Chapter Seven: Literature of the Rasika Tradition

Works of scriptural authority or doctrine

Several accomplished practitioners distinguished within the Ramavat sweet-worship tradition strengthened their lineage through scriptural authorities. Just as Jiva Goswami, Sanatana Goswami, Baladeva Vidyabhushana, and Krishnadasa Kaviraja provided a scriptural foundation for Gaudiya Vaishnava practice, Sri Madhuracharya, Sri Paramahansa Ramcharan, and Sri Swami Yugalananda Sharan composed, from the resources of their learning and experience, several important works presented as authoritative sources for this discipline of rasa. So much by way of introduction.

Śrī Sundaramaṇi-sandarbha

Sri Madhuracharya’s Śrī Sundaramaṇi-sandarbha has already been discussed. In fact, Madhuracharya occupies in Ramavat sweet worship the same position that Sri Jiva Goswami occupies in Gaudiya Vaishnava practice. Through the six Sandarbhas—the Bhakti, Prīti, and others—Jiva Goswami disclosed and analysed the mysteries of Gaudiya Vaishnava practice. In precisely the same way, Madhuracharya composed an immense work of six Sandarbhas, of which only one, the Sundaramaṇi-sandarbha, is now available. Of the other five, only a portion of the Vaidika-maṇi-sandarbha survives.

At the direction of Swami Ramvallabhasharan Maharaj, Sri Purushottamsharan published this jewel of a work in Vikrama year 1984 with the Rahasya-ratna-prabhā commentary. Just as Sri Jiva Goswami took the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata as the foundation for his doctrine, Madhuracharya took the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa.

It is another matter that today’s community of pandits may feel some hesitation about accepting Madhuracharya’s interpretation exactly as it stands. Yet why should this cause alarm or reluctance? Every philosophical system interprets the Brahma-sūtra, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gītā—the three great foundations—in its own way. Even if Madhuracharya had to stretch some passages in offering a sweet-disposition interpretation of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, therefore, his work possesses its own distinctive importance and should be viewed in that light.

Madhuracharya places the essence of his doctrine in the very invocation of the Sundaramaṇi-sandarbha:

In the stainless Pramoda forest at the heart of Ayodhya, radiant with clusters of jewels that rival the rising sun, forever served by hosts of charming women—in a great divine pavilion, at the opening of the joyous rāsa, I worship Rama together with Sita.