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Chapter Two: The Nature and Scope of Madhura-rasa

The Upanishads contain scattered, suggestive references to madhura-rasa. In the Puranas it receives a magnificent and divine description in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata and the Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa. It must be admitted without hesitation that these two works are foremost and sovereign among the source texts of madhura-rasa. The Bṛhad-gautamīya Tantra, Brahma- saṃhitā, Sammohana Tantra, and other works also explain this principle in detail. Several other saṃhitās expound it as well. Yet the comprehensive, penetrating, scientific, and exceedingly subtle analysis of devotion achieved in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition is rare elsewhere. The Gaudiya Vaishnavas examined it down to the smallest detail.

Here, therefore, Sri Rupa Goswami's Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi will provide the basis for an assessment of the essential nature and mystery of madhura-rasa. We shall then show its influence upon sweet worship in the Ramavat tradition.

The material world as a reflection of the conscious world

The material world is a reflection of the conscious world. The hidden principle is that a reflected appearance naturally undergoes reversal. Where the original is highest, the reflection is lowest; where the original is of the lowest order, the reflection is of the highest. Just as an image appears inverted in a mirror, the supremely divine and unprecedented rasa of the conscious world is reversed when it takes gross form in the material world. The Supreme Reality is, in truth, the principle embodied as rasa, and its variety is wondrous. By taking support from the shadow it casts in this world and proceeding onward, one can experience that suprasensory rasa.¹

At the lowest region of the conscious world is śānta-rasa; above it is dāsya-rasa, then sakhya-rasa, then vātsalya-rasa, and highest of all madhura-rasa. Through inverted reflection in the material world, madhura-rasa lies lowest. Above it is parental affection, then friendship, then service, and highest is tranquillity. The condition and activity of divine madhura-rasa become utterly petty and shameful in the material world.