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Having examined what Madhusudana says about the nature of bhagavat, the object of devotion, we can now return to our discussion of devotion itself. Our author has described bhakti, first as a vrtti which grasps the form of the Lord, and then as the reflection of the Lord in the mind. Since he is not making a clear distinction between

177 bhagavat the impersonal Absolute, the structure of bhakti is turning out to be strikingly similar to, and in some respects difficult to distinguish from, that of knowledge of Brahman. There are two ways in which such knowledge is spoken of in Advaita. Interestingly enough, they correspond closely to the two conceptions of bhakti presented in the Bhakti-rasayana In the first, knowledge is understood as a mental mode which has assumed the "form" of Brahman, thereby destroying Ignorance and allowing the self-luminous reality to reveal itself in its fullness. Such an identification of knowledge and the mental mode is useful at levels of discourse which do not require the most rigorous precision. however, it can be only figurative.49 This is because it suggests a duality between knowledge and Brahman which the Advaita does not want to support. In the final analysis, the vrtti is insentient (jada), a product of maya. Advaita must, for this reason, identify knowledge with Consciousness itself, remaining true to the "great saying" of the Upanisad: "Brahman is truth, knowledge, infinite."50 51 Ultimately, Knowledge of Brahman then Strictly speaking jnana is not the vrtti but Consciousness as reflected in the vrtti. becomes the reflection of Consciousness in its purity on the akhandakaracittavrtti ("mental modification of the undivided form")--the psychic mode, generated by the "great sayings"

178 of the Upanisads, that is regarded as the final product of Advaitic spiritual discipline. Since, here as before, the reflection is understood to be non-different from the original, knowledge of Brahman is Brahman. Madhusudana, of course, is well aware of the close structural analogy between the bhaktivrtti and the akhandakaracittavrtti, and the conceptual similarity between devotion as the reflection of bhagavat and knowledge as the reflection of Brahman. Indeed, it becomes evident that Madhusudana's exposition of devotion is consciously framed so as to set up a homology between devotion and jnana. The problem of the relation between the two is introduced at the beginning of section XI in the form of an objection: "Devotion to the Lord is merely knowledge of Brahman by another name. useless."52 鈥� Hence the undertaking of this inquiry is In the discussion which follows, we learn that devotion and knowledge "have distinct natures, as well as means, ends, and qualifications for eligibility. 鈥� "53 While the author is thus obviously intent on differentiating devotion from knowledge, in order to defend the validity of his discourse on the former, he is by no means trying to minimize the importance of the structural similarities between the two. In fact, he wants to suggest to the perceptive reader that the similarities are quite significant. So the list of differences we are confronted with is at the same time a list of parallels.

179 Consider first the question of their "distinct natures." Madhusudana writes: Devotion is a determinate mental modification, the mind's taking the form of the Blessed Lord after becoming melted. Knowledge of Brahman is an indeterminate mental modification whose object is the secondless Self only, and it is not preceded by melting of the mind.54 Here, of course, Madhusudana is speaking of both knowledge and devotion as vrttis, a usage which, as I have indicated, must be considered figurative. Nevertheless, the passage is an important one, so much so that I have of necessity already referred to it and discussed its key ideas above. The "melting" of the mind, as we have seen, is an essential element of bhakti. That such an emotional state should be absent from the discipline of knowledge, the path of the intellectually gifted seeker who enjoys discriminative thinking and may tend to look down on emotionalism, is not surprising. Neither is the idea that devotion is determinate, grasping the form of God, while knowledge is indeterminate, apprehending the form of the unqualified Brahman. This last distinction is especially crucial, however, because it points to the key metaphysical difference between the two phenomena. Since both bhakti and jnana are ultimately identical with their objects, the difference between them is based in the final analysis on the fact that their objects are different.

180 The formal emphasis on distinctions in this passage should not, however, blind us to the fact that Madhusudana, as I have suggested, also wants us to see certain homologies. So far they are as follows: melted mind/unmelted mind, conditioned mode/unconditioned mode, form of bhagavat/form of Brahman. The idea of apprehending the "form" of Brahman--the formless, attributeless, unobjectifiable Absolute--is, of course, problematic in itself. How can the one Knower be known? How can Consciousness become its own object? This difficulty is commonly flaunted by Advaita's critics, notably the Madhvas and the Naiyayikas, and Madhusudana is obliged to address it from various angles in all his major works. His response, in essence, is that truly speaking all knowledge consists of a mental mode grasping Brahman. The distinction between ordinary knowledge and brahmavidya is that, while in the former the mind apprehends the ultimate as limited by an object, in the latter Brahman is grasped as limited by the akhandakaracittavrtti only. So even the 55 final knowledge of Brahman is conditioned (upahita), but it is conditioned in a special way. In the Vedanta-kalpalatika, Madhusudana states: Even when it is [ logically] impossible for Brahman to be an object of knowledge, knowledge is found to have Brahman as its object. This occurs either by its grasping of the original (bimba) or through some quite different vacanya process that is inexplicable (anir-

181 If knowledge of Brahman is the apprehension of the original--which, as we have seen, Madhusudana identifies with Isvara--then such knowledge would seem to be, like bhakti, a savikalpaka cognition, differentiated from devotion only by the lack of "melting of the mind" (cittadruti). But Madhusudana has indicated in the Bhakti-rasayana that a truly nirvikalpaka cognition of Brahman is possible, one which is a characteristic of jnana alone. Assuming that his thinking on this point did not change in the interval between the composition of the two texts, the nirvikalpaka cognition mentioned in the Bhakti-rasayana must be referred to the indescribable mode of knowledge described in the Vedanta-kalpalatika Though he asserts, as he must, that "immediate knowledge having the form (akara) of Brahman" 57 is possible, he confesses that a final understanding of the phenomenon depends on direct intuitive experience. 58 Having indicated how devotion and knowledge differ in nature, section XI of the Bhakti-rasayana goes on to discuss how they differ in their means (sadhana), that is to say, the practices which bring them about: The hearing (sravana) of compositions that bring together the exalted qualities of the Blessed Lord is the means to devotion, while the means to knowledge of Brahman is the great sayings of the Upanisads such as, `Thou are That. 159 We have already seen that orthodox Advaita holds that saving knowledge can only come through the mediation of the maha-

182 vakyas of the Upanisads, which serve as the indispensable final catalysts of realization. It is significant, then, that nowhere in the Bhakti-rasayana does Madhusudana suggest that devotees are dependent upon the "hearing" (sravana) of the Vedic revelation for the attainment of their ultimate spiritual aim. This is not, however, to say that there is no place for sravana in bhakti. According to the Bhagavata-purana, the first of the disciplines of the Lord's devotees (bhagavatadharmas) is the "hearing" of the glories of the Lord, and "hearing," Madhusudana tells us now, is the principal means to devotion. Thus, although there is a significant difference between devotion and knowledge in this respect, there is also an analogy. In both paths, the hearing (sravana) of scripture is of utmost importance. To be sure, sravana in the bhakti literature does not mean precisely what it does as a technical term of Advaita. Nevertheless, it is the first and primary discipline in both paths.60 The scriptures of knowledge, the Upanisads, and those of devotion, preeminently the Bhagavata, are of course not the same. Our author knows well, however, that Vaisnavas of Krsnaite persuasion regard the Bhagavata-purana as their highest authority, giving it a status equal to, or greater than, the orthodox Vedanta's indispensable sruti. 61 Section XXIII of the Bhakti-rasayana, as we have mentioned, seeks to show that the form of the Lord is naturally inherent in

183 The the mind. While discussing this question, Madhusudana again considers, in passing, the role of scripture in devotional spirituality, and again it is given a place corresponding to that which the "great sayings" have in Advaita. objector remarks that, if the experience of God is inherent, then the goal of spiritual practice is already accomplished, no cause (hetu) of this state is required, and scripture will therefore be useless. Madhusudana answers that "scripture serves in the acquisition of the form of the Lord, which in turn prevents the mind's taking on the form of other objects," and he further specifies that this experience of God is "generated by scripture" (sastrajanya).62 Note that both the objection and the response assume that scripture is in some way the cause of the state of God-realization. The lack of dependence on the Vedic revelation suggested here is thoroughly in keeping with the democratic spirit of the bhakti movements, and equally opposed to Vedantic exclusivism. It allows devotion--and through devotion the highest goal of life--to be accessible to those, such as women and members of the lower castes, who are not eligible for Vedic study. This of course raises the question of adhikara or eligibility for bhakti, which Madhusudana does not neglect. An important difference between bhakti and jnana lies in the qualifications that

184 each path demands of its aspirants. Madhusudana states it in the most radical form possible: "While all living beings are qualified for devotion, only the renunciates of the highest degree (paramahamsaparivrajakas) who are possessed of the four-fold means are eligible for the knowledge of Brahman."63 The full significance of Madhusudana's opening the devotional path to "all beings" in the Bhakti-rasayana will become apparent in the discussion of the relation of bhakti and moksa below. The last difference between devotion and knowledge discussed in section XI has also been touched upon above. The end or result of the bhakti is "an abundance of love for This the Blessed Lord," while that of knowledge is "the cessation "64 of the Ignorance which is the root of all evil. again emphasizes the fact that, for the the bhakta, the highest goal of life is devotion itself, not moksa. For convenience, the final list of "parallel differences" between bhakti and knowledge can be expressed, in the order of qualification, means, nature, object, and result, as follows: (1) all beings/the highest renunciates, by (2) hearing the Bhagavata-purana/hearing the "great sayings" (3) attain a conditioned experience/an unconditioned experience (4) having the Lord as its object/having Brahman as its object and (5) divine love as its result/liberation as its result. The homology is thoroughgoing. It is obviously intended as

185 a justification of bhakti's being an independent path leading to its own goal, and to recommend devotion as an experience as valid as, and at least equal to, the knowledge so prized by the Advaitins. All of these distinctions and parallels apply, of course, to devotion and knowledge as vottis, which we may now be confident to recognize in each case as a secondary or figurative use of the terms. In their true, ontological dimensions, bhakti and jnana also show parallelism, even if it is a somewhat abbreviated one. It is that they are identical with, respectively, bhagavat and Brahman. The real extent of the difference between these two realities, as conceived by Madhusudana, is not made clear in the Bhakti-rasayana, but at least we have established that one, conditioned in nature, may be identified with Isvara and that the other, the unconditioned, is the para Brahman.=