The Nature of Rasik Sadhana

The term rasik —by which the adherents of this tradition have commonly referred to themselves—means one who savors ras ("juice, essence, aesthetic sentiment") and in mundane contexts can connote a connoisseur of the arts or of any kind of refined pleasure—a bon vivant or even a playboy. Its use among Vaisnava devotees reflects the sixteenth-century Gauriya Vaisnava theologians' reinterpretation of classical Sanskrit aesthetic theory in the service of the ecstatic devotionalism promulgated by Krsna Caitanya, the renowned mystic of Bengal. In the writings of Rupa Gosvami and his successors, the classical notion of the transformation of individualized, transient emotion (bhava ) into universalized aesthetic experience (rasa ) was reformulated to express the devotee's attainment of spiritual bliss through contemplation of the deeds of Krsna. The central importance of drama for the classical aestheticians was not lessened by the new interpretation, for Vaisnavas saw their Lord as the archetypal actor, repeatedly assuming roles in his universal "play" or lila .^[4] The writings of the Gosvamis and their successors, such as Rupa's own influential compendium Bhaktirasamrtasindhu (Ocean of nectar of the essence of devotion), explicitly link this theology of play to the daily practice of initiated devotees, both through a liturgical script for use in rituals and through internal role-playing and visualization. The initiated devotee, like the theatrical connoisseur of classical times, aspired to become a cultivated spectator of the cosmic drama—one equipped with the intellectual, emotional, and indeed physical training necessary to inwardly savor its ras , an experience which would culminate not merely in aesthetic rapture but in "bodily liberation" (sadeh mukti ) into the highest state of bliss. But since this drama was considered ultimately to encompass or underlie all phenomenal life, the only way to be its spectator was to become its participant. In the "theater" of the Vaisnava rasiks , to enter the audience necessarily meant to enter the play.

The play itself was in each case a selectively edited version of a well-known and much longer scenario. Just as rasik devotees of Krsna excerpted, from the god's total legend, a certain phase of his adolescence and attributed to it not only a special charm but the most profound theological significance, so Ram rasiks focused on a single phase of their Lord's story—the idyllic period when the newly married Ram and Sita, having returned from Sita's home city of Mithila, enjoyed each other's company amidst the palatial comforts of Ayodhya. Although this period is generally held to have lasted some dozen years, it receives no elaborate treatment in most of the standard versions of the Ramayana (Tulsidas, for example, discreetly shifts from the couple's joyful return to Ayodhya after the wedding, in 1.361, to the anticipation, only a single stanza later, of Ram's elevation to the status of heir apparent). This neglect did not, however, daunt Ram's rasik devotees, who in their songs and meditations delighted in endlessly elaborating on the pleasures of this idyllic interlude, which precedes the beginning of what is usually regarded as the "real" story of the Ramayana . It would be as pointless for the noninitiate to inquire, in connection with this scenario, where the Ram of that latter story had gone—the long-suffering prince who relinquished his kingdom to preserve his father's honor, lost his wife to a lustful demon king, and led an army of monkeys to eventual victory over his foe—as it would be to ask a Gauriya Vaisnava why the princely Krsna of the Mahabharata does not figure in their enchanted pastoral realm of Golok. Devotees of both sects were of course aware of the wider cycle of their Lord's adventures, and both groups devised similar explanations to account for their exclusive focus on one facet of it. The Lord, they said, has two lilas —one earthly and manifest (laukik,prakata ) and the other transcendent and hidden (alaukik,aprakata ). According to the Ramaite view, in the former the quality of "majesty" (aisvarya ) predominates, and Ram establishes dharma in the world as the maryadapurusottam . This is also termed his "lila to be known or understood" (jneylila ), and it encompasses the conventional events of the Ramayana story. But beyond this, they say, there is a secret lila known only to certain fortunate adepts, in which the quality of erotic attractiveness or madhurya predominates and in which Ram expresses his ultimate reality. This is his "lila to be contemplated" (dhyeylila ), and it is deliberately omitted from most versions of the Ramayana , although it may be glimpsed through those portions of the story dealing with Ram's exploits at the youthful age at which the quality of eroticism is most perfectly manifested.

And just as, in Krsna bhakti , the earthly locale of Vrindavan was transformed into the transcendent sphere of Golok (literally, "the world of cattle") wherein Krsna's romantic lila eternally unfolded, so the mundane city of Ayodhya (which likewise was growing in importance as a pilgrimage center during the formative period of Ram-rasik theology, the late sixteenth to mid seventeenth centuries^[5] ) was re-visioned as the eternal realm of Saketlok —

"the world of Saket." There the supreme godhead, known to other traditions as Parabrahma, Isvar, or Sri Krsna, resided eternally in his ultimate form or svarup as sixteen-year-old Ramcandra and his parasakti or feminine energy, Sita. Saket was conceived as a vast and beautiful city, foursquare in plan, surrounded by magnificent pleasure parks to which the divine retinue often repaired for excursions. Every part of the city was filled with pleasure: its streets were flecked with gold dust and its balconies encrusted with luminous gems, perfumed fountains played in its squares, and it was dotted with magnificent gardens in which spring always held sway. But the greatest splendor radiated from the city's center, at which lay the immense House of Gold (Kanak Bhavan)—the palace presented to Sita on her marriage to Ram. Like the city, the palace too was foursquare and many-gated, containing a labyrinth of chambers and passages oriented around a central courtyard which contained the most beautiful of all gardens. At the center of this garden stood a dais in the shape of a thousand-petaled lotus, and at the heart of the lotus a gem-studded throne-couch. Upon this couch was enacted the supreme mystery: the eternal union of the two divine principles in human form, worshiped and served by their intimate attendants who alone could gain entry to this inner sanctum. The tantric influence on this conception is apparent; iconographically it is especially evident in the intricate charts (yantra,mandala ) created as aids in rasik visualization, showing the plan of the House of Gold with its four gates and maze of allegorically labeled chambers.^[6]

In calling the divine city of Saket a "visualization" I invoke a term increasingly used by Western psychotherapists and healers to describe imagined settings or scenarios intended to promote mental or physical well-being.^[7] Yet in the context of rastk meditation this term may be somewhat misleading, since the process by which Saket is evoked by the devotee (usually termed dhyan —"meditation"—or smaran —"remembrance"^[8] ) might better be called a "realization." Fundamental to rasik theology is the belief that the magic city is real —more real, in fact, than our conventional world.^[9] And its reality is not simply to be "visualized" with an inner eye but is to be experienced with all the senses—that is, through the medium of a body appropriate to this ultimate world. Since Saket is (in current American real-estate parlance) a "limited-access community," only certain categories of bodies need apply: those which stand in one of four primary relationships—of servant, elder, companion, or lover—to the Lord around whom the life of the magic city revolves. Or to put it another way, the devotee cannot simply write himself into the divine drama; in order to get on this stage, he must fill one of the existing parts, and, as with all acting, this involves long and exacting training.

He must, first of all, be an initiated Vaisnava—either a sadhu or a householder—in one of the rasik branches of the Ramanandi sampraday . The

preliminary stages of initiation involve the five samskars common to many Vaisnava sects—the bestowal of a mantra or sacred formula, of the sectarian tilak and other bodily marks (mudra ), of a rosary (mala ), and of a new name, usually ending in the suffix -saran —"one who takes refuge,"^[10] a feature which distinguishes rasik devotees from other Ramanandis, who generally favor the suffix -das , "slave." Together with these outer signs, which effect the purification of the physical body, there begins a program of inner training designed to familiarize the aspirant with the iconography of the divine city and its inhabitants. This often utilizes manuals prepared by the tradition's preceptors (acarya ), such as the Dhyanmanjari of Agradas, who resided at Galta, near modern-day Jaipur, during the second half of the sixteenth century and who was regarded by later rasiks as the modern founder of their tradition. This "Handmaiden of Meditation" consists of seventy-nine couplets devoted to an evocation of Saket and its inhabitants, culminating in a vision of the luxuriant pleasure park and of the divine dyad (yugalsvarup ) of Ram and Sita enthroned within it.^[11] More than half of the text is devoted to detailed verbal portraits of the divine pair, belonging to the type known as nakh-sikh —"from the toenails to the crown of the head"—a descriptive genre so common in Indian poetry that we may risk dismissing it as a mere convention and forget that in serving to create (in Kenneth Bryant's memorable phrase) a "verbal icon" of the most literal sort, it represents, in fact, a recipe for visualization.^[12] Later rasik manuals offer similarly detailed instructions for envisioning other key players in the Saket lila , particularly the principal young female companions of Siti (sakhi ) and their respective maidservants (manjari ), as well as the comparable young male companions of Ram (sakha ).

The most important rasik initiation—in theory given only when the guru perceives that the aspirant is inwardly prepared for it through preliminary training and purification—is the "initiation of relationship" (sambandh diksa ), which establishes the vital personal connection to the supreme lila . Its purpose is the fabrication of a new body, termed the body of "consciousness" or "discipline," or the "divine body" (cit deh,sadhanasarir , divya sarir ). This is held to be altogether distinct from the three bodies (gross, subtle, and mental) of Advaita metaphysics and is often said to be one's innate or ultimate form, recognized within one by the spiritual guide. Yet although this new body represents one's true identity, the awareness of it depends on emotional experience or bhav , which in the early stages of spiritual discipline must be carefully cultivated.

The training of the rasik adept involves total identification with his assigned body—a role-playing more intense than even the most dedicated method actor would undertake.^[13] To assist in identification with the new body and cultivation of its bhav , the initiate is provided with a wealth of contextual information. There exist, for example, treatises that catalogue the seven kinds of female friends of Sita, ranging in age from less than six to more

than sixteen years, and provide each with a list of parents, other relatives, and teachers, along with details as to place of birth, favorite activities, and so forth. Similar catalogues exist for the youthful male comrades of Ram.^[14] Each initiate is also assigned a special "inner-palace name" (mahalinam ) identifying him as one of those privileged to enter the private apartments of Kanak Bhavan. This name, which for members of the sakhi branch of the tradition usually ends in a feminine suffix such as -ali , -lata , -sakhi , or -kali , is normally kept secret, although it might be known to other adepts. It is also common to use it as a poetic signature (chap or bhanita ), especially at the end of compositions purporting to describe mysteries seen in the course of inner service. Thus there exist numerous emotional and erotic lyrics which bear such signatures as "Agra-ali" and "Yugal-priya" and which are held to be the inspired compositions of the preceptors otherwise known as Agradas and Jivaram.^[15] Indeed, the rasiks ' propensity for living two lives simultaneously has sometimes resulted in confusion—as in the instances in which manuscript searchers of the Nagari Pracarini Sabha (a Hindi literary society) failed to recognize an initiatory name, resulting in texts by the same person being wrongly assigned to two different authors.^[16]

Once established in the emotional mood of the visualized body, the aspirant is ready to begin the most characteristic aspect of rasik devotional practice or sadhana : the "mental service" (manasipuja ) of Sita-Ram according to the sequence of "eight periods of the day" (astayam )—a cycle mirroring the pattern of daily worship in Vaisnava temples and, ultimately, the protocol of royal courts. Most of the prominent preceptors of the tradition, beginning with Agradas, are held to have composed manuals detailing their own interpretations of the eight periods and of the type of service to be offered during each. Thus, for example, the Astayampuja vidhi (Schedule of the eight periods of worship), a Hindi work by the early nineteenth-century preceptor Ramcarandas, divides the day into five principal segments during which the scene of divine activity shifts among eight "bowers" (kunj ) within Saket. In this scenario, a sakhi's day begins with her own elaborate toilette, followed by the singing of gentle songs to awaken the divine couple, who are imagined to be languorously sleeping in an opulent "rest bower." Once awake, they are seated on low stools and ministered to in various ways: their feet are washed, their teeth cleaned, their ornaments and garlands are changed, and they are worshiped with incense and lights, before being led to the "refreshment bower" for the first of many light snacks that will be served to them during the day. This is followed by a lengthy trip to the "bathing bower" for a dip in the holy Sarayu, and then by the donning of fresh clothes, ornaments, unguents, and makeup in the "adornment bower"—all supervised by the ever-hovering sakhis . Once dressed, the divine pair are offered a proper morning meal in the "breakfast bower," where they are served, serenaded, and fanned by female attendants.

After breakfast, the couple again proceed to the Sarayu, where Ram joins his sakhas and Sita her sakhis for boating excursions or "water play" (jalkrira ). This mild exertion is followed by a midday meal in the "refreshment bower" and then by a period of rest, during which the most intimate sakhis remain in attendance on the divine couple, pressing their feet, offering betel preparations, or singing songs to enhance their erotic mood. After a brief nap, the pair is again awakened, worshiped, and escorted to the pleasure parks on the banks of the Sarayu where, suitably dressed and adorned and to the accompaniment of the singing and dancing of sakhis , Ram engages in Krsna-style raslila (dancing and lovemaking) and enjoys a late supper with Sita, before finally returning to the "sleeping bower" for the night.^[17]

The climax of this meditative foreplay is said to be the experience of tatsukh (literally, "that delight")—a vicarious tasting of the pleasure shared by the divine couple in their union, as witnessed by attendant sakhis and manjaris . This dimension of the sadhana has always been controversial, however— for Ramanandis no less than for Gauriya Vaisnavas—since some adepts of the sakhi tradition have maintained the possibility of svasukh ("one's own delight"), or a personal experience of mystico-erotic union with Ram. In theory, this was viewed as impossible; however, in the internal world of dhyan , some adepts apparently found themselves, like their counterparts in the Christian and Islamic mystical traditions, experiencing things that, according to the book, weren't supposed to happen.^[18]

The brief summary of an astayam schedule given above cannot do justice to the painstaking detail in which each period and activity is to be evoked: every article of clothing and jewelry, every morsel of sweetmeats and golden bowl of water, adds iconographic richness and is to be rehearsed over and over again. Moreover, as I have already noted, the adept aims for more than mere visioning: the fragrances of the unguents and incense, the taste of the betel packets (which are daintily pre-chewed for the divine pair by their solicitous attendants), the cool splash of Sarayu water—all are to be imaginatively experienced in the most vivid fashion through the appropriate internal senses.

One may also observe that, in Ramcarandas's scheme, Ram's faithful male comrades don't get to spend very much time with their Lord, who passes his days largely surrounded by females; but of course, in the astayam schedules prepared by preceptors of the sakha branch of the tradition the division of activities between male and female attendants is more equitable, and the timetable includes such wholesome masculine diversions as elephant processions down the gilded avenues of Saket, solemn durbars, and hunting excursions to nearby forests, in the course of which Ram's comrades of various ages can delight in the intimacy of teasing jokes, songs, and general locker-room camaraderie. B. P. Singh's study of a large number of astayam manuals led him to observe, however, that there appeared to be an increas-

ing emphasis, over the course of time, on erotic sports to the exclusion of all other kingly activities.^[19]

To be sure, astaym manuals are poetic compositions—anthologies of verses describing each period of the day, rather like the "twelve months" (barahmas ) texts which reckon the months of the year from the perspective of a lovesick woman awaiting her lover's return—and they often contain ingenious conceits which are thought to evoke the author's meditative experiences. But they are also and primarily textbooks for a concrete mystical practice, and indeed one which involves rigorous discipline. The sadhak or practitioner of this meditation program must rise by 3:00 A.M. , bathe, and purify himself through repetition of the Ram mantra, mentally reassume the sadhana body and persona by systematically reviewing its attributes, and begin offering service to the divine pair when they are awakened at about 4:30—a service which will continue at prescribed intervals throughout the day and night. The aim of this discipline, which may occupy one's whole life, is clearly expressed in the writings of the rasikacaryas : what begins as an "imaginative conception" (bhavna ) ends as a reality so compelling that the conventional world fades into shadowy insignificance. Through long practice in visualization, it is said, the adept begins to catch "glimpses" (jhalak ) of the actual lila ; these gradually intensify and lengthen, until he gains the ability to enter Saket at any moment. He becomes a real and constant participant in this transcendent world, a condition regarded, within this tradition, as "liberation in the body" (sadeh mukti ).^[20] Of course, this ultimate state is not attained by all devotees, but it is an ideal to which all may aspire. The intensity with which exemplary initiates have pursued these practices and the extraordinary experiences vouchsafed them are celebrated in sectarian hagiography (some examples of which are given below), while the notion of the heavenly Ayodhya as the soul's ultimate abode is constantly reaffirmed in the Ram devotees' preferred idiom for death: to "set forth for Saket" (Saketprasthan ).

Despite the emphasis, especially in the sakhi branch of the tradition, on erotic themes, the personal meditations of many rasik devotees centered on other personal relationships to Ram. Some chose to visualize the Lord as a young child and to cultivate tender parental emotions toward him (vatsalya bhav ).^[21] In this they had as a model the character of the legendary crow Kak Bhusundi in Uttar kand , the seventh book of the Tulsidas epic, who asserted,

My chosen Lord is the child Ram,
who possesses the beauty of a billion Love gods.^[22]

Kak Bhusundi was said to return to Ayodhya in every cosmic cycle to re-experience the childhood sports of his Lord, thus paralleling the aspirant's own daily inner journeys to Saket and re-creations of its lila . What was common to all rasik practice was an emphasis on the techniques of role-playing

and visualization as well as an aesthetic delight in sensorally rich settings, rather than on any specific content.

As in the Krsna tradition, so in the rasik literature of Ram we find warnings against the externalization of the meditative practices, for the content of the visualizations could easily provoke the misunderstanding and scorn of the uninitiated. Yet paradoxically, since an underlying assumption is that the events seen in meditation are real, the most exemplary devotees are often those whose lives reveal a blurring of the boundary that separates this world from Saket and a spilling over of its lila into the mundane sphere. Such legends confirm the power of the technique and suggest that the devotee's "acting" is less a mental exercise than a way of life.

For example, the early saint Surkisor (fl. c. 1600?), who like Agradas came from the Jaipur region, is said to have visualized himself as a brother of King Janak; hence he regarded Sita as his daughter and Ram as his son-in-law. So strictly did he observe traditional rules of kinship that, on pilgrimages to Ayodhya, he refrained from taking food or water within the city limits, since a girl's blood relations should not accept hospitality from her husband's family. He had an image of Sita which he carried with him everywhere and treated exactly as one would a real daughter, even buying toys and sweets for her in the bazaar. It is said that other devotees, shocked by his "disrespectful" attitude toward the Mother of the Universe, stole this image. Heart-broken, he went to Mithila to find his lost daughter, and Sita, pleased by his steadfastness, caused the image to reappear.^[23]

In oral Ramayana exposition sessions (Ramayan-katha ), I twice heard the story of the child-saint Prayagdas. Taunted by other children because he had no elder sister to feed him sweets during the festive month of Sravan, he went tearfully to his widowed mother, who appeased him by telling him that he indeed had a sister who had been married before he was born; "Her name is Janaki, and her husband is Ramcandra, a powerful man in Ayodhya. She never comes to visit us." The guileless child, determined to see his sister, set out on foot for Ayodhya and after many trials reached the holy city. His requests to be directed to the residence of "that big man, Ramcandra" met with laughter; everyone assumed the ragged urchin to be insane. Exhausted from his journey, Prayagdas fell asleep under a tree. But in the dead of night, in the inner sanctuary of Kanak Bhavan temple (a modern re-creation of the legendary House of Gold and one of Ayodhya's principal shrines), the images came alive. Ram turned to Sita and said, "Dearest, today the most extraordinary saint has come to town! We must go meet him." The divine entourage proceeded in state to Prayagdas's lonely tree, where the ringing of the great bells around the necks of the elephants awakened the boy. Undaunted by the magnificent vision, he repeated his question to the splendidly dressed man in the howdah and received the reply, "I am Ramcandra, and here beside me is your sister, Janaki." But the boy, unimpressed, told the Lord, "You are sure-

ly deceiving me, because where I come from we have the custom that when a sister meets her brother again after a long separation, she falls at his feet and washes them with her tears." Devotees delight in describing how the Mother of the Universe, unable to disappoint him, got down from her jeweled palanquin and threw herself in the dust of the road.^[24]

The romantic predilections of rasik devotees led many of them to focus on the first book of the Manas , the Balkand , which recounts Ram's youthful adventures culminating in his marriage to Sita. Maharaja Raghuraj Simha of Rewa wrote in his epic Ramsvayamvar that his guru had instructed him to read Balkand exclusively. A great devotee of the Ramnagar Ram Lila, he is said to have attended only the early portions of the cycle each year. The sadhu Rampriya Saran, who regarded himself as Sita's sister, composed a Sitayan in seven books (c. 1703), similarly confining its narrative to Sita's childhood and marriage. A few preceptors even took the extreme position that the distressing events of Ram's exile, the abduction of Sita, the war with Ravan, and so on, were not true lila at all (in which the Lord reveals his ultimate nature), but only divine "drama" (natak ) staged for the benefit of the world.^[25] Another story told of Prayagdas has the guileless saint happen on an oral retelling (katha ) of the Ramayana's second book, Ayodhyakand , the events of which are altogether unknown to him. He listens with growing alarm as the expounder tells of the exile of Ram, Sita, and Laksman and their wanderings in the forest, but when he hears that the princes and his "sister" are compelled to go barefoot and to sleep on the ground, he becomes distracted with grief. Rushing to the bazaar, he has a cobbler fashion three pairs of sandals and an artisan make three little rope-beds, and, placing these things on his head, sets out for Chitrakut, enquiring of everyone concerning the wanderers. He eventually makes his way to the forest of Panchvati where, it is said, he is rewarded with a vision of the trio and the opportunity to bestow his gifts.^[26]

The influence of the rasik tradition appears to have peaked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. B. P. Singh's biographical listing of prominent rasik devotees includes many Ramayanis (Ramayana specialists) who were active in the royal court at Banaras, especially under Mahraja Udit Narayan Simha and his son Isvariprasad, both of whom were connoisseurs and munificent patrons of the Ram tradition. Some of these men—such as Ramgulam Dvivedi, Raguraj Simha, Sivlal Pathak, and Kasthajihva Svami—were also involved in the development of the royal Ram Lila pageant, which became an influential model for Ram Lila troupes throughout northern India.^[27] These connections serve to remind us that the theology and mystical practice of the rasik preceptors was not without political implications. In a period of economic and social transformation and ebbing princely authority, they offered devotees and patrons an interiorization of the old Vaisnava royal cult, based on a "new kingdom"

limitless in extent, and millions of times greater in splendor than any earthly kingdom. Its king is so great that the five elements and time itself stand reverently before him . . . while he himself, in the company of countless maidservants and his own beloved, remains in the Golden House immersed in dalliance. . . . This imaginary kingdom of the rasiks is the world of Saket, its sovereign is the divine couple Sri Sita-Ram, and the easy path to reach it is through the technique of visualization.^[28]

But just as in the theory of rasik practice, what begins as imagination ends as a reality so concrete that the real world seems in comparison no more than a dream, so in the case of the Ramnagar Ram Lila, what began as a play was transformed, under the guidance of the Banaras rulers and their rasik advisors, into a city and kingdom not only reimagined but physically reconstructed into an enduring ideological statement.