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In the Bhagavata Purana (BP), we come in contact with a spirituality that is in many respects radically different from that of Sankara and his followers. This divergence owes much to the fact that this text drew its primary inspiration, not from the Upanisads, but rather from the ecstatic devotionalism of the Alvars, of whose distinctive religious ethos it was the first expression in Sanskrit.l These popular poet-saints, who between the sixth and ninth centuries were the center of a flourishing Vaisnava revival in the Tamil-speaking South, 2 emphasized theism and taught salvation through a fervent and intensely personal love of the deity. The social practice of the Alvars was democratic: indeed they themselves came from all levels of society and included several women in their number. 3 Composed in the ninth or early tenth century, the Bhagavata Purana attained wide popularity and became the scriptural basis of all subsequent expressions of Krsna-bhakti in North India. 4 It was the inspiration and catalyst of a vast 96

97 outpouring of devotional sentiment and religious activity, affecting not only the educated classes, but also the humblest peasants, through the influence it had on the popular hymns of such poet-saints as Candidas and vidyapati (fifteenth century), Mira Bat and Surdas (sixteenth century). Although the theologian Ramanuja (eleventh century), whose brand of bhakti was more contemplative than emotional, made no reference to the Bhagavata Purana, it was important to Madhva (thirteenth century), who wrote a commentary on it called the Bhagavatatatparya. 5 For Vallabha (1481-1533) and the Gosvamins of the Caitanya school (sixteenth century), it assumed paramount importance as the scriptural fountainhead of their Krsna-centered systems of theology and spirituality. The Gosvamins held it in such esteem that they proclaimed it to be the sage Vyasa's own commentary on his Brahmasutras, in this way asserting the purana's status as an authentic basis for theology. 6 Madhusudana, it seems, considered the Bhagavata to be the ultimate authority on devotional matters. As we shall see, he quotes profusely from it in the Bhakti-rasayana Like the poetry of the Alvars, 7 the religion of the Bhagavata Purana focuses on the story of Krsna's youth and dalliance with the cowherd girls, the gopis, as recounted in the tenth book of the purana, the Krsnacarita. Thematically most important in this connection are the ravishing beauty of Krsna and the

98 intense, overpowering love which it inspired in the women of Vrndavana, the rustic community in which the divine child grew up. The author of the purana is entranced by, and seeks to portray in the Krsna story, not God's awesome majesty and power (aisvarya) as Lord of creation, but his irresistibly sweet attractiveness (madhurya), made manifest to humankind in the form of a beautiful cowherd youth. The captivating appearance of the young Krsna, the sublime seductiveness of the call of his flute, and the idyllic setting of the forests of Vrndavana are conveyed in language that is richly evocative, so much so that the work has been hailed by as eminent a scholar as D. H. H. Ingalls as "the most enchanting poem ever written."8 I cannot pretend here to adequately illustrate this aspect of the text. Suffice it to say that Krsna is described as the infinite bliss of Brahman concentrated in a small but divinely attractive human form: Wonderful and indeed marvelous is the fortune of the people of Nanda's Vraja [Vrndavana], for the Supreme Bliss, the eternal Brahman in Its fullness, has become their friend 19 The gopis tell Brahma, the creator, "We saw the entire splendor of your creation [manifested] in one point--Krsna"; gazing at the Lord and his brother, Balarama, they sigh: "This is the reward of all who have eyes; we know of no higher."10 Indeed, the beauty of the child-avatara is such that it mesmerizes the whole cosmos.11 Krsna is the

99 "stealer of minds" (cittacora), the one whose charm bewilders even Cupid (madanamohana). Needless to say, the cowherd girls fall madly in love with him, and the story of their bhakti, which is so overpowering as to cause them to forget all consideration of social propriety, is the heart of the purana. Their relationship with Krsna comes to be regarded as the paradigmatic expression of the highest form of total self-abandonment in devotion to God.