Maan in the Nitya Vihara of the Radhavallabh Sampradaya

Hari-Radhacharan das.

adbhut prem ki asaktata samujhani ati katin hai / jin kei mann ati saras hohi tinkei urr
avei / / ja prem rasa mei man hu neim hai / duhuni kei tann mann sahaj prem rasa mei bharei
hai / nem kaha rahei thaur nahi / / shri priya ju ko sahaj svabhav prem, rasa, rupa, joban
rasa ki garurata dekhi lal ji vyakul hvei jaat hai / yeh avastha dekhi ladili ju apnau subhav
bhuli jat hai / maha pyar sau ank bhari leihi / jo kabahu priya ju apnei rasa mei lal ji tann na
chitvei, na bolei tau unki gati min jal ki si hoi hai / ihei jaha man sahaj ko hai /

“It is extremely difficult to understand the nature and ways of the divine attachment manifest in this
extraordinary type of prema. Only those whose hearts are pure and radiant will be able to keep a
home for it within their heart.

In the highest and most exquisite condition [utkrisht-sthiti] of transcendental love there is no place
for māna [a lover's anger] because Sri Shyama Shyam's minds and bodies are naturally and
continuously completely saturated in prema-rasa. However if someone wishes to see māna
established as a necessary feature of the joys and love-plays of this extraordinary type of prema,
then the type of māna here is something quite remarkable. When Sri Priyaji is absorbed in the
intoxicating pride of her natural prema, rasa, beauty and youth; then seeing this, Sri Lalji becomes
mistakenly convinced that she has become mānavati, an angered heroine and he becomes unstable
and full of great anxiety! Witnessing this pitiful condition of Sri Lalji, Sri Laadiliju snaps out of her
own disposition and compassionately embraces him to her bosom with a great force of Love!

When on occasion due to being completed enraptured in her own rasa [rasalīnatā] Sri Priyaji may
not look towards or speak to Sri Lalji; at this time his condition becomes that of a flapping fish out
of water! This is the form that māna takes up in the keli love-plays of the Nitya-Vihara.

jo kou kahei ki man tau rasa ko poshak hai aru ruchi badhavei, sau yeh prem sadharan
janibo / iha yo nahi / nitya chhin hi chhin priti-rasa sindhu tei tarang ruchi kei uttat rahat hai
nayei-nayei, taha sri svami ji ko pada -

“jab jab dekho pyari tero mukh tab-tab nayau-nayau lagat”

aru shri ju ki bani “karat pan rasmatt paraspar lochat trishit chakor” tatei prem, biraha
anek bhanti kei hai / jaiso jaha prem teiso taha biraha hai / jaha sthul prem taha sthul
biraha / jaha suksham prem taha suksham biraha /

“Those who who have their opinion and say that māna nourishes rasa [rasa ko poshak hai] or that it
increases the taste of rasa [aru ruchi badhavei] should understand this to be the case in ordinary
[sadharana] prema. Ordinary māna is not given much importance in the prema-rasa-siddhanta that
Sri Hit Harivanshju has given. Here the fact is that at each moment, newer upon newer tastes and
waves of the ocean of prema-rasa continuously arise within the hearts of Sri Shyama Shyam.

Therefore in Sri Swami Haridas' Vani 'Sri Kelimal', Sri Lalji remarks:

“jab-jab dekho pyari tero mukh, tab tab nayau lagat / aiso bhram haut mei kabahu dekhi na ri...
– O Pyariju! When gazing at your beautiful lotus face, it appears to me as newer and newer!
I get so deluded and even begin to really think that I've never seen it (you) before!”
- pada 34 of Sri Kelimal.
We get the same mood within the Vani of Sri ju [Sri Harivansh]:
“karat pān ras matt paraspar lochan trishit chakor” - that even though Sri Ladili-Lal are forever
drinking the [rupa-madhuri] sweet nectar of each other's beauty with unblinking, unflinching thirsty
chakora-bird1 eyes, still they are unsatisfied and thirst for more!” - pada 31 of Sri Hit Chaurasi.

The above explanation makes it clear that there is a great thirst in the love between Sri Shyama
Shyam and it that has no limit, no end and that they are always hankering for more. This is prema's
characteristic of being forever increasing [nitya-vardhaman].

In the Nitya Vihar, Sri Yugal's unquenchable thirst of love for each other is itself the experience of
viraha [separation] for them.

Wherever there is a gross manifestation of prema [sthula-prema] there also exist the corresponding
gross forms of separation [sthula-viraha].

Conversely, where there is a subtle manifestation of prema [sukshma-prema] there also exist the
corresponding subtle forms of separation [sukshma-viraha].

Further explanation:

The gross or physical forms of separation are the types such as:

(1) purva-raga – separation prior to ever meeting.

This type of rati [love] occurs when the hero or heroine has heard about, seen or become aware of
their Beloved through some or other means.

These means can be: (a) seeing the beloved directly, (b) seeing a picture of the beloved, (c) seeing
them in a dream, (d) hearing the beloved, (e) hearing about the beloved from friends, messengers or
those such as bhaktas, (f) other means of sensory perception of the beloved prior to actual meeting.

According to different experts on rasa theory:

(1) The worldly rasa [prakrit-rasa] belonging to Bharata Muni's Natya-Sastra school. Some of the
famous rasa theorists are Bharata Muni, Abhinavagupta, Visvanatha Kaviraja and Bhoja.

(2) The bhakti-rasa theorists: To varying degrees, the following spiritual stalwarts produced
theories, commentaries of bhakti as a rasa or other important explanations. The Gaudiya Vaisnava
proponents such as Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Jiva Goswami, Srila Visvanatha Chakravarti2, Srila

1) chakora birds – they are said to live solely off the rays of moonlight and are therefore always attracted to the moon.
They are symbolic in describing perfect and exclusive attraction between Lovers. Therefore the chakora-bird eyes of
Shyama Shyam are forever drinking each other's moon-like faces.
2) The Gaudiyas are especially well known for their systematic works on theories of bhakti as a rasa. For those
unaware, much of the terminologies and theories are taken from the earlier worldly [laukika] rasa theorists of the Natya
sastra tradition with the Gaudiya Acharyas adding their own comments as to differences and special features of bhakti-
rasa theories. See 'Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu', 'Ujjvala-nilamani', commentaries to both of these works and 'Priti-
sandarbha'.
Rupa Kaviraja3, the Advaitin Sri Madhusudhan Saraswati4, Sri Hit Dhruv dasji5, Sri Biharindevju,

Other types of separation to discuss:

māna – due to anger.

prema-vaicchityam – imagined separation.
pravasa – actual physical separation after meeting.

The Gaudiya Goswamis reliance on prakrit-rasa theorists

Sri Visvanatha Kaviraja and his works:

Jīva and Kavikarṇapūra in particular rely extensively on the Sāhitya-darpaṇa. Jīva cites the work
several times in the Prīti-sandarbha (110, 111, 204), and Kavikarṇapūra’s chapter on rasa in the
Alaṃkāra-kaustubha is modeled on Viśvanātha’s. Rūpa too cites the work in the Bhaktirasāmṛta-
sindhu (3.4.78), and though he speaks negatively about Viśvanātha in the introduction to the
Nāṭaka-candrikā (“Moonlight on Drama”), those negative remarks should not be taken as a
complete dismissal of his work. Viśvanātha claims that extra-marital affairs (like Kṛṣṇa’s with the
gopīs) are inappropriate for poetry, which is what Rūpa rejects, and his disagreement does not seem
to go beyond that, as the Sāhitya-darpaṇa is an important source for the Nāṭaka-candrikā. See Måns
Broo, “Drama in the Service of Kṛṣṇa: Rūpa Gosvāmin’s Nāṭaka-candrikā,” in Bertil Tikkanen and
Albion M. Butters (eds), Pūrvaparaprajñābhinandana: East and West, Past and Present. Indological
and Other Essays in Honour of Klaus Karttunen (Helsinki, 2011), pp. 55–65

Sri Bhojadeva and his works such as Sarasvati-kantabharana and Shringar-prakash:

See Rūpa’s Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi 15.3 and 15.102, Jīva’s Prīti-sandarbha 110 and his commentary on
Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi 15.185–187, Śrīnātha’s Caitanya-mata-mañjuṣā 11.12.8, and Kavikarṇapūra’s
Alaṃkāra-kaustubha 5.5. As we will see, Bhoja’s influence on these authors extends well beyond
these scattered references. See also Sivaprasad Bhattacharyya, “Bhoja’s Rasa-ideology and its
Influence on Bengal Rasa-śāstra,”

3) Srila Rupa Kaviraja – a Gaudiya but deserving a separate footnote as his 2 books 'Raganuga-Vivritti' and 'Sara-
Sangraha' were officially banned by the King of Jaipur and many believe he was kicked out of the Gaudiya
Sampradaya. Most of these allegations and reasoning against his books however are almost surely false. Ironically some
of his novel ideas became famous within the later Gaudiya Sampradaya.
4) Sri Madhusudhan Saraswati wrote about bhakti as a rasa in his Bhagavad-bhakti-rasayana and whilst sharing some
ideas with the Gaudiya Goswamis, differed in others.
5) Sri Hit Dhruv dasji makes important comments on the rasa theory of the Nitya Vihara in works such as 'Siddhanta-
vichara-lila', 'priti-chauvani' and so on.