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This, however, is not the only possible approach to securing the eternality of devotion. As an Advaitin, Madhusudana could, and perhaps properly should, argue that of course bhakti does not continue as an individual experience since, even in the state of jIvanmukti, there is no longer any question of individuality. The jiva has realized its identity with the ultimate and seen the illusoriness of its former sense of existence as a separate ego-center. So whatever individuality appears to remain is only that, an appearance, the playful activity of the Lord's maya. Already, then, the bhakta has disappeared and only bhagavat remains. Madhusudana has declared that bhagavat is eternal, non-phenomenal, and real. Bhakti, since it is identical with bhagavat, must therefore share in these attributes, participating in eternality and Being to the same degree as does the Lord. But in what sense can it continue without the bhakta?

314 The lack of an individual consciousness to enjoy the bliss of devotion presents a serious problem since, among other things, it is axiomatic for the devotionalist that the bliss of bhakti, unless it is experienced consciously, will be nothing but the "ordinary" static bliss of Brahman. 7 Should this particular quality be lost, bhakti would cease to be conceptualizable as distinct from moksa. It is perhaps for this reason that Madhusudana defines devotion in stanza 1 of the Bhakti-rasayana, not just as bliss, but as the "experience" (samvid) of bliss. But, the individuality of the bhakta having been dissolved in liberation, who is left to experience bhakti eternally? Obviously, the only candidate is bhagavat himself. By following this line of thought, therefore, we are lead to a theory that requires something strikingly similar to the Bengal Vaisnava notion of Krsna's eternal relishing of bhakti in the form of his own hladinrsakti.8 Devotion must be experienced, and since there is in the final state of moksa (according to Advaita) no more devotee to perform that function, it must be experienced by bhagavat or Isvara; it has to become, in the end, the Lord's enjoyment of his own bliss. The idea of the devotee losing himself in an eternal identity with the personal God, and experiencing bhakti in that state on a universalized, indeed completely divinized level, would seem to be a possible extension of rasa-theory,

315 which takes the universalized experience of emotion as its ideal. It might appear, however, to contradict the Advaitin's belief that the liberated soul, especially in videhamukti, is merged in the formless nirguna Brahman. Although we are here going far beyond what Madhusudana actually says, it is worth noting that the more theistically oriented concept of salvation outlined above as a possible foundation for the thinking of the Bhakti-rasayana could find some support in an interesting doctrine held by some post-Samkara Advaitins, that of sarvamukti or "universal salvation." First suggested by Vacaspati (tenth century), this theory was developed most fully by Appayya Diksita, a younger contemporary of Madhusudana who, in his later works, also displayed strong devotional inclinations.9 In his early Siddhantalesasamgraha, a summary of the teachings of post-Sankara Advaita, Appayya writes that the attainment of liberation, even in its disembodied form, involves, not the realization of oneness with the transcendent Brahman, but rather identity with Isvara. Interestingly enough, he maintains that this is a consequence of the very theory of the relation of jiva and Isvara that Madhusudana uses in the Bhakti-rasayana, namely, the version of the pratibimbavada in which the Lord is the original of which the jiva is a reflection. Since it is the merger of the pratibimba ("reflection") in the bimba ("original")--which in this view is Isvara, not

316 the pure Absolute--moksa is now understood as the attainment of Isvaratva ("Lordship," i.e., identity with the personal God), not the realization of final oneness with the transpersonal Brahman. As long as other reflections--other jivas--continue to exist, the Lord also must continue to exist as their bimba and there can be no final merger in the Absolute for the souls that have attained identity with Him. For this reason, Appaya held that the ultimate salvation of any one soul could not be attained until all jivas were liberated, which would mean that all pratibimbas would be destroyed, and the universe finally dissolved along with its Lord. Hence the designation sarvamukti ("universal salvation").10 The problem with this doctrine is that, while having potentially valuable ethical implications, it forgets Advaita's teaching that souls are infinite in number and that the universe and isvara are endless. It therefore amounts to an assertion, coming from within the Advaita tradition, that liberation is not oneness with the supreme Brahman but an eternal state of union with the personal God. I mention this theory only to show that the possibility of identity with bhagavat is not entirely foreign to Advaita. Whether or not Madhusudana's thinking was inclined in this direction is, from the Bhakti-rasayana, impossible to tell. Appayya, of course, believed that Isvaratva was

317 attained by all liberated souls, not just bhaktas. Could Madhusudana have come up with a scheme that allowed jnanins who were not inclined to bhakti to attain merger in the pure Absolute while at the same time permitting devotees to attain an eternal unity with bhagavat? If so, what would be the fate of those such as Madhusudana himself who followed the path of knowledge and were perhaps even jIvanmuktas but who were also fervent devotees of the personal God? Moreover, since bhagavat in the Bhakti-rasayana is so closely identified with Brahman, would not the idea of his eternal experience of his own bliss as bhakti suggest an internal division (svagatabheda) in the ultimate that would undercut the very foundational principles of Sankara's nondualism?