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  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 th
e 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