The Bhaktamal does not scatter its divine figures at random. Nabhadas arranges them according to an architecture that mirrors the architecture of Vaikuntha itself. Before he turns to the saints of the earthly realm, he first honors the Parshadas: the eternal attendants of the Lord, those who were never separated from Him and never will be. These are not devotees who earned their place through sadhana or struggle. They belong to God by nature, the way light belongs to the sun. The tradition counts sixteen such Parshadas, and Nabhadas opens his account of them by naming two figures who stand at the very heart of the Lord's household: Shri Lakshmi, the eternal consort, and Shri Hanuman, the chief of Rama's servants and lord of the Kapisha.
The pairing is not accidental. Lakshmi and Hanuman represent two faces of the same reality: devotion so total that it becomes indistinguishable from the Lord's own nature. Lakshmi is the adi-bhakta, the original devotee, the one in whom love for Narayana is not an acquired quality but an essential truth. Before any rishi chanted a hymn, before any sage sat in meditation, Lakshmi was already pouring herself out in love for the Lord. The Sri Vaishnava tradition calls her Purushakaratva, the divine mediatrix, the one who stands between the stumbling soul and the Lord's justice and says: forgive this one, for this one is mine. She does not deny the soul's failings. She simply covers them with her compassion. When a child has done something wrong and cannot face the father, the mother takes the child by the hand, walks into the room, and speaks on the child's behalf. This is Lakshmi's eternal function. Her love is both the gate through which devotees enter and the grace by which they are received.
Hanuman, named here as Ramadasadhipati, the chief among Rama's servants, and Kapisha, the lord of the monkey warriors, stands as the supreme embodiment of dasya-bhakti: the devotion of the servant. His is a love that finds its highest joy in obedience, its deepest peace in labor performed for the Beloved. When Rama asked Hanuman how he regarded their relationship, Hanuman answered in three ascending stages. When I know myself as the body, I am Your servant. When I know myself as the individual soul, I am a part of You. When I know myself as the Atman, You and I are one. This single answer contains the entire map of the spiritual journey, from the humility of service through the intimacy of kinship to the final recognition of non-difference. Yet Hanuman, having seen all three levels, chose to remain at the first. He preferred to serve. He preferred the posture of the bent knee and the folded hands, not because he lacked the knowledge to claim identity with the Lord, but because service tasted sweeter to him than liberation.
To name these two together at the head of the Parshadas is to establish the two great pillars of the devotional life. Lakshmi teaches that love is the origin of all things. Hanuman teaches that service is the fulfillment of all things. Between these two poles, every possible form of bhakti finds its place. The contemplative who sits in silence, the singer who chants through the night, the pilgrim who walks barefoot to a distant shrine, the mother who feeds her children with a prayer on her lips: all of them are walking somewhere on the line that stretches between Lakshmi's love and Hanuman's service.
The term Parshada itself deserves attention. It comes from the Sanskrit root meaning "one who sits near," one who is always in the presence of the Lord. A Parshada is not a visitor to Vaikuntha. A Parshada is a permanent resident, as inseparable from the Lord as fragrance is from the flower. The Puranas describe Vaikuntha as the realm beyond all suffering, beyond the reach of time and karma, where the Lord reclines upon Shesha and Lakshmi attends to His lotus feet. But Vaikuntha is not merely a place. It is a condition. It is what existence looks like when love and service have dissolved every last trace of separation. The Parshadas live in that condition always. They do not fall from it, and they do not need to strive toward it. They simply are it.
The sixteen Parshadas, of whom Lakshmi and Hanuman are named first, include figures drawn from across the Lord's many lilas. Jambavan, the ancient bear-king who fought beside Rama. Shabari, the tribal woman who tasted every berry before offering it to ensure its sweetness. Jatayu, the vulture who gave his life trying to rescue Sita. Dhruva, the boy-prince who stood on one foot until the Lord appeared. Each of these is a Parshada, an eternal companion who descends into earthly form whenever the Lord descends, playing a role in the divine drama not because they must but because their love will not allow them to stay behind. They are not souls working out their karma. They are the Lord's own entourage, freely choosing embodiment so that other beings might witness what devotion looks like in flesh and bone.
Lakshmi's presence at the head of this list carries a particular theological weight. In the Sri Sampradaya, the tradition that bears her name, she is not merely the Lord's consort but the Acharya of all devotion, the original guru from whom every lineage of bhakti descends. The Sri Sukta of the Rig Veda, among the oldest hymns addressed to any deity, invokes her as the radiant one, golden as fire, lustrous as the moon, seated upon a lotus while celestial elephants pour sacred water over her. She is invoked not merely for material wealth but for the total abundance of life: cattle, progeny, fame, righteousness, and the inner prosperity of a heart turned toward God. When the Kshira Sagara was churned, many wonders rose from its depths. But the crowning moment was the appearance of Lakshmi herself, radiant with gold and precious gems, surveying every being in the cosmos and choosing Vishnu. That choice was not a decision. It was a homecoming. She chose Him because He was already hers and she was already His, from before the beginning of time.
Hanuman's title Kapisha, lord of the monkeys, points to the Ramayana itself, where he serves as the commander of Sugriva's forces and the single most decisive figure in the rescue of Sita. It was Hanuman who leapt across the ocean to Lanka. It was Hanuman who found Sita in the Ashoka grove and placed Rama's ring in her hand, restoring her hope when every other comfort had been stripped away. It was Hanuman who carried the mountain of healing herbs through the night sky to save Lakshmana's life. And it was Hanuman who, when the war was won and Rama offered him any boon he desired, asked only this: that he might live as long as Rama's name is spoken, and that he might spend every moment of that eternity in Rama's service. The boon was granted. Hanuman is counted among the Chiranjivi, the immortal ones. He is alive now, tradition holds, wherever Rama's name is chanted with sincerity. He does not sit idle in some heavenly court. He serves. He always serves.
By placing Lakshmi and Hanuman together at the threshold of the Parshada listing, Nabhadas signals something essential about the Bhaktamal's vision. Devotion is not a human invention that reaches upward toward God. It is a divine reality that pours downward into creation. The Parshadas are proof that the Lord does not dwell alone. He surrounds Himself with love, and that love takes forms: the form of the consort who intercedes, the form of the servant who leaps across oceans, the form of every companion who refuses to let the Lord walk His path without company. Before the Bhaktamal names a single human saint, it establishes this truth: the garland of devotees begins in Vaikuntha, and its first flowers are those who have never known a moment outside the Lord's presence.
Devotion Is Not Earned; It Is Our Nature
The Bhaktamal places Shri Lakshmi at the very head of the Parshadas, the eternal companions of the Lord. She did not arrive at devotion through long practice or painful struggle. She is the adi-bhakta, the original devotee, in whom love for Narayana is not a quality she acquired but a truth she simply is. This challenges a hidden assumption many seekers carry: that devotion must be constructed through discipline, that we must earn our way into the Lord's presence. Lakshmi's example says otherwise. Love for God is not foreign to us; it is closer than anything we could add to ourselves. The seeker's work is not to manufacture devotion but to remove whatever obscures the love that was always already there, waiting like a lamp behind a curtain. When the curtain falls, the light does not begin. It simply becomes visible.
Bhaktamal, Nabhadas, Entry 15 (tikaEn)
Compassion Covers What Justice Cannot Excuse
The Sri Vaishnava tradition calls Lakshmi Purushakaratva: the divine mediatrix, the one who stands between the soul and the Lord's justice. She does not deny the soul's failings. She simply covers them with her compassion. There is a teaching hidden in this function. The soul that approaches the Lord in shame, convinced its past disqualifies it from grace, needs someone to take it by the hand and walk it into the room. Lakshmi does exactly this. She does not argue that the soul is worthy. She argues that the Lord is merciful, and that her love asks mercy be extended. For the seeker, this means the door is never truly shut. Even when self-condemnation says there is no hope, the compassion already present in the divine nature is interceding. The seeker's task is to trust that intercession more than the verdict of self-judgment.
Bhaktamal, Nabhadas, Entry 15 (tikaEn); Sri Vaishnava tradition
Service Freely Chosen Is the Highest Freedom
Hanuman is named here as Ramadasadhipati: chief among Rama's servants. When Rama asked Hanuman to name whatever boon he desired after the war was won, Hanuman asked only to remain in Rama's service for as long as Rama's name is spoken in the world. He had full knowledge of his identity with the Lord. He knew the non-dual truth. And having known it, he chose to serve. This is one of the most radical teachings the devotional tradition offers. Liberation from the cycle of birth and death was available to Hanuman, and he set it aside, not out of ignorance but out of preference. He preferred the bent knee and the folded hands to the throne of identity. Service, when chosen freely from a place of fullness rather than compulsion or fear, is not a lesser state. It is the flowering of love into action.
Bhaktamal, Nabhadas, Entry 15 (tikaEn); Ramayana
Three Levels of Seeing, One Continuous Love
When Rama asked Hanuman how he regarded their relationship, Hanuman gave an answer that contains the entire map of spiritual life. As body, I am your servant. As individual soul, I am a part of you. As Atman, you and I are one. Each level is true. Each is a valid resting place on the journey. The seeker who is still learning to serve need not feel that dasya-bhakti is a beginner's stage to be discarded when understanding deepens. Hanuman knew all three levels and continued to serve. The teaching is that growing into a larger vision does not make the earlier forms of devotion obsolete. It makes them more joyful, more spacious, and more free. The servant who serves because love leaves no other option is already living from the deepest recognition, even if the language they use is still the language of two.
Bhaktamal, Nabhadas, Entry 15 (tikaEn); Hanuman's response to Rama
Devotion Descends from Above; We Are Already Within It
Nabhadas begins the Bhaktamal not with human saints but with the Parshadas: those who have never known a moment outside the Lord's presence. The word Parshada means one who sits near, one who is permanently in the divine proximity. By beginning here, the Bhaktamal tells us that devotion is not a human invention reaching upward toward God. It is a divine reality pouring downward into creation. Lakshmi's love and Hanuman's service were not created by their own efforts. They are expressions of what love looks like when it is in its truest form. For the seeker, this is a profound reassurance. We are not trying to build our way into something that is absent. We are trying to recognize something that was already given, already surrounding us, already the very medium in which we live. The garland of devotion begins in Vaikuntha, and every sincere seeker is already a bead on that garland.
Bhaktamal, Nabhadas, Entry 15 (tikaEn)
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.