The Glories of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī

Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmīpāda kī jaya!

On the Gaudiya Kirtan mailing list, I just sent out four songs in honor of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, including the Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī Śocaka, which you can sing on this auspicious day.

Below is a beautiful glorification of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī written by my Śrīla Gurudeva, nitya-līlā-praviṣṭa oṁ viṣṇupāda Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja. It is from his commentary, the Pīyūṣa-varśinī-vṛtti, on Mādhurya-kādambinī, First Shower, Text Two.

If you'd prefer to listen, here is a video I made of myself reading it out:

Mādhurya-kādambinī, First Shower

Download free PDF of Mādhurya-kādambinī here.

Text 1

Prayer to obtain divine blessings (Maṅgalācaraṇa)

hṛd-vapre nava-bhakti-śasya-vitateḥ sañjīvanī svāgamā-
rambhe kāma-tapartu-dāha-damanī viśvāpagollāsinī        |
dūrān me maru-śākhino ’pi sarasī-bhāvāya bhūyāt prabhu-
śrī-caitanya-kṛpā-niraṅkuśa-mahā-mādhurya-kādambinī || 1 ||

Bhāvānuvāda: The mercy of Svayam Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu is like a limitless, uncontrolled cloud bank of extraordinary nectar (mahā-mādhurya) that falls like rain on the heart of the sādhaka. The shower of His mercy fully bestows vitality upon the crops of the ninefold limbs of devotion such as śravaṇa and kīrtana that have been freshly sown in the field of the sādhakas’ heart. Even the first appearance of the cloud bank of Mahāprabhu’s mercy dispels the virulent, burning sensation felt during the summer season – the various material desires for one’s own enjoyment – and makes jubilation swell within the heart of all devotees throughout the universe, like rivers swelling from rainfall. May that unrestrained and unlimitedly powerful cloud bank of Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s sweet mercy, the influence of which is felt even from a great distance, fill me, a dry, lifeless tree in the desert, with life-giving rasa.

Text 2

Special prayer to obtain divine blessings

bhaktiḥ pūrvaiḥ śritā tāṁ tu |
rasaṁ paśyed yad-ātta-dhīḥ |
taṁ naumi satataṁ rūpa- |
nāma-priya-janaṁ hareḥ          || 2 ||

Bhāvānuvāda: The most elevated saints (mahājanas) of former times also accepted the shelter of Bhakti-devī. Now, however, by the mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s most dear associate, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, people who have obtained real intelligence are directly perceiving bhakti in its form of bhakti-rasa. I offer my heartfelt obeisances unto Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī again and again.

Pīyūṣa-varṣiṇī-vṛtti:   The essential nature of the living entity is that of a servant of Kṛṣṇa. However, since time without beginning, he has forgotten Bhagavān and has thus been swallowed up by the deluding potency (māyā). Consequently, he has fallen into the cycle of birth and death and is burned by the three kinds of torment. Sometimes, as a result of his own deeds, he becomes a demigod in the heavenly kingdom or a ruler on earth, and sometimes he becomes a subject. Sometimes he is in the priestly class (vipra) and sometimes in the artisan class (śūdra). Sometimes he is happy and sometimes he is sad. Sometimes he takes birth in species of plants, sometimes as an aquatic, sometimes as a bird or beast, and sometimes in the demoniac daitya or dānava races. He wanders throughout so many species in his search for happiness, yet nowhere does he find actual happiness. When the supremely compassionate Bhagavān observes His own dear living entity’s wretched condition, His heart melts. He descends in the form of the timeless Vedic scriptures, He manifests in His various forms – His own personal avatāras – and He has His own dear companions descend to the world as ācāryas (exemplary teachers). In this way, by giving instructions on bhakti, He bestows eternal happiness upon the forgetful, stray living entities and engages them in service to Him.

Indeed, only devotion to the Supreme Lord (bhagavad-bhakti) can make the averse and unhappy living entitieseternally fulfilled, because by this, they attain Him. The Vedas, Śrutis, Smṛtis, Purāṇas and so forth enunciate this perfect conclusion in unison. It is never possible for the living entity to secure his permanent auspiciousness through fruitive work (karma), the pursuit of knowledge (jñāna), mysticism (yoga), penance (tapa) and other processes.

bhaktir evainaṁ nayati
bhaktir evainaṁ darśayati
bhakti-vaśaḥ puruṣo
bhaktir eva bhūyasī

from Māṭhara-śruti
quoted in Madhva-bhāṣya (sūtra 3.3.53)

[It is only bhakti (devotion) that brings the living entity close to Bhagavān. Bhakti alone enables the living entity to see Bhagavān face to face. That Supreme Person, Bhagavān, is actually controlled by bhakti; bhakti is superior to all else.]

yasya deve parā bhaktir
yathā deve tathā gurau
tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ
prakāśante mahātmanaḥ

Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (6.23)

[All the confidential purports of the Vedas are fully revealed to that great soul who has the same transcendental devotion to his gurudeva as he has to Śrī Bhagavān.]

ānandamayo ’bhyāsāt

Vedānta-sūtra (1.1.12)

[The word ānandamaya (“replete with bliss”) used in Vedic literature must refer to the Supreme Spirit, for it is repeatedly used to describe Him.]

sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
yato bhaktir adhokṣaje

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.2.6)

[The topmost dharma of human life is devotion to the transcendent Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa.]

bhagavān brahma kārtsnyena
trir anvīkṣya manīṣayā
tad adhyavasyat kūṭa-stho
ratir ātmany ato bhavet

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (2.2.34)

[(How can there be any benefit for the living entities who, oblivious to the Lord, have fallen into the cycle of repeated birth and death in material existence? Preoccupied with this question,) Śrī Brahmā, who knows the fundamental truths regarding the Lord, thought long to find a solution. With resolute attention, he scrutinized all the Vedas three times, and by his intelligence, he concluded that the topmost perfection of religion is that by which one can obtain exclusive love for Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Supersoul of all existence.]

Through scriptural statements such as these, the immutable, perfect conclusion is being thoroughly established: It is only by bhagavad-bhakti that the living entity’s distress completely ceases and he obtains actual happiness. This bhakti does not rely upon any practice (sādhana) such as fruitive work (karma), mysticism (yoga), or the pursuit of knowledge (jñāna) to manifest, nor does it ever rely upon place, time or eligibility. Bhakti, akin to the all-powerful, self-manifesting bhagavat-tattva, is a self-manifesting, all-powerful truth. This is affirmed because she, bhakti, is none other than a special function of Bhagavān’s internal potency (svarūpa-śakti). Hence, the exalted souls who know this secret have taken full, exclusive shelter of bhakti and have propagated it.

In truth, a mahājana is exclusively one who has accepted the shelter of supremely pure devotion to Bhagavān. Among these exalted souls, Vaiṣṇava ācāryas such as Śrī Nārada, Śrī Prahlāda, the Pāṇḍavas, Śrī Uddhava, Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī, Śrī Yamunācārya, Śrī Nātha Muni, Śrī Godā-devī, Śrī Rāmānujācārya and Śrī Madhvācārya have all accepted exclusive shelter of bhakti. Through their personal behaviour and precepts, they have proclaimed bhakti’s greatness throughout the world. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, who is well-versed in all scriptures and fully conversant with rasa, realized this esoteric mystery. By the term mahājanas [in Text 2 above], he is referring to the foremost bhaktas of previous times, like Śrī Nārada.

However, before the advent of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, it was not even known that rasa is the intrinsic nature (svarūpa) of bhakti. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, the special object of the supremely compassionate rasika-śekhara Śrī Caitanydeva’s mercy, composed sacred literatures like Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi, which established for the first time that rasa is the intrinsic nature of bhakti.

The most fortunate persons in the world are those who have obtained real intelligence from Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, are experiencing the rasa-svarūpa of bhakti and are causing others to experience it as well.

Only by the mercy of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī is it possible to directly realize that the intrinsic form of bhakti is rasa. If we were to go on deliberating upon these words of our most worshipful Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, then this book would become considerably more voluminous. Hence, it is sufficient simply to mention here that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is rasika-śekhara Vrajendra-nandana Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself. As rasika-śekhara (the topmost connoisseur of rasa), His purpose was to taste the essence of mahābhāva-svarūpiṇī Śrīmatī Rādhikā’s sublime, radiantly pure prema-rasa, and as parama-karuṇa (the most compassionate), His purpose was to distribute the wealth of the path of spontaneous devotion (rāga-mārga-bhakti) to the world. For these purposes, He accepted Śrī Rādhā’s mood and lustre and descended in the form of Śacīnandana Śrī Gaurahari.

In the previous exceptional Kali-yuga, almost one thousand cycles of the four yugas ago, Vrajendra-nandana Śrī Kṛṣṇa descended as Śrī Gaurāṅga and bestowed this rasa-laden bhakti, which is rarely attained even by personalities like Śrī Brahmā. Since that particular Kali-yuga, many avatāras of Bhagavān and many Vaiṣṇava ācāryas have advented, but until the recent re-advent of Śrī Gaurāṅga, none of them offered rasa-laden bhaktito the living entities of this world. Not to speak of bestowing such bhakti, they could not even give its true definition.

Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī is the dear companion of Śrī Gaurahari, He who is adorned with Śrī Rādhā’s mood and complexion. In the pastimes of Vraja, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī is Śrī Rūpa Mañjarī, chief among Śrīmatī Rādhikā’s intimate maidservants. Indeed, to propagate that bhakti of Vraja, which is laden with unnatojjvala-rasa (the most elevated humours of transcendental amour), Śrī Rūpa Mañjarī has descended within Śrī Gaura’s pastimes in the form of Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī. In his Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī has unveiled this secret.

As Śrī Bhagavān generated the potency to create in the heart of Grandfather Brahmā at the beginning of creation and thus created this universe, so Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu made His special potency flow in the heart of His own dear Śrī Rūpa and through him propagated the topics of Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental playful pastimes in Vraja, topics that had been lost by the influence of time. In Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Madhya-līlā 19.117) it is stated:

śrī-rūpa-hṛdaye prabhu śakti sañcārilā
sarva-tattva-nirūpiyā ‘pravīṇa’ korilā

Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu infused the heart of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī with transcendental power and thus made him fully expert and experienced in discerning all tattva.

Also, Śrīla Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura has written in his Prema-bhakti-candrikā:

śrī-caitanya-mano ’bhīṣṭaṁ
sthāpitaṁ yena bhūtale
svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ
dadāti sva-padāntikam

[When will Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, who has established within this world the mission to fulfil the innermost desire of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, personally give me shelter at his lotus feet?]

To again manifest vraja-bhakti saturated with unnatojjvala-rasa upon the earth is indeed the innermost heart’s desire of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

By composing fundamental bhakti literatures like Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi and by teaching them, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has established the innermost heart’s desire of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in every way. What has emerged from the heart of the poet Śrī Mādhava about the glories of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī is indeed deeply moving:

yaṅ kali rūpa śarīra na dharata
taṅ vraja-prema-mahānidhi kuṭharīka,
kon kapāṭa ughāḍata (1)

Had Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī not appeared in this age of Kali, who would have opened the doors to the great storehouse of vraja-prema?

nīra-kṣīra-haṁsana, pāna-vidhāyana,
kon pṛthak kari pāyata
ko saba tyaji, bhaji’ vṛndāvana,
ko saba grantha viracita (2)

Who but Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī could have extracted the essence of the scriptures in the same way that a swan separates water from milk? Who could have abandoned everything to perform bhajana in Vṛndāvana? Who could have written such scriptures?

jaba pitu vana-phula, phalata nānā-vidha,
manorāji aravinda
so madhukara vinu, pāna kon jānata,
vidyamāna kari bandha (3)

He was a honeybee amid varieties of blossoming yellow forest flowers and mind-enchanting lotuses. Without that honeybee, who could have known the art of drinking the nectar present yet confined within those flowers?

ko jānata, mathurā vṛndāvana,
ko jānata vraja-nīta
ko jānata, rādhā-mādhava-rati,
ko jānata soi prīta (4)

Who could have understood the glories of Mathurā and Vṛndāvana? Who could have fathomed the intricacies of Vraja? Who could have understood the love between Śrī Rādhā and Śrī Mādhava? Who could have known that love?

jākara caraṇe, prasāde sakala jana,
gāi gāoyāi sukha pāota
caraṇa-kamale, śaraṇāgata mādho,
tava mahimā ura lāgata (5)

By the mercy of his lotus feet, all souls may sing and inspire others to sing [about the glories of the love of Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava], thereby attaining true joy. [O Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī,] having surrendered at your lotus feet, may this Mādhava dāsa be able to comprehend your unlimited glories.

In times prior to Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, the symptoms of bhaktiwere delineated in Śāṇḍilya-sūtra: “sā parānuraktir īśvare – the symptom of bhakti is described as deep loving attachment to Parameśvara.”

In Pañcarātra, it is said:

sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ
tat-paratvena nirmalam
hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-
sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate

quoted in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.1.12)

[Absolutely pure service to the master of the senses, Hṛṣīkeśa, performed through all one’s senses solely for His delight and completely devoid of all external designations, is called bhakti.]

There is also a description elsewhere in scripture:

ahaituky avyavahitā
yā bhaktiḥ puruṣottame

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (3.29.12)

This means that the symptom of nirguṇa-bhakti is that the mind flows toward the Absolute Supreme Being at every moment, like an unbroken stream of oil.

However, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has presented an incomparable definition of bhakti that not only includes all the above-mentioned symptoms but is replete with further special characteristics. His definition is profoundly wonderful and beautiful:

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ
jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam
ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-
śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā

Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.1.11)

[That perpetual endeavour for the sake of Śrī Kṛṣṇa that is free from all kinds of desires other than the desire to serve Him; that is not eclipsed by the pursuit of monistic knowledge, fruitive work and so on; that is performed exclusively out of loving affection for Him, through all physical, mental or verbal endeavours and through all emotions, flowing without interruption like an unbroken stream of oil, is called uttama-bhakti.]

Each and every stage of bhakti is included within this definition of uttama-bhakti, beginning from śraddhā, the first step in bhakti, through niṣṭhā, ruci, āsakti, rati (or bhāva), and beyond this, to prema, sneha, māna, praṇaya, rāga, anurāga, bhāva ^[1], mahābhāva, rūḍha-bhāva, adhirūḍha-bhāva, mohana, and up to mādanākhya-mahābhāva.^[2]

Additionally, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī presented, with great skill, charming poetry and subtle analysis, the devotional proclivity of the heart, beginning with the preliminary steps of bhakti – from śraddhā to niṣṭhā, ruci, āsakti and then bhāva – and the evolutionary sequence of that proclivity through the various transformations of prema – from sneha to māna, praṇaya, rāga, anurāga, bhāva, mahābhāva and so on. He delineated sthāyi-bhāva (permanent emotion) and gave a beautiful portrayal of the completely miraculous and supremely relishable state of bhakti-rasa, which is attained when the sthāyi-bhāva combines with the ingredients of rasa, such as vibhāva [that which stimulates rati, one’s inherent relationship with Kṛṣṇa], anubhāva [visible actions that illustrate the spiritual emotions situated within the heart], sāttvika-bhāva [eight symptoms of spiritual ecstasy arising exclusively from viśuddha-sattva] and vyabhicārī-bhāva [the internal transitory emotions, which arise like waves from the ocean of the sthāyi-bhāva, enhance it and then plunge once again into thesthāyi-bhāva]. A beautiful glimpse of all this can be found in his celebrated composition Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu.

Being empowered by Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s mercy, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī also proved that the spotless and exceedingly purifying Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava method of bhajana is established on a very strong rasa-laden foundation. His composition has, on its own merit, become unfadingly immortalized in the history of bhakti literature. It is considered the encyclopaedia of all conclusive truths regarding bhakti-rasa and is revered as the finest, fully ripened fruit of the wish-fulfilling tree of Gauḍīya rasa-literature. The ācāryas prior to him were unable to so comprehensively analyze bhakti-rasa-tattvaand certainly could not establish bhakti as rasa-svarūpa (the very nature of transcendental loving mellows).

In the kalpa (day and night of Lord Brahmā) that had elapsed since the last advent of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, accounts of Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa’s loving pastimes had all but vanished. At the time of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s manifest presence, by His inspiration and mercy, the potency of mercy flowed through Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī by which he recovered those revelations and again established them within this world, thus fulfilling the deep desire of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

vṛndāvanīyāṁ rasa-keli-vārtāṁ
kālena luptāṁ nija-śaktim utkaḥ
sañcārya rūpe vyatanot punaḥ sa
prabhur vidhau prāg iva loka-sṛṣṭim

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Madhya-līlā 19.1)

[At the beginning of creation, by making His own potency flow through the heart of Brahmā, Śrī Bhagavān created and expanded the worlds. In the same way, by eagerly making His own potency flow through the heart of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu again expounded and spread throughout the world the playful rasa-laden topics of Vraja, which had been forgotten over time.]

The purport is that in one day of Brahmā there are fourteen manvantaras, reigns of Manu. Śrī Kṛṣṇa appears in the seventh manvantara at the end of the Dvāpara-yuga, in the twenty-eighth catur-yuga (cycle of four ages) and enacts His pastimes in Vraja. And about five thousand years after that, in Kali-yuga, He accepts the mood and lustre of Śrī Rādhā and appears in the form of Śacīnandana Śrī Gaurahari, tasting the sweetness of Śrī Rādhā’s prema and propagating vraja-prema.

Vraja-prema was last disseminated in the kalpa prior to this, at the time of Śrī Gaura’s līlā. For one day and night of Svayambhū Brahmā, or almost eight thousand yugas (ages), this vraja-prema vanished, because apart from Śrī Gaurāṅgadeva, there is no avatāra of Bhagavān or ācārya who could propagate the highly esoteric and secret prema of Vraja. Throughout the very long period during which these esoteric discourses on the playful rasa of Vraja remained forgotten, Śrī Caitanyadeva’s eagerness to propagate them intensified to the utmost limit. That is why He channelled His potency through the heart of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī.

śrī-rūpa-hṛdaye prabhu śakti sañcārilā
sarva-tattva-nirūpiyā ‘pravīṇa’ korilā

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (19.117)

[Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu infused the heart of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī with transcendental power and thus made him fully expert and experienced in discerning all tattva.]

The author, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, concludes by explaining that the rasa-svarūpa of bhakti can only be experienced by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī’s mercy, and that without his mercy, there is no possibility of entering bhakti. This is the highest truth.