Download Ujjvala-nilamani part 3

Chapter 14
Sthāyi-bhāva-prakaraṇam.
This is arguably the most important chapter in the Ujjvala-nilamani. It has 233 verses, describing the kinds and degrees of love, from prema, sneha, pranaya, mana, raga, anuraga, bhava and mahabhava.

Vishnudas is noticeably shorter in this chapter, due to the smaller number of illustrative examples appropriate to demonstrate the subtle differences Rupa points out.


Chapter 15
Śṛṅgāra-bheda-prakaraṇam.
This chapter is huge, containing 266 verses in the original. The Nirnaya Sagara edition divides the text into three distinct parts--1-184 discusses the four kinds of vipralambha (purva-raga, mana, prema-vaicittya and pravasa). The Yoga-viyoga-sthiti section consists of only three verses (185-187) but merits expansive commentaries, by both Sri Jiva and Vishwanath, who write extensively on the nature of the nitya lila and separation. The section from 188-266 summarizes the four kinds of union (sanksipta, sankirna, sampanna, and samriddhiman) and concludes with a summary of various elements of sringara-keli. Most of these points are supplemented with copious examples by Vishnudasa.

Two texts have been used in making this edition. One is the Nirnaya-sagara edition, reprinted by Chowkhamba in 1985. This is the source for Jiva's and Visvanatha's commentaries (Locana-rocani and Ananda-candrika, respectively).

The other is the second edition of Haridas Das's edition in Bengali script, edited by Kanailal Adhikari in 1979, which is the source of Visnudasa's Svatama-prabodhini commentary.

Added by: Vilasa Dasa
Credits: Jagadananda Dasa
Text version: (legend)
Keywords: Visvanatha, Cakravartin, Jiva, Gosvamin, Visnudasa, Locana-rocani, Svatma-pramodini, Ananda-candrika, nayaka, Rupa, Goswami, Ujjvala, nilamani

Just an observation. Nowhere have I seen such an interesting complementarity between commentaries. Jiva Goswami has taken interest in particular verses to expound his own pet ideas about the nitya lila and svakiya rasa. He is only marginally concerned with fleshing out the subtleties in the illustrative verses.

Vishnudas, whose commentary was completed at around the same time that Jiva Goswami left his body and Krishnadas wrote the Chaitanya Charitamrita, was at once engaged in an exacting exercise of extensively glossing each and every verse and then of compiling a compendium of illustrative verses from Gaudiya Vaishnava authors and beyond.

Vishwanath, a century later, may or may not have had Vishnudas's commentary available to him. He agrees little with Vishnudas in the situating of the illustrative verses (who spoke them, in what situations). He picks out occasional verses to flesh out from the rasika's point of view, giving added narrative information, etc. But according to his concluding remarks, it is clear that his primary interest was to debate Jiva Goswami, who he felt was compromised in his integrity by writing his opinions on svakiya rasa in order to please some anonymous other parties.

The difference between the commentaries to Ujjvala-nilamani and those of the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu are quite noticeable. The three commentaries to the latter work are not nearly as thorough, extensive or distinctive.

(Jagadananda Dasa 2006-03-30)

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Additional notes from the editors' research and selected discussion forum contributions.