakāśa.”⁶⁸ Prābhava-prakāśa, in Kṛṣṇadāsa’s formulation, is when the one vigraha appears in many forms (rūpas) in many places simultaneously and there is no difference between the many forms and the svayaṃ-rūpa. The paradigmatic example of prābhava-prakāśa is Kṛṣṇa’s performance of the rāsa-līlā, the circle dance with the gopīs, the cowmaidens of Vraja, in which he multiplies himself and assumes a separate form for each gopī, and each form is equally real and nondifferent from the svayaṃ-rūpa.⁶⁹

1.2.2  Vaibhava-Prakāśa. Vaibhava-prakāśa is when the one vigraha, without changing its essential bodily shape (mūrti), manifests forms that are assigned different names due to differences in sentiment (bhāva), color (varṇa), or other features. When Kṛṣṇa, without abandoning his svayaṃ-rūpa, manifests temporarily a four-armed (catur-bhuja) form characterized by aiśvarya in his kṣatriya-bhāva (royal mode) as Vāsudeva, the Yādava prince who is the son of Vasudeva and Devakī, this four-armed form is an example of vaibhava-prakāśa. Balarāma, who appears as Kṛṣṇa’s cowherd brother in Vraja, is also considered a vaibhava-prakāśa because his form is the same as Kṛṣṇa’s svayaṃ-rūpa in every respect except for the color of his complexion, which is white rather than blue-black.⁷⁰

2  Tadekātma-Rūpa. Tadekātma-rūpa is the second of the three encompassing categories into which Rūpa divides Kṛṣṇa’s forms (see Figure 2). Rūpa uses the term tadekātma-rūpa to designate divine manifestations of the vigraha that are different in shape (ākṛti) and other features from the svayaṃ-rūpa.⁷¹ Kṛṣṇadāsa expands on this definition: “That body [vapu] takes different forms, and has different reflections; and the name of it when different in sentiment [bhāva], emotion [āveśa], and shape [ākṛti] is tadekātma-rūpa.”⁷² Kṛṣṇadāsa follows Rūpa in subdividing tadekātma-rūpa into two categories: vilāsa, a category of divine manifestations; and svāṃśa, a category of divine forms that comprises five different classes of avatāras.⁷³ As we shall see, this taxonomy reverses the hierarchy in the prevailing Vaiṣṇava paradigm—in which Kṛṣṇa is represented as simply one among many avatāras sent forth by the avatārin Viṣṇu—by asserting that Kṛṣṇa himself is the avatārin who is the source of all avatāras and the source of all vilāsas, including Viṣṇu in all of his manifestations.

Figure 2 Taxonomy of Kṛṣṇa’s Divine Forms.

2.1  Vilāsa. A vilāsa is a divine manifestation of the vigraha that is distinguished from the svayaṃ-rūpa primarily by a difference in bodily shape (ākāra). Rūpa provides the following definition of vilāsa: “When [Kṛṣṇa’s] svarūpa, by means of his śakti, appears for the sake of līlā in another shape (ākāra) that is for the most part the same as the [absolute] body, it is called vilāsa.”⁷⁴ While Kṛṣṇadāsa initially follows Rūpa in highlighting difference in shape (ākāra) as the distinguishing mark of a vilāsa,⁷⁵ he goes beyond Rūpa in highlighting a number of additional bodily features that differentiate a vilāsa from the svayaṃ-rūpa, including name (nāma), color (varṇa), number of arms (bhujas), mode of dress (veśa), and weapons (astras). He also goes beyond Rūpa in constructing an elaborate system of vilāsas that is subdivided into two categories: prābhava-vilāsas and vaibhava-vilāsas. This system enables Kṛṣṇadāsa to organize the various names and forms of Viṣṇu celebrated by historically discrete Vaiṣṇava traditions—including the Pāñcarātra theory of vyūhas—into a single overarching framework that relegates Viṣṇu, in all of his forms, to a subsidiary position as a manifestation of Kṛṣṇa, svayaṃ Bhagavān.

2.1.1  Prābhava-Vilāsa. In developing his system of vilāsas, Kṛṣṇadāsa invests the older Pāñcarātra conception of vyūhas with a distinctively Gauḍīya inflection by identifying the prābhava-vilāsas with the ādi catur-vyūhas, the four primordial vyūhas, divine manifestations: Vāsudeva, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha. Whereas in Goloka-Vṛndāvana, the innermost realm of Kṛṣṇaloka, Kṛṣṇa remains eternally in his gopa-bhāva alongside his cowherd brother Balarāma, his vaibhava-prakāśa, and engages in līlā characterized by mādhurya, in Dvārakā and Mathurā he manifests four different shapes (ākāra) as the ādi catur-vyūhas and engages in līlā characterized by aiśvarya: Vāsudeva, the four-armed manifestation of Kṛṣṇa in his kṣatriya-bhāva; Saṃkarṣaṇa, a manifestation of Balarāma in his kṣatriya-bhāva; Pradyumna, the son of Kṛṣṇa by his wife Rukmiṇī; and Aniruddha, the son of Pradyumna. The ādi catur-vyūhas, as partial manifestations of Kṛṣṇa’s svayaṃ-rūpa, are full of sat, cit, and ānanda.⁷⁶

2.1.2  Vaibhava-Vilāsa. In Kṛṣṇadāsa’s system of vilāsas the vaibhava-vilāsas comprise twenty-four manifestations termed mūrtis, which are manifested from the ādi catur-vyūhas and reside in Paravyoman, the transcendent domain that surrounds Kṛṣṇaloka. The most important of these twenty-four mūrtis are a second set of catur-vyūhas in Paravyoman—Vāsudeva, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha—who replicate the ādi catur-vyūhas in Kṛṣṇaloka. Here they surround Nārāyaṇa, Kṛṣṇa’s four-armed form who is the presiding deity of Paravyoman. Each of the four vyūhas has three mūrtis, and these twelve mūrtis are ascribed the role of presiding deities of the twelve months (see Figure 2).⁷⁷ Each of the four vyūhas also manifests two additional forms, and these eight manifestations are termed vilāsa-mūrtis (see Figure 2).⁷⁸ The twenty-four mūrtis together are associated with the cardinal directions, with three mūrtis presiding over each of the eight directions. Thus the vaibhava-vilāsas, while residing in Paravyoman beyond the material space-time continuum, are ascribed the special function of presiding over space and time. One of the striking aspects of Kṛṣṇadāsa’s account is his emphasis on the bodily forms of the twenty-four mūrtis, which he claims are distinguished from the svayaṃ-rūpa and from each other by their shape (ākāra), dress (veśa), and weapons (astras). All twenty-four mūrtis are represented as having four arms (catur-bhuja) and as wielding the four weapons that are emblematic of Viṣṇu—discus (cakra), conch (śaṅkha), club (gadā), and lotus (padma)—but are here recast as emblems of Kṛṣṇa in his aiśvarya mode. The most significant feature that differentiates the twenty-four mūrtis, according to Kṛṣṇadāsa, is the unique configuration in which the four weapons are held in the four hands of each mūrti. A second noteworthy aspect of Kṛṣṇadāsa’s account is his claim that a number of the twenty-four vaibhava-vilāsas, while remaining established in their eternal abodes in Paravyoman, become embodied in the material realm of the Brahmā-universes as mūrtis, ritual images, enshrined in temples in particular locales in India. For example, among the twelve mūrtis presiding over the months, Keśava descends to the material realm and becomes embodied in a temple mūrti in the earthly city of Mathurā and Viṣṇu descends and becomes embodied in Viṣṇukāñcī (Kāñcīpuram). Among the eight vilāsa-mūrtis, Puruṣottama descends to the material realm and becomes embodied as Jagannātha in Nīlācala (Purī) and Hari descends and becomes embodied in Māyāpura. In Kṛṣṇadāsa’s conception of vaibhava-vilāsas, a direct connection is thus established between the mūrti as a special category of divine manifestations in the transcendent domain of Paravyoman and the mūrti as an arcā-avatāra, image-avatāra, embodied in a temple on earth.⁷⁹

2.2  Svāṃśa. Svāṃśa is the second category into which Rūpa subdivides the encompassing category of tadekātma-rūpa. He defines svāṃśa as “that [form] which is similar [to the vilāsa] but manifests (root vyañj) less śakti.”⁸⁰ He subsequently provides extended descriptions of five classes of avatāras that are categorized as svāṃśa forms because they are Bhagavān’s “own āṃśas” that are partial manifestations of his vigraha, absolute body: puruṣa-avatāras, guṇa-avatāras, līlā-avatāras, manvantara-avatāras, and yuga-avatāras (see Figure 2). Rūpa defines avatāras as divine forms that “appear (root as + āvir) in an unprecedented way, either directly or through an agent, in order to accomplish some work in the material realm (viśva-kārya).”⁸¹ He is also concerned with delineating the particular worlds (lokas or bhuvanas) in which the avatāras take up residence during their sojourns in the material realm of the Brahmā-universes.⁸² Kṛṣṇadāsa follows Rūpa in delineating five classes of svāṃśa avatāras⁸³ and, like Rūpa, defines an avatāra as a divine form that descends into the material realm in order to fulfill specific functions in creation: “That mūrti which takes shape in the phenomenal world for the purpose of creation, that Īśvara-mūrti is called ‘avatāra.’ All of these dwell in Paravyoma, which is apart from māyā; but having descended into the universe, they have the name avatāra.”⁸⁴ In the formulations of both Rūpa and Kṛṣṇadāsa we can distinguish between two principal networks of svāṃśa avatāras: (1) the puruṣa-avatāras and guṇa-avatāras, which are ascribed specific cosmogonic roles in promoting the līlā of creation in the sargas and pratisargas, the primary and secondary creations; and (2) the līlā-avatāras, manvantara-avatāras, and yuga-avatāras, which are ascribed specific functions in upholding the līlā of dharma in different cosmic cycles, in particular the kalpas, manvantaras, and yugas, respectively.⁸⁵ As we shall see, in delineating the cosmogonic functions of the puruṣa-avatāras and guṇa-avatāras, Rūpa and Kṛṣṇadāsa appropriate and reimagine the complex array of creation narratives in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in the form of a single cosmogonic account. In delineating the dharmic functions of the līlā-avatāras, manvantara-avatāras, and yuga-avatāras, they attempt to generate a coherent system from the various networks of avatāras discussed in different sections of the Bhāgavata by clustering them in separate categories, naming them, and subsuming them in an encompassing taxonomy that seeks to illumine the distinctions and interconnections among the discrete taxa.

2.2.1  Puruṣa-Avatāra. Within the threefold hierarchy of the Godhead, as discussed earlier, Paramātman, the intermediary aspect of Bhagavān, is represented as the indwelling Self of the macrocosmos who creates, maintains, and destroys the material realm of prakṛti and as the indwelling Self of the microcosmos who is the inner controller of jīvas, embodied beings. In this context Paramātman serves as the source and ground of the three puruṣa-avatāras who are responsible for bringing forth and maintaining the material realm and all jīvas in the sargas, primary creations, and pratisargas, secondary creations. Rūpa identifies the three puruṣa-avatāras more specifically with three manifestations of the Paramātman in the form of Viṣṇu and invokes as a prooftext an unidentified passage from the Sātvata Tantra: “Viṣṇu has three forms (rūpas) that they designate by the name puruṣa: the first is the creator of mahat [the first evolute of prakṛti]; the second abides in the cosmic eggs (aṇḍas); the third resides in all embodied beings (bhūtas).”⁸⁶ In his discussion of the three puruṣa-avatāras, Rūpa identifies these three forms of Viṣṇu as manifestations of three of the catur-vyūhas, discussed earlier, who reside eternally in Paravyoman—Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha—and who are classified in Kṛṣṇadāsa’s taxonomy as vaibhava-vilāsas. Rūpa’s discussion of the three puruṣa-avatāras relies primarily on illustrative passages from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and Brahma Saṃhitā. Kṛṣṇadāsa’s expanded exposition recasts the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s profusion of complex and disparate creation accounts in the form a single cosmogonic narrative in which he associates each of the three puruṣa-avatāras with a key moment in the narrative.⁸⁷ Kṛṣṇadāsa follows Rūpa in identifying the three puruṣa-avatāras with three forms of Viṣṇu whose names—Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, and Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu—derive from their distinctive bodily postures as reclining figures who rest (śāyin) on three different oceans (abdhi or udaka) associated with different phases in the cosmogonic process. Moreover, as we shall see, Kṛṣṇadāsa elaborates on the particular functions of the three puruṣa-avatāras as the inner controllers, antar-yāmins, who are associated with different aspects of embodiment: the first puruṣa-avatāra is the Self of the collective totality of the Brahmā-universes who encompasses the innumerable cosmos bodies within his divine body; the second puruṣa-avatāra is the indwelling Self within each separate cosmos body, or Brahmā-universe; and the third puruṣa-avatāra is the indwelling Self within the body of each individual jīva and within the fourteen worlds contained in each cosmos body.⁸⁸

2.2.1.1  Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu (Saṃkarṣaṇa). The first puruṣa-avatāra, the ādi-puruṣa, is Mahāviṣṇu, who is represented by Rūpa as a manifestation of Saṃkarṣaṇa and is called Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu because he reclines in the form of Nārāyaṇa on the ocean of causality (kāraṇābdhi or kāraṇārṇava) that separates Paravyoman from the material realm of prakṛti governed by the māyā-śakti.⁸⁹ According to Kṛṣṇadāsa’s expanded account, Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, the ādi-puruṣa, provides the impetus for the sarga to begin by activating māyā with his glance and sowing his seed in the form of jīvas in the womb of prakṛti. The equilibrium of the guṇas, the three constituents of prakṛti, is thereby broken, and the sarga begins with the emergence of the twenty-three tattvas, the evolutes of primordial matter, along with their presiding deities (devatās): cosmic intelligence (mahat), ego (ahaṃkāra), mind (manas), five sense capacities (buddhīndriyas), five action capacities (karmendriyas), five subtle elements (tanmātras), and five gross elements (mahā-bhūtas). The tattvas of prakṛti then combine to form innumerable Brahmā-universes (brahmāṇḍas) in the form of cosmic eggs. Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu is celebrated as the inner controller (antar-yāmin) of the entire material realm constituted by prakṛti who encompasses within his body the innumerable Brahmā-eggs. Building on the imagery of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,⁹⁰ Kṛṣṇadāsa maintains that each time he exhales, innumerable Brahmā-eggs issue forth from his body (śarīra) through the pores of his skin, and each time he inhales they are withdrawn again into his body.⁹¹ Kṛṣṇadāsa emphasizes, moreover, the special function of Mahāviṣṇu, or Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, as the ādi avatāra of Bhagavān who is the seed of all avatāras (sarva-avatāra-bīja). Although Kṛṣṇa alone is svayaṃ avatārin, the ultimate source of all avatāras, it is Mahāviṣṇu in his threefold manifestation as the three puruṣa-avatāras, according to Kṛṣṇadāsa, who is extolled as the immediate source of the various avatāras. In his manifestation as Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, the first puruṣa-avatāra, who is an aṃśa of Kṛṣṇa, he is the source of the līlā-avatāras. In his partial manifestation as Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, the second puruṣa-avatāra, who is an aṃśa of an aṃśa, he is the source of the guṇa-avatāras, and in his partial manifestation as Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, the third puruṣa-avatāra, who is an aṃśa of an aṃśa of an aṃśa, he is the source of the manvantara-avatāras and the yuga-avatāras.⁹²

2.2.1.2  Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu (Pradyumna). In the next phase of creation Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, the first puruṣa-avatāra, enters into each of the innumerable cosmic eggs, appearing in each egg in a separate form as the second puruṣa-avatāra. This second puruṣa-avatāra is represented by Rūpa as a manifestation of Pradyumna and as the inner controller (niyāmaka) who resides within each cosmic egg as the Self animating that cosmos body. He is called Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu because he reclines in the water of the cosmic egg (garbhodaka).⁹³ According to Kṛṣṇadāsa’s expanded formulation, he fills half of each of the Brahmā-eggs with water generated from the perspiration of his own body (aṅga), and he then rests on that water on the bed provided for him by the thousand-headed serpent known as Śeṣa or Ananta. It is this second puruṣa-avatāra who is celebrated in the Vedas as the thousand-headed (sahasra-śīrṣa) puruṣa, for he manifests himself simultaneously in innumerable forms (mūrtis) in the innumerable Brahmā-eggs. Moreover, it is this puruṣa, Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, who is credited with initiating the pratisarga, secondary creation, by sending forth from his navel a lotus in which are contained the fourteen worlds (bhuvanas) and out of which is born Brahmā the creator. Both Rūpa and Kṛṣṇadāsa emphasize the special function of Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu in bringing forth the celebrated trimūrti of the Purāṇas—Brahmā the creator, Viṣṇu the maintainer, and Śiva the destroyer—who are recast in the Gauḍīya taxonomy as the three guṇa-avatāras and are relegated to a subsidiary position in the hierarchy of Kṛṣṇa’s divine forms.⁹⁴

2.2.1.2.1  Guṇa-Avatāra. In the creation narratives of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva are associated, respectively, with the three guṇas of prakṛti: rajas (activity), the principle of creation; sattva (purity), the principle of maintenance; and tamas (inertia), the principle of destruction. Brahmā the creator is represented as emerging from the lotus at the beginning of each new kalpa and serving as the instrumental cause of the pratisarga who fashions the three lower worlds—bhūr-loka (earth), bhuvar-loka (midregions), and svar-loka (heavens)—and various classes of embodied beings from the material of the lotus out of which he himself was born. Viṣṇu is ascribed the role of maintaining the worlds during the course of each kalpa, and Śiva is assigned the role of destroying the worlds in the minor dissolution that occurs at the end of each kalpa. In Rūpa’s and Kṛṣṇadāsa’s reframing, Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva are designated as the three guṇa-avatāras who are the forms (rūpas) that the second puruṣa-avatāra, Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, assumes (root dhṛ) for the purpose of creation, maintenance, and destruction. Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu assumes the four-headed form of Brahmā, the grandfather of the gods, who is associated with rajas, in order to fashion the worlds; he assumes his own four-armed form as Viṣṇu, who is associated with sattva, in order to maintain the worlds; and he assumes the five-headed form of Śiva, who is associated with tamas, in order to destroy the worlds. Both Rūpa and Kṛṣṇadāsa present a hierarchical assessment of the three guṇa-avatāras in which Brahmā and Śiva are assigned to the lower rungs of the hierarchy because they are tainted through contact with the guṇas, whereas Viṣṇu the maintainer is ascribed the special status of the third puruṣa-avatāra, Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, who as a form of Viṣṇu participates in Kṛṣṇa’s svarūpa and is beyond the guṇas, activating sattva with his gaze alone.⁹⁵

2.2.1.3  Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu (Aniruddha). Viṣṇu the maintainer is thus ascribed a dual role as a guṇa-avatāra who also serves as the third puruṣa-avatāra. He is represented as a manifestation of Aniruddha and is called Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu because he enters into the lotus containing the fourteen worlds and resides there as the inner controller (antar-yāmin) reclining on the ocean of milk (kṣīrodaka). He also enters into the body of each individual jīva and resides there as the inner controller (antar-yāmin) within the heart. Rūpa identifies the third puruṣa-avatāra, Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, with the four-armed puruṣa who is described in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as the indwelling Self whose abode is the heart: “Some people cognize through meditation the puruṣa residing in the space of the heart (hṛda) within their own body (deha) and measuring one pradeśa, with four arms (catur-bhuja) bearing a lotus, a discus, a conch, and a club, respectively.”⁹⁶ Rūpa also emphasizes Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu’s role as the indwelling Self within the lotus of the fourteen worlds.⁹⁷ In his expanded formulation, Kṛṣṇadāsa elaborates on Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu’s twofold function as the inner controller of all jīvas and of the fourteen worlds. He emphasizes in particular his special role as the maintainer of the cosmic order who descends to the material realm periodically in different cosmic cycles as the manvantara-avatāras and the yuga-avatāras in order to destroy the forces of adharma and reestablish the reign of dharma.⁹⁸

2.2.2  Līlā-Avatāra. Rūpa adapts and expands on the account of twenty-two avatāras given in Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.3.6–28 and provides an extended exposition of twenty-five avatāras that he designates as līlā-avatāras.⁹⁹ While the puruṣa-avatāras and guṇa-avatāras are associated with the līlā of creation and are ascribed specific cosmogonic functions in the sargas and pratisargas, the līlā- avatāras are associated with the līlā of dharma and are ascribed specific functions in restoring and upholding the cosmic order during each kalpa, day of Brahmā. At the conclusion of his account of the līlā-avatāras, Rūpa asserts that “these twenty-five are called kalpa-avatāras because they generally appear (root bhū + prādur) once in each kalpa.”¹⁰⁰ In his discussion of the līlā-avatāras, Rūpa emphasizes the particular type of bodily form—whether divine, semidivine, human, animal, or half-human/half-animal—that Kṛṣṇa assumes each time he descends to the material realm to fulfill a particular function. He also reflects on the distinctive bodily features—age, color, number of arms, mode of dress, and emblems—of each avatāra as well as the specific time period—manvantara, mahā-yuga, and/or yuga—in which each appears during the kalpa. Rūpa’s list of twenty-five līlā-avatāras, like that of the Bhāgavata on which it is based, includes the standard list of ten avatāras—collectively known as daśa-avatāras—that is found in many Purāṇas: (1) Matsya, the horned fish, who rescues Manu and the Vedas from the deluge that occurs between manvantaras; (2) Kūrma, the tortoise, who provides support for Mount Mandara, the mountain that the gods and demons use as a churning stick when churning the ocean of milk to obtain the nectar of immortality (amṛta); (3) Varāha, the boar, whose body is made of the elements of the sacrificial ritual and who lifts up the earth from the depths of the ocean in which it is submerged and slays with his tusks the demon Hiraṇyākṣa; (4) Nṛsiṃha, the ferocious half-man/half-lion, who rends asunder with his claws the body of the demon-king Hiraṇyakaśipu; (5) Vāmana, the brahmin dwarf, who attends a sacrificial ritual sponsored by the demon-king Bali and takes three strides in order to regain the three worlds for the gods’ dominion; (6) Paraśurāma, the golden-hued axe-wielding warrior, who rids the earth twenty-one times of the kṣatriyas who are persecuting brahmins and disrupting the social order; (7) Rāma, the bow-bearing prince with a green complexion like fresh dūrvā grass, who destroys the forces of adharma embodied in the demon-king Rāvaṇa and his demon armies and reestablishes the reign of dharma; (8) Kṛṣṇa, Bhagavān svayam, who unfolds his manifest līlā on earth in his svayaṃ-rūpa as a two-armed cowherd boy with a blue-black complexion; (9) Buddha, the sage with a rose-hued complexion and shaved head, who reestablishes dharma by leading astray the enemies of the gods; and (10) Kalki, the sword-wielding brahmin mounted on a white horse, who appears at the end of Kali Yuga and destroys the forces of darkness that envelop human consciousness and restores the cosmic order by ushering in Satya Yuga. Kṛṣṇadāsa provides an abbreviated account of the līlā-avatāras in which he simply names six of the daśa-avatāras and then asserts that the līlā-avatāras are countless: “The līlā-avatāras of Kṛṣṇa are beyond counting; let me survey the primary ones among them. The Matsya, Kūrma, Raghunātha [Rāma], Nṛsiṃha, Vāmana, Varāha and the rest—the numbers in the writings cannot be counted.”¹⁰¹ Rūpa, in contrast, devotes an entire chapter to a discussion of the bodily features and functions not only of the daśa-avatāras but also of the fifteen other corporeal forms that Kṛṣṇa assumes when he descends to the material realm periodically during the course of each kalpa.¹⁰² Following his discussion of the twenty-five līlā-avatāras, Rūpa provides an analytical framework in which he classifies them in a hierarchical taxonomic schema that distinguishes four subsidiary categories, from highest to lowest: parāvastha, vaibhava, prābhava, and āveśa.¹⁰³

2.2.2.1  Parāvastha Līlā-Avatāra. The parāvastha līlā-avatāras are Nṛsiṃha, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa, who are ranked in Rūpa’s fourfold taxonomy of līlā-avatāras as the most perfect and complete avatāras because they alone give full expression to the six divine qualities: beauty (śrī), majesty (aiśvarya), power (vīrya), glory (yaśas), knowledge (jñāna), and nonattachment (vairāgya). Rūpa provides a hierarchical assessment of the three parāvastha avatāras in which he utilizes two different arguments to establish Kṛṣṇa’s supremacy over Nṛsiṃha and Rāma. First, he argues that whereas Nṛsiṃha displays abundant power and Rāma displays abundant sweetness, Kṛṣṇa alone is a limitless ocean of incomparable sweetness and power, mādhurya and aiśvarya. Second, he argues that Kṛṣṇa is the most exalted (śreṣṭha) of the three parāvastha avatāras because he alone is capable of liberating his demon-enemies. In this context Rūpa invokes and comments on Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.15.1–10, which seeks to explain why a particular jīva who reincarnated in three successive births as the demon-enemy of Bhagavān—as Hiraṇyakaśipu, Rāvaṇa, and Śiśupāla—and who was slain each time by a different avatāra—by Nṛsiṃha, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa, respectively—only attained liberation in his third birth when he was slain by Kṛṣṇa. In commenting on this passage, Rūpa reflects on the mechanisms through which the jīva in three different demon bodies (daitya-dehas) encountered Bhagavān in three different divine bodies (rūpas) and in the first two cases fell prey to misrecognition, failing to see Bhagavān’s true form beneath his particularized appearance as an avatāra. In the jīva’s first birth as Hiraṇyakaśipu, when he encountered Bhagavān in the man-lion form of Nṛsiṃha, he did not recognize that he was Bhagavān and mistakenly thought that he was simply a living being (sattva-jāta) who had attained his man-lion body through extraordinary merit. In the jīva’s next birth as Rāvaṇa, when he encountered Bhagavān in the form of Rāma, he once again failed to discern his true identity as Bhagavān, mistaking him for a human being (manuṣya). Finally, when the jīva was born as Śiśupāla and encountered Bhagavān in his svayaṃ-rūpa as Kṛṣṇa, the veils of his delusion were stripped away and he re-cognized Bhagavān as his abiding enemy who had slain him twice before in his past lives. Whether walking, sitting, eating, or sleeping, Śiśupāla’s entire psychophysiology was completely absorbed in enmity for Bhagavān, his lips uttering Kṛṣṇa’s names in ceaseless rebuke and his mind dwelling on Kṛṣṇa’s four-armed kṣatriya-bhāva form with lotus-like eyes, clad in yellow garments and resplendent with ornaments, his four arms bearing the conch, discus, club, and lotus. At the final moment of confrontation, when Kṛṣṇa threw his discus at Śiśupāla in order to cut off his head, Śiśupāla attained a direct visionary experience in which “he saw (root dṛś) the luminous supreme Brahman in the shape of a human being (narākṛti).”¹⁰⁴ Slain by Kṛṣṇa’s discus, his mound of sins (aghas) burned up through constant remembrance (smaraṇa) of Kṛṣṇa, Śiśupāla cast off his demon body (daitya-deha) and attained sāyujya, a state of liberation in which he was absorbed into the impersonal Brahman, the lowest aspect of the Godhead. Rūpa emphasizes that Kṛṣṇa’s special power to attract and liberate his demon-enemies as well as his devotees is due to his preeminent status as svayaṃ Bhagavān. Kṛṣṇa, as svayaṃ Bhagavān, is set apart from all avatāras in that he is not an aṃśa, a partial manifestation, but rather he alone is pūrṇa, the full and complete Godhead. In the final analysis, Rūpa concludes, Kṛṣṇa is possessed of inconceivable (acintya) and limitless (ananta) śaktis by which he becomes many while remaining one and undertakes his role as the avatārin who is the source of all avatāras and the aṃśin from whom all aṃśas manifest.¹⁰⁵

2.2.2.2  Vaibhava Līlā-Avatāra. The vaibhava līlā-avatāras are ranked second in Rūpa’s fourfold taxonomy of līlā-avatāras and are represented as forms (rūpas) of Kṛṣṇa’s svarūpa that display less śakti than the parāvastha līlā-avatāras but more śakti than the prābhava līlā-avatāras. The nine vaibhava līlā-avatāras include four of the daśa-avatāras discussed earlier: Matsya, Kūrma, Varāha, and Vāmana. The other five are Yajña, the deity presiding over yajñas, sacrificial rituals, who assumes the divine office of Indra and relieves the distress of the three worlds in the Svāyambhuva Manvantara; Nara and Nārāyaṇa, the twin sons of Dharma, who are great ṛṣis renowned for their tapas and who are counted as one avatāra; Hayaśīrṣa, the horse-headed avatāra with golden complexion, whose body is composed of the Vedic mantras and who rescues the Vedas from the demons Madhu and Kaiṭabha; Pṛśnigarbha, the avatāra who rewards the child-sage Dhruva for his tapas by bestowing upon him an eternal abode known as the Dhruva-loka, or polestar; and Balarāma, Kṛṣṇa’s cowherd brother, whose complexion is white like fresh camphor. Among these nine vaibhava līlā-avatāras, Varāha, Vāmana, and Hayaśīrṣa are considered preeminent (pravara) because they are most like the parāvastha avatāras.¹⁰⁶

2.2.2.3  Prābhava Līlā-Avatāra. The prābhava līlā-avatāras are represented in Rūpa’s taxonomy of līlā-avatāras as forms (rūpas) of Kṛṣṇa’s svarūpa that display less śakti than the vaibhava līlā-avatāras and are subdivided into two types. The first type comprises two līlā-avatāras who manifest (root vyañj) for only a brief period of time or are not well known. They are Haṃsa, in which Bhagavān assumes the form of a swan and teaches bhakti-yoga to the celestial ṛṣi Nārada, and Mohinī, in which Bhagavān appears in the form of an alluring woman who captivates the demons with her enchanting beauty and recovers the amṛta, nectar of immortality, for the gods. In the second type Bhagavān assumes the form of five different sages (munis) who are composers of śāstras (śāstra-kartṛs) comprising scriptures and other formal systems of knowledge. They are Kapila, the tawny-hued lord of siddhas, who establishes the Sāṃkhya system of philosophy; Dattātreya, the sage clothed in the garb of a renunciant (yati), who teaches the path of yoga and meditation; Ṛṣabha, the royal sage with white complexion, who renounces his kingship and teaches by his own example the renunciant dharma of the Paramahaṃsa way of life; Dhanvantari, the sage with a blue-black complexion, who emerges from the ocean of milk bearing a pot of amṛta and establishes Āyurveda, the science of health and longevity; and Vyāsa, the renowned ṛṣi, who divides the one Veda into four parts, composes the Mahābhārata, and compiles the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and other Mahāpurāṇas.¹⁰⁷

2.2.2.4  Āveśa Līlā-Avatāra. Within the three encompassing categories into which Rūpa organizes Kṛṣṇa’s rūpas—svayaṃ-rūpa, tadekātma-rūpa, and āveśa-rūpa—the līlā-avatāras are classified as part of the tadekātma-rūpa category in the subdivision of svāṃśa (see Figure 2). However, in his formulation of the āveśa līlā-avatāras Rūpa introduces a taxon that violates this classificatory schema because, unlike the other līlā-avatāras, āveśa līlā-avatāras are not considered svāṃśas, Kṛṣṇa’s “own aṃśas,” in that they are not partial manifestations of Kṛṣṇa’s vigraha, absolute body. Rather, they are represented as jīvas who have been born before (pūrvotpanna) and who have attained an exalted status in which they serve as vehicles into whose bodies Kṛṣṇa enters (root viś + ā) by means of his śakti in order to perform specific tasks. The five āveśa līlā-avatāras include two of the daśa-avatāras discussed earlier: Paraśurāma and Kalki. The other three are the Catuḥsana, the four mind-born sons of Brahmā known as Kumāras—Sanaka, Sanātana, Sanandana, and Sanatkumāra—who appear as perpetual five-year-old golden-hued brahmin sages dedicated to lifelong celibacy (brahmacarya) and who are counted as one avatāra; Nārada, the mind-born son of Brahmā celebrated as a celestial seer (devarṣi), whose luminous white complexion is radiant like the moon and whose special function is to spread bhakti throughout the material realm; and Pṛthu, the king with pure golden complexion, who milks the earth and brings forth its life-giving abundance for the sustenance of humankind. While, on the one hand, Rūpa chooses to include these five avatāras in his list of twenty-five līlā-avatāras that are part of the svāṃśa subdivision of the tadekātma-rūpa category—perhaps out of respect for the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s inclusion of these five in its own list of avatāras—on the other hand, he relegates them to the status of āveśa līlā-avatāras that are not svāṃśas and therefore ends up assigning them a second classification as part of the āveśa-rūpa category, which I will discuss later.¹⁰⁸

2.2.2.5  Uncategorized Līlā-Avatāra. Among the twenty-five līlā-avatāras enumerated by Rūpa, the Buddha alone is relegated to the status of the uncategorized “other” who is not assigned to one of the four subsidiary categories in his hierarchical taxonomy.

2.2.3  Manvantara-Avatāra. According to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, every manvantara is presided over by six types of cosmic administrators, which are distinct offices that are filled by different beings in each manvantara: a Manu, the sons of that Manu, an Indra who rules over the three worlds, the principal deities, seven ṛṣis, and an aṃśa-avatāra.¹⁰⁹ Rūpa assigns to the aṃśa-avatāras associated with the manvantaras the designation manvantara-avatāras in order to clearly differentiate them from other classes of avatāras. While the līlā-avatāras are called kalpa-avatāras because they appear at least once during the course of a kalpa in order to reestablish and uphold dharma, Rūpa suggests that manvantara-avatāras are so named because they appear (root bhū + prādur) in order to assist Indra and maintain dharma for the duration of a particular manvantara. Rūpa’s account of the fourteen manvantara-avatāras follows that of the Bhāgavata, and he provides little of his own exposition beyond invoking the Bhāgavata’s description of each avatāra. Kṛṣṇadāsa enumerates the same list of fourteen manvantara-avatāras without any elaboration. The fourteen are Yajña in Svāyambhuva Manvantara; Vibhu in Svārociṣa Manvantara; Satyasena in Auttama Manvantara; Hari in Tāmasa Manvantara; Vaikuṇṭha in Raivata Manvantara; Ajita in Cākṣuṣa Manvantara; Vāmana in Vaivasvata Manvantara; Sārvabhauma in Sāvarṇi Manvantara; Ṛṣabha in Dakṣasāvarṇi Manvantara; Viṣvaksena in Brahmasāvarṇi Manvantara; Dharmasetu in Dharmasāvarṇi Manvantara; Sudhāmā in Rudrasāvarṇi Manvantara; Yogeśvara in Devasāvarṇi Manvantara; and Bṛhadbhānu in Indrasāvarṇi Manvantara.¹¹⁰ All fourteen manvantara-avatāras are classified as vaibhava forms in Rūpa’s taxonomy of Kṛṣṇa’s forms, with two of them, Yajña and Vāmana, ascribed the dual status of manvantara-avatāras who are also vaibhava līlā-avatāras. Rūpa singles out Vāmana, Hari, Vaikuṇṭha, and Ajita as the preeminent (pravara) manvantara-avatāras because they are most like the parāvastha avatāras.¹¹¹

2.2.4  Yuga-Avatāra. Rūpa’s conception of the yuga-avatāras, like his discussion of the līlā-avatāras and manvantara-avatāras, is based on accounts in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.5.19–42 provides an extended description of the particular bodily shape (ākāra), color (varṇa), and name (nāman) that Bhagavān assumes in each of the four yugas—Satya or Kṛta Yuga, Tretā Yuga, Dvāpara Yuga, and Kali Yuga—and the specific modes of practice through which human beings approach him in each age.¹¹² Rūpa calls these four avatāras yuga-avatāras and provides a single-sentence description in which he focuses on the color that is assigned to each yuga-avatāra in the Bhāgavata’s account—white, red, blue-black, and black, respectively—and suggests that each yuga-avatāra’s name is synonymous with his color: “[The yuga-avatāras] are described according to their color (varṇa) and name (nāman). In Satya Yuga Hari is Śukla, white; in Tretā Yuga he is Rakta, red; in Dvāpara Yuga he is Śyāma, blue-black; and in Kali Yuga he is Kṛṣṇa, black.”¹¹³ Rūpa classifies the four yuga-avatāras as prābhava forms that manifest for a relatively short period of time.¹¹⁴ In contrast to Rūpa’s highly abbreviated treatment of the yuga-avatāras, Kṛṣṇadāsa provides an expanded exposition in which he invokes and elaborates on the Bhāgavata’s descriptions in 11.5.19–42 of the particular bodily forms that Bhagavān assumes in the four yugas in order to establish the specific dharma of each age. In Satya Yuga he appears in a white (śukla) four-armed form that is distinguished by the emblems of an ascetic, with matted locks, clad in garments made of bark and a black deerskin, and carrying prayer beads, a staff, and a waterpot. He establishes meditation (dhyāna) as the dharma of Satya Yuga. In Tretā Yuga he appears in a red (rakta) four-armed form with golden hair as the embodiment of yajña and the threefold Veda, girded by the triple cord of Vedic initiation and bearing as his emblems the ladles for pouring ghee into the sacrificial fire. He establishes yajña as the dharma of Tretā Yuga. In Dvāpara Yuga Kṛṣṇa appears in his own blue-black (śyāma) form with distinctive body marks such as the Śrīvatsa, dressed in yellow garments, and bearing the emblems—conch, discus, club, and lotus—that distinguish his aiśvarya mode. He establishes worship (arcana) of himself, especially in the form of pūjā, as the dharma of Dvāpara Yuga.¹¹⁵ In his discussion of the yuga-avatāra for Kali Yuga, Kṛṣṇadāsa diverges from Rūpa’s description of his color as black (kṛṣṇa), which accords with the description of this avatāra in Bhāgavata 11.5.32 as “black in color (kṛṣṇa-varṇa) though not black (akṛṣṇa) by virtue of his luster.” Kṛṣṇadāsa interprets this verse to mean that the color of the yuga-avatāra for Kali Yuga is “not black” but is rather light-colored due to his radiance, and he identifies this avatāra more specifically with Caitanya, who was renowned for his golden (gaura) complexion. Although Rūpa also appears to interpret Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.5.32 as referring to Caitanya in the maṅgalācaraṇa, dedicatory ślokas, with which he opens the Laghubhāgavatāmṛta, it is interesting to note that he does not explicitly identify Caitanya with the yuga-avatāra of Kali Yuga in his brief discussion of the yuga-avatāras later in the text.¹¹⁶ Kṛṣṇadāsa provides canonical authority to legitimate his interpretation of Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.5.32 as referring to Caitanya by invoking another verse, Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.8.13, which provides an alternative account of the colors of the four yuga-avatāras: “In the sequence of yugas he [Kṛṣṇa] assumes bodies (tanus) with three colors—white (śukla), red (rakta), and yellow (pīta)—and at this time he is black (kṛṣṇa).” Kṛṣṇadāsa interprets “at this time” as referring to Dvāpara Yuga in which Kṛṣṇa appears in his own blue-black form, and since the Bhāgavata’s account in 11.5.19–42 assigns the white form to the yuga-avatāra of Satya Yuga and the red form to the yuga-avatāra of Tretā Yuga, he concludes by the process of elimination that the yuga-avatāra of Kali Yuga appears in a yellow form as the golden-complexioned Caitanya. He further asserts that Caitanya, in his role as the yuga-avatāra of Kali Yuga, establishes nāma-saṃkīrtana, collective singing of the names of Kṛṣṇa, as the dharma of this age.¹¹⁷ Kṛṣṇadāsa’s identification of Caitanya as Kṛṣṇa’s avatāra in Kali Yuga is both the starting-point and the culmination of his taxonomic project in which he seeks to map the complex interlocking networks of Kṛṣṇa’s avatāras and other manifestations. Indeed, he opens the Caitanya Caritāmṛta with a maṅgalācaraṇa in which he invokes the Lord’s avatāras, prakāśas, and śaktis along with the Lord himself, “whose name is Kṛṣṇa Caitanya” and who descends in Kali Yuga in order to bestow the blessings of bhakti on the earth: “To my gurus, to the bhaktas of the Lord, to the avatāras of the Lord, to his manifestations [prakāśas], and his śaktis, to the Lord whose name is Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, I make obeisance.… In order to bestow the wealth of bhakti for himself, which for a long time had gone unbestowed, a bhakti of elevated and radiant essentiality, Hari has descended in the Kali age out of compassion, with the beautiful sheen of gold and blazing like a kadamba [flower].…”¹¹⁸

3  Āveśa-Rūpa. Āveśa-rūpa is the third of the three encompassing categories into which Rūpa divides Kṛṣṇa’s forms (see Figure 2). Āveśa-rūpa, as defined by Rūpa, refers to “those most exalted jīvas into whom Janārdana [Kṛṣṇa] has entered (root viś + ā) with a portion (kalā) of his śakti such as the jñāna-śakti.”¹¹⁹ Kṛṣṇadāsa invokes Rūpa’s definition and uses the term śaktyāveśa-avatāras to designate this special category of forms into which Kṛṣṇa’s śakti has entered. The principal subdivision of āveśa-rūpa is āveśa-avatāra.¹²⁰

3.1  Āveśa-Avatāra. As discussed earlier, Rūpa classifies certain līlā-avatāras as āveśa forms that, unlike the other līlā-avatāras, are not svāṃśas, Kṛṣṇa’s “own aṃśas.” These āveśa forms are assigned to a subdivision of āveśa-rūpa as a special class of avatāras—āveśa-avatāras—that is distinguished in significant ways from the five classes of svāṃśa avatāras. Svāṃśa avatāras, as we have seen, are regarded as partial manifestations, aṃśas, of Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body consisting of sat-cit-ānanda and as part of his svarūpa-śakti. When Kṛṣṇa descends as a svāṃśa avatāra, he is represented as “appearing in” (root bhū + prādur, root bhū + āvir, root as + āvir, or root vyañj) or “assuming” (root dhṛ, root bhṛ, or root grah) a particular bodily form, which is considered to be a nonmaterial (aprākṛta) configuration of sat-cit-ānanda in the shape of a body. When Kṛṣṇa descends as an āveśa-avatāra, in contrast, he is represented as “entering” (root viś + ā) by means of his śakti into the material body of a jīva who has been born before (pūrvotpanna). While such jīvas are set apart from other jīvas in their exalted status as the vehicles through which the divine śakti manifests, they differ in their ontological essence from the svāṃśa avatāras because they are not an intrinsic aspect of the svarūpa-śakti but are rather constituted by the jīva-śakti that is “on the border” (taṭasthā) between the māyā-śakti and the svarūpa-śakti.¹²¹ In the final analysis Rūpa maintains that āveśa-avatāras are not true avatāras but are rather “analogous” (aupacārika) to avatāras by virtue of their function but not with respect to their ontological essence. Rūpa mentions five āveśa-avatāras, which are the āveśa līlā-avatāras discussed earlier: Paraśurāma; Kalki; the Catuḥsana, or four Kumāras; Nārada; and Pṛthu.¹²² Kṛṣṇadāsa includes all of these, with the exception of Kalki, in his list of exemplary āveśa-avatāras, but he goes beyond Rūpa’s analysis in ascribing to them specific forms of śakti. According to Kṛṣṇadāsa, Paraśurāma is invested with the vīrya-śakti, the heroic power; the Kumāras are infused with the jñāna-śakti, the power of knowledge; Nārada is infused with the bhakti-śakti, the power of devotion; and Pṛthu is invested with the pālana-śakti, the power of protection.¹²³

Divine Bodies, Cosmos Bodies, and Jīva Bodies

The Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, as delineated by Rūpa and elaborated by Kṛṣṇadāsa, thus provides a multidimensional hierarchical taxonomy that seeks to classify, rank, and interconnect the multiform manifestations of the Godhead. I would like to highlight a number of principles at work in this taxonomy that can serve to illuminate the distinctive character of Gauḍīya perspectives on the nature and interrelationship of divine bodies, cosmos bodies, and jīva bodies.

One and Many. One of the central principles that governs the Gauḍīya taxonomy of divine forms is that Kṛṣṇa, as svayaṃ Bhagavān, is both one and many, singular and multiple at the same time. While remaining one, eka-rūpa, in his nonchanging vigraha as a two-armed youthful cowherd boy in the transcendent Vraja- dhāman, Goloka-Vṛndāvana, he is at the same time ananta-rūpa, assuming limitless divine forms on the various planes of existence that are partial manifestations of his svayaṃ-rūpa, essential form. He is the singular avatārin who is the source of countless avatāras, the undivided aṃśin who manifests himself in innumerable aṃśas. While the notion that the Godhead is both one and many is shared by most bhakti traditions, what distinguishes the Gauḍīya’s taxonomy is the luxuriant detail with which it describes the particularities of Kṛṣṇa’s vigraha, absolute body, as well as the particularities of the various classes, bodily features, and functions of the myriad divine forms that proliferate from the one vigraha.

Nonmaterial Divine Bodies. Among the superabundance of rūpas through which Kṛṣṇa manifests himself, those divine forms that are classified in the Gauḍīya taxonomy as prakāśas, vilāsas, or one of the five classes of svāṃśa avatāras—puruṣa-avatāras, guṇa-avatāras, līlā-avatāras, manvantara-avatāras, and yuga-avatāras—are considered to be partial manifestations of the vigraha and are therefore nonmaterial (aprākṛta) and full of sat, cit, and ānanda. The āveśa-avatāras, the sixth class of avatāras, are excluded from this classification because they are not svāṃśa avatāras with nonmaterial bodies but are rather exalted jīvas with material bodies that serve as vehicles through which the divine śakti manifests.

The Polymorphous Godhead. In the Gauḍīya taxonomy of divine forms, Kṛṣṇa is represented as the polymorphous Godhead who appears in manifold shapes, assuming a remarkably diverse array of bodies that are different configurations of sat-cit-ānanda. These divine bodies are ranked according to the extent to which their corporeal shapes and features conform to or diverge from the paradigmatic svayaṃ-rūpa and the corresponding degree of śakti that they manifest. Prakāśas are ranked highest because they are divine manifestations of the svayaṃ-rūpa whose bodily shape is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa’s essential form. Vilāsas are ranked lower than prakāśas in the hierarchy of divine forms because their bodily shapes (ākāras) are different from that of the svayaṃ-rūpa and they have four arms (catur-bhuja) rather than two arms. However, they are ranked higher than the svāṃśa avatāras because they express more śakti and are all marked as forms of Kṛṣṇa in his aiśvarya mode with the distinguishing emblems of discus, conch, club, and lotus. The bodily forms and emblems of the svāṃśa avatāras, in contrast, diverge in significant ways from Kṛṣṇa’s svayaṃ-rūpa. One of the striking aspects of the avatāra system is that Kṛṣṇa is represented as assuming corporeal forms drawn from a broad spectrum of different classes of beings, ranging from the bodies of gods and semidivine ṛṣis to the bodies of human beings and animals. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, in elaborating the various networks of avatāras that provide the basis for the Gauḍīyas’ system, emphasizes Bhagavān’s embrace of diversity: “Through your avatāras in the form of human beings (nṛs), animals (tiryañcs), seers (ṛṣis), gods (devas), and a fish (jhaṣa), you sustain the worlds, destroy the enemies of creation, and maintain the dharma appropriate to each yuga, O Mahāpuruṣa.”¹²⁴ Among the bodies of gods assumed by Bhagavān in the Gauḍīya taxonomy, Kṛṣṇa appears as various forms of Viṣṇu in order to carry out his cosmogonic roles as the puruṣa-avatāras in the sargas and pratisargas, and he even crosses sectarian boundaries and appears as Brahmā and Śiva in order to carry out his creative and destructive functions as the guṇa-avatāras in each kalpa. In his multiple roles as līlā-avatāras, manvantara-avatāras, and yuga-avatāras, Kṛṣṇa at times assumes the bodies of particular gods while at other times he assumes the bodies of certain ṛṣis, who are portrayed as semidivine beings of extraordinary knowledge and power who mediate between the human and divine realms. In his divine descents Kṛṣṇa also assumes different kinds of human bodies that are representative of a range of social groups—brahmin priests, sages, kings, warriors, and cowherds—and phases of life—young children, adolescents, householders, and renunciants. He also at times assumes the bodies of particular animals that are representative of a diverse array of species, including a fish, tortoise, boar, swan, and two hybrid forms, a man-lion and a horse-headed man.

The Polychromatic Godhead. In the Gauḍīya taxonomy of divine forms, the polymorphous Godhead is also represented as polychromatic. The striking array of bodily shapes (ākāras) that Kṛṣṇa assumes is matched by an equally striking array of colors (varṇas). Although the svayaṃ-rūpa of the multicolored Godhead is represented as blue-black or black, the spectrum of colors in which he appears also includes green, golden, tawny, rose, red, and white. Rūpa compares the diverse forms that Kṛṣṇa displays to a multihued jewel: “Just as [the radiance of] a jewel is divided into different colors such as blue and yellow, so the Lord attains different forms (rūpas) through different meditations (dhyāna).”¹²⁵ As we have seen, the issue of color is of particular importance in Gauḍīya discussions of the yuga-avatāras, whose bodily forms are differentiated above all by the distinctive colors of their complexions.

Divine Bodies and Cosmos Bodies. In the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment, Kṛṣṇa, in his role as Paramātman, is the source and ground of the three puruṣa-avatāras—Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, and Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu—and it is by assuming the three forms of the puruṣa-avatāras that the divine body becomes the source and ground of the countless cosmos bodies, the Brahmā-universes in the form of cosmic eggs. Kṛṣṇa in his threefold manifestation as the puruṣa-avatāras is represented as the indwelling Self who is the inner controller, antar-yāmin, of the macrocosmos and whose divine body both encompasses and is encompassed by the cosmos bodies. In his partial manifestation as Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, who is his aṃśa, Kṛṣṇa is the antar-yāmin of the entire material realm of prakṛti and encompasses within his divine body the innumerable cosmos bodies, which issue forth through the pores of his skin. As Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, who is an aṃśa of an aṃśa, Kṛṣṇa is the thousand-headed puruṣa who enters into the innumerable cosmos bodies with innumerable divine bodies, residing within each separate cosmos body as the antar-yāmin. Finally, as Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu, who is an aṃśa of an aṃśa of an aṃśa, he penetrates even further into the material realm by entering into the lotus of the fourteen worlds contained in each cosmos body and residing there as the antar-yāmin. In contrast to the formulations of competing traditions in which the Self is represented as formless—in particular, the Ātman in Advaita Vedānta and the puruṣa in Pātañjala Yoga—the Gauḍīyas emphasize the distinctive bodily forms and locations of Kṛṣṇa in his roles as the indwelling Self. As Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu he reclines on his serpent-bed in the water of each cosmic egg and serves as the antar-yāmin of each cosmos body, and as Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu he reclines on the ocean of milk within the lotus of the fourteen worlds that forms part of each cosmos body and serves as the antar-yāmin of those worlds.

Divine Bodies and Jīva Bodies. In his role as Paramātman who assumes the three forms of the puruṣa-avatāras, Kṛṣṇa is also represented as the indwelling Self who is the antar-yāmin of the microcosmos and whose divine body both encompasses and is encompassed by innumerable jīva bodies. In his partial manifestation as Kāraṇābdhiśāyin Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa contains all jīvas in latent form within his divine body, and he initiates the sarga by sowing his seed in the form of jīvas in the womb of prakṛti. As Garbhodakaśāyin Viṣṇu he initiates the pratisarga by bringing forth Brahmā the creator as his guṇa-avatāra, who fashions the bodies of various classes of jīvas from the material of the lotus out of which he himself was born. Finally, as Kṣīrodakaśāyin Viṣṇu he enters into the material body of each jīva and resides there as the indwelling Self who is the antar-yāmin within the heart. Once again, in contrast to representations of the Ātman in Advaita Vedānta and of the puruṣa in Pātañjala Yoga in which the Self is formless, the Gauḍīyas emphasize that the Self who resides in the heart of each embodied being has a particular corporeal form: the four-armed form of Kṛṣṇa in his aiśvarya mode bearing the emblems of discus, conch, club, and lotus. While Kṛṣṇa is thus held to be immanent within all embodied jīvas as the indwelling Self, certain jīvas, as we have seen, are set apart from other jīvas in their special status as a distinctive class of avatāras, āveśa-avatāras, into whom Kṛṣṇa enters with a portion of his śakti.

Divine Bodies in Space and Time. The Gauḍīya taxonomy, in classifying and ranking Kṛṣṇa’s multifarious divine forms, attends not only to the particularities of their bodily shapes and features but also to the particularities of their locations in relation to space and time. In Gauḍīya cosmography the hierarchy of divine forms is at times mapped on the image of a lotus-maṇḍala encompassing the transcendent domains of Kṛṣṇaloka and Paravyoman, which are beyond the material space-time continuum of prakṛti and beyond Brahman. Kṛṣṇaloka, the pericarp of the lotus, is subdivided into three realms: the innermost realm of Goloka-Vṛndāvana, the transcendent Vraja-dhāman, and the outer realms of Mathurā and Dvārakā. The self-luminous vigraha, Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body, in its svayaṃ-rūpa and its multiple prakāśa forms, illumines Goloka-Vṛndāvana. Kṛṣṇa’s vigraha in Goloka-Vṛndāvana is encircled by the ādi catur-vyūhas, the four prābhava-vilāsas who reside in Mathurā and Dvārakā. Paravyoman comprises innumerable Vaikuṇṭhas that encircle Kṛṣṇaloka as the countless petals unfolding from the pericarp of the lotus and that serve as the transcendent abodes of the twenty-four vaibhava-vilāsas, who are the guardians of space and time presiding over the eight directions and the twelve months, and the numerous avatāras who constitute the five classes of svāṃśa avatāras—puruṣa-avatāras, guṇa-avatāras, līlā-avatāras, manvantara-avatāras, and yuga-avatāras. While Kṛṣṇa, in his svayaṃ-rūpa and in his myriad divine manifestations as prakāśas, vilāsas, and avatāras, thus dwells apart from the material realm of prakṛti governed by the māyā-śakti, it is by means of his various avatāras that he descends into the material realm of the Brahmā-universes in order to fulfill specific cosmic functions. It is through the agency of his avatāras that Kṛṣṇa, who as svayaṃ Bhagavān revels eternally in his transcendent Vraja-dhāman beyond time, becomes embodied in time, descending in particular forms to accomplish specific tasks appropriate to particular cycles of time: as the puruṣa-avatāras in the sargas and pratisargas, the guṇa-avatāras in the pratisargas, the līlā-avatāras in the kalpas, the manvantara-avatāras in the manvantaras, and the yuga-avatāras in the yugas. Moreover, it is through the agency of his avatāras that Kṛṣṇa becomes embodied in place, descending to perform specific functions in particular locales in particular material worlds (lokas or bhuvanas) within the lotus of the fourteen worlds contained in each Brahmā-universe. While maintaining their eternal abodes in Paravyoman, the avatāras are represented as taking up residence in particular worlds during their time-bound sojourns in particular Brahmā-universes.

The Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment thus begins and ends with the assertion that Kṛṣṇa, as svayaṃ Bhagavān, is both eka-rūpa and ananta-rūpa. While maintaining the integrity of his singular vigraha as Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, the inexhaustible Godhead overflows in limitless divine forms and displays a panoply of different faces, bodily shapes, emblems, colors, functions, and locations in time and space. In the final analysis, the Gauḍīyas assert, everything is possible for the supreme Godhead who is the source and container of all avatāras.

That Kṛṣṇa, Vrajendrakumāra, is the container of avatāras.… [A]ll is possible to him who is the container of avatāras. In the body of the container of avatāras is the place of all avatāras. People refer [to him] in different ways, according to their opinions. Some call Kṛṣṇa Nara-Nārāyaṇa. Some say that Kṛṣṇa is the Vāmana incarnation. Some say Kṛṣṇa is the Kṣīrodaśāyī-avatāra. It is not impossible that everyone’s words are true. Some say he is Paravyoma Nārāyaṇa. All is possible to Kṛṣṇa, in whom are all avatāras.¹²⁶

Gendering the Taxonomy: Rādhā’s Divine Forms

Although Kṛṣṇa is represented in the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment as embracing diversity across a range of registers, including classes of beings, bodily shapes and features, and colors, there is one register that appears to be devoid of diversity: gender. Among the numerous bodily forms that Kṛṣṇa assumes in his manifestations as prakāśas, vilāsas, and avatāras, all are male, with the exception of Mohinī, in which Kṛṣṇa temporarily manifests the form of an alluring woman in order to recover the nectar of immortality from the demons. In contrast to other classes of avatāras that manifest for an extended period of time, Kṛṣṇa’s appearance as Mohinī is classified by Rūpa among the prābhava līlā-avatāras that manifest for only a brief period of time. While the taxonomy of Kṛṣṇa’s divine forms is thus dominated by male bodies, a critical role is allotted to female bodies in a complementary taxonomy developed by Kṛṣṇadāsa, in which he suggests that just as Kṛṣṇa is the aṃśin who appears in manifold male forms as prakāśas, vilāsas, and avatāras, so Rādhā is the aṃśinī who appears in manifold female forms as the consorts of Kṛṣṇa’s various manifestations.

Kṛṣṇadāsa’s complementary taxonomy is predicated on establishing that Rādhā herself, as the embodiment of the hlādinī-śakti, the blissful aspect of the svarūpa-śakti, is the female counterpart of Kṛṣṇa who participates in his essential nature in a relationship of identity-in-nonidentity as the pūrṇa śakti of the pūrṇa śaktimat.

Rādhā is the full śakti, Kṛṣṇa is the full container of śakti; they are two principles, but they are not divided. To this the śāstras are witness. As musk and its scent are not divided, as fire and flame are not divided, so Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are always one in true form [svarūpa]. It is for the purpose of tasting līlā-rasa that they hold two forms [rūpas].¹²⁷

Bhagavān, while remaining one in his svarūpa, bifurcates himself and appears as two nonmaterial rūpas, as the male gopa Kṛṣṇa and the female gopī Rādhā, in order to savor the exhilarating rasa, nectar, of his own blissful līlā. According to Kṛṣṇadāsa, Rādhā’s mind (citta), senses (indriyas), and bodily form (kāya) are made of Kṛṣṇa-preman,¹²⁸ and it is thus by manifesting himself as Rādhā that Kṛṣṇa is able to revel in bliss as both the subject (āśraya) and the object (viṣaya) of his self-referral dalliance.

The androgynous Godhead, male and female halves intertwining as one whole, splits into two and issues forth in two complementary streams: a stream of male forms issues forth from Kṛṣṇa’s gopa body, the svayaṃ-rūpa, as manifestations of the paradigmatic male body, and a stream of female forms issues forth from Rādhā’s gopī body as manifestations of the paradigmatic female body. Kṛṣṇadāsa, in classifying the types of manifestations that issue forth from Rādhā, makes use of several of the technical terms that he uses to classify Kṛṣṇa’s manifestations. He distinguishes in particular among three classes of manifestations that issue forth as three kinds of śaktis or consorts from Rādhā, the mahā-śakti who is the “crest-jewel of all the consorts”: mahiṣīs, lakṣmīs, and gopīs. Just as Kṛṣṇa’s manifestation in his four-armed aiśvarya form as Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa is classified as a vaibhava-prakāśa, so the mahiṣīs, the 16,000 queens of Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa in Dvārakā, are classified as vaibhava-prakāśas of Rādhā. Just as certain forms of Viṣṇu such as Nārāyaṇa are classified as vaibhava-vilāsas of Kṛṣṇa, so the lakṣmīs, the goddesses who are the consorts of these Viṣṇu forms in their Vaikuṇṭha abodes in Paravyoman, are classified as vaibhava-vilāsas of Rādhā. The gopīs, the consorts of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa in his transcendent Vraja-dhāman, are ranked highest in this threefold taxonomy, for they are classified as kāya-vyūhas, direct emanations of the body (kāya) of Rādhā, who issue forth as variegated expressions of the hlādinī-śakti that Kṛṣṇa relishes as manifold flavors of the ambrosial rasa of preman.¹²⁹

When Kṛṣṇa descends to the material realm at the end of Dvāpara Yuga and manifests his svayaṃ-rūpa as a two-armed cowherd boy in the region of Vraja in North India, Rādhā and the gopīs, his mahā-śakti and her emanations, are represented as descending with him and appearing in the form of earthly cowmaidens who engage with their cowherd lover in the manifest līlā in the groves of Vṛndāvana. While in Dvāpara Yuga Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā descend to the material realm and engage in their love-play in two separate bodies, Kṛṣṇadāsa emphasizes the unique nature of the Kali Yuga avatāra in which Kṛṣṇa descends and manifests himself as Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā together in a single body: the radiant golden form of Caitanya.¹³⁰

Rādhā is the manifested form of pure love for Kṛṣṇa; she is his hlādinī-śakti. Because of this they had previously assumed different bodies on earth, although really one, but now they have become manifest under the name of Caitanya in order to attain to non-duality and oneness: I praise the true form of Kṛṣṇa enveloped in the radiance of the bhāva of Rādhā.¹³¹

The Gauḍīyas and the Śrīvaiṣṇavas: Contending Theologies

The notion that the one Godhead is the source of numerous avatāras and other types of divine manifestations is of course not unique to the Gauḍīya tradition but, as mentioned earlier, has its roots in earlier Vaiṣṇava and Purāṇic traditions, including the Pāñcarātra theory of vyūhas and Purāṇic theories of avatāra. The Śrīvaiṣṇavas incorporated the Pāñcarātra system into a multileveled theology of the Godhead that provides an interesting comparative case, for it similarly suggests that the supreme Godhead—who is referred to as Viṣṇu or Nārāyaṇa—while remaining one, is the source of various types of divine manifestations.

The Śrīvaiṣṇavas appropriated and recast the Pāñcarātra notion of the five modes of manifestation of the deity in their own theological formulations concerning the five modes through which Viṣṇu’s divya-maṅgala vigraha, divine auspicious form, manifests. According to these formulations, as articulated by later Śrīvaiṣṇavas such as Vedāntadeśika (c. 1268–1369 CE), the acclaimed Śrīvaiṣṇava theologian and bhakti poet-saint, the divya-maṅgala vigraha, which is nonmaterial (aprākṛta), manifests in five ways: (1) as the para-rūpa, transcendent body of the Lord, which is nonchanging and eternal; (2) as the four vyūhas, divine emanations—Vāsudeva, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha—with the latter three vyūhas presiding over the creation, maintenance, and dissolution of the material realm; (3) as vibhavas or avatāras, divine manifestations at particular times, such as Matsya, Kūrma, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa; (4) as the antar-yāmin or hārda, the indwelling form of the Lord that resides in the heart; and (5) as arcā-avatāra, a divine descent in the form of a ritual image (arcā or mūrti).¹³²

It is quite possible that the early Gauḍīya authorities were familiar with Śrīvaiṣṇava formulations of the five modes of manifestation of Viṣṇu, as Jīva Gosvāmin quotes frequently from Rāmānuja in the Sandarbhas and appears to have been closely acquainted with Śrīvaiṣṇava literature. He also at times invokes certain Pāñcarātra texts and ritual procedures, as I will discuss in Chapter 6. Moreover, according to hagiographic accounts, another of the six Gosvāmins, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmin, was raised in South India as the son of a Śrīvaiṣṇava brahmin priest at the Śrīraṅgam temple and very likely would have received training in Śrīvaiṣṇava works.¹³³ Whether or not the Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment was directly influenced by this Śrīvaiṣṇava fivefold schema, the two systems converge at certain points, while at the same time the Gauḍīyas present a more ornate taxonomy of divine forms that diverges in significant ways from the Śrīvaiṣṇava schema.

Para-rūpa

The Śrīvaiṣṇavas and the Gauḍīyas concur that the ultimate reality is not the impersonal, formless Brahman extolled by the Advaitins but is rather a personal Godhead who is endowed with a transcendent nonmaterial body—termed para-rūpa by the Śrīvaiṣṇavas and vigraha by the Gauḍīyas. However, whereas the Śrīvaiṣṇavas maintain that the essential form of the transcendent body is the four-armed form of Viṣṇu, who bears the discus, conch, club, and lotus as his emblems, the Gauḍīyas insist that the essential form of the absolute body is the two-armed form of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, who bears the flute as his central emblem. Moreover, they assert that Kṛṣṇa is svayaṃ Bhagavān, the supreme Godhead, and that the four-armed form of Viṣṇu that the Śrīvaiṣṇavas cherish is in actuality a form of Kṛṣṇa in his aiśvarya mode.

Vyūhas

The Śrīvaiṣṇavas and the Gauḍīyas both incorporate the Pāñcarātra theory of vyūhas into their respective systems. However, the Gauḍīyas’ appropriation of the vyūha theory is more complex and multilayered, appearing in three different iterations and seeking to establish in each case that the vyūhas are ultimately manifestations of Kṛṣṇa, svayaṃ Bhagavān. The ādi catur-vyūhas, the four primordial vyūhas, are identified with the prābhava-vilāsas in Kṛṣṇaloka, Kṛṣṇa’s transcendent abode; a second set of the four vyūhas is identified with the four principal vaibhava-vilāsas in Paravyoman, the transcendent domain that surrounds Kṛṣṇaloka; and three of the four vyūhas—Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha—are identified with the three puruṣa-avatāras who are ascribed particular roles in creating and maintaining the material realm and all jīvas in the sargas and pratisargas.

Avatāras

While both the Śrīvaiṣṇavas and the Gauḍīyas incorporate Purāṇic notions of avatāras into their classificatory schemas, the Śrīvaiṣṇava theologians give relatively little attention to the avatāras. The Gauḍīyas, in contrast, devote lavish attention to cataloguing and classifying the bodily forms and functions of the various avatāras in all their particularities, subsuming them in an encompassing taxonomy that distinguishes among six classes of avatāras—puruṣa-avatāras, guṇa-avatāras, līlā-avatāras, manvantara-avatāras, yuga-avatāras, and āveśa-avatāras—and that ranks the members of the latter four classes in accordance with a secondary classificatory schema that distinguishes among parāvastha, vaibhava, prābhava, and āveśa forms. The development of this taxonomy appears to be motivated in part by a concern to generate a coherent analytical system from the disparate accounts of the various networks of avatāras found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The paramount concern, however, is to recast the inherited paradigm perpetuated by the Śrīvaiṣṇavas and other Vaiṣṇava schools, in which Kṛṣṇa is simply one among the many avatāras that issues forth from the avatārin Viṣṇu, and to establish that, on the contrary, it is Kṛṣṇa who is the avatārin from whom Viṣṇu himself issues forth in his threefold form as the puruṣa-avatāras along with innumerable other avatāras.

Antar-yāmin

In their multileveled theologies concerning the divine forms of their respective deities, the Śrīvaiṣṇavas and the Gauḍīyas both include the notion that the deity resides in the heart as the antar-yāmin, inner controller. Whereas Rāmānuja understands the term antar-yāmin as synonymous with Upaniṣadic notions of the antar-ātman, the indwelling Self that is immanent in all embodied beings, later Śrīvaiṣṇavas extend the meaning of the term to include the notion that the deity dwells within the heart in an embodied form.¹³⁴ The Gauḍīyas’ conception of the antar-yāmin concurs with the latter notion, and they even describe the corporeal form of the antar-yāmin in terms that resonate with Śrīvaiṣṇava images of Viṣṇu: as a four-armed form bearing the emblems of discus, conch, club, and lotus. However, the Gauḍīyas insist that while this four-armed form may be revered by the Śrīvaiṣṇavas as a form of Viṣṇu, Viṣṇu himself is simply a manifestation of the supreme Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, in his aiśvarya mode.

Arcā-avatāras

The Śrīvaiṣṇavas and the Gauḍīyas concur in ascribing to ritual images, arcās or mūrtis, the status of arcā-avatāras, image-avatāras, which are revered in temples or shrines as concrete embodiments of the deity. In both traditions the image made of stone, metal, or wood is venerated as a living body that instantiates the real presence of the deity in a localized form.¹³⁵ While the arcā-avatāra is ascribed a unique status within Śrīvaiṣṇava theology and practice as the most accessible of Viṣṇu’s five modes of manifestation, the Gauḍīyas view the arcā-avatāra as only one among a number of localized embodiments of Kṛṣṇa that serve as vehicles through which human beings can access and engage the deity. It is to a consideration of these localized modes of divine embodiment that I now turn.

Kṛṣṇa’s Mesocosmic Forms

The Gauḍīya discourse of divine embodiment represents Kṛṣṇa, svayaṃ Bhagavān, as maintaining the integrity of his vigraha, absolute body, while simultaneously assuming limitless divine forms on the transcosmic, macrocosmic, and microcosmic planes of existence. In addition to the various categories of divine forms discussed thus far—in particular, the two classes of prakāśas, the two classes of vilāsas, and the six classes of avatāras—I would argue that there is another category, which I term “mesocosmic” modes of divine embodiment, that is critical to our understanding of the Gauḍīya hermeneutics of embodiment. Kṛṣṇa is represented as becoming embodied in a number of mesocosmic, or intermediary, forms that mediate between the transcosmic absolute body and the microcosmic human body by serving as concrete means through which human beings can access, encounter, engage, and experience the concentrated presence of the Godhead in localized forms on the gross material plane.

In the case of the svāṃśa avatāras, as we have seen, Kṛṣṇa descends to the material realm in the forms of various kinds of living beings—whether divine, human, animal, or hybrid forms—on the macrocosmic and microcosmic planes in order to accomplish specific tasks for a delimited period of time, after which his avatāras return to their transcendent abodes. In the case of the mesocosmic forms, in contrast, Kṛṣṇa descends to the material realm and becomes embodied in particular configurations of language—as śāstra, scripture, and as nāman, name—and in visible forms associated with particular locales—as dhāman, geographic place, and as mūrti, ritual image. The notion of avatāra is extended in this context to include Kṛṣṇa’s divine descents in four types of mesocosmic forms that—in contrast to the time-bound descents of the svāṃśa avatāras—he “leaves behind” on earth as enduring modes of divine embodiment that human beings can access and engage over time: (1) grantha-avatāra, Kṛṣṇa’s avatāra in the form of a scriptural text, grantha or śāstra, that is identified more specifically as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the sovereign of all śāstras; (2) nāma-avatāras, Kṛṣṇa’s avatāras in the form of divine names, nāmans, that are ultimately held to be identical with Kṛṣṇa’s essential nature (svarūpa) and absolute body (vigraha); (3) Vraja-dhāman, Kṛṣṇa’s embodiment in the form of a geographic place, dhāman, that is celebrated as the manifest counterpart of his transcendent abode; and (4) arcā-avatāras, Kṛṣṇa’s avatāras in the form of ritual images, arcās or mūrtis, that are venerated as his localized embodiments in temples and shrines.

Rūpa ascribes “inconceivable power” (acintya śakti) to these four mesocosmic forms—Bhāgavata Purāṇa, nāman, Vraja-dhāman, and mūrti—as “transmundane (alaukika) forms” that are in the final analysis nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa and are therefore efficacious not only in arousing Kṛṣṇa-rati, love for Kṛṣṇa, in the hearts of bhaktas but also in manifesting the object of this love—Kṛṣṇa himself—on the gross material plane.

The inconceivable power (acintya śakti) of these transmundane (alaukika) forms is such that it will manifest the bhāva [of Kṛṣṇa-rati] and its object [Kṛṣṇa] at the same time.¹³⁶

Invoking the semiotic terminology of Charles Sanders Peirce, we could say that in the Gauḍīya hermeneutics of embodiment these mesocosmic forms are not understood as “symbols” that represent the deity, pointing beyond themselves to a transcendent referent, but rather they function as “iconic signs” that manifest the deity, disclosing the deity’s living presence through a localized form—whether the form of a text, a name, a geographic place, or a ritual image.¹³⁷

Śāstra

Kṛṣṇa is celebrated as becoming embodied in śāstra, scripture, in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which is extolled as a grantha-avatāra, text-avatāra. Jīva Gosvāmin asserts the special status of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as the “representative embodiment (pratinidhi-rūpa) of Kṛṣṇa,” and he invokes the Bhāgavata itself to establish that it is this text-avatāra that Kṛṣṇa leaves behind when, at the onset of Kali Yuga, he departs the earth and returns to his transcendent abode:

Now that Kṛṣṇa has departed for his own abode (svadhāman) along with dharma, knowledge, and so on, this Purāṇa has risen like the sun for the sake of those who are bereft of sight in Kali Yuga.¹³⁸

Asan oral-aural collection of recited narratives, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is revered as an embodiment of Kṛṣṇa in the form of reverberating speech, while in its written-visual mode it is venerated as a ritual icon in the form of a concrete book.¹³⁹

Nāman

Kṛṣṇa’s embodiment in language is not limited to the reverberating speech of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa but also includes his manifestation in the seed-syllables that constitute his nāmans, divine names, which are revered as nāma-avatāras, name-avatāras, or varṇa-avatāras, sound-avatāras. The name is held to be a concentrated form of sat-cit-ānanda and thus is considered identical with Kṛṣṇa’s svarūpa, essential nature, and his vigraha, absolute body. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja asserts:

The name, the vigraha, and the svarūpa, these three are one rūpa; there is no division among the three; the three are the cidānanda svarūpa. There is no division in Kṛṣṇa between the body and the possessor of the body, nor between the name and the possessor of the name.¹⁴⁰

Dhāman

Kṛṣṇa is also extolled as becoming embodied in dhāman, place, and more specifically in Vraja-dhāman. As we have seen, Vraja is represented in the Gauḍīya tradition both as a transcendent space, which is the abode of Kṛṣṇa’s absolute body and the domain of the unmanifest līlā, and as a geographic place, which is the abode of his svayaṃ-rūpa and the site of the manifest līlā during his sojourn on earth as Gopāla Kṛṣṇa. The earthly Vraja-dhāman is held to be the manifest counterpart of the unmanifest Vraja-dhāman, Goloka-Vṛndāvana, which is simultaneously immanent and transcendent, and therefore from this perspective Kṛṣṇa does not cease to dwell in the terrestrial Vraja even after he departs from the earth. His instantiation in the sacred geography of Vraja in North India is understood in three different senses. First, the earthly Vraja is revered as the place where Kṛṣṇa appeared at the end of Dvāpara Yuga in his svayaṃ-rūpa as a cowherd boy, and the entire landscape is held to be imprinted with his footprints, marking the līlā-sthalas, the sites of his playful exploits, during his earthly sojourn. Second, the earthly Vraja is extolled as the terrestrial manifestation of the transcendent Vraja-dhāman where Kṛṣṇa eternally abides, and thus the landscape is held to be infused with his divine presence at all times—before, during, and after his earthly sojourn. Third, the entire sacred geography of Vraja is celebrated as the body of Kṛṣṇa, with the twelve forests and other important pilgrimage sites identified with specific body parts.¹⁴¹

Mūrti

Kṛṣṇa’s instantiation in place is not limited to the sacred geography of Vraja but also includes his embodiment in mūrtis, ritual images, in which he assumes localized forms in temples and shrines throughout the Indian subcontinent. The Gauḍīyas emphasize that Kṛṣṇa, out of his grace, descends and dwells in mūrtis, ritual images, which are also termed arcās, arcā-vigrahas, and pratimās. Moreover, they assert that these arcā-avatāras, image-avatāras, are nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa and that those adepts who are advanced in the practice of bhakti have the ability to perceive the living presence of Bhagavān within the mūrti.¹⁴² As discussed earlier, Kṛṣṇadāsa establishes a connection between the mūrti as an arcā-avatāra embodied in a temple on earth and the mūrti as a special category of divine manifestations identified with the twenty-four vaibhava-vilāsas in the transcendent domain of Paravyoman. More specifically, he maintains that a number of the temple mūrtis enshrined in particular locales in India—for example, in Mathurā, Kāñcīpuram, Purī, and Māyāpura—are the manifest counterparts of the transcendent mūrtis that abide eternally in Paravyoman.

The two components of the Gauḍīya discourse of embodiment—the discourse of divine embodiment discussed in this chapter and the discourse of human embodiment with which I will be concerned in Chapter 2—are interwoven in the discursive representations and practices pertaining to these four mesocosmic forms of Kṛṣṇa. In Chapter 2 I will be concerned in particular with Gauḍīya formulations of the “embodied aesthetics of bhakti” and regimens of practice for fashioning a devotional body that engage the mesocosmic forms of Kṛṣṇa. I will then turn in Chapters 3 to 5 to a sustained analysis of the ways in which the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Chapter 3), nāman (Chapter 4), and Vraja (Chapter 5) are represented in the Bhāgavata and other Purāṇic texts and are reimagined in the Gauḍīya discourse of embodiment as mesocosmic divine bodies that are ascribed a pivotal role in the construction of devotional bodies. I will not devote a separate chapter to mūrtis because, while the early Gauḍīya authorities expound at length on the ontological status of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, nāman, and Vraja-dhāman as mesocosmic forms of Kṛṣṇa, they appear to take for granted the status of temple mūrtis as image-avatāras and hence do not engage in sustained arguments regarding the ontology of mūrtis, which had previously been established in the theological formulations of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas.¹⁴³