Love and Language
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आख्याहि विश्वेश्वर विश्वमूर्ते त्वद्भक्तियोगं च महद्विमृग्यम् ।
"Tell me, O Lord of the Universe, O Form of the Universe, all about your bhakti-yoga, which is sought after by all the great souls." (11.19.8)
I was just going through my Sanskrit manual over a lesson we completed not too long ago. I am trying as far as possible to find examples from our primary texts like Gītā and Bhāgavatam, but also from other sources as well if I find the grammatical lesson it teaches is particularly useful.
This was given as an example of a second person imperative in athematic parasmaipada conjugations, ending in -hi. For some reason, I decided to track down all the -hi ending imperatives in the Bhāgavata and Gītā, and I can up with eight or ten that were frequent and also had easy examples to use, like this one.
Now it is almost impossible to give good examples without going beyond what the students have already learned. Like here vimṛgyam, which is only going to come up in another month or so, but it is a great word that appears several times in the Bhāgavata, śrutibhir vimṛgyām (10.47.61), adyāpi yat-pada-rajaḥ śruti-mṛgyam eva (10.14.34). It has a lot of force and here in this rather unimportant line from the Bhāgavata, which nevertheless carries within it all that timeless venerability that is the Bhāgavatam.
So in these ways, the object of the book, the orientation of it, is to enter into those texts as a living language. You make it live through the same process as love always progresses. You have to have mamatā for the language. It is probably no coincidence that "me" and "mummy" are onomatopoeically related. Mamatā is for something that is very close to your heart, you belong to it as much as it belongs to you.
Madhusudana Saraswati came up with a simple formula in his commentary to 18.66:
tasyaivāhaṁ mamaivāsau sa evāham iti tridhā |
bhagavac-charaṇatvaṁ syāt sādhanābhyāsa-pākataḥ ||
"I am Yours alone," "You are mine alone" "I am you alone." In these three ways one's surrender to God is intensified as one's devotional practice matures.
Now the problem for Vaishnavas is how to understand this "I am you alone." I really don't think in human experience there is anything like erotic love to give a sense of what it means to become totally identified with another person. And that is why the metaphor took life as myth.
viśeṣo varṇito’smābhiḥ sarvo bhakti-rasāyane |
grantha-vistara-bhīrutvād diṅ-mātram iha kathyate ||
We have described in detail all this in the Bhakti-rasāyana, so out of fear of unnecessarily expanding this work, I am just giving the general outline.
tatrādyaṁ mṛdu, yathā—
"Tell me, O Lord of the Universe, O Form of the Universe, all about your bhakti-yoga, which is sought after by all the great souls." (11.19.8)
I was just going through my Sanskrit manual over a lesson we completed not too long ago. I am trying as far as possible to find examples from our primary texts like Gītā and Bhāgavatam, but also from other sources as well if I find the grammatical lesson it teaches is particularly useful.
This was given as an example of a second person imperative in athematic parasmaipada conjugations, ending in -hi. For some reason, I decided to track down all the -hi ending imperatives in the Bhāgavata and Gītā, and I can up with eight or ten that were frequent and also had easy examples to use, like this one.
Now it is almost impossible to give good examples without going beyond what the students have already learned. Like here vimṛgyam, which is only going to come up in another month or so, but it is a great word that appears several times in the Bhāgavata, śrutibhir vimṛgyām (10.47.61), adyāpi yat-pada-rajaḥ śruti-mṛgyam eva (10.14.34). It has a lot of force and here in this rather unimportant line from the Bhāgavata, which nevertheless carries within it all that timeless venerability that is the Bhāgavatam.
So in these ways, the object of the book, the orientation of it, is to enter into those texts as a living language. You make it live through the same process as love always progresses. You have to have mamatā for the language. It is probably no coincidence that "me" and "mummy" are onomatopoeically related. Mamatā is for something that is very close to your heart, you belong to it as much as it belongs to you.
Madhusudana Saraswati came up with a simple formula in his commentary to 18.66:
tasyaivāhaṁ mamaivāsau sa evāham iti tridhā |
bhagavac-charaṇatvaṁ syāt sādhanābhyāsa-pākataḥ ||
"I am Yours alone," "You are mine alone" "I am you alone." In these three ways one's surrender to God is intensified as one's devotional practice matures.
Now the problem for Vaishnavas is how to understand this "I am you alone." I really don't think in human experience there is anything like erotic love to give a sense of what it means to become totally identified with another person. And that is why the metaphor took life as myth.
viśeṣo varṇito’smābhiḥ sarvo bhakti-rasāyane |
grantha-vistara-bhīrutvād diṅ-mātram iha kathyate ||
We have described in detail all this in the Bhakti-rasāyana, so out of fear of unnecessarily expanding this work, I am just giving the general outline.
tatrādyaṁ mṛdu, yathā—
The first of these three is soft, delicate, not as strong as the others. Here is the example. Now I stop and say, this example is significant because it is attributed to Shankara and it clearly shows an acceptance of a strong Vaishnava principle. So it is often quoted in the Vaishnava texts of our sampradāya. Nothing is better proof than when the enemy admits your point of view!
saty api bhedāpagame nātha tavāhaṁ na māmakīnas tvam |
sāmudro hi taraṅgaḥ kvacana samudro na tāraṅgaḥ ||
"Even after the sense of difference has departed, O Lord, I am yours and never you mine. The waves belong to the ocean and never the ocean to the waves."
But from the point of intensity, this love is not as strong as the two examples that follow.
And this is actually conventional wisdom in Indian sexual politics. Nevertheless, the tavāsmi attitude is an integral part of love from beginning to end, it is the default position and so most people do not wish to depart from there in practical life, at any rate.
So Madhusūdana Saraswati goes on to the next, mamatā, which is of middling strength:
dvitīyaṁ madhyaṁ, yathā—
hastam utkṣipya yāto’si balāt kṛṣṇa kim adbhutam |
hṛdayād yadi niryāsi pauruṣaṁ gaṇayāmi te ||
Now this is also a super famous verse that is attributed to Bilvamangala, it is in the third śataka of Kr̥ṣṇa-karṇāmr̥ta (3.93), but it has certainly entered into the lore about Bilvamangala.
"O Krishna, you may have dropped my hand and gone off. You have the strength, what is so wonderful about that? But if you can leave my heart, then I will call you a real hero."
So that is mamatā. You are in my heart, I possess you in the innermost recesses of my being.
But Madhusudana is not content there. In effect, he is saying these are both on levels of sādhana in terms of your relationship to God. These are sādhya points in your sādhana, but the ultimate sādhya is the last, of great power: They are minor samādhis on the way to the supreme samādhi.
tṛtīyam adhimātraṁ, yathā—
sakalam idam ahaṁ ca vāsudevaḥ
parama-pumān parameśvaraḥ sa ekaḥ |
iti matir acalā bhavaty anante
hṛdaya-gate vraja tān vihāya dūrāt ||
"All of this and I also am Vasudeva, the supreme person and supreme god, and he alone." When you have this mentality fixed in the Infinite held in your heart, then go, abandon all these from afar. (VP 3.7.32)
This is Yamaraja speaking to his dūtas. But there are verses here and there that reflect something similar. After all, this is just a rewording of the Gītā verse: vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti given as the ultimate stage of knowledge. And in the descriptions of the Bhāgavatottama.
Now one may argue that this is the antithesis of Vaishnava thinking. Brahma-sāyujyā and Bhagavat-sāyujyā are disdained. Hanuman says whatever you do don't give me any kind of liberation where my relation to you as servant to master is broken.
But in order to understand this you have to understand the holy grail of erotic love, complete oneness:
preyāṁs te’haṁ tvam api ca mama preyasīti pravādas
tvaṁ me prāṇā aham api tavāsmīti hanta pralāpaḥ
tvaṁ me te syām aham iti yat tac ca no sādhu rādhe
vyāhāre nau na hi samucito yuṣmad-asmat-prayogaḥ
There is a rumor that I am your lover and you are my beloved. O Dear, some blabber that you are my vital air and I am yours. O Rādhe, to even say, "You are mine and I am yours" is not proper. In our mutual dealings, to use the first person ("I") and second person pronouns ("you") is not at all appropriate. (Alaṅkāra-kaustubha 5.34)
And of course, the verse describing mahābhāva in Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi (which Jiva has quoted directly in Prīti-sandarbha, where it is quite unusual for him to quote original verses by Rupa Goswami.)
rādhāyā bhavataś ca citta-jatunī svedair vilāpya kramāt
yuñjann adri-nikuñja-kuñjara-pate nirdhūta-bheda-bhramam
citrāya svayam anvarañjayad iha brahmāṇḍa-harmyodare
bhūyobhir nava-rāga-hiṅgula-bharaiḥ śṛṅgāra-kāruḥ kṛtī
O elephant king of the bowers of Govardhana hill! The expert artist of the romantic mood has melted together the lac of both hearts, Yours and Radha’s, by applying heat and thereby removing any error of distinction [between them]. In order to paint the insides of the entire universe, he has further made it bright red with copious amounts of vermilion (hiṅgula). (UN 14.115)
Further explanation of which will have to come at another time.
The point is that the power of an experience is its effects on the vyutthāna, the rising out of samādhi, i.e., how does it change your mode or way of being thereafter?
For each stage, as is well known in yoga, the previous stages become vyutthāna to what was once samādhi. This happens as samādhi becomes more intense. The samādhi that follows mahābhāva, is that the object of love is everywhere, is everything.
So, in yoga, whatever is your ālambana for achieving that is good. For most people with complex minds, several ālambanas can all lead to the same place, the Union of Radha and Krishna. Sanskrit is a sādhana for that.
puro rādhā paścād api ca mama rādhā tata itaḥ
sphuranty eṣā samyag vasati mama rādhāntara-gatā |
adhaś cordhvaṁ rādhā diśi vidiśi rādhā kim aparaṁ
samastaṁ me rādhā-mayam idam aho bhāti bhuvanam ||
saty api bhedāpagame nātha tavāhaṁ na māmakīnas tvam |
sāmudro hi taraṅgaḥ kvacana samudro na tāraṅgaḥ ||
"Even after the sense of difference has departed, O Lord, I am yours and never you mine. The waves belong to the ocean and never the ocean to the waves."
But from the point of intensity, this love is not as strong as the two examples that follow.
And this is actually conventional wisdom in Indian sexual politics. Nevertheless, the tavāsmi attitude is an integral part of love from beginning to end, it is the default position and so most people do not wish to depart from there in practical life, at any rate.
So Madhusūdana Saraswati goes on to the next, mamatā, which is of middling strength:
dvitīyaṁ madhyaṁ, yathā—
hastam utkṣipya yāto’si balāt kṛṣṇa kim adbhutam |
hṛdayād yadi niryāsi pauruṣaṁ gaṇayāmi te ||
Now this is also a super famous verse that is attributed to Bilvamangala, it is in the third śataka of Kr̥ṣṇa-karṇāmr̥ta (3.93), but it has certainly entered into the lore about Bilvamangala.
"O Krishna, you may have dropped my hand and gone off. You have the strength, what is so wonderful about that? But if you can leave my heart, then I will call you a real hero."
So that is mamatā. You are in my heart, I possess you in the innermost recesses of my being.
But Madhusudana is not content there. In effect, he is saying these are both on levels of sādhana in terms of your relationship to God. These are sādhya points in your sādhana, but the ultimate sādhya is the last, of great power: They are minor samādhis on the way to the supreme samādhi.
tṛtīyam adhimātraṁ, yathā—
sakalam idam ahaṁ ca vāsudevaḥ
parama-pumān parameśvaraḥ sa ekaḥ |
iti matir acalā bhavaty anante
hṛdaya-gate vraja tān vihāya dūrāt ||
"All of this and I also am Vasudeva, the supreme person and supreme god, and he alone." When you have this mentality fixed in the Infinite held in your heart, then go, abandon all these from afar. (VP 3.7.32)
This is Yamaraja speaking to his dūtas. But there are verses here and there that reflect something similar. After all, this is just a rewording of the Gītā verse: vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti given as the ultimate stage of knowledge. And in the descriptions of the Bhāgavatottama.
Now one may argue that this is the antithesis of Vaishnava thinking. Brahma-sāyujyā and Bhagavat-sāyujyā are disdained. Hanuman says whatever you do don't give me any kind of liberation where my relation to you as servant to master is broken.
But in order to understand this you have to understand the holy grail of erotic love, complete oneness:
preyāṁs te’haṁ tvam api ca mama preyasīti pravādas
tvaṁ me prāṇā aham api tavāsmīti hanta pralāpaḥ
tvaṁ me te syām aham iti yat tac ca no sādhu rādhe
vyāhāre nau na hi samucito yuṣmad-asmat-prayogaḥ
There is a rumor that I am your lover and you are my beloved. O Dear, some blabber that you are my vital air and I am yours. O Rādhe, to even say, "You are mine and I am yours" is not proper. In our mutual dealings, to use the first person ("I") and second person pronouns ("you") is not at all appropriate. (Alaṅkāra-kaustubha 5.34)
And of course, the verse describing mahābhāva in Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi (which Jiva has quoted directly in Prīti-sandarbha, where it is quite unusual for him to quote original verses by Rupa Goswami.)
rādhāyā bhavataś ca citta-jatunī svedair vilāpya kramāt
yuñjann adri-nikuñja-kuñjara-pate nirdhūta-bheda-bhramam
citrāya svayam anvarañjayad iha brahmāṇḍa-harmyodare
bhūyobhir nava-rāga-hiṅgula-bharaiḥ śṛṅgāra-kāruḥ kṛtī
O elephant king of the bowers of Govardhana hill! The expert artist of the romantic mood has melted together the lac of both hearts, Yours and Radha’s, by applying heat and thereby removing any error of distinction [between them]. In order to paint the insides of the entire universe, he has further made it bright red with copious amounts of vermilion (hiṅgula). (UN 14.115)
Further explanation of which will have to come at another time.
The point is that the power of an experience is its effects on the vyutthāna, the rising out of samādhi, i.e., how does it change your mode or way of being thereafter?
For each stage, as is well known in yoga, the previous stages become vyutthāna to what was once samādhi. This happens as samādhi becomes more intense. The samādhi that follows mahābhāva, is that the object of love is everywhere, is everything.
So, in yoga, whatever is your ālambana for achieving that is good. For most people with complex minds, several ālambanas can all lead to the same place, the Union of Radha and Krishna. Sanskrit is a sādhana for that.
puro rādhā paścād api ca mama rādhā tata itaḥ
sphuranty eṣā samyag vasati mama rādhāntara-gatā |
adhaś cordhvaṁ rādhā diśi vidiśi rādhā kim aparaṁ
samastaṁ me rādhā-mayam idam aho bhāti bhuvanam ||
Radha in front of me, and Radha behind; here and there
she manifests; she has taken up complete residence in my heart.
Below me Radha, above me Radha. in every direction Radha
What else is there? Everything in the world has become filled with Radha.
(Prabodhananda, Saṅgīta-mādhava 7.17)
(Prabodhananda, Saṅgīta-mādhava 7.17)
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