Premāmbhoja Marandākhya Stava-rāja

By Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī.

VERSE 1:

MAHĀBHĀVOJJVALA CINTĀ RATNODBHĀVITĀ VIGRAHĀM
SAKHĪ PRAṆAYA SAD GANDHA VARODVARTANA SUPRABHĀM

Her transcendental form is born from the blazing thought-jewel of mahā bhāva, She is anointed with the excellent, nicely fragrant ointment of the love of Her girlfriends, and Her bodily luster is very effulgent.

    Stavāmṛta Kaṇā Vyākhyā:

Śrīpāda Raghunātha has named this stava premambhoja marandākhya stavarāja, or the king of praises, that oozes like honey from the lotus flower of divine love. This is the king of all stavas in the Stavāvalī-compilation, for it defines the constitution of Śrī Rādhikā, who is the very form of mahā bhāva, which is the essence of prema. Only someone who has prema can understand the truth about Rādhārāṇī. premera svarūpa deha prema vibhāvita (C.C.) “She is the embodiment of prema, and Her body consists of nothing but prema.” Śrī Rādhārāṇī is the fountainhead of all of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s divine potencies. She is the aggregate of all the goddesses of fortune, and the presiding goddess of all great opulences, but this majestic truth is hidden within a deep ocean of transcendental sweetness, so that the prowess of Rādhā-tattva is not externally manifest. She is the full manifestation of total and pure love. Although all the gopīs have an abundance of prema, Śrī Rādhā is the personification of the essential portion or sārāṁśa, of this prema. In other words, only in Her presides the pinnacle of ecstatic love of God, named mādana mahā bhāva. Śrīpāda Raghunātha’s devotion for Śrī Rādhā’s lotus feet is extraordinary; he has given his life-airs to Her. In this stava he has recorded the spontaneous experiences of Śrī Rādhā-tattva of his love-filled heart. The secrets of this stava are very difficult to know, because in it is an analysis of the constitution of love of God. Prema is svānubhava vedya, or only knowable through personal experience, and incomparable; it cannot be expressed through words. It cannot be understood by hearing about it from others if there is no real love in the heart. These things depend on personal perception. We take shelter of the lotus feet of Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, in whose mine-like heart this Cintāmaṇi-jewellike stava has appeared, so that we may somehow try to understand its meaning.

First of all, Śrī Raghunātha dāsa says:

“Śrī Rādhā is mahā bhāvojjvala cintāratnodbhāvita vigrahām “Her form is composed of the blazing thought-jewel of mahā bhāva.” Let us first try to understand what is mahā bhāva. Where are the insignificant conditional souls, and where is mahā bhāva, the supreme essence of prema? Still, in this very age of Kali, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who is the combined form of Rasarāja Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Mahābhāva Śrī Rādhā, has descended to earth with mahābhāva-vatī Śrī Rādhā’s girlfriends and maidservants, the Gosvāmīs, to make the truth and the glories of mahā bhāva, that they have experienced, known to the people of the world. Their experience-filled great words can be our only support. Śrīla Kavirāja Gosvāmīpāda has written:

prema krame bāḍhe hoy – sneha māna praṇaya;
rāga, anurāga bhāva mahābhāva hoy.
bīja ikṣu rasa guḍa tabe khaṇḍa sāra;
śarkarā sitā miśrī śuddha miśrī āra
ihā yaiche krame nirmala, krame bāḍhe svāda;
rati premādike taiche bāḍhaye āsvāda
premera parama sāra mahābhāva jāni
(C.C.)

“From the seed of a sugarcane grows the sugarcane, from the cane juice is extracted, the juice is made into guḍa (brown sugar), from guḍa sugar is made, from sugar rock candy, and from rock candy the most crystal-clear candy. In this way the substance has become purest, sweet and tasty. In the same way prema gradually increases in flavor and grows into sneha, māna, praṇaya, rāga and anurāga, until it culminates into mahā bhāva. This is the essence of prema.” Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has defined mahā bhāva as follows in his ‘Ujjvala Nīlamaṇi’:

anurāgaḥ sva saṁvedya daśāṁ prāpya prakāśitaḥ
yāvad āśraya vṛttiś ced bhāva ity abhidhīyate

“When anurāga reaches the stage of sva saṁvedya and thus becomes manifest, attaining the nature of yāvad āśraya, it is called (mahā) bhāva.” The sva saṁvedyā-condition is the pinnacle of anurāga, and it can only be seen in the beautiful girls of Vraja. What to speak of others, this mahā bhāva is not seen at all even in Kṛṣṇa’s Queens like Rukmiṇī and Satyabhāmā. This is Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī’s explanation of the word sva saṁvedya in his Locana Rocanī-commentary on this verse.

Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartīpāda, in his Ānanda Candrikā-commentary on this verse, endeavors to make this mahābhāva-vastu, which is so difficult to comprehend, understandable, by revealing a philosophical explanation of the sva saṁvedya-condition. He calls it the stage in which anurāga becomes suitable to be experienced through itself. According to him, there are three forms of the stage of anurāga: karaṇa, karma and bhāva. Karaṇa means the agency through which a work is done. anurāga is a fraction of the saṁvit-śakti which makes Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness relishable, and anurāga is therefore the agency (karaṇa) through which Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness can be relished. When this anurāga reaches its climax, then the relish of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness also reaches its climax. prauḍha nirmala bhāva prema sarvottama; Kṛṣṇa mādhurya āsvādanera kāraṇa (C.C.) “Greatly developed, spotless bhāva is the very best prema, and this causes the perfect savour of Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness.” After that comes the karma-form of anurāga. That which is being done is called karma. Relishing Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness is the relish’ karma. The limit of anurāga can be experienced through the relish of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness. gopikā darśane kṛṣṇera ye ānanda hoy; tāhā hoite koṭi guṇa gopī āsvādaya (C.C.) “The gopīs relish a million times more the happiness that Kṛṣṇa feels when He sees the gopīs.” The happiness the gopīs feel as a result of relishing Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness is felt on the strength of their own anurāga. This experience of the climax of anurāga is the karma-form of anurāga. Then again in the bhāva svarūpa is the exclusive experience of the pinnacle of anurāga, which is a plenary portion of Kṛṣṇa’s ānanda. In it, the relisher is so absorbed that he loses awareness of who is the relisher and what is the relished, and all that remains is a full experience of relish. This is the bhāva svarūpa of the climax of anurāga. The state in which the karaṇa, karma and bhāva of anurāga are completely manifest is the sva saṁvedya-condition of anurāga.

yāvad āśraya vṛtti means that the shelter (āśraya) of anurāga is rāga, and the more this rāga can arise, the more it is called the yāvad āśraya vṛtti of anurāga.
The definition of rāga is:

duḥkham apy adhikaṁ citte sukhatvenaiva vyajyate
yatras tu praṇayotkarṣāt sa rāga iti kīrtyate
(U.N.)

“When praṇaya becomes very great, one feels very happy even if one must go through the greatest misery for Kṛṣṇa’s sake. This stage is called rāga.” It gives a chaste, married girl with a good reputation great pain if she gives up her bashfulness and her dedication to her husband. She would rather give up her body by entering into a fire or drinking poison, but the gopīs have reached the limit of rāga, because they have most jubilantly given up their shame and their dedication to their husbands, out of eager thirst to please Kṛṣṇa. This is the yāvad āśraya vṛtti of anurāga. When anurāga has thus reached the stage of sva saṁvedya and yāvad āśraya vṛtti to become mahābhāva, then all the uddīpta (burning) and sudīpta (brilliantly blazing) sāttvika bhāvas become manifest in it.

Śrīpāda Raghunātha calls mahā bhāva the Cintāmaṇi-jewel of brilliant, erotic rasa. Just as the Cintāmaṇi-jewel gives everything that one desires or thinks (Cintā) of, similarly this mahābhāva fulfills all the sweet erotic desires of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who is erotic rasa Himself.

ei mahābhāva hoy cintāmaṇi sāra;
Kṛṣṇa vāñcha pūrṇa kore ei kārya yāra
(C.C.)

“This mahā bhāva is the essence of the Cintāmaṇi-jewel, whose duty it is to fulfill all of Kṛṣṇa’s desires.”

Even the subtlest desires for relishing sweet mellows can be fulfilled by Śrī Rādhā, who is the personification of mādana mahā bhāva, which is the culmination of mahābhāva. Each of Her limbs consists of the transcendental ingredient of mahābhāva. Just as a solid golden statue is gold inside and outside, similarly Śrī Rādhikā is made of mahā bhāva inside out. Hence it is said: mahābhāvojjvala cintā ratnodbhāvita vigrahām – “Her form consists of the brilliant Cintāmaṇi-gem of mahābhāva.”

Śrīla Kavirāja Gosvāmī has revealed the meaning of this part of the śloka as follows: mahābhāva cintāmaṇi rādhāra svarūpa (C.C.)

After that, Śrī Raghunātha says: sakhī praṇaya sad gandha varodvartana suprabhām:

“Her body is brightened by the excellent and fragrant ointment of Her girlfriends’ love for Her.” Sweet and beautiful girls anoint their bodies with fragrant oils before they bathe, then they wipe the oil from their limbs and anoint them with lotuspollen and other fragrant powders, to make their bodies shining. The best ointment for Rādhārāṇī’s limbs, that embody mahābhāva, though, is the fragrant ointment of the love of Her girlfriends, headed by Lalitā and Viśākhā, that are inseparably united with Her. This ointment of Her girlfriends’ love brightens up Her transcendental mahā bhāva vigrahā. This matter has been described in a somewhat separate way in Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta:

rādhā prati Kṛṣṇa sneha sugandha udvartana,
tāte ati sugandhi deha ujjvala varaṇa

“Kṛṣṇa’s love for Rādhā is like a fragrant ointment of affection, that makes Her very fragrant body shine brightly.”

premera pratimā vraje rādhā ṭhākurāṇī; mahojjvala mahā-bhāva cintā-ratna khani
sakhīra praṇaya sad gandha udvartana; tāhāte sugandhi deha ujjvala varaṇa

In Vraja Rādhā Ṭhākurāṇī is the embodiment of prema; She is a mine full of thought-jewels of greatly brilliant mahā-bhāva. She is anointed with the great perfumes of Her girlfriends’ love for Her and this gives Her fragrant body a brilliant lustre.”

from “Sri Sri Stavavali 3″”
(English commentary by Rādhākuṇḍa Mahānta Paṇḍita Śrīmat Ananta Dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja)

Translated by Sri Advaita das