Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c8.s3.84.1

c8.s3.84.1

character, rather than as an impersonal intellectual conviction adduced by mere knowledge, but the attitude there is more speculative than passionate. The Bhakti in the Mahābhārata in general is often explained by the analogy of the love of the wife for her husband; and the term Bhakti in the later Sūtras of Nārada and Śāṇḍilya is made interchangeable with the terms Prīti, Bhāva, Rāga or Anurakti as expressions of ardent love and yearning; but the passioanateness of earlier theistic devotionalism was never entirely divorced from intellectual satisfaction or moral earnestness. Though not identical with it, knowledge or belief is still acknowledged as a preliminary to the emotion of Bhakti, and selfless action is not excluded. The mediaeval expressions of the passion, however, dispense with Jñāna and Karman in the orthodox sense, and take their stand exclusively upon mystical emotional realisation (Rasa). All worship and salvation are regarded as nothing more than a blissful enjoyment of the divine sports, involving personal consciousness and relation, direct or remote, between the enjoyer and the enjoyed. But in the emphasis laid on the erotic sentiment in the sports of Kṛṣṇa, the attitude borders definitely upon sense-devotion, and leans perceptibly and dangerously towards the erotic passion. The ultimate felicitous state is conceived as an eternity of enjoyment of the erotic sports of Vṛndāvana, in which the faithful serve Kṛṣṇa as did the Gopīs.