Chapter Five: Avatāra Doctrine and Rama Worship

—and afterward they sport in the water. Rama and Sita then sit within a supremely divine and enchanting pavilion in the grove. Around them is an altar like a sixteen-petalled lotus on which the sixteen principal companions are seated: Kanchani, Chitra, Chitrarekha, Sudhamukhi, Kamala, Chandrakala, Chandranana, Vara, Madhuryashalini, Vishadakshi, Sudamshika, Ujjvala, Hamsini, Karpurangi, Vararoha, and Prashamsi.¹

These are the principal companions. On the lotus’s subsidiary petals sit Shobhana, Shubhada, Shanta, Santosha, Sukhada, Charusmita, Charurupa, Charulochana, Hema, Kshema, Premadatri, Madhavi, Kamada, Mohini, Lila, and many others. At the centre, upon the pericarp, are Rama and Sita.

Each companion holds a musical instrument: one a vina, another a flute, another a drum, another cymbals. All are enchanted and immersed in bliss as they behold Bhagavan’s eternal divine play. Thus the supreme rāsa is accomplished in Saketa. This is an eternally guarded secret.²

The central mystery is that Sita produces 108 companions from her own body. With each one, Rama assumes a corresponding form, just as Krishna does.

The five meanings

Agastya again asks Hanuman how one enters this disposition. Hanuman replies that it is attained only when a relationship of love with Rama is established, and only a guru can establish that relationship. He then gives a detailed account of the divisions and subdivisions of the peaceful, servile, friendly, parental, and sweet dispositions, together with their determinants and other aesthetic elements.

Hanuman says that this relationship alone bestows innate bliss. Only after attaining it does the living being possess unwavering, exclusive devotion to Bhagavan. His explanations of the peaceful, servile, friendly, parental, and sweet dispositions follow the received tradition:³

• One who knows Sri Raghupati directly as Brahman, supreme above all, and worships him continually rests in the peaceful rasa.
• One who understands Rama as the ocean of compassion and protector of devotees and worships him continually rests in the servile rasa.
• One who knows Raghunandana as friend and vessel of love and continually delights with him in affection rests in the friendly rasa.
• One who regards the beautiful, tender-limbed child as one’s very life rests in the parental disposition.
• She who knows enchanting Rama as her husband through an established relationship and always worships him rests in the amorous rasa.