Essay name: Bhakti-rasayana by Madhusudana Sarasvati
Author:
Lance Edward Nelson
Affiliation: McMaster University / Religious Studies
This is a study and English translation of the Bhakti-rasayana by Madhusudana Sarasvati (16th century)鈥攐ne of the greatest and most vigorous exponents of Advaita after Shankara-Acharya who was also a great devotee of Krishna. The Bhaktirasayana attempts to merge non-dualist metaphysics with the ecstatic devotion of the Bhagavata Purana, by asserting that Bhakti is the highest goal of life and by arguinng that Bhakti embodies God within the devotee's mind.
Page 300 of: Bhakti-rasayana by Madhusudana Sarasvati
300 (of 553)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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288
What is inherent in the mind, however, is its having
the form of the Blessed Lord. This is because the eternal
Lord, the Inner Controller of all, pervades everything and
is the substratum of the inexpressible Maya that is
possessed of many and variegated powers as the subtle cause
that produces the mind itself. While a pot's being filled
with water is the result of some outside cause, its being
occupied by the ether is natural because the ether is
omnipresent. It is the same with the mind. This point is
expounded by the author of the V膩rtika:
Just as a pot's being filled with ether at its
production is a consequence of the nature of the ether
itself and is not produced by a cause, so is the
condition of the mind.
The joy, suffering, and so on of the mind are caused by
its merit and demerit. Its pervasion by the
consciousness of the Self is innately established, in
accordance with the very structure of reality.
SV
543b-545a
If the mind's possession of the form of the Lord is
natural and thus does not need to be brought about by any
cause, what is the use of scripture? 235 The answer to this
objection is that scripture serves in the acquisition of the
form of the Lord that prevents the mind's taking on the form
of other objects. The form of the Lord that is inherent in
the mind does not prevent the mind's assuming other forms.
It can co-exist with that condition and indeed supports
it. 236
But the form of the Lord that is generated by
