Bhakti and Embodiment Page 14
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 discuss
ed 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