In the lineage of Shri Tila, who emerged like a shining peak on the Sumeru of Bharatakhanda, a luminous parampara of bhaktas took form.
Shri Tila's shishya was Shri Laha, whose lineage of shishyas became supremely radiant. His son Shri Paramanandadas became a renowned yogi. The supremely generous Khartardas, Khemdas, Dhyandas, and Keshodas all had great anuraga for Hari-bhaktas. The well-known Tyola, born in a lohar lineage, illumined that vamsha. Haridas had great prema for Kapi Shri Hanumanji.
All were accomplished in navadha bhakti. All bore dasata in their bodies and served the Vaishnavas of Achyutakula. Through this, they attained the unfailing prema-bhakti of Bhagavan. Servanthood was not their burden. It was their doorway.
The Parampara as a Living Garland
Nabhadas describes the lineage of Shri Tila as a garland, not a single flower. Bhagavandas and his companions remind us that the spiritual life is rarely a solitary affair. Grace travels through relationship, from teacher to student, from parent to child, from one devoted heart to the next. Shri Tila stood like a luminous peak upon the mountain Sumeru, a point of orientation for those who were lost. From him flowed Shri Laha, and from Laha came Paramanandadas, celebrated across the world as a yogi of union. Each soul in this chain received something living and transmitted it further. If you feel drawn to a teacher or to a community of practitioners, do not take that pull lightly. You may be entering a current of grace that has been flowing for generations, waiting to include you.
Bhaktamal, Chappay 117, Tika commentary by Priyadas
Dasata: The Posture That Opens Everything
The one teaching that Nabhadas places at the very heart of this entire lineage is dasata, embodied servanthood. These bhaktas bore dasata in their very bodies. They did not merely think about humility or speak about it. They carried it in how they moved through the world, in how they met the Vaishnavas of Achyutakula each day. Dasata is not a performance of lowliness. It is the natural posture of a heart that has stopped insisting on its own centrality. The servant does not demand. The servant does not stand above what is offered. What the servant gains in exchange for releasing the ego's constant hunger for recognition is something the ego could never have obtained on its own: the unfailing, undiminishing prema-bhakti of Bhagavan. The door of dasata opens from the inside. When you choose it freely, everything that was being waited upon enters.
Bhaktamal Tika: 'deha mein dasata dharan kar'
Devotion to the Devotees
Khartardas, Khemdas, Dhyandas, and Keshodas are each described as having great anuraga, deep settled love, for the bhaktas of Hari. This detail is not incidental. In the tradition these saints inhabited, love for Bhagavan's devotees is understood as equivalent to love for Bhagavan himself. The bhakta is the one in whom Bhagavan's presence has become visible. When you serve a genuine devotee, you are performing seva at the feet of the one who lives within them. This is why Nabhadas notes their love for the community of Achyutakula with such care. Anuraga is not the first flush of feeling that comes and goes with circumstances. It is love that has settled, that persists through difficulty, that does not require favorable conditions in order to remain. To cultivate this quality toward those who love Bhagavan is itself a complete practice.
Bhaktamal, Chappay 117
Grace Follows the Heart, Not the Birth
Among the souls named in this lineage is Tyola, born in the lohar vamsha, the lineage of blacksmiths. Nabhadas notes this without apology. Tyola did not merely participate in the parampara of Tila in spite of his birth. He ujagared it. He brightened and distinguished his entire ancestry by the radiance of his devotion. The bhakti movement made one quiet argument across centuries, and Nabhadas gives it concrete form in saints like Tyola: spiritual greatness cannot be inherited through birth alone, and it cannot be prevented by birth alone. It arises wherever the heart turns toward Bhagavan with steadiness and love. The forge and the anvil are as fit a setting for awakening as any scholar's library. What Bhagavan looks toward is the longing of the heart, and that longing can arise anywhere.
Bhaktamal, Chappay 117, on Tyola of the lohar vamsha
Hanuman and the Completion of Service
Haridas, one of the souls in this lineage, is remembered for his great prema toward Kapi Shri Hanumanji. Hanuman is the supreme example of dasya-bhakti, the path of joyful, self-forgetful service. He carried Sri Ram's ring across an ocean. He tore open his own chest to reveal Ram and Sita seated within his heart. He is not simply a devoted figure from the epics. He is a living teaching about what happens when love and service are not held in tension but become identical. To love Hanuman is to orient oneself toward that possibility: that there is a way of being in the world in which every act of service is an act of love, and every act of love is a form of service. Haridas found in Hanuman not a distant ideal but a companion and a guide, and through that love he entered, as Nabhadas says, into the full treasury of navadha bhakti.
Bhaktamal, Chappay 117, on Haridas and his prema for Hanumanji
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.