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Chapter One: Rāgamayī Bhakti and Its Vaishnava Tradition

"A person in whom a taste has arisen for the particular rāga described above, though not yet that full rāga itself, has a heart like a crystal gem made radiant by the reflected rays of the moon of such attachment. A taste then arises in that person for the methods of rāgātmikā-bhakti described in the scriptures and elsewhere."

In the Govinda-bhāṣya, Sri Baladeva Vidyabhushana calls this ruci-bhakti:

"Ruci-bhakti proceeds from knowledge of divine sweetness, while vidhi-bhakti proceeds from knowledge of divine majesty. Here ruci means rāga. Devotion that follows it is ruci-bhakti; alternatively, devotion filled with ruci is ruci-bhakti. This alone is called rāgānugā."

Rāgānugā in the Puṣṭi Mārga

In the Puṣṭi Mārga, this same rāgānugā-bhakti is called puṣṭi-bhakti or "unprescribed devotion":

"Devotion accompanied by knowledge of the Lord's greatness is prescribed because it is received from the Lord as an injunction. The other kind, because it arises through conditions such as desire, is unprescribed." [Aṇubhāṣya]

In the Nimbarka tradition, Sri Harivyasa refers to unprescribed devotion in his commentary Siddhānta-ratnāñjali. In the Mahāvāṇī, he teaches a discipline for attaining the paired service of Sri Radha and Govinda in eternal Vrindavan through the disposition of a sakhī.

The Nimbarka position

That discipline has no place for dāsya, sakhya, or vātsalya. The difference between Sri Harivyasa's discipline and the rāgānugā-bhakti of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas is therefore clear. The tradition of Mahaprabhu includes every devotional disposition—"nowhere may one be conceived as absent." Sri Harivyasa is devoted to Krishna's divine līlā, whereas the Gaudiya Vaishnavas adopt the path of sweet worship exclusively within the Lord's human līlā.

Remembrance is predominant in rāgānugā-bhakti. Sri Sanatana Goswami describes this at length in the Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta. Mental service, remembrance, and intentions favourable to that service are central to this discipline. Raghunatha Dasa Goswami's Vilāpa-kusumāñjali and Sri Jiva Goswami's Saṅkalpa-kalpadruma beautifully describe the sequence of intentions favourable to rāgānugā-bhakti and of service performed in the mind.¹

Sevā sādhaka-rūpeṇa siddha-rūpeṇa cātra hi /
tad-bhāva-lipsunā kāryā vraja-lokānusārataḥ //

"One who longs to attain their devotional disposition must serve here both in the practitioner's form and in the perfected form, following the people of Vraja."