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 442 of: Bhakti-rasayana by Madhusudana Sarasvati
442 (of 553)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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NOTES: CHAPTER FOUR 430 358.
81BRS 3.2.87, quoted by BVS, pt. 2, vol. VII, p.
82 Majumdar, p. 319; De, VFM, p. 162; Chakravarti,
255. Note the frequently recurring, indeed central, idea
that separation is the stimulus for the most intense
emotions of love and longing. See chap. 3.4.
83CC
83 CC madhya 23.57.
84 Bon I, xxxviii.
p.
85 Some of hostility displayed by the Bengal Vai峁ａ箛ava
tradition toward the Ramakrishna Mission and its teachings
is no doubt due to the latter group's belief that their
teacher was an avatara of the same order as Caitanya. In
fact the first claim for Ramakrishna's divine status was
founded--and, it is said, vindicated--on the basis of the
very categories of the Bengal Vai峁ａ箛ava bhaktirasa艣膩stra that
are presently being considered. The saint's learned
teacher-disciple, the Bhairavi Br膩mani, declared that her
"student" was experiencing levels of mah膩bh膩va previously
experienced only by Radha and Caityanya and that he
therefore must be a divine incarnation. See Swami
Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
(abridged ed.; New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekanada Center,
1974), pp. 28-31.
86 De, VFM, p. 162.
87 De, VFM, p. 163.
88 CC madhya 23.58; BVS, pt. 2, vol. IX, p. 36.
89 De, VFM, p. 163; Majumdar, pp. 319鈥�320.
90 De, VFM, p. 163; Bon I, xlii.
91cc antya 14.91-96, trans. and abbreviated by
Hardy, VB, p. 4.
鈥�
92 Cf. St. Bernard, Sermones de diversis 8.9: "A
completely refined soul
has but a single and perfect
desire, to be introduced by the King into his chamber, to be
united with him, to enjoy him" (quoted by Dimmock, Hidden
Moon, p. 2).
93BP 10.32.10, 10.33.30-40. See Daniel P. Sheridan,
"Devotion in the Bhagavata Purana and Christian Love,
Horizons, VIII (1981), 268鈥�273.
