PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES

Meeting the ‘True’ Guru in Vaishnava Life Histories

Brahma I sought in reciting the PurâNas, in the fourfold pleasures of the Vedic lore, but looking I have never ever heard, what kind of shape he has, or what his nature is. Calling and searching worn out I was, but that treasure of enjoyments was not told to me by men or women. But then he was seen! Hidden he sat in a cottage in a bower, massaging the feet of Râdhikâ… Raskhân, 16th century A.D (Sujâna rasakhâna 121)

1INTRODUCTION

1.1 Vaishnava conversion and initiation, simultaneousness and eternity The spiritual aim for most vaishnavas, followers of the god or one of his incarnations, consists of finding the deity and merging with his world. In the meantime the discovery of this world implies a finding of one’s ‘truer self’. Entering the world of the god implies a finding of one’s true identity. Strictly speaking in vaishnava cosmology, however, this rather concerns a re-finding, a re-discovery, a reconstruction of a hidden innermost self, of an inner being that keeps a relationship of deep fascination with the darkskinned cowherd boy . In the eyes of his devotees Krishna embodies the all-attractive side of everything that exists. Someone who calls him or herself a vaishnava has been ‘touched’, has been marked by a certain attraction, by a certain maybe even intuitive sense of an awareness

1 My own translation based on the edition of D.S. BhâTî, Raskhân granthâvalî, Delhi 1966. Unless indicated otherwise all translations are my own. 256 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE that there is an ideal world to be discovered beyond our limited world, a world that consists of Krishna’s eternal playground. There he plays his manifold games in the company of his beloved. It is the ultimate target set for a vaishnava to take on his or her original identity and to be part of this world that in many aspects of its appearance is quite the opposite of our temporary world. It is a perfected world that is at the same time ‘beyond our world’ but can yet at times be visible and even accessible in this our very own world. It is so at least for the advanced devotee. It only needs a certain transformation to recog- nize this world that lies hidden, dormant in far off temples, in broken images, in ancient verses, in dried up trees and withered bowers on the sandy shores of the polluted river Yamuna. Only qualified eyes may recognize these signs so to say. It needs training, a spiritual progress on the vaishnava path to see how this other world ‘oozes through’ our temporary world. The main characteristic of that divine world is that time does not run there as it does in our world. Of course it does not as it is a perfected world; Krishna and his companions are forever young and forever old, a vaishnava might say. Therefore as is often stated it is possible in that world to watch mythical events simultaneously and eternally. It is a proof even that one’s vision of Krishna’s world is correct, things run simultaneously there and are meanwhile eternal, a combination of two characteristics impossible in our daily world limited by time and space. It is possible in that world, so we find stated in many vaishnava songs that one sees Krishna as a young adult in one house and yet as a small child in the next house for instance.

In this article I want to draw attention to one of the main events in the life of a vaishnava: the moment of conversion. For this I reflect on examples of con- version as they can be found in two collections of hagiologies from the seven- teenth century A.D. from Northern India. These two collections are the Do sau bâvana vaishnavana kî vârtâ and the Caurâsi vaishnavana kî vârtâ. Most of the life histories (vârtâ) presented here originate from the first source, the Do sau bâvana vaishnavana kî vârtâ, a collection of the 252 life histories of the disci- ples of one of the foremost of the vaishnava reformers of the sixteenth century, ViTThalnâth (1516-1576 A.D.). ViTThalnâth was the son and main successor of the great instigator of the vaishnava revival of medieval northern India, Val- labhâcârya (1479-1531 A.D.). The life histories of the 84 main disciples of Val- labha are collected in the other collection, the Caurâsî vaishnavana kî vârtâ, the ‘Account of the 84 Vaishnavas’, the second source of interest here. Both collec- tions of hagiologies are attributed to Harirây. It is stated, however, that in their present form the texts may go back to Harirây who is supposed to have lived extremely long, from 1590-1715 A.D.. His original inspiration may have been THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 257 given to him by Gokulnâth, one of the sons of ViTThalnâth so it is at times asserted.2 The moment one meets the vaishnava guru might be the most important event in one’s life, at least from a vaishnava viewpoint as the guru will see through everyday phenomena and he will stimulate the future devotee’s devel- opment. Further questions may be what actually happens once a future vaish- nava is ‘touched’ by this mystical understanding of the guru, once the future convert starts to realize that there is a world such as Krishna’s world and that this world even pervades through the events of everyday. In other words, what happens if the devotee finds out that it is possible to see this other world and it is even possible to see it through the phenomena of everyday earthy existence? This awareness may have been there in a limited form before the vaishnava met his or her guru, yet sometimes the meeting of the guru triggers the devotee. The encounter with the Guru may cause him or her to enter a kind of spir- itual whirlpool in which everything is mixed up until the guru starts to regulate the devotee’s spiritual development. Meeting the true guru is for many vaish- navas like a ‘true’ rediscovery of their own true nature. Thus they may discover who the guru is, who Krishna is, where and how the lîlâ i.e. Krishna’s world, is accessible and they discover through all of these visions their own true nature. They as well are eternal players forever young and forever old and thus they share qualifications with Krishna’s world. It only needs a change of mind, of mentality, of attitude to see this, to experience this all.

The very moment of conversion of the devotee once he or she meets the guru is in the meantime a revelation of the ultimate lîlâ, as far as we may believe the accounts of the devotees. As such the meeting with the true guru has been com- pared to the experience of spiritual enlightenment itself, after all once you meet the true guru you will in time surely reach your ultimate target, you will enter Krishna’s lîlâ. This is at least what vaishnava tradition tries to convince us of. A very important discovery closely following initiation is that of the above men- tioned change of time. In the lîlâ time definitely plays another role than it does in our everyday world. Time and the timeless are part of the discovery of the inner truer self. The same is true for space. The essence and awareness of local- ity may change drastically. Meeting the guru is in a way equal, if not superior, to the experience of moksha, as meeting the guru opens a hole to a world, so attractive even that

2 See C. Vaudeville, ‘The Govardhan Myth in Northern India’, in: Indo Iranian Journal 22 (1980), 1-45, esp. 15-17. On Vârtâ literature see R. Barz, The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhâcârya, Faridabad 1976, 97-103; R.S. McGregor, Hindi Literature from its beginnings to the Nineteenth Century, Wiesbaden 1984, 209. 258 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE this experience will gratify and fascinate all senses and passions of the devo- tee. Meeting the guru is almost, if not actually, equal to meeting Krishna. This inevitably will lead to an entrance into the lîlâ where the most fascinat- ing and sensual personality of the universe is to be met in the form of Krishna. In his presence all creatures change into the mythical beings they truly are, desperately in love with their divine lover Krishna. Even the most ardent macho men will change into passionate cowherd girls as the extreme maleness of Krishna brings out the feminine in every creature, so at least vaishnava tradition has it.

At the end of this article the account of Chîtsvâmî is given. Chîtsvâmî was a criminal but he was converted to by ViTThalnâth espe- cially when he realized the characteristics of ViTThalnâth’s actions; ViT- Thalnâth moves beyond time and space and is therefore equal to Krishna. Chîtsvâmî is fascinated by ViTThalnâth’s actions and therefore he becomes a convert, he becomes part of the lîlâ. Chîtsvâmî’s account serves here as a case study of the vehement forces at play once one meets the ‘true’ vaishnava guru.

1.2 the Vârtâ, the life-history of a saint The word ‘vârtâ’ means ‘account’, the ‘story’, the ‘life-history’. In the Do sau bâvana vaishnavana kî vârtâ these accounts usually consist of various paragraphs, called prasangas. In these it is sometimes told how the future vaish- nava was born, and how he or she grew up. Somewhere or somehow the vaish- nava heard of Krishna and his games. This may be through other teachers or devotees than those pertaining to the denomination or sampradâya of Vallabha and ViTThalnâth but at a certain moment there is the meeting with either one of these two. This meeting changes the devotee’s life drastically. After the conversion there often follows a number of accounts that demonstrate the enormous powers of devotion. The community may remain flabbergasted due to the workings of Krishna devotion and it happens that even the guru himself is struck by the powers of his own teachings manifested in his disciple. At times the guru may even be questioned about the strange behavior of his devotees. The answer usually given implies that the devotee is part of another world now, a mystical world and behaves accordingly. The devotee is a saint blessed by extraordinary visions that can hardly be shared by other people. At the end of the entire vârtâ it is often stated that the devotee was such a ‘vessel of grace, how far can his account be written? The vârtâ is com- pleted’. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 259

2ONCE YOU MEET THE GURU – THE EXPERIENCE OF TEN MILLION KÂMADEVAS

Please have a darshana of the lotuslike face of Shrî Vallabha’s son in the morning. He is praised by the three worlds as the worthiest person,3 what is the comparison if you want to give one? The moon has arisen in Shrî Vallabha’s family, It is drunk by the Cakoras.4 Nanddâs’s body, mind and possessions should be sacrificed5 on the son of Shrî Vallabha. Nanddâs6 Pada 5 Râga Vibhâsa

In many of the vârtâs the actual meeting with ViTThalnâth is a vehement expe- rience, it is compared to the vision of or the encounter with ‘ten million Kâmadevas’. ViTThalnâth’s impact on people must have been enormous, at least that is what the tradition tries to convince us of. From the vârtâ accounts, keeping in mind of course that these are vallabhite sources and therefore of course above all success-stories, we get the idea of a strong personality radiating a strong attraction to his devotees. Like Kâmadeva, the Indian counterpart of Cupid, ViTThalnâth must have been able to put his disciple’s heart in flames. As such his presence resembles that of Krishna himself who through his extreme beauty attracts all living crea- tures and exactly knows how to fascinate them. Krishna is the most attractive

3 The text says: ‘parasottama’, here read as ‘purushottama’, Purushottama is amongst others a title of Vishnu or Krishna. 4 The Cakora is a member of the partridge family. Indian tradition has it that it lives on moon- beams. 5 ‘nauchâvar’ (Hindî shabd sâgara: 2616) ‘ek upacâr yâ ToTakâ jismem kisî kî rakshâ ke liye kuch dravya yâ koî vastu uske sâre angom ke ûpar se ghumâkar dân kar dete yâ Dâl dete haim/ utsarg/ vâropherâ/: ‘A ritual or magical practice in which for the protection of someone a good or some object is moved above all the bodyparts and then given away or thrown down, dedication, passing an offering around the head of someone’. The idea behind this ritual is that an evil deity may have entered the body and that by giving it a donation, this evil spirit may prefer the goods offered and leave the body by clinging to these goods. 6 Nanddâs (active c.1570, McGregor, Hindi Literature, 85) was initiated by ViTThalnâth. He composed various songs on his guru. These songs are collected in the edition of Nanddâs’ works by Brajratnadâs, Nanddâsgranthâvalî, Benares 1956-57 (2nd ed.), 280-283. See for a study on these songs: P.J.C.L. van der Velde, ‘“Shining as ten million moons”: Nanddâs’ hymns to his guru ViTThalnâth (1516-1576 A.D.)’, in: I. Bocken, D. Duclow, S. van Erp & F. Jespers (Eds.), On Cultural Ontology, Religion, Philosophy and Culture: Essays in honor of Wil- hem Dupré, Maastricht 2002, 183-206. 260 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE person in the universe and ViTThalnâth seems to be only second to him. For many vaishnavas this is no surprise as for many of them the true guru embod- ies Krishna. Krishna’s manifestation as the guru is just another form of Krishna’s grace. The guru is a svarûpa, a true embodiment of Krishna. As meeting Krishna is often considered to be a strongly erotic experience so must have been the actual meeting with ViTThalnâth whose presence must have been quite ‘eroticising’, if we may believe the accounts of the vârtâs.

Thus it is apparently through worldly (laukika) feelings that the devotee is led to the level of spiritual eroticism (alaukika, ‘beyond worldly’) and as a reaction to this whatever was left of worldly feelings seems to be completely gone after this experience. As such the initiation by ViTThalnâth sanctifies one of the strongest of human feelings, that of love and even of eroticism and transforms these into spiritual ‘erotic’ attraction. Thus ViTThalnâth seems to use a temporary, worldly emotion to lead a devotee into the timeless world of the young sporting god. Lust grows into spir- itual love, a world limited by time grows into a world beyond time. Meeting ViTThalnâth is like the planting in the soul of an irreversible fascination. From that moment on life will never be like it used to be. It is remarkable that in ‘normal life’ one arrow of Kâmadeva apparently is already enough to put one’s entire being into flames, burning with love’s passion. We only need to remem- ber the moment when Kâmadeva shot one of his flowery arrows into ’s body.7 The great god’s ascetic practices were disturbed and his entire being was put into flames, be it anger of passion this time, to such an extent even that these flames protruding from the third eye on Shiva’s front burnt Kâmadeva to death. If this is what happens if only one arrow of one Kâmadeva strikes we can imagine what ten million Kâmadevas might arouse if it comes to love’s burning passion.

7 See for Kâmadeva’s arrow shot into Shiva’s body and as a consequence of this the burning of Kâmadeva by Shiva e.g. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, Hindu Myths, Harmondsworth 1976, 154-159). In the account of the Saura PurâNa presented here by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty it is remarkable that once Kâma is burnt Pârvatî has the following to say to Shiva, when he asks her what he can do for her: ‘Blue-necked god’, answered Pârvatî, ‘now that Kâma has been killed, what can I do with a boon from you today? For without Kâma there can be between man and a woman no emotion which is like ten million suns. When emotion is destroyed, how could happiness be attained? Tell me, you who are to be honored by the lord of gods’ (O’Flaherty, Hindu Myths, 158). Here once more we find the number ten million in relation to Kâma’s powers that are com- pared to ten million suns. All the while ViTThalnâth’s powers are considered to be that of ten million Kâmadevas, or sometimes to ten million moons (Van der Velde, ‘Shining as ten mil- lion moons’, 196, 197). THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 261

2.1 Further developments of the devotee After this first deeply emotional experience ViTThalnâth usually takes his new disciples to one or more of the images (svarûpa) of Krishna and there he tries to transform their fascination into fascination for Krishna. There is nothing strange about this role of ViTThalnâth as he is compared to Kâmadeva. It is Kâmadeva’s function to connect the lover with the object of love, the girl or boy, woman or man with whom the lover has fallen in love. In this case this is Krishna. A person in love does not fall in love with Kâmadeva but with the object of his or her love: the beloved. As in the myth of Shiva who is shot by Kâmadeva’s arrow it is not Kâmadeva with whom the great god falls in love, it is Pârvatî the daughter of the Himalaya. Kâmadeva even dies in the flames that rise out of the passionate moment when Shiva opens his third eye. Kâmadeva is burnt to ashes while at the same moment Shiva sees Pârvatî and falls in love with her. Kâmadeva serves as the ‘go between’, he connects both lovers even if he dies through this. After this, however, he is ‘ananga’, ‘without body’ and this is how he comes back to life due to the pleadings of Pârvatî or in some versions of the myth through the words of Kâmadeva’s own wife , ‘Love’s lust’. The one difference between Kâmadeva and ViTThalnâth is the force with which both strike. Once more, Kâmadeva is alone, ViTThalnâth strikes as ten million Kâmadevas.

At this ViTThalnâth usually is successful at least if we may believe the vârtâ accounts. At times he even needs to check and stop his new devotee as the new initiation may result in a sudden outburst of visions that can be that con- fronting that they are not suitable to be shared by all outsiders present at the scene. Therefore ViTThalnâth sometimes simply tells his new disciple to restrict his or her words. It seems ViTThalnâth has the power to hide or check revelations as much as he has the powers to reveal them. He has what is in San- skrit called ‘tirodhanashakti’, the powers to keep things unrevealed, unseen. Yet he has the power to reveal things hitherto unseen. Even if one of his disciples sees the hidden signs and another does not recognize them, ViTThalnâth is able to explain these. Later on he may guide his disciples towards the absorption in the magnificent world of Krishna’s lîlâ.

Here now follows an example from the Vârtâ of Caturbhujdâs, vaishnava num- ber 3 in the Do sau bâvana vaishnavana kî vârtâ. In it is stated that Caturbhu- jdâs has a special access to a world hidden for others. Another vaishnava asks ViTThalnâth who is in the vârtâs usually called Shrî GusâîM Jî to explain this to him. How can the lîlâ be eternal, how can it be ‘more, moment after moment’ and how can it yet be ‘new all of the time’? 262 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

And one day Shrî Caturbhujdâs had the shringâradarshana8 of Govardhannâth Jî9 and Shrî GusâîM Jî was showing the mirror. In the meantime Caturbhujdâs sang this pada [i.e. song]: Take Mohana’s mirror in your hand and may you show it to the beloved so that he may see his fortunate outfit/ He cannot see it himself, I sacrifice myself to today’s beauty, nothing can be said about it// After that Shrî GusâîM Jî entered GovindkuND. Then a vaishnava asked: ‘Mahârâja, Caturbhujdâs cannot say anything about today’s beauty, so he has sung. But you are always preparing the [outfit of the] Shringâra and you show the mirror. I did not understand today’s pada’. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî said: ‘Ask this to Caturbhujdâs’. Then that vaishnava asked this to Caturbhujdâs and Caturbhujdâs sang some more padas: Friend, today it is more than yesterday10 and moment after moment it gets even more. Hearing this pada that vaishnava asked Shrî GusâîM Jî: ‘The lîlâ of the Lord is eternal and it is everywhere. How then can Caturbhujdâs say that it is getting more and more?’. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî said: ‘This is the astonishing thing in the lîlâ of the Lord, it is eternal, but from moment to moment it is new. To those who live on the places of the Lîlâ and to those who have the darshana11 of the lîlâ it seems new from moment to moment and a new beauty arises, that is what Gopâldâs Jî [another vaishnava poet-saint] has sung. The fifth part in the fourth account: How can I sing with one tongue the visible [prakaTa] qualifications and the manifold enjoyments?/ The eternal lîlâ is always new. A comparison cannot be found in the shruti [i.e. the Veda]// Thus is the lîlâ. Hearing this that vaishnava became very glad. Caturbhujdâs is such a vessel of grace that he everywhere had the experience of the eternal lîlâ (Vaishnava 3, Prasanga 4).

8 This is the second ritual of the day in Vallabhite temples. Krishna is first richly dressed and can be seen by the devotees. Usually this ritual takes place at 6 a.m., in winter it is held at 7.30 a.m. (K. Goswamy, ‘The Cult’, in: E. Isacco & A.L. Dallapiccola (Eds.), Krishna, the Divine Lover: Myth and Legend through Indian Art (pp. 123-142), London-Boston 1982, 125). 9 One of the main Svarûpas, images of Krishna under worship in the Vallabhasampradâya. 10 ‘kâla’ as ‘kala’ as suggested by R.S. McGregor, The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, Oxford- Delhi 1993, 193. 11 The darshana is the ritual of ‘seeing’ a god or a religious teacher. In India it is often described as ‘drinking with the eyes’. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 263

In fact ViTThalnâth’s role seems to be like that of the sakhîs, the female com- panions of Râdhâ and Krishna. They are always engaged in serving both beloved and in bringing them together even though the divine couple is con- stantly quarreling on Krishna’s unfaithful dalliances with other girls, Candrâvalî and the millions of others…

3 THE LÎLÂS

3.1 Eternal Brindavan: Krishna’s lîlâ Shrî Râdhâ is my Svâminî,12 I am Râdhâ’s servant. Please give me a life in Brindaban, birth after birth. Life is good in the sacred site of Brindavan, where nearby flows queen Yamunâ13 people who meditate on her while they bathe, obtain VaikuNTha14 as their capital. and PurâNas elaborate on her, she is the jewel for the minds of all saints and wise men. The Yamunâ saves you from ’s servants,15 but from birth itself saves Râdhikâ Rânî16

Imagine a richly blossoming forest, a village, the houses where cowherds live with their wives, their children. Their riches are their cattle, the white cows with shining golden horns, the brown cows with polished hoofs that give milk abundantly. Birds roam the trees, they look like flying gems, emeralds, rubies, set with coral, with strikes of gold. The trees are like paradise trees, they bloom forever whilst they bear rich fruits. Cowherd boys roam the forest in daytime with the cows. In the morning they have left their homes for the pasture grounds. At dusk they return and they are welcomed by the children of the vil- lage, with âratî lights by the women. At night while all are supposed to have a sound sleep, a flute resounds from the inner thickets of the forest. The young

12 Svâminî is a title here of Râdhâ, Krishna’s youthful mistress, she is the poet’s highest master. 13 The river Yamuna who is considered to be yet another incarnation of Krishna or Râdhâ. She is often described as the queen of Braj. 14 VaikuNTha is VishNu’s heaven. 15 The servants of death. Yama is the god of death. 16 In other words she prevents you from being reborn but in her grace brings you to the eternal grounds of Krishna’s games. This song was sung by Pandit Kalyan Prasad Ji Kishori in Brin- davan at a Kavisammelan, a contest of poets, held in November 1988. 264 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE girls of the village sneak out stealthily, they wait till their fathers, brothers, hus- bands and in-laws have fallen asleep. Then they all go out to meet their secret lover, their hidden paramour… This is the world of Krishna, the young dark sporting god. These are his playgrounds, his perfected world, where nothing seems what it looks like at first glance. This is heaven, this is liberation, this is where the world ends, where time stops and yet from where it originates. It is a world of senses, of pleasures, mixed though they may seem with sufferings of missing a beloved, with pangs of separation. This is a world where the eyes do not blink and even if they would do so, it is to enhance pleasures, or at least to make the emotional state last by mixing the joys of union with the sufferings of loneliness even if it is for just an eyewink. This is Krishna’s world where he performs his manifold games eternally and simultaneously. This makes him a divine being beyond human imagination limited to time as we are. In our world of phenomena in which we pass our daily life our eyes blink, which shows our bindings to the passage of time. This is at least a common belief in India. Krishna’s eyes do not blink. This is the case with all immortals. Therefore time does not pass for him. Everything is eternal and simultaneous, whatever he pleases to perform. Even if time passes for him, or at least if it seems to pass for him seen from our viewpoint, or even if he dies as he does in the episode of the cycle of myths on him when a hunter called Jara shoots an arrow in his foot, thinking these to be the ears of a deer, these incidents are parts of his manifold games. These events are just parts of his magical play of mâyâ or illusion, of lîlâ. It is for his own pleasure that this happens and yet it is for the enjoyments of many, not just for his own enjoyments. Even when he creates the nights for his eternal games with the gopîs, this does not imply a true passage of time even though the mere existence of day and night normally should imply such a pas- sage of time, a revolving of the planets, of sun and moon. Yet, if he performs his dance the moon and the stars stop moving. Their heavenly vehicles stand still in midair, and with unblinking eyes – planets do get eyes on such moments – they watch his movements. This, however, is one of the main pieces of evidence that the true nature of the lîlâ moves beyond human understanding, beyond the concepts of language, or of thinking, even of concepts at all. Therefore in this world one can see him as a child and treat him as a parent would; one can see him as a cowherd, or as a war- rior and therefore as a companion, as a friend. As a saint one may concentrate on his games, his divine nature. One may as well serve him as a servant, but the highest target set is to be amongst his beloved cowherd girls, especially to serve as a go-between between Krishna himself and his beloved Râdhâ. It is the highest target to enjoy the erotic sentiments and maybe even witness the manifold love games of the young god with his beloved in the hidden bowers on the banks of THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 265 the Yamuna. The enjoyment of those witnessing Krishna and his games are sup- posed to be even more intense than the experiences of Râdhâ and Krishna. The beloved can never know the true feelings of his beloved and likewise the beloved girl cannot know what her lover goes through. Even if it is said that Krishna created Râdhâ out of his own because he desired to enjoy his own beauty, it is com- pared to an eye that needs a mirror to see its own beauty and elegance. Likewise Krishna created Râdhâ as his hlâdinî , as his own mirror, as the ‘force with which he enjoys himself’. Thus the divine, though at the end one, may consist of two, Krishna and Râdhâ and yet they may not know of each others’ enjoyments. Therefore those who witness them may share the experiences of both, as they may partly seek identification with both of them. Stronger even, they share Râdhâ’s abilities to amuse the young god and they share Krishna’s divine nature as he incarnates as both the young god and as the divine antaryâmin, the inte- rior controller, the witness who lives in every creature. The witnesses do not need the mirror in the person of Râdhâ to enjoy Krishna’s beauty. Therefore, though it may seem paradoxical at first view, they have an almost deeper expe- rience of the lîlâ than the divine player himself, though he on the other hand may share their experience exactly due to the fact that he is the antaryâmin, the inner controller of all living creatures. We may even question which one was first. Is it the hlâdinî shakti that is that fascinating that it was due to her that Krishna entered the body as the antaryâmin, fascinated as he is by his own hlâd- inî shakti? Or is the hlâdinî shakti present because Krishna is present in every being, the hlâdinî shakti being one of his own powers?

The ‘mutuality’, the ‘reciprocity’ of the enjoyer and the enjoyed, the lover and the beloved, the mutual witness, the eye that sees it’s own quick movements in a mir- ror, may never be lost. It is as the Bengal vaishnavas say it: a desire to taste sugar, not to be sugar’. There are vaishnavas, however, such as the Sahajiyâs who desire to identify with Râdhâ and Krishna personally and thus to ‘become sugar’. Yet on the other hand it is often asserted that it actually all concerns a dream, a dream of Vishnu or of Krishna, a magical dream in which he dreams us as individuals, in which he sees us and himself through his own eyes, that are our eyes. After all, nothing exists separately, it is all in the end a manifestation of Krishna himself showing himself. For this he divides himself in his own personality, in the world as the playground and the souls, the players. Krishna himself is the all attractive deity, he is the playground and he is the flock of beings that seek him.

3.2 Krishnalîlâ and the lîlâ of ViTThalnâth Above it has been stated already how close Krishna and ViTThalnâth appar- ently are as they both have their all attractive nature in common, the ‘charm 266 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE of ten million Kâmadevas’. For many vallabhites the guru is an incarnation of Krishna himself or of one of the main characters from the Krishna myth. Val- labha himself, for instance, is often regarded as an incarnation of Krishna or of Vishnu.17 His son Gopînâth who was the elder brother of ViTThalnâth, Vallabha’s main successor, is considered to have been an incarnation of Krishna’s elder brother Balarâma.18 According to Krishnaite tradition Gopînâth did not succeed Vallabha out of grief as his eldest son had disap- peared. Tradition has it that Gopînâth’s son was taken into the lîlâ by Krishna himself, as Krishna loved him that much. As a reaction to this, Gopînâth became an ascetic and went to Jagannathpuri in Orissa. There he is said to have disappeared into the image of Balarâma, thus returning to his place of origin. After all he was a manifestation of Balarâma in the first place. Thus ViTTthalnâth became Vallabha’s successor as he was next in line. Just like his father he is seen as an incarnation of Krishna. In the Bhaktamâla of Nâbhâdâs, another medieval collection of saint’s stories, proof for the identity of ViT- Thalnâth and Krishna is given: when ViTThalnâth was born on earth the corrupt Kaliyuga was for the period of his lifetime changed into the previous worldperiod, the Dvâparayuga,19 the worldperiod in which Krishna lived as the foster-son of and Yashodâ. Another source has it that ViTThalnâth is an incarnation of ViThobâ, a local form of Vishnu worshipped in Pand- harpur in Maharastra.20

It is not surprising therefore that for the devotees of the Vallabhasampradâya singing of the gurus coincides with singing of Krishna. Many songs of the Val- labhasamprâdaya that are considered to be devotional or mystical songs on Krishna are in fact songs on the vallabhite gurus. As I found out on several occa- sions in Brindavan: whenever vallabhite devotees hear of the poetry of Mîrâbâî a story is told on her and her familypriest (purohita) who was according to tra- dition a vallabhite. This same story is found in the Caurâsi vaishnavana kî vârtâ. For Mîrâbâî, whom vallabhite traditions generally do not affiliate with vallabhite

17 See for various identifications of Vaishnava saints and gurus: Paul J.C.L. van der Velde, Rasikarâja and Dînanâtha: Brajbhasa poetry and the encounter with Krishna’s world, Utrecht 1993, 108-114. 18 See Vaudeville, ‘The Govardhan Myth in Northern India’, 41 and 44 nt 20. Barz (The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhâcârya, 53, 54) gives another account. 19 E.g. Nâbhâdâs Bhaktamâla edited by Devîdâs Gupta Govardhan (n.d.: 210): ‘The force of the Bhajana of Vallabha’s son (i.e. ViTThalnath) has made a Dvâpara age inside the Kaliyuga’. Sometimes ViTThalnâth is also considered to have been an incarnation of Nanda, Krishna’s foster-father, as it is said in the same verse from the Bhaktamâla that: ‘ViTThalnâth, loving the boy (i.e. Krishna) as the chief of Braj (Nanda) did, found happiness’. etc. 20 Alan W. Entwistle, Braj, centre of Krishna pelgrimage, Groningen 1983, 52 nt.52. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 267 doctrines, singing of Krishna and singing of the guru definitely are not the same:

The account of Râmdâs, familypriest [purohita] of Mîrâbâî One day Râmdâs Jî was singing padas in front of [the image of] Shrî Thâkur Jî [i.e. Krishna] of Mîrâbâî. When Râmdâs Jî was singing songs on Shrî Âcârya Jî Mahâprabhu [i.e. Vallabha] Mîrâbâî said: ‘Please sing another song, on Shrî Thâkur Jî [i.e. Krishna]’. Then Râmdâs said: ‘Mîrâbâî, she is a prostitute, a widow [whore]21 whose pada is this, where can I see the face of your husband? From today onwards I will not look at your face anymore’ [i.e. I will avoid you]. Then Râmdâs stood up and left with his family. Mîrâbâî asked many times for Râmdâs Jî to stay but he did not come back. He avoided her from that day onwards and he gave up his job with her. He did not return and did not come from his village anymore. Mîrâbâî often called for him, but Râmdâs did not come. Then she sent him a gift while he sat at home, but he gave it back and said: ‘Widow [whore], you do not believe that Shrî Âcârya Mahâprabhu [and Krishna] are the same. How can I work for you? For me Shrî Âcârya Mahâprabhu is everything. I am his and without him I will give up every- thing. I have my refuge at his lotus feet. Such maintenance will be much better’. Râmdâs was such a vessel of grace of Shrî Âcârya Jî, such a devotee of the Lord. Up to what extent can his account be written? (Vaishnava 54,22 Prasanga 1). It is remarkable that in this account Râmdâs calls Mîrâbâî a prostitute. Here once more we can see the results of Mîrâbâî’s transgression of the boundaries of established society. She is attacked by a person who is, after all, a Krishnaite himself and must have been used to the behavior of the vaishnava saints he must have met all over, one might easily think. But apparently he does not accept Mîrâbâî’s way of life: Maryâdâ seems to be stronger than Bhakti. On the other hand, it is stated in the vârtâ that Râmdâs served as a family priest (puro- hita). Therefore he is supposed to defend moral and ethical values in accordance with orthodox Hindu society. We need to take into consideration here that in the past and at times even today vaishnava ascetics, both male and female, have been associated with low morality.23

On the other hand there are passages in the vârtâs in which we can see that Krishna simply eludes ViTThalnâth. After all Krishna acts spontaneously. ViT-

21 ‘mîrâbâî so jo are dârî rânDa’ ‘dârî’: ‘1. ‘dâsî’ (slave-girl), 2. ‘prostitute’ (McGregor, The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, 492); ‘rânD’: 1. ‘a widow’. 2 ‘a promiscuous woman; prostitute’ (p. 858). 22 Caurâsî vaishnavana kî vârtâ, edition of Gangâvishnu Shrîkrishnadâs (1986). 23 R.G. Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious Systems (1913), in: Narayan Bapuji Utgikar (Ed.), Collected Works of Sir R.G. Bhandarkar, Poona 1929, 123, 124; M.T. Kennedy, The Caitanya Movement: A Study of Vaishnavism of Bengal, New York 1925, 256. 268 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

Thalnâth is a guru, an âcârya and moreover a brahmin who needs to defend values of established Hindu society, just like Râmdâs does maybe in the above example.

In yet other cases we can recognize this same spontaneity manifested by Krishna himself in the acts of his devotees. The devotees at times have a better under- standing of what actually happens in the lîlâ than ViTThalnâth himself. At times the saint is closer to Krishna than the guru or âcârya. ViTThalnâth is then in some cases almost forced to explain the unexpected behavior of his devotees. Therefore at times we may find him struggling in almost hopeless cases when he is requested by opponents of the Vallabhasampradâya to explain the extraordinary behavior of his disciples. This is found for instance in the fol- lowing account from the Vârtâ of Govinddâs: Now Shrî Nâth Jî would always play together with Govindsvâmî in the forest and one day he would make Govinddâs into a horse, the other day into an elephant. Such plays he would always play. One day Shrî Nâth Jî had changed Govinddâs into a horse and he was sitting on it as a horseman. Now Govinddâs urinated as a horse. A vaishnava saw this, went to Shrî GusâîM Jî and told him this. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî gave the order that Govindsvâmî is a horse or an elephant. How can it be that he would not imitate a horse or an elephant the entire way? Do not intervene in these matters. Hearing this, that vaishnava remained silent. Such a vessel of grace was Govinddâs. (Vaishnava 1, Prasanga 16). In one of the next episodes from the same vârtâ we find Govindsvâmî trans- gressing the boundaries of the ritual. He asks for his meal (prasâda) before it is given to Krishna. This is beyond any established rule of the vaishnava ritual. Yet, once Govinddâs has explained his demand, ViTThalnâth changes the reg- ulations: And one day when Govindsvâmî came to the Râjbhoga24 of Shrî Nâth Jî he said to the bhîtarîya [i.e. officiating priest]: ‘Before you offer the râjbhoga you should give me prasâda first’. Then that bhîtariyâ threw down the plate and called Shrî GusâîM Jî. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî asked Govinddâs: ‘What is this?’. Then Govin- dsvâmî said: ‘You have put me here to play in his company and if I take the prasâda later I have to stay here and then Shrî Nâth cannot meet me in the for- est. How should I act then?’. Hearing this Shrî GusâîM Jî appointed a servant so that Govinddâs would get prasâda at the time of the râjabhoga. Such an order he gave to the cook. Govindsvâmî was such a vessel of grace. Shrî Nâth Jî could not live without him (Vaishnava 1, Prasanga 18).

24 This is the darshana that takes place at midday. It is the main meal of the day. After this meal Krishna rests for almost two hours (Goswamy, ‘The Cult’, 125). THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 269

Thus we may say that in the eyes of many vaishnava devotees, yet maybe not in the eyes of all, Krishna and the guru who reveals the lîlâ are put on a par. At times both are equal, on other occasions the young god proves to be higher. In the case of ViTThalnâth, for some his games are equal to those of Krishna, for yet others the games of ViTThalnâth and Krishna are just interrelated. For oth- ers, such as is obvious from the account on Mîrâbâî the games of the guru and those of Krishna are different. For vallabhite devotees the games are equal, if not the same. Yet, at times the vaishnava saint, unrestricted as he is by moral values of dharma and maryâdâ held by orthodox Hindu society, may go where not even ViTThalnâth dares to go. After all ViTThalnâth needs to defend his doc- trines and, moreover, he needs to defend traditional values. Thus paradoxically his nature is once more like that of Krishna who on the one hand created dharma and has given it its concrete outlook in scriptures such as the Bha- gavadgîtâ for instance. A difference may be that whereas Krishna can transgress the boundaries of dharma and maryâdâ freely and at his own will, ViTThalnâth at times needs to defend the dharma. Yet on other occasions he might just leave it behind. The devotees are freer if it comes to this. At least they have more freedom than ViTThalnâth has. They do not need to defend anything but their devotion. Maybe here once more we can find what was stated above that the vaishnava devotee actually has a more complete understanding of the lîlâ than Krishna or ViTThalnâth himself, as the devotee may know all aspects. Krishna, and therefore the guru as well may only be aware of his own acts and to a lesser account of those of others.

3.3 ViTThalnâthlîlâ is Krishnalîlâ In the above two sections we have seen that the lîlâs of Krishna and of ViT- Thalnâth share many characteristics. At times they are equal, at times they are similar and at times they coincide. Apparently an exclusively coherent ideology on this accepted by all seems to be lacking amongst vaishnavas. In the follow- ing section we will analyze a few padas of the poet-saint Nanddâs in order to further investigate the relation between ViTThalnâth and Krishna and the rela- tion between their lîlâs. In the edition of the complete works of Nanddâs edited by Brajratnadâs we find nine padas on ViTThalnâth.25

In Pada 6, we see that the feet of ViTThalnâth give joy in the bhajana (here: ‘devotional service’), they expose the teachings of the Veda, and they remove the

25 These are the Padas 5 to 13 in the edition of Brajratnadâs. See for a study on the padas of Nanddâs on ViTThalnâth: Van der Velde, ‘“Shining as ten million moons”‘. 270 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE evil of the corrupt Kaliyuga. In the last line of Pada 6 Nanddâs tells us how his lord appears to him. He states that: ‘The Lord of Nanddâs has become visible in two, Shrî ViTThala and Giridhara’. The ‘Lord of Nanddâs’ apparently is Krishna whereas Shrî ViTThala refers to ViTThalnâth or to of Pand- harpur. Giridhara is an epithet of Krishna, ‘he who bears the mountain’, whereas the name may as well refer to the eldest of ViTThalnâth’s sons: I will praise the feet of Shrî Vallabha’s son. I will sing on them, because they are very tender,26 they give joy in the bhajana they make the fallen pure hearted. I will sing of the vehement exposition, of the opinion of the instructions of the Veda, by which the falsehood of the Kaliyuga is removed. I will sing of the incomparable radiance, the beauty as the entire earth,27 they remove agony, distress and evil. I will sing of the pushTimaryâdâ,28 the border of happiness of the bhajana, the fostering and protecting of his own people. The Lord of Nanddâs has become visible in two: Shrî ViTThala29 and Giridhara, thus I will sing. Pada 6 Râga Râma Kalî In Pada 7 both Krishna and ViTThalnâth are praised, they are both named the ‘Lord of Rukminî’ and the ‘Lord of Padamâvatî (i.e. padmâvatî)’. Both epithets may in this sentence refer to ViTThalnâth as well as to Krishna as not only two

26 Instead of the reading translated here: ‘ati sukumâra’: ‘very tender’, Brajratnadâs gives another reading as well: ‘ati nandakumâra’: ‘they give extreme joy in the Bhajana of Nanda’s son’, a variation that changes the entire sentence. 27 Another reading given by Brajratnadâs: ‘atula pratâpa mahâmahi sobhâ’: ‘the power over the greatness of Shyâma whose radiance is incomparable’. 28 Pushtîmaryâdâ may be used here as a name for the bhakti path as indicated by Vallabha. It may also be used here to denote a special category of bhakti. The pushTibhakti is of four kinds: pravâhapushTibhakti, maryâdâpushTibhakti, pushTipushTibhakti and shuddhapushTib- hakti. The maryâdâpushTibhakti is, according to Bhandarkar: ‘The second [i.e. maryâdâ- pushTibhakti] is of those who, withdrawing their minds from worldly enjoyments, devote themselves to God by hearing discourses about him, singing his name, and such other processes’ (Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious Systems, 113). Maryâdâ in general means the rules that have been accepted by society as appropriate and should prefer- ably not be transgressed. See also Barz,The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhâcârya, 70-72. 29 Other reading by Brajratnadâs: ‘biTTalesha’. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 271 of Krishna’s official wives were called Rukminî and Padmâvatî, but ViTThal- nâth had two wives as well with these names. First he married Rukminî who was the mother of six sons and four daughters. Later he married Padmâvatî who was the mother of one son. Thus by his proper marriages ViTThalnâth ‘protects the brahmin race’ such as is stated in this song. The remembrance of the name of ViTThalnâth results in a life with Krishna in Brindavan. The ‘father of Giridhara and the other children’ is a manifestation of Krishna as Girirâja. Hail! Lord of Rukminî! Lord dearer to life-breath to Padamâvatî! Umbrella for the brahmin race! creator of ânanda! Torch of Vallabha’s family, savior of the world30 shining as ten million moons. Lord who gives bhakti to people longing for deliverance [mukti], capable of everything, full of collections of virtues. Glory to the Lord of the bhaktas, who makes the fallen pure, who fulfills the desires of those desiring. Glory! All the pilgrimages come to their result just by the remembrance of your name: a life in Braj forever with Gokulbihârin.31 For Nanda and the servants the father of Giridhara and the others is the Lord: [He, ViTThalnâth, is] a manifest incarnation of the bearer of Girirâja. Pada 7 Râga Saranga In the last line of Pada 8, it is once more stated that ViTThalnâth and Girid- hara together are a manifestation of Krishna: ‘For Nanddâs the Lord has become manifest wearing the body of Shrî ViTThalnâth and Giridhara’. Moreover, what is particularly remarkable is that the service to ViTThal- nâth’s feet removes the dangers of the Kaliyuga just like Krishna did when he was on earth. After all he lived in the Dvâpara era. Yet, whenever there is decline of the dharma Krishna appears to remove all obstructions for the dharma (Bhagavadgîtâ IV, 7). As such there is nothing strange about ViT- Thalnâth living on earth as a living proof of Krishna’s promiss: ‘The trickery of the -time has been removed and there is a vehement exposition of the Veda’.

30 Or another reading by Brajratnadâs: ‘jagata-nistâra-karana’ as ‘You create a crossing of the world’. 31 Another possible translation for this verse is: ‘Gokulbihârin always lives in Braj’. 272 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

In Pada 9 it is stated that great joy arose at ViTThalnâth’s birth, not only in Vallabha’s heart, but also in the house of Vallabha’s father and ViTThalnâth’s grandfather: LakshmaNa BhaTTa. ViTThalnâth is once more identified with the monist principle of Brahman and the highest person (pûrana pra- gaTi purushottama), all epithets and characteristics that he shares with Krishna. Heralds are singing and auspicious goods are brought to the newborn child. Glorious festoons are prepared, brahmins are reciting the Vedas and presents are handed over to them to bring good luck to the newborn child. The fact that all conflicts have ended can be seen as an indication that a great person (mahâpu- rusha) has been born. Not only nature but humanity as a whole reacts to the birth of a great saint or an incarnation (avatâra). After all heaven incarnates on earth. In the house of Shrî Lachamana32 today the badhâî33 resounds. There is the appearance of the complete Brahman, the Purushottama, causing joy to Shrî Vallabha. Young ones, old ones and children dance, the joy [ânanda] cannot be held inside the heart. As the heralds sing: ‘Glory! Glory!’, thus is the recitation of the Veda by the brahmins. Turmeric, dûrba-grass, acchata,34 curds, saffron and kîca35 are spread over the limbs.36 The good gardeners’ wives wreathe glorious festoons, with pearls the courtyard is filled. They offer flowers as presents to the brahmins, they make them wear garments and jewels. All conflicts have ended, the fruit of the desire of Nanddâs’s mind is begotten. Pada 9 Râga Gandhâra In Pada 10 ViTThalnâth is said to be born as the support (âdhâra) of the entire world, he is even named a ‘crown-prince’, or ‘princely son’. Dharma serves as the gatekeeper of the PushTibhakti.

32 Shrî Lachamana is LakshmaNa BhaTTa, Vallabha’s father. 33 ‘badhâî’ means ‘the auspicious songs that are sung on the occasion of the birth of a son’ (Hindî shabd sâgara, 3375). 34 ‘Acchata’ is unbroken rice that is fit for offering to a deity. 35 ‘Kîca’ is a kind of auspicious mud. All the substances mentioned in this verse are considered to be auspicious (mangala) goods that bring fortune to a newborn child. 36 ‘âmgani’ can be read as ‘âmgana’, ‘courtyard’, as well. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 273

The support of the entire world has become manifest, the princely son [râjakumâra] of Shrîmad Vallabha. The essence of his lotusfeet must be continuously thought37 of, the greatness of the uncountable qualifications is incomparable. Dharma etcetera are the gatekeepers at the door, they are the acceptors of PushTibhakti. Shrî ViTThala is an incarnation of Giridhara,38 Nanddâs sacrifices himself. Pada 10 Râga Deva Gandhâra In Pada 11 it is stated how ViTThalnâth is connected to two worlds: this world and the other. He shares manifold qualifications with Krishna himself: You who are related to this world and the other world, who can tell the mass of your vir- tuous properties? He is a ‘crestjewel among the connoisseurs of the Rasa’ (rasika-shiromani), connoisseurs of the esthetic ‘mood’ or ‘atmosphere’, an epithet that he shares with Krishna himself. Moreover he is named the ‘Lord of Nanddâs’, a title referring to both Krishna and ViTThalnâth. He is requested to come to live in , one of the sacred places in the Braj area.

In Pada 12, Nanddâs sings once more on ViTThalnâth’s glory in the morning. In this pada, the glorious mouth (shrî mukha) is mentioned, which may remind us of the fact that Vallabha, and therefore his son ViTThalnâth as well, was an incarnation of the mouth of God, as is mentioned above. The jûThana,39 ‘the food touched by others’ of Krishna or of the gurus is considered here to be the mahâprasâda. Nanddâs wants to be a slave in the household of Vallabha’s fam- ily: ‘I will find the jûThana which is the mahâprasâda. I Nanddâs40 ask this: that I will be called the slave of the family of Shrî Vallabha’.

In Pada 13, ViTThalnâth is asked to reign till eternity in Gokul. He protects those who are lowly and suffering. ViTThalnâth is as the sun to the daylotus of Vallabha’s family.

37 ‘dheya’ is here considered as derived from ‘dhyeya’ gerund of ‘dhyâ’. 38 The first half of this verse: ‘shrî biTThala giridhara avatâra’ can also be translated as: ‘Shrî ViTThala and Giridhara are incarnations’. 39 ‘JûThana’ is food that has been touched by others. It is polluting, because it has been in touch with other people’s saliva. If the food has been eaten by a god such as Krishna, the food is actually polluted by the god’s saliva. It is considered to be prasâda though, because it is puri- fied by the touch of the deity. This prasâda makes one share the world of the god. 40 Another possible translation is: ‘I, oh Nanddâs!, ask…’. 274 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

Reign aeon after aeon in Shrî Gokul! If you give up the vehemence of the bhajana with this fortune, you will not pass a moment from here to there.41 Showing a pure body, beloved dearer than life-breath,42 remove the evil of the lowly. As ordained by all you give protection to those suffering, a personal gait, and you set them free.43 As the sun you fill the pure lotus of the race of Shrî Vallabha with nectar.44 Choose for the Lord of Nanddâs, prosperous with sixfold qualifications,45 Shrî BiThalesha. Pada 13 Deva Gândhâra It is obvious from these examples that ViTThalnâth is that deeply involved with Krishna’s games that for Nanddâs ViTThalnâth’s presence cannot be anything else but the presence of Krishna. Both Krishna and ViTThalnâth are ‘The Lord of Nanddâs’, and wherever ViTThalnâth is to be found there is Krishna. Where ViTThalnâth lives there we find the eternal Brindavan. One last characteristic ViTThalnâth shares with Krishna is his possibility to restrain revelations (tirodhanashakti) already mentioned above. ViTThalnâth has the ability as any qualified guru should have to guide his disciples in a proper way, but he also knows how to keep them away from things not to be experienced yet. Likewise Krishna knows how to hide himself in a human appearance such as ViTThalnâth. Any average human might just see a man, be it one with the charm of ten million kâmadevas. A proper receptive vaishnava will see a true manifestation of Krishna, that will reveal itself further and fur- ther.

41 This means that without the vehemence of the bhajana, you cannot, not even for a moment, pass from this world to Krishna’s paradise. Another reading given by Brajratnadâs: ‘yâ sukha bhajana-pratâpa teM ika china duri ita uta na Tarau’: ‘Because of the vehemence of the bha- jana with this fortune, you will not pass one moment away from here to there’. 42 ‘prânapati’, another reading given by Brajratnadâs is: ‘mahâprabhu’, ‘Great Lord’, an epithet of Vallabha. 43 Another reading given by Brajratnadâs: ‘bisvabidita dînî gati pretana kyoM na jagata uddharo’: ‘As ordained by all a gait is given to the dead, why not a salvation from the world?’. 44 Other reading given by Brajratnadâs: ‘kulakamalani dîpaka’: ‘as a light to the lotuses of your race’. 45 ‘shaTguNa’, ‘sixfold qualifications’ can be interpreted in various ways. Several possibilities are mentioned by Redington in his index: ‘Krishna has six qualities: Power; Valor or Right; Glory or Fame, Splendor – also sometimes replaced by Right; Knowledge: and Detachment’ (J.D. Redington, Vallabhâcârya on the Lovegames of Krsna, Delhi 1983, 489). See also pp. 205-206 for the qualifications of Krishna’s story, and p. 214 for the six qualities of Krishna’s feet. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 275

4. THE INITIATION OF A THAGÂÎ

‘simultaneousness and eternity, grace, encounter and power, visions and secrets’

In one of the accounts in the Do sau bâvana vaishnavana kî vârtâ we find all the major characteristics of the impact of meeting the true guru on the disciple as they are summarized above. It concerns the account of Chîtsvâmî Caube, whose account is found in the collection as Vaishnava 2. Chîtsvâmî is one of the major disciples of ViTThalnâth. He is one of the poets of the AshTachâp, the ‘eight seals’, the eight poets who are considered to be incarnations of the eight main sakhâs, male friends of Krishna on daytime, while at night they are to change into the eight principal sakhîs, the female companions. Therefore their knowl- edge of Krishna lîlâ is complete and more perfected than that of anyone, at least in eyes of vallabhite devotees. The songs of Chîtsvâmî are sung at the sândhya- darshana or sândhya-âratî in vallabhite temples at around four o’clock in the afternoon. This is the moment when Krishna is thought to be returning to his village with the cows.46

In the account it is stated that Chîtsvâmî was at first called Chît Caube. He lived in the city of together with four other caubes. They were crimi- nals, thugees, who perform human sacrifices for the goddess Kâlî by strangling their poor victims with a shawl (rûmâl). It is important to notice that the five criminals lived in Mathura, as Mathura is considered to be the city of the demonic king Kamsa. Krishna and Balarâma were born on earth for the destruction of Kamsa. Mathura will always have a demonic nature, it simply lacks the purity of Brindavan. Brindavan is dedicated to Krishna, Mathura to Kamsa; Brindavan is heaven, Mathura is hell. Now the five caubes had heard that someone had been bewitched in some way or other by ViTThalnâth. They think ViTThalnâth must have a lot of magical charms at his disposal and the caubes decide that they will believe in him if they will be charmed as well. Chît Caube enters the temple with false money and a fake coconut, but miraculously these false offerings change into the real things. The outstanding abilities of ViTThalnâth thus become clear to Chît Caube. Chît Caube understands that ViTThalnâth is no one else but Krishna and takes his refuge in him. ViTThal- nâth then gives him his new name, Chîtsvâmî, and shows him the image of Navanîtapriyâ Jî, one of the major images of Krishna under worship in the Val- labhasampradâya. But as soon as Chîtsvâmî looks inside the temple he finds

46 Goswamy, ‘The Cult’, 125. 276 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

ViTThalnâth there as well, whereas he should have been outside the temple where he left him. When Chîtsvâmî comes out of the temple he once more sees ViTThalnâth present there, in other words ViTThalnâth is present both inside and outside the temple; ViTThalnâthlîlâ coincides with Krishna’s lîlâ in its simultaneousness. The four caubes call for Chîtsvâmî but he chases them away as the curse might come over them as well. After this Chîtsvâmî starts to sing his first pada in which he celebrates both Krishna and ViTThalnâth. The next day ViTThalnâth calls for Chîtsvâmî and the latter one then has the renowned vision of the ‘ten million kandarpas’. Chîtsvâmî begins to experi- ence the lîlâ of Krishna and he understands that there is no difference between the form (svarûpa) of Krishna and that of ViTThalnâth. Chîtsvâmî goes to Gopalpur and there he has the darshana of Shrî Nâth Jî. There as well he once more experiences that the lîlâs of Krishna and ViTThalnâth are virtually the same as he sees ViTThalnâth whom he left behind in Shrî Gokul once more in Gopalpur. When he asks about this he is told that ViTThalnâth is present in Gokul at that moment. He once more understands how Krishna and ViTThal- nâth are the same.

In the next two episodes of the account we find some examples of the pro- foundness of Chîtsvâmî’s experiences. First it is told that Chîtsvâmî came to serve as the house priest (purohita) of Bîrbal, one of the ministers of the Moghul emperor Akbar. Chîtsvâmî sings him a song, but Bîrbal fears the wrath of the emperor who is after all a foreigner (mleccha), a Muslim moreover, unfa- miliar with Hindu practices such as the worship of images. Chîtsvâmî, however, is apparently provoked by Bîrbal’s concern and does not want to do his service anymore. Akbar hears of this and asks Bîrbal about the strange anger of his offi- ciating priest. Bîrbal explains to him that brahmins get angry quite easily. Akbar then tells him an earlier event concerning a vaishnava named Dîkshita Jî. Due to this event Akbar is convinced of the fact that vaishnavas have remarkable powers at their disposal and that they should not be treated carelessly. In the third prasanga we are told that one day Bîrbal came to Gokul to wit- ness the festival of KrishnajanmâshTamî, Krishna’s birthday. Akbar also came there, but in disguise. Nobody recognized the emperor except for ViTThalnâth. Chîtsvâmî was singing at that time and ViTThalnâth was rocking Krishna’s cra- dle. In his pada Chîtsvâmî sings how ViTThalnâth is one moment rocking the cradle, while the next moment he himself sits with Krishna in the cradle and plays with Krishna’s various toys. In his song Chîtsvâmî brings Krishna, ViT- Thalnâth and the entire Veda (nigama) together. Now this remarkable darshana was shared only by Chîtsvâmî and Akbar. All others present just had the usual darshana of ViTThalnâth taking care of Krishna. After this the emperor went back to his capital Agra. ViTThalnâth secretly had mahâprasâda sent to him. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 277

The next day Akbar asks Bîrbal about the darshana of the day before and Bîr- bal tells him all about it. Akbar then tells him that he was there as well and how he had seen that at times ViTThalnâth was sitting in the cradle while Krishna in his shape as Navanîtapriyâ Jî was swinging it, once more a proof that ViT- Thalnâth and Krishna are one and the same, though in two bodies. Bîrbal wonders why he did not have this darshana, but Akbar replies to him that he does not have proper knowledge of the nature of the guru while Chîtsvâmî surely knows all this.

The account of the servant of Shrî GusâîM Jî Chîtsvâmî Caube

I Chîtsvâmî was living in Mathurâ and in Mathurâ there were five caubes who were severe hooligans and they committed criminal acts [thagâî] and Chît Caube was the headman of these five. They made a plan: someone had gone to Gokul and he had got into the power of Shrî ViTThalnâth Jî. Therefore it looks as if Shrî ViTThalnâth Jî knows a lot of charms and magic. ‘But if his magic comes over us then we will accept it as real’, the five caubes made this plan thus. Then the five took a false coconut and false rupees and they came to Shrî Gokul. There the five sat outside and the headman, Chît Caube was sent inside to him [i.e. ViTThalnâth]. Chît Caube offered to him the false coconut and the false rupees. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî gave the order to a servant: ‘Take this money of silver!’. Then silver rupees came forward and when the coconut was broken then white pulp came out. When Chîtsvâmî saw this he thought in his mind: ‘This one truly is the Lord [îshvara] in his own form’. Then Chîtsvâmî said: ‘Mahârâja, take my refuge!’. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî told Chîtsvâmî his name.47 Afterwards he went to let him have the darshana of Shrî Navanîtapriyâ Jî. When he looked inside he saw that Shrî GusâîM Jî was shining [there] and when he came out, he saw that he was still shining there. Then Chîtsvâmî thought: ‘The overlordship [îshvaratâ] of Shrî GusâîM Jî cannot be known by a living being. The four caubes were still sitting outside. They called Chîtsvâmî. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî gave the order: ‘Your companions are calling you outside!’. Then Chîtsvâmî went outside and said to the four caubes: ‘A curse has got me, if you do not vanish from here it will come over you as well!’. Hearing this the four caubes fled. Chîtsvâmî composed a pada and sang it: (Râga NaTa) ‘Friend, now I have met Giridhara// ‘I arrived wearing a false disguise as a cheater, ‘I did not know the highest Lord [purushottama]//

47 His initiation name of Chîtsvâmî. 278 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

‘I did not know anything, small nor big, ‘stupidity was spread out [in my mind]// ‘Chîtsvâmî has seen it now, he has made the treasure of compassion, ‘Shrî ViTThala his own// Hearing this pada Shrî GusâîM Jî was glad and Chîtsvâmî remained there to sleep. The other day Shrî GusâîM Jî invited Chîtsvâmî. Then Chîtsvâmî had the darshana of ten million kandarpas in his own shape, the charming complete high- est Lord and he experienced the lîlâ of the Lord and it became clear to him that there is no difference between the forms [svarûpa] of Shrî GusâîM Jî and Shrî Thâkur Jî. Both forms are in fact one. He began to understand that. Then Chîtsvâmî went to Gopâlapur to have the darshana of Shrî Nâth Jî there. There he saw Shrî GusâîM Jî next to Shrî Nâth Jî. When he came out he asked: ‘When did Shrî GusâîM Jî enter?’. Then one amongst the people there said: ‘Shrî GusâîM Jî shines in Shrî Gokul’. When Chîtsvâmî arrived in Shrî Gokul from there he had the darshana of Shrî GusâîM Jî. Then Chîtsvâmî became sure of it that Shrî Nâth Jî and Shrî GusâîM Jî are one shape [ekahî svarûpa]. From then onwards Chîtsvâmî Jî sang many padas with the châp ‘Giridharana Shrî ViT- Thala’.48 Such a vessel of grace, such a bhagavadîya [i.e. devotee] was Chîtsvâmî (Prasanga 1).

II Now Chîtsvâmî was the purohita of Bîrbal. Since many years already he came to Bîrbal taking ghee. While going there Chîtsvâmî sang this pada: ‘The complete asceticism that has performed, the fruit of it has come to bloom now in the body of Shrî Vallabha’.49 Hearing this pada Bîrbal said: ‘I am a vaishnava, but if the emperor of this reign will hear this what answer will you give then? After all he is a mleccha’. Then Chîtsvâmî said: ‘If the emperor of this reign will ask me I will give the answer easily. According to my opinion you are a mleccha [i.e. here: a non-Hindu] now, from today onwards I will not look at your face [i.e. I will not do service to you] anymore’. After he had spoken thus Chîtsvâmî went away. When the emperor of that reign heard this then he asked Bîrbal: ‘Why did your purohita go away in anger?’. Then Bîrbal told all these things to the emperor of that reign: ‘Brahmins often get angry in vain’. Then the emperor of that reign told: ‘You and me were sitting on a boat when Dîkshita Jî blessed me. Then I gave him a jewel. This jewel was so special, it was sure to give you always five tolas of gold. But Dîksita Jî threw that jewel into the Shrî Yamunâ Jî. Then I got extremely angry and I asked him the jewel back. Then Dîksita Jî pulled the lost

48 The ‘châp’ is the ‘signature’ of the poet, a particular epithet of the deity referring to the poet himself or it may be the poet’s name. The châp may also consist of a particular line that is repeated in each of that poet’s songs. 49 Or: ‘in a lovely body’. The intention of the line is that the asceticism performed by Vasudeva, Krishna’s father, has come to bloom in his son Krishna and in Vallabhâcârya. THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 279

jewel that had slipped away from the Shrî Yamunâ Jî. Then he said to me: ‘This one is yours, please identify it!’. Then it became clear to me that this is truly the Lord in his own person. Without the Lord such a task is not possible. Because of the thought of this matter all the things of your purohita are true. Why did you not think of that?’. Hearing this Bîrbal was deeply set back and he said nothing. Shrî GusâîM Jî heard this matter when a vaishnava came from Lahore. He gave him the order to keep an eye on the news on Chîtsvâmî. Then Chîtsvâmî said: ‘I have not sold the vaishnava dharma. I only have the Vishrânta GhâT.50 Through your grace everything will go allright’. Hearing this Shrî GusâîM Jî became very happy (Prasanga 2).

III One day Bîrbal came with permission of the emperor of the country to Shrî Gokul for the darshana of JanmâshTamî. Later on also the emperor of that country came in disguise closely examining [everything]. When he had the darshana of the cradle of JanmâshTamî nobody among the crowd except for Shrî GusâîM Jî recognized the emperor of that country. Then Chîtsvâmî was singing kîrtanas and Shrî GusâîM Jî was swinging the cradle of Shrî Navanîtapriyâ Jî. Then Chîtsvâmî Jî sang this pada: ‘The cradle of the beloved Navanîta swings, Shrî ViTThalnâth is swinging it/ One moment he himself swings together with him, the other moment he comes down and swings [the cradle]//1// Sometimes he takes nicely colored toys, and makes him play in many many ways/ Sometimes he takes the jojo on his lap, sometimes he makes the rattle resound//2// He prepares food on a tray and there is a pitcher, both of them eat and feed each other together/ The hidden mahârasa51 he makes clearly known, new joy he brings forth//3// Glory to the people, the own servants, by whom this darshana is found/ I Chîtsvâmî52 will sing of Giridharana, Shrî ViTThala and the Veda [nigama], making theme one53//4//

50 A pun on the words ‘vikraya’ and ‘vishrânta’. ‘vikraya’ means ‘sale’ (McGregor, The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, 918); ‘vishrânta’ means ‘resting, weary, ceased from, finished, com- posed’ (idem, 930). Vishrânta GhâT is one of the sacred spots in Mathura on the river Yamuna. 51 The ultimate hidden ‘atmosphere’, ‘joy’ or ‘essence’ that comes forth from the sublime secret lîlâ. 52 Here we see the châp of Chîtsvâmî. 53 ‘chîtasvâmî giridharana shrîviTThala nigama ekakaragâeho’. In a way Krishna, ViTThalnâth and the Veda are put together as one. 280 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

Such a darshana Chîtsvâmî had and also the emperor of the land had such a dar- shana and the people altogether had a common darshana. Then the emperor of the land went away. Then Shrî GusâîM Jî had mahâprasâda given to the emperor in a secret way. Then the emperor of that land went back to Agra. The other day Bîrbal came. Then the emperor of that country asked Bîrbal what kind of dar- shana he had. Then Bîrbal said that the cradle of Shrî Navanîtapriyâ Jî was swing- ing and Shrî GusâîM Jî was rocking it. The emperor of that country said: ‘This matter is not true! Shrî GusâîM Jî is swinging in the cradle and Shrî Navanî- tapriyâ Jî is rocking. I had such a darshana. Chîtsvâmî who is your purohita sings such kîrtanas and I was standing next to you’. Then Bîrbal said: ‘Why did not I have such a darshana?’. Then the emperor of the country said: ‘You do not have any knowledge of the true form of the guru [guru ke svarûp] and your purohita is Chîtsvâmî, who has experienced these things. Therefore you do not have this joy at whatever darshana you have. Such a vessel of grace was that Chîtsvâmî (Prasanga 3). The Vârtâ is completed (Vaishnava 2).

5. CONCLUDING: THE GURU REVEALS TIME AND SPACE

The moment a future devotee meets his or her true guru is in Vaishnaism a moment of profound impact on one’s life. From this moment on one’s entire life will change. It is a way of no return. The outlook on the everyday world changes profoundly. Meeting the true guru coincides with meeting one’s own true self, it is the moment the other world of Krishna’s lîlâ starts to be recog- nized through the phenomena of everyday worldly existence. The guru recog- nizes one’s state, one’s inner being and applies his techniques in bringing out these hidden individual characteristics. In the case of ViTThalnâth we have the above mentioned collection of accounts of miraculous stories of conversions. From these it is apparent that ViTThalnâth himself must have had a profound personal charm that he would apply in order to connect his disciples with Krishna. He strikes as ‘ten million kandarpas’ would. Thus he actually shares this role with Kâmadeva, as a lover normally does not fall in love with love itself but with the target of his or her object of love, the beloved. Once the arrow strikes, Kâmadeva retreats and is even burnt in the passion. Like- wise, once the arrow strikes the disciple is connected to Krishna; ViTThalnâth more or less recedes, though he continues guiding his disciples. It might happen that the disciple from now onwards advances much faster than he or she did before and if it comes to sacred visions ViTThalnâth may even be left behind.

In the everyday world ViTThalnâth is a revealer of a hidden path to Krishna, but in the meantime he is a brahmin bound by brahmin institutions such as THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 281 dharma and maryâdâ. Therefore he has traditional values to defend towards opponents, whereas the devotees are much less bound by these orthodox insti- tutions. If it comes to the true nature of ViTThalnâth, however, he is no one less than just another form of Krishna. This remains to be seen by just the ‘real devotee’ who has the ‘real eye’ for seeing what the universe is truly like. As such ViTThalnâth connects the world of dharma with that of adharma in the sense of the world beyond dharma. ViTThalnâth shares with Krishna that he reveals the lîlâ in its timeless eternity and in its simultaneousness. Events do not run diachronically in the lîlâ but they have the nature of synchronicity and if they do run diachronically after all, it is for the sake of the enjoyment in the lîlâ. Therefore Krishna can be seen as a child, as a young adult and as the revealer of the bhagavadgîtâ the very same moment. If it comes to the disciple’s ‘true vision’, whatever this may imply, he or she will discover the same characteristics in ViTThalnâth’s actions. They as well are char- acterized by synchronicity. Here as well if linear time is experienced it is for the cause of lîlâ. As such ViTThalnâth connects the world of time with timelessness. If it comes to place or locality similar developments and discoveries may take place. ViTThalnâth guides the disciple through the everyday phenomena into a perfected world of fascinating beauty and aesthetics. He reveals the hidden nature of natural phenomena to such an extent that one will recognize birds as liberated souls, trees as paradise trees, sporting young gopîs in old wrinkled pil- grims, passionate lovers in dried-up ascetics. Once properly initiated one will start to understand the complicated nature of ViTThalnâth himself as well: he is a perfected ‘Kâmadeva’ beyond limits and he is an embodiment of Krishna. As a brahmin in the everyday world he defends and expounds the dharma, as Krishna did in his bhagavadgîtâ, if it comes to his truer nature he coincides with no one else but Krishna himself. Thus he plays his manifold games, at least so it is said.

LITERATURE

Barz, Richard, The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhâcârya, Faridabad: Thomson Press (India) lim- ited, 1976. BhâTî, D.S., Raskhân granthâvalî, Delhi: Ashok prakâshan, 1966. Bhandarkar, R.G., Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious Systems (1913), in: Narayan Bapuji Utgikar (Ed.), Collected Works of Sir R.G. Bhandarkar, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1929. Brajratnadâs, (1956/57). Nanddâs granthâvalî, Benares: Nâgarî pracâriNî sabhâ (orig. publ. 1948/49). Dimock, Edward C. Jr., The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava- Sahajiyâ Cult of Bengal, Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1966. 282 PAUL J.C.L. VAN DER VELDE

Doniger O’Flaherty, Wendy, Hindu Myths, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976 (orig. publ. 1975). Entwistle, Alan W., Braj, centre of Krishna pelgrimage, Groningen: Forsten, 1987. Goswamy, K., ‘The Cult’, in: E. Isacco & A.L. Dallapiccola (Eds.), Krishna, the Divine Lover: Myth and Legend through Indian Art (pp. 123-142), London: Serindia/ Boston: Godine, 1982. Harirây, Caurâsî vaishnavana kî vârtâ (Ed. Gangâvishnu Shrîkrsnadâs), Bombay: Laksmîvenkateshvar stîm pres, 1986. Harirây, Do sau bâvana vaishnavana kî vârtâ (Ed. Gangâvishnu Shrîkrsnadâs), Bombay: Laksmîvenkateshvar stîm pres, 1986. Hindi Shabd Sâgara (Ed. Shyâmsundardâs a.o.), Benares: Nâgarî pracâriNî sabhâ, 1965. Kennedy, M.T., The Caitanya Movement, a Study of Vaishnavism of Bengal, New York: Oxford University Press, 1925. McGregor, R.S., Hindi Literature from its beginnings to the Nineteenth Century, Wies- baden: Harrasowitz, 1984. McGregor, R.S., The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, Oxford-Delhi: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1993. McKim, Marriot, ‘The Feast of Love’, in: Milton Singer (Ed.), Krishna, Myths, Rites and Attitudes, Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1966. Monier-Williams, Monier, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press/ Oxford University Press, 1967 (orig. publ. 1899). Nâbhâdâs, Bhaktamâla (Ed. Devîdâs Gupta), s.l.: s.n. (not dated) Nanddâs, Nanddâs granthâvalî (Ed. Brajratnadâs), Benares: Nâgarî pracâriNî sâbhâ, 1956/57 (orig. publ. 1848/49) Raskhân, Raskhân granthâvalî (Ed. D.S. BhâTî), Delhi: Ashok prakâshan, 1966. Redington, James, D., Vallabhâcârya on the Lovegames of Krsna, Delhi: Motilal Banarsi- das, 1983. Van der Velde, Paul J.C.L., Rasikarâja and Dînanâtha: Brajbhasa poetry and the encounter with Krishna’s world, Utrecht 1993. Van der Velde, Paul J.C.L., ‘De Schoonheid van duizenden Cupido’s’, in: Acta Com- paranda 10 (1999), 17-45. Van der Velde, Paul J.C.L., ‘“Shining as ten million moons”‘: Nanddâs’ hymns to his Guru ViTThalnâth (1516-1576 A.D.)’, in: I. Bocken, D. Duclow, S. van Erp & F. Jespers (Eds.), On Cultural Ontology: Religion, Philosophy and Culture. Essays in honor of Wilhem Dupré, Maastricht: Shaker Publications, 2002. Vaudeville, C., ‘The Govardhan Myth in Northern India’, in: Indo-Iranian Journal 22 (1980), 1-47.

SUMMARY

Meeting the true guru is considered to be one of the main events in the life of a Hindu. Meeting the guru is supposed to be rare, it is at times compared to a blind turtle swim- ming around in the ocean that comes to the surface only once every century. In the meantime a wooden yoke is floating around. The chance to meet the true guru is as rare THAT MAGIC MOMENT THE ARROW STRIKES 283 as the turtle to put his head coincidentally into the opening of the wooden yoke in this vast ocean. In the Vallabhasampradâya founded by Vallabhâcârya and his successors meeting the true guru is put on a par with meeting Krishna himself. This is especially the case with ViTThalnâth who is by many considered to be an incarnation of Krishna or of his fos- ter father Nanda. Meeting ViTThalnath and seeing him for the first time the way he really is is in hagiological accounts such as the Do sau bâvana vaishnavana kî vârtâ described as a highly erotic experience. The disciple makes an enormous spiritual progress once he or she has had this experience. The disciple may even surpass ViT- Thalnâth in his or her experiences and at times ViTThalnâth even needs to restrain his disciple. For many adherents of the Vallabhasampradâya guru and Krishna himself coincide and right after the first experiences many of the disciples start to realize this. For other vaishnavas pertaining to other denominations there is yet quite some difference between guru and the deity. For vallabhites the lîlâ of the guru and that of Krishna coincide. Meeting the guru is similar if not the equal to meeting Krishna. Therefore the mere event of meeting the guru is equal to final liberation as seeing the ‘true’ guru will inevitably lead to the ultimate aim, merging with Krishna’s lîlâ. In the lîlâ time and place differ from their appearances in this world. In Krishna’s lîlâ place unfolds in an eternal paradise whereas time in his world runs simultaneously and eternally. Therefore mystics can see him there as a small child and in the meantime as an adult explaining the Bhagavadgîtâ to Arjuna for instance. Not only Krishna’s lîlâ, however, shows these characteristics, in ViTThalnâth’s lîlâ we can see similar incidents occurring as is made clear from one of the life-histories found in the Do sau bâvana Vaishnavana kî vârtâ, the vârtâ of Chîtsvâmî Caube.

Paul J.C.L. van der Velde, born in 1959 in Someren (The Netherlands), is Lecturer in Hin- duism and Buddhism at the Radboud University of Nijmegen Address: Faculty of Theology, Erasmusplein 1, NL-6525 HT Nijmegen, Netherlands (e-mail: [email protected])