The term 'causeless mercy' appears numerous times in Srila Prabhupada's writings and yet Prabhupada never identifies a Sanskrit equivalent for the term. As a general idea it stands in somewhat of a marked contrast to the traditional thrust of the Gita which postulates a Supreme Deity who reciprocates to his devotees to the degree that they have surrendered to him. In this respect, Bhagavan's intervention is not to be construed as 'without cause' but rather as a direct and compassionate response to the intense feeling of separation a devotee feels in the absence of his Lord. Now, the idea of 'causeless mercy' is a problematic distortion of the aforementioned dynamic in so far as it suggests that, at least in some respects, the degree of a devotee's surrender is immaterial or irrelevant. If it is true to say that God, on occasion, bestows his grace on those utterly undeserving of it (after all this is what 'causeless mercy' means) and through such a bestowal renders such recipients worthy of liberation, then this suddenly raises the uncomfortable question of how God could be so partial in his dealings with humanity. In other words, if the idea of 'causeless mercy' is true, then the partiality of God must be accepted; the problem, of course, is that the Gita (9.29) explicitly refutes the suggestion that God could be impartial.
I began by pointing out that Prabhupada never identified a Sanskrit equivalent for his idea of 'causeless mercy'. This has led some to suggest that the term owes its origin to Christian theology where ideas of 'grace' etc. are ubiquitous. Though Prabhupada may never have identified a Sanskrit equivalent for the term under examination, such an equivalent does indeed exist, and it exists in the corpus of pre and post Ramanuja Sri Vaisnava literature. The Sanskrit term 'nirhetuka-krpa' is designed so as to capture the scenario wherein God's grace flows spontaneously towards the devotee. This flow of grace, however, is nirhetuka, that it to say, it is without cause (hetu). So it seems as if this idea of causeless mercy is very much present in the theology of the Sri Vaisnava tradition. However, upon closer examination, the proposition that God's grace flows, without cause, to undeserving recipients, appears to belong more to the realm of devotional expression than theological truth. What I mean to say here, is that, often devotees, in their genuine humility, perceive themselves as undeserving recipients of grace; this is a realization born of humility and intense love and should not therefore be construed as necessarily true in a theological sense. My argument here receives, I feel, support from the poetry of the Alvar saints. As Srinivasa Chari points out in his excellent book on the subject, the hymns of the Alvars often convey the idea of nirhetuka krpa: in these hymns the authors typically portray themselves as recipients of undeserving grace. Interestingly though, they often, in the same hymns, attribute their success in devotional life to what they perceive to be as insignificant expressions of devotion (i.e. the [unintentional] chanting of God's sacred names). In the latter scenario, of course, the bestowal of grace is not entirely without cause or 'nirhetuka'. There is so much more to say on this subject and a full treatment of the topic would be incomplete without an examination of the great theological divide between the Vadagalai and Tengalai schools of Sri Vaishnavism.
