Journal of Vaishnava Studies: Special Edition: Spring 2024

Most people have some sense that love is the essence of life, that without love, one is not truly living. This same truth is fundamental to the world’s major world religions, regardless of the particular tradition. For example, the Bible says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8). Jesus goes further, quoting the tradition of Leviticus: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39) Yet what, exactly, is meant by love? Religious traditions acknowledge that love exists with both a lowercase “l” and a capital “L,” referring to our relationships with our fellow earthly creatures and with God, respectively. And both are clearly important, vital to a full human existence, even if love of God is considered particularly indispensable in an ultimate sense. A traditional Vaishnava analogy might serve to clarify: God is like the root of the tree of life, while all other living beings are compared to twigs and branches water any of the tree’s appendages separately, the tree will quickly die, but if we water her roots, perhaps spraying the twigs and branches as well, lifegiving sustenance is enjoyed by all. Regarding love of both man and God, there is a second category of lower and upper: One can love individual beings with selfish motivation, merely trying to satisfy personal urges, or one can love more fully, selflessly, more in tune with the beloved’s desires than with one’s own. Similarly, in terms of love of God, one can love God nominally, with one’s own wants and desires taking a prominent role, or one can love “with heart, mind, and soul,” considering God before oneself. Vaishnavism teaches adherents how to love in this more holistic way, both in interpersonal relationships and in terms of loving the Supreme. Indeed, within the context of loving relations, Vaishnavism teaches how to be a sāragrāhin, that is, one who reaches for the essence, looking into the heart of love, as opposed to a bhāravāhin, wherein one settles for superficials, allowing surface affections or self interest to predominate. Unlike love in the material world, love of God, ideally, must be completely “unmotivated and uninterrupted,” and thus completely pure. Otherwise, the practitioner will not garner the desired result. It requires total commitment and a heart full of dedication. To this end, Vaishnava tradition teaches prema (divine love) as a detailed science (tattva), with methodical approach and procedure (sādhana), and concrete, analytical ways of gauging progress and accomplishment (pragati-māpinī viśleṣaṇā tmaka-praṇā li). But again we ask: How is pure love to be defined? Vaishnava tradition teaches, “According to the sentiments of the particular devotee, loving attachment falls within the five categories of śānta-rati (neutral love), dāsya-rati (the love of a servant), sakhya-rati (the love of a friend), vātsalya-rati (parental or nurturing love), and madhura-rati (the sweet mood of conjugal love). These five categories arise from devotees’ various relationships with the Supreme Lord.” The spiritual taxonomy of love expressed here is based on Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (2.5), which in turn, of course, is based on the rasa theory of earlier Indian aestheticians, such as Bharata, Abhinavagupta, and King Bhoja, among others. It was Rūpa Gosvāmī, however, who “spiritualized” the theory, adapting it to love of Krishna, as some of the papers in this volume will make clear.