Chapter Five: Avatāra Doctrine and Rama Worship
—after them. It is indisputable that the Alvar devotees primarily sang loving devotion to Sri Krishna. Among them was the celebrated woman devotee Andal, who declares in one place: “Now I have reached full youth, and I can accept no husband other than Lord Krishna.”
Yet several Alvars also express extraordinarily tender and moving devotion to Rama, foremost among them Kulasekhara. Sri Shathakopacharya’s Sahasra-gīti contains a deeply sweet prayer to Rama. Its sense is:
Lord, the pain of separation from you has grown so intense within my heart that it has melted my body thin like lac in a fire. Alas, you have become so merciless that you do not even notice. You destroyed Lanka, the city of demons, and became famous as protector of those who seek refuge—what then am I to do today with this cruelty of yours?1
Even so, it must be accepted that worship of Krishna’s avatāra is older and more widespread than worship of Rama’s. At first, Sri Krishna’s role as destroyer of the wicked was foremost; later, his sweet form especially captivated devotees’ hearts.
The Bhāgavata gives predominance to Bhagavan’s manifestation of sweetness. Majesty, power, virtue, and the other manifestations concerned with protecting the world take a secondary place. Enchanted by the virtue and beauty of Krishna as presented in the Mahābhārata, the devotee was nevertheless awed by his blazing splendour and majesty, moved back a little before his greatness, and then entered the divine experience of devotion. The Bhāgavata, by contrast, set before the devotee Krishna’s sweet image—the image one could love.
This was love of the kind with which parents caress and fondle their child, and love of the kind with which a lover eagerly embraces her beloved.2 The Bhāgavata placed Bhagavan among devotees so that they might love him.3
In this connection, certain lines of the Kṛṣṇa Upaniṣad deserve attention:
Seeing Sri Mahavishnu—Rama Chandra, whose nature is being, consciousness, and bliss and whose every limb is beautiful—the forest sages were astonished. They said to him, “In future descents, may we become gopīs and embrace you…”4
Footnotes
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Sahasra-gīti 2.1.4.3. ↩
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Śrīmad Bhāgavata 6.11.26: “Like unfledged birds longing for their mother, hungry calves for milk, and a sorrowing beloved for her absent lover, my mind, lotus-eyed Lord, longs to see you.” ↩
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Acharya Ramchandra Shukla, Sūradāsa, pp. 27–28. ↩
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Kṛṣṇa Upaniṣad 1. The passage continues with Rama promising that the sages’ desire for bodily contact will be fulfilled when they become gopīs in a later avatāra. ↩