06 NOTES

  1. Vallabhācārya’s enumeration of the chapters differs from that of most standard editions. This corresponds to BhP 10.30.24 in the text used in other sectarian traditions.
  2. Cf. BhG 8.5, 12.7; also F. Smith 1998b.
  3. Cf. BhG 1.28 kṛpayā parayāviṣṭho (filled with supreme tenderness); also 2.1; but 8.10c: bhruvor madhye prāṇam āveśya samyak (having properly focused the prāṇa between the eyebrows).
  4. Trans. Ingalls et al. 1990:653.
  5. tvam eva paramātmasvarūpo viśvasāras tasya bhaktiḥ śraddhādipūrvaka upāsanākramajas tadāveśas tena tulyam api na labdham āstāṃ tāvat tajjātīyam; see also Ingalls et al. 1990:655. A sensitive study of the relationship between the words śraddhā, kṛpā, anugraha, and prasāda would greatly enhance our understanding of bhakti. Steps in this direction are: Bhattacharya 1971; Hoens 1969; Jamison 1996: 176–184. Bhattacharya and Jamison note, appositely for Abhinavagupta’s definition of bhakti, that in sraddhā the senses of trust and confidence seem to precede that of faith.
  6. For a succinct discussion of bhakti-rasa according to the Gauḍīya school of Vaiṣṇavism, see Haberman 1988:31ff. For bhakti as a rasa, see Haberman 2003:118ff., 141–153.
  7. Cf. Gnoli 1968:82f.n4; Raghavan 1978:440.
  8. Abhinavabhāratī on the Nāṭyaśāstra; cf. Gnoli 1968:21, 82ff.
  9. For a full translation and explication of this text, see F. Smith 1998a.
  10. Nirodhalakṣaṇa (NL) 12–13. Puruṣottama paraphrases this in his commentary on NL 14: the anxiety (udvega) produced by saṃsārāveśa may be remedied by constant and unconditional offerings to the Lord (sarvavastusamarpaṇarūpasādhana-).
  11. bhagavadāveśe bhagavaddharmā vyāpakatvādayaḥ tatra śruyante na tu jīvo vyāpakaḥ | Cf. Timm 1985:241. Better is Miśra 1971, a Hindi translation of the same text.
  12. Bālabodha. 14; see F. Smith 2005.
  13. Saṃnyāsanirṇaya v. 6.
  14. Subodhinī on BhP 10.32.6–7 (Yugalagītā): āveśo devavaśaś ca pūrvanirūpitau | līlāveśo ’dhunā nirūpyate | (Āveśa as the influence of the deity has been explained before; now āveśa in līlā is explained).
  15. Subodhinī on BhP 10.2.37: smaraṇena kriyāḥ purṇāś cittāveśaś ca tatra hi | jñānakriye yadā viṣṇus tadā mokṣo na saṃśayaḥ || See also Tattvārthadīpanibandha 45c–46b: vairāgyaṃ sāṅkhyayogau ca tapo bhaktiś ca keśave | pañcaparveti vidyeyaṃ yathā vidvān hariṃ viśet || (The fivefold knowledge through which a wise person may enter into Hari are dispassion, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, austerities, and love for Krṣṇa). The process of entering can thus work both ways: Hari entering the devotee or the devotee entering Hari.
  16. For the text, see F. Smith 1998a.
  17. Lālūbhaṭṭa, in his Prameyaratnārṇava (cf. Das 1986:37), a Puṣṭimārga text of the late seventeenth century, cites Muṇḍaka Up. (iti śruteḥ) 3.2.9 in elaborating on this: brahmavid brahmaiva bhavatīti śruteḥ brahmabhāve sati bhagavaddharmāveśe jāyamānasya vyāpakatvasya bhagavadvākyaviṣayatvāt. The point here is that the experience of brahman (brahmabhāve sati) brings onto the devotee the qualities of the Lord (bhagavaddharmāveśa).
  18. This part of the Aṇubhāṣya was composed by Viṭṭhalnāthjī. Vallabhācārya composed the Aṇubhāṣya through sūtra 3.2.23, and the remainder was completed by his son; cf. introduction to the text by M. T. Telivala, the original editor (1927), reproduced in Śrīmad Brahmasūtrāṇubhāṣyam, Caturtho Bhāgaḥ.
  19. ayogolake vahnir iva tasminn āveśalakṣaṇaḥ sambandho ’sti |
  20. yatra jīve svayaṃ bhagavān āvisati tadā bhagavadāvesād bhagavaddharmā api kecit tasminn āvirbhavanti |
  21. Handelman and Shulman 2004:40; see also Chapter 4, p. 128.
  22. De 1942:243. See also www.indiadivine.com/avatara-incarnations2-y.htm, a Web site by Atmatattva Das that succinctly describes different lists of avatāras.
  23. De 1942:315–316.
  24. Ibid.:36ff., 564–572.
  25. Translation of Sanjib Kumar Chaudhuri (1940), quoted in Hein 1972:110. See also Lutgendorf 1991:184, 199, for further examples of possession, especially of Hanumān, in Rām lilā performance.
  26. Haberman 1988:72.
  27. Ibid.:75. See also Wulff 1984 for the importance of devotion in Rūpa’s dramas. Among the main themes in the Vidagdhamādhava are impersonation and disguise, distinctly on the other side of the fuzzy boundary demarcating possession.
  28. “Passion (rāga) is the state of being naturally and completely absorbed [paramāviṣṭatā] in the beloved; that form of devotion that consists of such passion is here declared to be Rāgātmikā” (Haberman 2003:76–77). Elsewhere, Haberman duly notes that “[t]he practitioner of bhakti, however, never identifies with Kṛṣṇa. This fact distinguishes bhakti from Tantric visualization and identification, where the practitioner does identify with the god” (1988:192n40). See Delmonico’s comments on the term paramāviṣṭatā in his review of Haberman 1988: “Āviṣṭatā is another form of āvesa, which means mental or emotional absorption in an idea or person. Thus, rāga or passion in the context of Rūpa’s discussion means a spontaneous or natural paramount absorption in the desired object, in this case Kṛṣṇa. Both Jīva and Visvanātha say that this state of absorption is an effect through which Rūpa means to point to its cause, a thirst or desire consisting of love (preman)” (Delmonico 1993:145). Rūpa’s meaning is that supreme emotional absorption in Kṛṣṇa is in fact the highest access to him.
  29. Haberman 1988:89–104 discusses the different views of Rūpa Gosvāmī and the apostate Rūpa Kavirāja, whose views on embodiment constituted a heresy. His views were condemned by a council held in Jaipur in 1727, and he was subsequently forced to leave Vrindavan and live out his days in Assam. It is Rūpa Kavirāja who describes the siddha-rūpa as the “meditative body” (bhavanamayarūpa, antascintitarūpa).
  30. Haberman 1988:89. He lists three other terms for this body: bhagavatī-tanu, vaikuṇṭha-mūrti, and mukta-puruṣa. A related doctrine is found in the Puṣṭimārga, in Harirāya’s commentary, called Bhāvprakāś, on the Brajbhāṣā vārtās or “histories” written by Gokulanātha, one of the grandsons of Vallabhācāṛya. These include the tales of the 84 disciples of Vallabhācārya (Caurāsī Vaiṣṇavan kī Vārtā) and the 252 disciples of Viṭṭhalnāthjī, Vallabhācārya’s second son (Dosau Bāvan Vaiṣṇavan kī Vārtā). Harirāya’s commentary and its doctrine of triple embodiment, called tin janma (three lives), requires further study. Briefly, however, the three janmas are the adhibhautika, the body of the individual before initiation into the Puṣtimārga, the adhyātmika or spiritual body reconstituted after brahmasambandha, the Puṣtimārga rite of initiation, for use in sevā and in discourse with other bhaktas, and the adhidaivika or divine body as a consort of Kṛṣṇa’s (e.g., Candrāvalī) adopted for use in the eternal lila, in Goloka.
  31. antaścintitābhiṣṭatatsevopayogidehaḥ; Haberman 2003:96n126.
  32. See Gold 1991:102–113, for an interesting discussion of the flexibility and interchangeability of gender in the Gopi Cand epic. See also Hancock 1995:85, who follows Ramanujan on the notion of the voluntary lowering of status from masculine to feminine in order to achieve bhakti, hence, possession.
  33. Haberman notes that there are many manuscripts in Vrindavan that remain unexamined.
  34. Hein 1972:109.
  35. Caldwell 1996:204. It is perhaps natural that such folklore would arise, regardless of the historical accuracy of such incidents. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl uses the term “participation mystique” to describe the “ardent investment of the self in another object or person, as when a Zuñi dancer becomes the god whose mask he wears” (cited in Pesic 2002:148).
  36. The eminent Indian archaeologist, Dr. M. S. Nagaraja Rao, a native of Mysore, informs me that his father, M. Srinivasa Rao (1900–1955), a noted actor who performed with a traveling troupe in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamilnadu for three decades, was best known for his role as Hanumān in the Laṅkādahana drama. In this play Hanumān leads the army of monkeys and bears to Laṅkā to rescue Sītā from the clutches of Rāvaṇa. Srinivasa Rao would prepare for this role by fasting and living a celibate life, qualities for which Hanumān was celebrated. He would break his fast only during the drama itself, after sacking Laṅkā, by dining on bananas, continuing his Hanumān bhāva.
  37. See also Collins’s remarks on bhāva (1982:156f.).
  38. Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994:212.
  39. An example of the latter is found in Kathāsaritsāgara 1.2.59, mūrkhabhāva (the state of being a fool). The anthropomorphizing of emotion in India can be traced to the Ṛgvedic hymns (10.83–84) to manyu (anger). One can argue that this is an early description for what later was labeled bhāva.
  40. BhP 10.47.36. The sense of meditating on form is suggested by the verb anu√smṛ; cf. BhP 11.14.27.
  41. śravaṇād darśanād dhyānān mayi bhāvo ’nukīrtanāt | na tathā saṃnikarṣeṇa. Occasionally other terms are attested that indicate an intensity of experience usually associated with āvesa. For example, the Dasakumāracarita has the phrase upoḍhamatsarā prāvasan (consumed by jealousy).
  42. Humphrey and Laidlaw’s term (1994:230ff.). Emergent moods, they say, “are culturally recognized psychological states cum physical actions which are available for people to switch into” (p. 233).
  43. I have heard the term bhāvāves (in Hindi) used casually in Vrindaban.
  44. Kripal 1995:39.
  45. It is not clear to me whether the mistake is in Kripal’s transcription or M’s Bengali spelling; I do not have access to the original. The Bengali koṣas do not show āviṣṭha, only āviṣṭa; cf. Bandhyopādhyāy 1988:293.
  46. Kripal 1995:340n63.
  47. Lockwood and Bhat 1994. See also bhāvāveśa in Hemacandra’s Anekārthasaṇgraha (4.161).
  48. Ramanujan 1981:117. See Chapter 4 for the Tamil terms. See also Gold 1987:94ff. Vaiṣṇava texts, particularly those on Kṛṣṇa bhakti emphasize correctly generated bhāva, in which the bhakta is consumed by love for Kṛṣṇa. Also relevant here is the view of Śrī Aurobindo, who concludes, with respect to bhakti, that after enlightened realization has occurred, strenuous activity to maintain it is not necessary because “knowledge of the Divine takes possession of one’s consciousness on all levels” (Ghose 1971:307).
  49. Cf. Puruṣottamācārya’s commentary Vedāntaratnamañjuṣā on Nimbārka’s Daśaślokī (Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya viii–ix, 47–49).
  50. Hara 1979a:270n56; also KSS 22.113, 95.23: madanāviṣṭa (madana = smara); 37.205, smarāveśavivaśa; also Rāmāyaṇa 3.44.13, 46.17: manmathaśarāviṣṭa (overcome by the arrow of Eros) (Manmatha is also identical to Smara, both being names of Kāma[deva], the God of love); Skanda Purāṇa 3.3.22.56: smarāveśa (excitement due to love); Matsya Purāṇa 154.246: nāveśaṃ samapadyata (not fallen victim to passion); Madanaketucarita 73, a mid-eighteenth-century text on erotics, has the term bhāvāvesāsnigdhatārā (love as total immersion in passion). See also Bṛhaddevatā 7.46–47, where pra√viś, a more logical choice for sexual entrance, is employed: bhagāntaram pravisya (having entered inside her vulva) (the Maruts entering the vulva of Ghoṣā), and above, chapter 6 notes. It is relevant to note that the visual depiction of complete swooning to the forces of interpersonal love, an acceptable kind of possession in India, is readily available in Hindi cinema. I suspect that this aesthetic has a long history; see, for example, the 1960 classic film Barsaat ki Raat.
  51. Burrow 1979:283.