Chapter Seven: Literature of the Rasika Tradition
—leaves her father’s lineage and enters her husband’s lineage, so too, through the grace of the true guru, the jīva who surrenders to Bhagavan Sri Rama leaves the lineage of its mother and father and enters the lineage of the imperishable Lord Rama.1
It should be noted that Haridasa, the commentator on the Rāma-stava-rāja, was probably Swami Haryacharya, the disciple of Sri Madhuracharya of the Galavashrama.
2. Śrī Jānakī-stava-rāja
Just as the Rāma-stava-rāja was taken from the Sanatkumāra Saṃhitā, the Śrī Jānakī-stava-rāja was compiled from the Agastya Saṃhitā. It contains sixty-nine verses. It was published by the Venkatesh Library, Ayodhya, in Vikrama year 1985.
The first forty-five verses meditate upon Bhagavati Sita from toenails to crown in a poetic style of great grandeur and elevation. Such an enchanting description of Jānaki’s every limb is rare elsewhere. What is the redness of her soles? It is the devotees’ own loving attachment gathered into a concentrated form and clinging to her feet. The red dot upon her forehead is likewise a symbol of the devotees’ love.
Those who wish to please Sri Rama must, above all, serve Sri Sita’s feet and develop loving attachment to them.2
Śrī Jānakī-gīta
The Śrī Jānakī-gīta is an especially beloved work among the Rasika worshippers of Rama. It was composed by Swami Sri Haryacharya, pontiff of the Galavashrama, or Gulata Gaddi, and was printed in Vikrama year 2009 by Hanumat Press, Ayodhya, together with Sri Sitaramsharan’s Rasabodhinī commentary.
Among worshippers of Rama in the sweet disposition, this work holds the same place that the Gīta-govinda and Rādhā-vinoda hold among worshippers of Krishna in that disposition. It is completed in six cantos filled with deeply relishable metres. Sri Haryacharya was Sri Madhuracharya’s chief disciple. In this work one encounters at once his heart flooded with the sweet rasa—
Footnotes
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Haridasa explains: “Just as a daughter, once given in marriage by the person who makes the resolve, becomes her husband’s wife, leaves her father’s lineage, and belongs to her husband’s lineage, so too the jīva who has once been offered by the true guru and surrenders to Sri Rama leaves its father’s lineage and belongs to the lineage of Achyuta.” Śrī Rāma-stava-rāja-bhāṣya, p. 111. ↩
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Verses 49 and 51 of the Śrī Jānakī-stava-rāja teach that firm knowledge of Rama’s form cannot arise until loving attachment has arisen to Jānaki’s lotus-surpassing feet. Yogically accomplished sages meditate inwardly upon that pair of lotus feet and desire the irresistible devotion of this ocean of compassion in order to cross the ocean of becoming. ↩