tattvaṁ
yaj jñānam advayam
brahmeti
paramātmeti
bhagavān iti
śabdyate
This verse that forms the
subject of my post today occupies a very important position in the theology of
Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Explicating the verse here then should enable us to
penetrate more deeply into the realm of Gaudiya theology and should render more
accessible and comprehensible some of the finer and more intricate aspects of
the tradition’s philosophy. Anybody familiar with Srila Prabhupada’s books
knows that he often translated the Sanskrit term ‘Bhagavan’ as the ‘Supreme
Personality of Godhead’; moreover, his books reveal an obvious preference or
bias towards what, he terms, the ‘personal aspect of Godhead’. These
idiosyncrasies often startle first-time readers who, on occasion, can be put
off by the passionate and forceful tenor of some of Srila Prabhupada’s comments
and purports. However, an elucidation of this verse should grant us a more
detailed insight into Prabhupada’s way of thinking and should render far more
persuasive and coherent his celebration of bhagavad
bhakti and his apparent condemnation of impersonal worship or monistic
theology. 
In one sense, this verse poses
few conceptual problems; it appears, quite simply, to be saying that the
‘nondual consciousness’ or, as Prabhupada translates it, the ‘absolute truth’
can be known either as ‘Brahman’, ‘Paramatma’, or ‘Bhagavan’. These three terms
should be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in Eastern Indian spirituality.
In fact, these terms are often used interchangeably in the Sanskrit scriptures
of India and therefore figure prominently as popular names of God or the
Absolute Truth in Indian religious discourse. There are some religious
traditions (notably, Sripad Ramanuja’s Sri sampradaya) that understand this
verse in precisely this way; in other words, for these traditions the salience
of this verse lies in its acceptance of all three terms (‘Brahman’,
‘Paramatma’, and ‘Bhagavan’) as legitimate names of the Absolute.
The Gaudiya understanding of
this verse is however rather different insofar as it has much more to say about
the juxtaposition of these three different names of God; in many ways, the
hermeneutical difference in approach here is what adds so much originality and
novelty to Gaudiya theology. Professor Ravi M. Gupta succeeds remarkably in my
view in articulating the Gaudiya approach to this verse in his excellent book
on the subject entitled, ‘The Caitanya Vaisnava Vedanta of Jiva Goswami’. Much
of what I write here is an attempt to express his insights in as comprehensible
a way as I can.
The first point to note here
is that the selection of names in this verse is clearly not arbitrary. All
three terms refer, quite exclusively, to the absolute truth and therefore
cannot be construed to be referring to any object other than the ‘non-dual
consciousness’ or God. In his philosophical treatises, the Sandarbhas, Jiva
Goswami, a prominent architect of Gaudiya theology, points out that there is a
degree of intentionality in the order in which the three names appear; in other
words, there is nothing random, according to Jiva, about the fact, for
instance, that ‘Brahman’ is mentioned first in this verse, and ‘Bhagavan’ last.
Gupta makes this point particularly
well in his book and therefore it’s worth quoting his extract in full here. He
writes: ‘The Bhagavata Purana is indicating a hierarchy of forms from Brahman
to Bhagavan, based on the degree of revelation. Bhagavan is the complete
manifestation of the nondual reality and, indeed, identifiable with it. In him,
all the inherent energies of the Supreme are clearly visible. Then, depending
on the degree to which the fullness of the Lord’s glory is hidden, he is known
as either Brahman or Paramatma. When Bhagavan’s energies are manifest in a
partial way, mainly in regard to directing material nature and the living
entities, he is known as Paramatma- the inner controller, inspirer, and support
of the cosmos. When his attributes are totally unmanifest, he is known as
Brahman- the undifferentiated, unqualified, and impersonal Absolute’.
Bhagavan, as I hope is clear by now, refers to the personal manifestation of God. In other words, replete with form, qualities, character and personality, Bhagavan serves as the highest, most intimate manifestation of the Godhead. This theistic drive in support of Bhagavan as the highest and most complete manifestation of the Godhead should not be misconstrued as an attempt to anthropomorphize the Absolute; basic cosmology and experiential practice point towards a personal force behind our cosmos and Bhagavan is simply the concretisation of that force.
There is a tendency in Indian
religious discourse, particularly so in the realm of Vedanta, to commence
discussions on this topic with the presumption that Brahman (or the impersonal
Absolute) is the starting point- in other words, depending on whether one
conceives of the Absolute as having quality or lacking quality, the Absolute
appears respectively as either Brahman or Bhagavan. Implicit, however, in this
line of reasoning is the suggestion that, somehow or other, to get to Bhagavan,
you must inject a range of attributes to Brahman so that prior to the
injection, Brahman exists utterly undifferentiated and without quality. For the
Gaudiya’s, however, Bhagavan or the personal Absolute is the starting point in
their conceptualization of the Supreme. Bhagavan, according to Jiva, as the
most complete manifestation of Godhead, incorporates the other two features of
the absolute, Paramatman and Brahman, so that meditation on or worship of
Bhagavan includes the worship of the two alternative manifestations of God. Krishna
himself, makes this point in the Gita when he reveals to Arjuna his position as
the substratum or basis of Brahman: ‘brahmano hi pratisthaham’.
In many ways this helps to
render more intelligible Prabhupada’s decision to translate Bhagavan as the
‘Supreme Personality of Godhead’. Srila Prabhupada’s translation here is not
arbitrary or archaic but reflects the tradition’s theological conceptualization
of Bhagavan as the highest, most complete manifestation of the Absolute.
Therefore, by equating Krishna with the ‘Supreme Personality of Godhead’
(Krsnas tu bhagavan svayam), Prabhupada (and the Bhagavatam for that matter) is
trying to point out that Krishna is
the Supreme Godhead himself and not merely a derivative manifestation of an
impersonal Absolute.
To recapitulate, all three
aspects of Godhead, ‘Brahman’, ‘Paramatma’, and ‘Bhagavan’, are members of a
single reality and yet these aspects differ insofar as they reflect or make
visible the perfection and fullness of the Supreme as Bhagavan. Where
Bhagavan’s fullness or complete glory is partially manifest, that manifestation
is known as Paramatma (the object of worship for the yogis); where Bhagavan’s
attributes are completely unmanifest, he is known as Brahman (the object of
inquiry for the jnanis). Since Brahman and Paramatma are both incomplete
apprehensions of the absolute reality, Gaudiya theologians have argued
passionately about the superiority of bhagavad upasana or the worship of
Bhagavan. In other words, if Krishna is, as Prabhupada comments, the ‘last word
of the Absolute Truth’, then it follows that engagement in Bhagavan’s worship
supersedes both inquiry into Brahman and meditation on Paramatma.
As a final point, this verse
is also significant in that it can be construed as celebrating and embracing
plurality; by embracing and incorporating the three different manifestations of
the Absolute as members of a single reality, the verse paves the way for greater
tolerance among different schools of thought. It does this, of course, my making
it quite clear that, regardless of the manifestation in question, the substance
being perceived, for instance, by the yogis, jnanis and devotees, is non-dual
in nature; in other words, as Prabhupada so eloquently puts it, ‘less
intelligent students of either of the above schools sometimes argue in favour
of their own respective realization, but those who are perfect seers of the
Absolute truth know well that the above three features of the one Absolute
Truth are different perspective views seen from different angles of vision’.
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