This glory is well known; the whole world sings it.
Shri Raghunathji, overflowing with kripa, bowed His own head so that the crown of Varamukhi might be placed upon it.
O assembly of sadhus, hear these accounts. In Dvapara, the Vachchha-haran charitra took place. Afterward, in Kaliyuga too, this wondrous event occurred and is celebrated still.
Kripa as the Foundation of All Spiritual Relationship
The tilak commentary preserves a single luminous gesture at the heart of this entry: Shri Raghunathji Kripalu bowed his own head so that the crown of Vasmukhi could rest upon it. The epithet Kripalu, meaning one who is full of kripa, divine grace and compassion, is not a title conferred by institution. It describes a quality so thoroughly embodied that the name becomes inseparable from the person. In bowing his head as a pedestal for another devotee's adornment, Shri Raghunathji demonstrated that true kripa moves without hierarchy. The one saturated with grace does not guard it or display it. It flows outward as a natural gesture, elevating those around it. For the seeker, this teaching is practical: wherever you encounter genuine kripa in a realized soul, do not merely observe it from a distance. Allow it to reach you, as Vasmukhi did, openly and without reservation.
Bhaktamal tilak commentary on entry 161
The Vachcha-haran Lila: The Lord Enters Every Form
The tilak invokes the Vachcha-haran charitra from the tenth canto of the Shrimad Bhagavatam, in which Brahma, wishing to test Krishna's divinity, hid the cowherd boys and calves of Vrindavan while they rested at midday. Krishna's response was not force or protest. He simply became each cowherd boy and each calf, sustaining Vrindavan in perfect continuity for a full year. Every mother nursed the Krishna-form without knowing it, pouring love into the source of all love. The teaching that the Braj tradition draws from this lila is direct: the Lord enters ordinary life wearing ordinary forms. The divine is not absent from the commonplace. Bhakti practiced with sincerity toward any sincere form reaches the source of all forms. Shri Arlhaji and his companions lived within this understanding, which is why the tilak says that what happened in Dvapara occurred again in Kaliyuga among these devotees.
Shrimad Bhagavatam, Tenth Canto; Bhaktamal tilak on entry 161
Holy Company as a Spiritual Inheritance
The Bhaktamal places Shri Arlhaji in a group of four: Shri Jas Swamiji, Shri Nand Dasji, Shri Arlhaji, and Vasmukhi. Nand Dasji is recognized among the Ashtachhap, the eight poet-saints of the Braj-Vallabha tradition, whose poetry about Krishna's lilas combines technical mastery with the deepest tenderness. To be named in the same verse as such a soul is itself a declaration. Nabhaji, the author of the Bhaktamal, did not construct idle lists. Position and company within his verses carry meaning. The tradition teaches that satsanga, the company of truth-saturated souls, is not merely pleasant encouragement. It actively transforms the one who enters it. To share a sanctum, a song, or even a moment of weeping at the feet of the thakur with a realized being is to absorb something that no formal instruction alone can transmit. Shri Arlhaji inhabited this company, and the fragrance of that association is what the text passes forward.
Bhaktamal by Nabhaji (c. 1585); Bhaktamal tilak on entry 161
Braj as the Living Present of Devotion
The tilak draws a direct line between the Dvapara-yuga events of the Bhagavatam and the lives of the four devotees named in this entry. It says explicitly: this astonishing, ashcharya-janaka, event that occurred in Dvapara happened in Kaliyuga also, and it is celebrated still. This is one of the central convictions of the Braj devotional world: that sacred time is not sealed in the past. The lilas of Krishna are not episodes that concluded with the end of Dvapara. For the devotee who has thinned the veil of ordinary perception through sincere bhakti, Vrindavan is perpetually present, the calves wander the same hills, the flute's resonance still moves through the same groves. Shri Arlhaji and his companions are offered in the text as evidence of this living present. Their lives were not a distant echo of something ancient. They were themselves participants in the ongoing lila, recognized as such by the tradition that preserved their names.
Bhaktamal tilak on entry 161; Braj Vaishnava devotional tradition
The Name Itself as an Act of Transmission
Nabhaji composed the Bhaktamal with a specific understanding: to speak the name of a devotee in a gathering of sadhu-Vaishnavas is itself an act of devotion. It releases whatever spiritual fragrance that life carries into the assembled space. The tika closes its commentary on this entry with an invitation: O assembly of sadhus, hear these accounts. The listeners are not asked to analyze or verify. They are asked to receive. This points to a dimension of the bhakti path that operates below the level of argument and information. When a name like Shri Arlhaji, or Vasmukhi, or Shri Raghunathji Kripalu, is spoken with even a small inclination of the heart toward grace, something moves. The Bhaktamal tradition holds that the saints whose lives are recorded within it are not merely historical figures. Their presence circulates through the hearing and speaking of their names, available to any heart that turns toward them with even a modest sincerity.
Bhaktamal by Nabhaji (c. 1585); tilak commentary on entry 161
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.