![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/fx1Cmeb.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
From Back to Godhead<\/p>\n
By Satyaraja Dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n A section of the <\/em>Padma Purana glorifying the <\/em>Bhagavatam presents an allegorical account of <\/em>bhakti\u2019s travels.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n In India\u2019s traditional wisdom texts, bhakti<\/em>, or devotion, is sometimes presented as a person. This is especially so in Gaudiya Vaishnava literature. In Kavi Karnapura\u2019s Chaitanya-candrodaya-natakam<\/em>, for example, we see bhakti<\/em> personified as a character in a play. In the modern era, Bhaktivinoda Thakura\u2019s Bhakti-tattva-viveka<\/em> describes her as an embodiment of the svarupa-shakti<\/em>, the internal energy of the Lord, and thus a manifestation of Sri Radha, Krishna\u2019s ultimate spiritual potency. In the Thakura\u2019s other writings and in those of his son, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, among other spiritual masters in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu\u2019s line, Bhakti Devi is alternately considered a manifestation of Vrinda Devi (a primary gopi<\/em> associate of Sri Radha) and an unidentified personality simply known as Bhakti Devi.<\/p>\n Her most significant appearance is arguably in the Padma Purana\u2019s Bhagavata Mahatmya<\/em>,1<\/sup> a short text of six chapters glorifying the Bhagavata Purana <\/em>(Srimad-Bhagavatam<\/em>), known as the ripened fruit of the Vedic tree of knowledge. This mahatmya<\/em> (\u201cglorification\u201d) is sometimes positioned as a preface to contemporary Sanskrit and Hindi editions of the Bhagavatam<\/em> itself or published as a separate booklet.<\/p>\n The Padma Purana\u2019s Bhagavata Mahatmya<\/em> begins with Bhakti telling the history of her manifestation in the age of Kali, our current epoch of quarrel and hypocrisy. She was born in Dravidadesha, she says, which refers to the southern portion of the Indian subcontinent, and soon began her journey north. Traditionally, her \u201cbirth\u201d in the south is seen as a reference to the Vaishnavism of the Alvars, the twelve famous poet-saints of South India. Although bhakti<\/em> is of course an eternal principle, Bhakti Devi makes her manifest appearance in Kali-yuga with the spirituality of the Alvars.<\/p>\n Bhakti Devi continues north to Karnataka, and this is taken as a reference to Madhvacharya\u2019s development of the bhakti<\/em> tradition, which occurred on India\u2019s southwest coast in the thirteenth century. With the establishment of his teachings, bhakti<\/em> was firmly rooted in Indian soil, and Bhakti Devi\u2019s devotees thrived in various ways. She says she reached a high point in Karnataka. Indeed, the various sampradayas<\/em>, traditional lineages, were systematized during this general period \u2013 notably those of Ramanuja, Nimbarka, and Vishnu Swami \u2013 and other devotees also nurtured the bhakti<\/em> tradition for all who were fortunate enough to embrace her teachings.<\/p>\n But something strange happened as she made her way farther north to Maharashtra and then Gujarat. Bhakti Devi tells us that she was weakened in that part of India \u2013 a premature aging process was set in place \u2013 and she became almost unrecognizable due to illness. Her two \u201csons,\u201d J\u00f1ana (knowledge) and Vairagya (renunciation), she asserts, fell sick as well.<\/p>\n Bhakti<\/em> historians, such as Shrivatsa Goswami and Krishna Sharma, have explored just why Bhakti experienced difficulty during her Maharashtra\/Gujarat sojourn, but answers are not forthcoming. Some say that the great wealth associated with Gujarat could have led to distraction from devotional principles, and there is certainly an element of truth in that perspective.<\/p>\n From the Gaudiya Vaishnava point of view, however, Bhakti Devi\u2019s premature aging would have more to do with speculative elements that arose among bhakti<\/em> practitioners in that time and place. While there are great Vaishnavas associated with those regions, a new perspective engulfed the tradition that temporarily compromised Bhakti\u2019s virtues: nirguna-bhakti<\/em>, or a devotional perspective where God\u2019s form is deemphasized in favor of an impersonal force, had all but supplanted the more traditional saguna-bhakti<\/em>, which emphasizes the worship of Krishna or one of His manifestations, i.e., a personal absolute. In other words, while renowned Maharashtrian poet-saints such as Kabir, Jnanadev, and Namadev carried the tradition forward, their poetry highlighted a formless divinity, an emphasis not endorsed by the standard lineages.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, as Bhakti Devi journeyed farther north to Vrindavan, she was rejuvenated, reinstated in her original blissful form. The Bhagavata Mahatmya <\/em>carefully mentions her renewal, especially noting that she began to dance: dhanya vrindavanam tena bhaktir nrityati yatra<\/em>, \u201cPraise to Vrindavan, where bhakti<\/em> is always dancing.\u201d (1.61) Professor John Stratton Hawley comments on this reference to dance, which he says clearly associates Bhakti Devi\u2019s resurgence in Vrindavan with the golden avatara<\/em>, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, known for His ecstatic chanting and dancing.<\/p>\n Shrivatsa Goswami, too, in recounting Bhakti\u2019s journey to the north, highlights the Chaitanya component of the story:<\/p>\n So this gives, beautifully, the historical development of the medieval bhakti<\/em> tradition. The bhakti<\/em> movement took birth in South India with the Dravidian saints, the Alvars, and so on. Then, a little later, Ramanuja, the first systematic philosopher of bhakti<\/em>, appeared in the Tamil country. . . . After Ramanuja, the next great devotional thinker was Madhva, who was born in Karnataka at the end of the twelfth century. After that, the movement got a big boost from different saints who appeared throughout India, including Maharashtra, during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. These centuries were very crucial for the growth of the bhakti<\/em> movement. But the bhakti<\/em> movement did not attain its highest development, as the passage implies, until it reached Vrindavan. [Bhakti<\/em> reached Vrindavan], of course, in the form of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu because it was Chaitanya who, along with his followers the Six Goswamis, was the founder of Vrindavan in the early part of the sixteenth century. So the whole history of the bhakti<\/em> movement is summarized here quite beautifully.2<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But the Bhagavata Mahatmya<\/em> narrative develops from there: Whereas Bhakti Devi is reanimated in Vrindavan, her two sons only get worse. Their condition seems irreparable, and she worries for their welfare, asking the saint Narada to advise her on an appropriate course of action.<\/p>\n Desperately trying to revive them, Narada chants Vedic mantras, the Upanishads<\/em>, and even the Bhagavad-gita<\/em>, but nothing works. Finally, the four Kumaras arrive and strongly recommend recitation of the Bhagavatam<\/em> \u2013 surely this will be the cure, for only the Bhagavatam<\/em> has the requisite purity to get the best out of j\u00f1ana<\/em> and vairagya<\/em>. The sages chant the Bhagavatam<\/em>, and the task is done \u2013 her sons are healed.<\/p>\n Thus the Bhagavata Mahatmya<\/em> does what it sets out to do: glorify the Srimad-Bhagavatam.<\/em> The culminating teaching of this scene comes from the mouth of Sanat Kumara: \u201cBhakti<\/em> yields the nectar of divine love only when one chants the spiritual sound of Srimad-Bhagavatam<\/em>. And at that time, such love is accompanied by perfect j\u00f1ana<\/em> and vairagya<\/em>, which as a result will dance in every heart and every home.\u201d (Bhagavata Mahatmya<\/em> 63)<\/p>\n The narrative moves on, saying that Bhakti Devi inundates all of India, moving farther north to Hardwar and elsewhere, including \u201cother countries.\u201d Given the accomplishments of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, especially in bringing the bhakti<\/em> movement to the West in 1965, this is a significant statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/4qdOgqr.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBhakti\u2019s Journey<\/h3>\n
\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/wMB0bSf.jpg\")
By Satyaraja Dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n