भक्तिरसामृतसिन्धु

Bhakti-Rasāmṛta-Sindhu

The Ocean of the Immortal Nectar of Devotional Rasa

Rūpa Goswāmī · 1541 · Vrindavan · selected verses

The Bhakti-Rasāmṛta-Sindhu is the most influential systematic theology of devotion ever written in Sanskrit. Rūpa Goswāmī completed it in 1541 in Vrindavan. The whole later Gauḍīya tradition, the entire ISKCON canon, the modern Vraja-rasika tradition that Bhaiji translated into Hindi, all sit on its definitions and its taxonomies.

Seventeen verses from across the four vibhāgas follow. They open with the maṅgalācaraṇa that names Rādhā in its first line, climb the doctrinal ladder of bhakti, bhāva, and premā, set out the rasa formula, and end with the five primary rasas culminating in mādhurya. Read each one twice.

What This Book Is

Rūpa Goswāmī, the senior of Caitanya Mahāprabhu's six Goswāmīs, completed the Bhakti-Rasāmṛta-Sindhu in 1541 in Vrindavan. He was about fifty-two years old. He had spent his prime as a minister in the Bengal court, met Caitanya, renounced the position, and walked to Vrindavan to do what Caitanya had asked: uncover the lost places of Krishna's pastimes, and give the prema he had brought a permanent grammar.

The Sindhu, the ocean, is the grammar. Four vibhāgas (divisions, named after the four directions) totaling roughly two thousand verses. Each vibhāga has multiple lahari, waves. The whole work is structured as an ocean with waves, fitting the title: the ocean of the immortal nectar of bhakti-rasa.

Within this ocean Rūpa accomplished what no Sanskrit text had attempted before: a systematic theory of devotional emotion as a kind of aesthetic experience. He took the rasa-shastra of Sanskrit drama (the dance and theater theory of Bharata Muni's Nāṭya-shāstra) and applied it to the inner life of the bhakta. The five primary rasas of devotion (peace, servitude, friendship, parental affection, sweet love) became a working taxonomy. Sweet love (mādhurya), the love of Rādhā for Krishna, became the supreme.

The Structure

The Pūrva-vibhāga (Eastern, four lahari) defines bhakti, gives the sixty-four practices of sādhana-bhakti, distinguishes vaidhī from rāgānugā, and arrives at the definitions of bhāva (1.3.1) and prema (1.4.1).

The Dakṣiṇa-vibhāga (Southern, five lahari) gives the rasa-formula (2.1.5) and details the vibhāvas, anubhāvas, sāttvika-bhāvas, and vyabhicāri-bhāvas that constitute rasa, culminating in the height of mahābhāva (2.5.116).

The Paścima-vibhāga (Western, nine lahari) takes up the five primary rasas one by one: śānta (3.1.1), dāsya (3.2.3), sakhya (3.3.1), vātsalya (3.4.1), mādhurya (3.5.1).

The Uttara-vibhāga (Northern, five lahari) takes up the seven secondary rasas (laughter, wonder, heroism, compassion, anger, fear, disgust) and the rules of rasa-mixing.

The Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi, Rūpa's later companion volume, picks up where the Sindhu's mādhurya treatment ends and gives the full grammar of Rādhā's love.

The Verses Below

What follows are seventeen verses drawn from across the Sindhu, chosen because they have organized the Gauḍīya tradition for five centuries. The maṅgalācaraṇa (1.1.1) names Rādhā in the very first line of the work. The definition verse of uttama-bhakti (1.1.11) is the doctrinal core. The epistemology of how the holy name reveals itself (1.2.234) and the science of yukta-vairāgya (1.2.255) frame the ethics of practice. The five practices of greatest power (1.2.74-75), the distinction of vaidhī and rāgānugā (1.2.270), and the lobha-verse (1.2.292) chart the two roads of sādhana.

Then the ladder rises. Bhāva (1.3.1) and premā (1.4.1) are defined; the nine-stage ascent (1.4.15-16) names the whole climb. The rasa-formula (2.1.5) and mahābhāva (2.5.116) carry the theory into the realm of relishable love. The five primary rasas are sounded one by one: śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, and the supreme mādhurya.

Read them slowly. Each one was written to be unpacked over a lifetime. The Goswāmīs' commentaries on the Sindhu run to thousands of pages. We give the seed only.

भक्ति

BRS 1.1.1

The Maṅgalācaraṇa: The Form of the Nectar of All Rasa

अखिलरसामृतमूर्तिः प्रसृमररुचिरुद्धतारकापालिः। कलितश्यामललितो राधाप्रेयान् विधुर्जयति॥

akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrtiḥ prasṛmara-ruci-ruddha-tārakā-pāliḥ kalita-śyāmā-lalito rādhā-preyān vidhur jayati

Glory to that moon, the form of the nectar of every rasa, whose spreading radiance has stilled the host of stars, who plays sweetly with Śyāmā, the beloved of Rādhā.

The opening invocation of the entire treatise. In a single verse Rūpa Goswāmī sets the whole frame: Krishna is akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti, the embodied form of the nectar of every rasa. He is the moon whose splendor outshines all the stars, the souls. And his identifying epithet, the one Rūpa chooses for the very first verse of his master work, is rādhā-preyān, the beloved of Rādhā. Before any definition of bhakti is offered, Rādhā has already been named.

BRS 1.1.11

The Definition of the Highest Devotion

अन्याभिलाषिताशून्यं ज्ञानकर्माद्यनावृतम्। आनुकूल्येन कृष्णानुशीलनं भक्तिरुत्तमा॥

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā

The cultivation of activities meant for Krishna's pleasure alone, empty of every other desire, uncovered by speculative knowledge or ritual: this is the highest devotion.

The defining verse of the entire treatise, and arguably of the entire Gauḍīya tradition. Bhakti is uttamā, supreme, when three conditions hold: it is empty of every other desire (not even the desire for liberation, not even the desire for the Lord's reciprocation), it is not covered by jñāna or karma (it does not need them as scaffolding), and it is the favorable cultivation (anuśīlana) of attention to Krishna. This is the single most important verse Rūpa Goswāmī wrote.

BRS 1.2.234

How the Holy Name Reveals Itself

अतः श्रीकृष्णनामादि न भवेद् ग्राह्यमिन्द्रियैः। सेवोन्मुखे हि जिह्वादौ स्वयमेव स्फुरत्यदः॥

ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ

Krishna's name, form, qualities, and pastimes cannot be grasped by the material senses. They reveal themselves spontaneously to the senses turned in service.

The verse that resolves the central paradox of bhakti epistemology. How can the unconditioned Lord be known by conditioned senses? The answer: he cannot. But when the senses are turned in service, the tongue chanting, the ear listening, the eye gazing, then he reveals himself in their direction. Sevā, service, is the only condition under which the unconditioned chooses to be known.

BRS 1.2.255

Engaged Renunciation

अनासक्तस्य विषयान् यथार्हमुपयुञ्जतः। निर्बन्धः कृष्णसम्बन्धे युक्तं वैराग्यमुच्यते॥

anāsaktasya viṣayān yathārham upayuñjataḥ nirbandhaḥ kṛṣṇa-sambandhe yuktaṁ vairāgyam ucyate

The renunciation that uses things in proper proportion, unattached, in connection with Krishna: this is called yukta-vairāgya, engaged renunciation.

Rūpa Goswāmī's resolution of the world-flight problem. The conventional vairāgya, dispassion, is to flee the world. But for the bhakta, every object becomes a means of relating to Krishna. The renunciation that matters is not the body's withdrawal from objects but the heart's freedom from attachment to them. The world becomes the field of seva. The verse has been a foundational support for two thousand years of Hindu householder devotion.

BRS 1.2.74-75 (the five primary aṅgas)

The Five Practices of Highest Power

साधुसङ्गो नामकीर्तनं भागवतश्रवणम्। मथुरावासः श्रीमूर्तेः श्रद्धया सेवनं तथा॥

sādhu-saṅgo nāma-kīrtanaṁ bhāgavata-śravaṇam mathurā-vāsaḥ śrī-mūrteḥ śraddhayā sevanaṁ tathā

Association with devotees, chanting the holy name, hearing the Bhāgavata, residing at Mathura, serving the deity with faith: these five practices have great power.

Within the sixty-four limbs of bhakti that Rūpa enumerates in this section, he names five as having a special potency. The bhakta who keeps any one of these alive in their daily life will find the others arrive on their own. These five are still the curriculum of every Gauḍīya household's spiritual life: keep the company of devotees, chant the name, hear the Bhāgavata, dwell where Krishna walked, serve the deity at home.

BRS 1.2.270

The Two Roads: Vaidhī and Rāgānugā

विरक्तानां विरागान्धं सतां ग्रन्थप्रवर्तनात्। प्रवृत्तेर्लक्षणं प्रोक्तं वैधी रागानुगा च सा॥

virāktānāṁ virāgāndhaṁ satāṁ grantha-pravartanāt pravṛtter lakṣaṇaṁ proktaṁ vaidhī rāgānugā ca sā

Sādhana-bhakti is of two kinds, distinguished by what drives a person into it: vaidhī, born of the regulating injunctions of scripture, and rāgānugā, born of following the inward passion of the eternal Vraja-bhaktas.

Rūpa names the great fork in the road. Vaidhī-bhakti is service performed because scripture commands it; the practitioner is led by śāstra, by the structure of injunction. Rāgānugā-bhakti is service performed because the heart cannot hold itself back; the practitioner is led by the rāga, the spontaneous passion, of the residents of Vraja. The Gauḍīya path leans, decisively, toward the second.

BRS 1.2.292

Following the Heart of the Vraja-Bhaktas

तत्तद्भावादिमाधुर्ये श्रुते धीर्यदपेक्षते। नात्र शास्त्रं न युक्तिं च तल्लोभोत्पत्तिलक्षणम्॥

tat-tad-bhāvādi-mādhurye śrute dhīr yad apekṣate nātra śāstraṁ na yuktiṁ ca tal lobhotpatti-lakṣaṇam

When, on hearing the sweetness of those particular bhāvas of the Vraja-bhaktas, the mind longs for them and reasons no further from scripture or argument, that longing is the sign that lobha has arisen.

The famous lobha verse. Rūpa Goswāmī gives the diagnostic sign for entry into rāgānugā. It is not a teacher's permission, not a vow, not a ceremony. It is an inner condition: the seeker hears how the gopīs love, and the heart says, with no further argument from śāstra or logic, I want that. That naked greed for Vraja-bhāva is the unmistakable seed. Once it appears, the practitioner has crossed from vaidhī into rāgānugā.

BRS 1.3.1

The Definition of Bhāva-Bhakti

शुद्धसत्त्वविशेषात्मा प्रेमसूर्याशंसाम्यभाक्। रुचिभिश्चित्तमासृण्यकृदसौ भाव उच्यते॥

śuddha-sattva-viśeṣātmā prema-sūryāṃśu-sāmya-bhāk rucibhiś citta-māsṛṇya-kṛd asau bhāva ucyate

It is of the special nature of pure goodness, equal to a ray of the sun of prema. With its tastes it melts the mind. This is what is called bhāva.

The exact definition of bhāva-bhakti, the second-to-highest stage in Rūpa's ladder. Bhāva is not yet prema (love itself) but is the dawn light before prema rises. Three features mark it: it consists of pure sattva turned into a special spiritual mode (śuddha-sattva-viśeṣātmā); it is a ray of the prema-sun (so its substance is the same; only the intensity is less); and it softens the heart to tastes the senses had not noticed. The Goswāmī commentaries on this single verse run to many pages. The Gauḍīya practitioner trains the eye to recognize when this ray has begun in their own heart.

BRS 1.4.1

The Definition of Prema

सम्यङ्मसृणितस्वान्तो ममत्वातिशयाङ्कितः। भावः स एव सान्द्रात्मा बुधैः प्रेमा निगद्यते॥

samyaṅ masṛṇita-svānto mamatvātiśayāṅkitaḥ bhāvaḥ sa eva sāndrātmā budhaiḥ premā nigadyate

When that very bhāva, having fully softened the heart and grown marked by an extreme sense of "He is mine," thickens into its dense form, the wise call it premā.

Prema, in Rūpa's grammar, is not a feeling alongside other feelings. It is bhāva grown thick. Two features distinguish it from the bhāva of the previous chapter: the heart is now thoroughly softened (samyaṅ masṛṇita), and the sense of mine-ness toward Krishna has reached its peak (mamatvātiśaya). The lover no longer sees Krishna as the great Other to be praised; she sees him as her own, with a possessiveness that is the very form of love.

BRS 1.4.15-16

The Nine Stages of Prema's Awakening

आदौ श्रद्धा ततः साधुसङ्गोऽथ भजनक्रिया। ततोऽनर्थनिवृत्तिः स्यात्ततो निष्ठा रुचिस्ततः॥ अथासक्तिस्ततो भावस्ततः प्रेमाभ्युदञ्चति। साधकानामयं प्रेम्णः प्रादुर्भावे भवेत्क्रमः॥

ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo 'tha bhajana-kriyā tato 'nartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt tato niṣṭhā rucis tataḥ athāsaktis tato bhāvas tataḥ premābhyudañcati sādhakānām ayaṃ premṇaḥ prādurbhāve bhavet kramaḥ

First, faith. Then the company of saints. Then the practice of devotional service. Then the cessation of useless impulses. Then steadiness, then taste. Then attachment, then bhāva, then prema rises. This is the sequence of prema's awakening in the practitioner.

The famous nine-stage map of the inner life of the bhakta. Each Gauḍīya generation has examined itself in this mirror. Where am I? At śraddhā (faith) still? Have I reached niṣṭhā (steadiness)? Has ruci (taste) come? The verse refuses to be a checklist; the stages overlap, retrograde, hide. But Rūpa names them so the practitioner can read his own interior weather. The whole BRS is, at one level, an extended commentary on this single ladder.

BRS 2.1.5

The Rasa Formula

विभावैरनुभावैश्च सात्त्विकैर्व्यभिचारिभिः। स्वाद्यत्वं हृदि भक्तानामानीता श्रवणादिभिः॥ एषा कृष्णरतिः स्थायी भावो भक्तिरसो भवेत्॥

vibhāvair anubhāvaiś ca sāttvikair vyabhicāribhiḥ svādyatvaṁ hṛdi bhaktānām ānītā śravaṇādibhiḥ eṣā kṛṣṇa-ratiḥ sthāyī bhāvo bhakti-raso bhavet

When the steady love for Krishna in the heart of the devotee, brought to maturity by hearing and the other practices, becomes relishable through the vibhāvas, anubhāvas, sāttvika-bhāvas, and vyabhicāri-bhāvas, that sthāyī-bhāva itself becomes bhakti-rasa.

The single most important formula in the Dakṣiṇa-vibhāga. Rūpa transposes the entire technical apparatus of Sanskrit dramatic theory (Bharata's vibhāva, anubhāva, sāttvika, vyabhicāri) onto the inner life of the devotee. Kṛṣṇa-rati, the steady love for Krishna, is the sthāyī-bhāva, the foundational mood. When it is brought into contact with the four classes of subsidiary feeling, it becomes savorable. That savor is rasa. Devotion is no longer a duty: it is an aesthetic.

BRS 2.5.116

Mahābhāva: Radha Alone

अनयाराधितो नूनं भगवान् हरिरीश्वरः। यन्नो विहाय गोविन्दः प्रीतो यामनयद्रहः॥

anayārādhito nūnaṁ bhagavān harir īśvaraḥ yan no vihāya govindaḥ prīto yām anayad rahaḥ

Surely the Lord Hari has been worshipped by her, for Govinda, leaving us, has lovingly led her into solitude.

Rūpa Goswāmī cites this Bhāgavata verse (10.30.28), the words spoken by the gopīs when they realize Krishna has chosen one among them and gone with her into the forest. Within the BRS, the verse is brought forward to mark the rise of mahābhāva, the most exalted condition of prema. The unnamed her of the verse is, in the entire Gauḍīya tradition, Rādhā. She alone is the substrate of mahābhāva. Krishna leaves the rest and goes with her, because her ārādhanā has reached the only intensity that can hold him.

BRS 3.1.1

Śānta-Rasa: The Rasa of Peace

मनागप्यर्पिता कृष्णे ये रतिः सात्त्विकोत्तरा। स्थायिभावो भवेत्सेयं शान्तिर्नाम रसः ततः॥

manāg apy arpitā kṛṣṇe yā ratiḥ sāttvikottarā sthāyi-bhāvo bhavet seyaṁ śāntir nāma rasaḥ tataḥ

The slightest love for Krishna offered up in the predominance of pure goodness becomes the sthāyī-bhāva known as śānti, peace; from this comes the rasa called śānta.

The first of the five primary rasas in the Paścima-vibhāga. Śānta-rasa is the rasa of the contemplative who has stilled the mind, recognized Krishna as the ground of being, and offered the heart in the mode of dispassionate goodness. The bhakta-jñānī, the silent monk who has become a quiet lover, lives here. It is the floor on which the next four rasas are built.

BRS 3.2.3

Dāsya-Rasa: The Rasa of Servitude

सम्भ्रमप्रीतिसंयुक्ता गौरवार्द्रा तु या रतिः। सा प्रीतिर्हरिदास्ये स्यात् दास्यभावप्रवर्तिका॥

sambhrama-prīti-saṁyuktā gauravārdrā tu yā ratiḥ sā prītir hari-dāsye syāt dāsya-bhāva-pravartikā

The love joined with reverence and softened by awe, that love arises in the service of Hari and becomes the engine of the dāsya-bhāva.

The second rasa. Dāsya is the love of the servant for the master, of Hanumān for Rāma, of the Vrindavan attendants who carry sandalwood and water for Krishna. Two ingredients distinguish it from śānta: prīti, active loving affection, has appeared, and along with it sambhrama, the wide-eyed reverence that keeps the lover always slightly bowed. Awe and tenderness move together.

BRS 3.3.1

Sakhya-Rasa: The Rasa of Friendship

विश्रम्भप्रतिभावेन रतिः सख्यमिति स्मृता। सा प्रीतिर्बाललीलायां कृष्णे सख्यरसप्रदा॥

viśrambha-pratibhāvena ratiḥ sakhyam iti smṛtā sā prītir bāla-līlāyāṁ kṛṣṇe sakhya-rasa-pradā

The love marked by complete trust in which the friend meets Krishna as an equal is called sakhya, and that love, lived out in his boyhood pastimes, gives rise to sakhya-rasa.

The third rasa. The defining ingredient of sakhya is viśrambha, complete trust, the trust in which the lover no longer feels himself smaller than the beloved. Śrīdāmā wrestles Krishna and Krishna lets him win. The cowherd boys eat from the same plate. Awe has dissolved into intimacy. The boundary between Lord and lover has been crossed by the lover daring to forget there ever was one.

BRS 3.4.1

Vātsalya-Rasa: The Rasa of Parental Affection

गुरुत्वाभिनिवेशेन रतिर्या लालनात्मिका। वात्सल्यमिति सा प्रोक्ता रसो वात्सल्य उच्यते॥

gurutvābhiniveśena ratir yā lālanātmikā vātsalyam iti sā proktā raso vātsalya ucyate

The love rooted in the conviction that one is the elder, expressed as nurturing care, is called vātsalya, and the rasa it produces is named vātsalya-rasa.

The fourth rasa. In vātsalya the lover takes the higher ground, but takes it as a parent takes it: not to dominate, but to protect, feed, scold, bathe, and tie a thread around the wrist against evil eyes. Yaśodā is its embodiment. The supreme Lord becomes a child who must be chased through the courtyard with a stick of butter in his fist. The reversal of cosmic order is the very heart of the rasa.

BRS 3.5.1

Mādhurya-Rasa: The Sweet

मिथो हरेर्मृगाक्ष्याश्च सम्भोगादिप्रवृत्तिका। माधुर्याख्या भवेद्भक्तिरसो धीरैरुदाहृतः॥

mitho harer mṛgākṣyāś ca sambhogādi-pravṛttikā mādhuryākhyā bhaved bhakti-raso dhīrair udāhṛtaḥ

The mutual love between Hari and the doe-eyed one, expressed in their union and its accompanying moods, is what the wise call the bhakti-rasa named mādhurya.

The fifth and supreme rasa. Mādhurya is the mutual love of Krishna and the gopī (the doe-eyed one of the verse, with Rādhā as its highest substrate). What distinguishes mādhurya from the four below it is mithaḥ, mutuality. The lover and the beloved equally lose themselves in each other. There is no asymmetry left to bridge. The Sindhu's first three vibhāgas have been climbing toward this verse; the Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi will be entirely the unfolding of what this verse names.

← Previous

Mañjarī-Bhāva

मञ्जरी भाव

The Servant's Door

Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi

उज्ज्वलनीलमणि

Rūpa Goswāmī's Grammar of Mādhurya-Rasa

All Eleven Texts

Veṇu-Gītā·Gopi-Gītā·Bhramara-Gītā·Sūrdās's Bhramar Gīt·Brahma Saṃhitā·Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad·Rādhopaniṣad·Nārada Pañcarātra·Skanda Purāṇa·Hāla's Gāhā Sattasaī·Daśaślokī·Śikṣāṣṭakam·Caitanya Caritāmṛta·Gīta Govinda·Hit Caurāsī·Rādhā-Rasa-Sudhā-Nidhi·Premavāṭikā and Sujān Rasakhān·Padma Purāṇa·Govinda-Līlāmṛta·Yugala-Śataka·Kelimāla·Narottama Dāsa's Prārthanā·Radha in the Sources·Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa·Garga Saṃhitā·Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa·Rādhā-Sahasranāma·Krishna-Karṇāmṛta·Stava-Mālā·The Rādhāṣṭakams·Vidagdha-Mādhava and Lalita-Mādhava·Vilāpa-Kusumāñjali·Bṛhad-Bhāgavatāmṛta·The Five Sampradāyas·The Aṣṭa-Sakhīs·The Eight Watches·Mañjarī-Bhāva·Bhakti-Rasāmṛta-Sindhu·Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi·Sat-Sandarbhas·Hari-Bhakti-Vilāsa·Bhaiji·Theological Threads·Vidyāpati and Caṇḍīdāsa

← Back to Rādhā

Seventeen verses drawn from across the four vibhāgas of the Sindhu, opening with the maṅgalācaraṇa that names Rādhā and closing with the supreme rasa of mādhurya. Rūpa wrote two thousand verses; we have given seventeen. The rest of the ocean is for the reader who wants to spend a lifetime in it.

भक्तिरसामृतसिन्धौ निमज्जतु मे मनः

bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhau nimajjatu me manaḥ · let my mind dive in the ocean of the immortal nectar of bhakti-rasa