अनन्यममता विष्णौ ममता प्रेमसङ्गता ।
भक्तिरित्युच्यते भीष्मप्रह्लादोद्धवनारदैः ॥
ananya-mamatā viṣṇau mamatā prema-saṅgatā |
bhaktir ity ucyate bhīṣma-prahlādoddhava-nāradaiḥ ||
(Nārada Pañcarātra; cited Hari-bhakti-vilāsa: 11.382; Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu: 1.4.2; Caitanya-caritāmṛta: 2.23.8)
[Translated according to the commentary of Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī:] “Bhakti [i.e., bhāva-bhakti as defined in BRS 1.3.1] possessed of mamatā [i.e., loving attachment, lit., ‘my-ness’] in relation to Viṣṇu and free from mamatā in relation to all else is called prema by Bhīṣma, Prahlāda, Uddhava, and Nārada.’”
[Translated according to the commentary of Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmī:] “Mamatā [lit., ‘my-ness’] in relation to Viṣṇu that is filled with prema [for Viṣṇu] and free from mamatā in relation to anything else is said to be bhakti [i.e., prema-bhakti] by Bhīṣma, Prahlāda, Uddhava, and Nārada.”
Commentary
Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī writes a verse of his own in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.4.3) to explain the grammatical construction and meaning of this verse:
bhaktiḥ premocyate bhīṣma-mukhyair yatra tu saṅgatā |
mamatānya-mamatvena varjitety atra yojanā ||
“Bhakti is called prema by Bhīṣma and so forth when it is endowed with mamatā [for Viṣṇu] and free from mamatva for anything else. This is the [grammatical] construction here.”
Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī also comments that the word bhakti in the verse means bhāva (bhaktir atra bhāvaḥ), thus indicating that the word bhakti is the subject of the sentence which is being defined. Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī follows suit and explains the sentence in full as follows:
nārada-pañcarātra-padyasya yojanām āha—bhaktir iti | bhaktir atra bhāvaḥ, deha-gehādi-niṣṭha-mamatvena varjitā, atha ca viṣṇau saṅgatā yā mamatā, tad-rūpā bhaktir bhīṣma-pramukhaiḥ prema ucyate ity arthaḥ |
“The author states the grammatical construction (yojanā) of the verse from Nārada Pañcarātra. [The word] Bhakti here means bhāva. Bhakti, that the form of which is free from mamatva fixed upon the body, a house, and so forth, and [which] is possessed of mamatā in relation to Viṣṇu, is called prema by Bhīṣma and others. This is the meaning.”
Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmī, however, reads the verse differently in his commentary on Hari-bhakti-vilāsa (11.634):
viṣṇau bhagavati prema-samplutā prema-rasa-vyāptā yā mamatā mamāyam iti bhāvaḥ, sā bhaktiḥ prema-lakṣaṇeti bhīṣmādibhis tattvavidbhir ucyate | kathaṁbhūtā mamatā? na vidyate anyasmin deha-gehādau mamatā yasyāṁ sā prema-lakṣaṇaiva prasiddhā |
“Mamatā, meaning, the awareness ‘this is mine,’ related to Viṣṇu, that is, Bhagavān, which is filled with prema, that is, permeated with prema-rasa, is said to be bhakti possessed of the characteristic of prema by knowers of the truth such as Bhīṣma. Of what nature is this mamatā? That is well known to be possessed of the characteristic of prema wherein there is no mamatā in relation to anything else, such as the body, a house, and so forth.”
This difference in reading between Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī and Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmī, wherein Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī considers bhakti the subject of the sentence and prema the predicate, and Śrī Sanṭana Gosvāmī considers mamatā the subject of the sentence, the compound prema-saṅgatā a qualifier of the subject, and bhakti the predicate, is likely based on a difference in the perceived spelling of the verse, that is, whether the words prema and saṅgatā are read to be separate or to be in compound. Spacing between words was not customarily included in most manuscripts prepared in the era of the gosvāmīs, so whether a space is present or not in the original text is largely a matter of interpretation.
Here, the spelling of the verse has prema and saṅgatā in compound, as most modern publications of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Hari-bhakti-vilāsa and Caitanya-caritāmṛta present the verse in this way, but it should be understood that Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī clearly reads the verses with prema and saṅgatā not in compound, and thus it would seem more befitting to spell the verse with the words not in compound in editions of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and Caitanya-caritāmṛta, where the verse is presented as per Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī’s reading.