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436 Jiva Gostāmi and Baladeva Vidyābhūsaņa (CH. intense forms until it reaches the stage of mahā-bhāva already described. It is regarded as the manifestarion of the pure transcendent sattva (the blissful nature of God). Bhakti has already been defined as behaviour that is intended to please God and which has no further object or end in view; as such it would involve some kind of effort (cestā-rūpa) on the part of the devotee. But here the meaning is modified to denote only the emotional condition of mind, including physiological and physical changes produced in the body by it, and as roused by emotive conditions such as the object of love, excitants of love, the feeding emotions, external manifestation determining and increasing the original dominant emotion. The first stage of natural attachment to God as love is called bhāva and is associated with slight physiological effects like shedding tears or the rising of the hair on the body and the like. This emotion is of a transcendental nature and of the nature of the power of God, involving consciousness and bliss; therefore it is on the one hand self-revealing (svaprakāśa) and self-enjoying, and on the other hand it reveals the nature of God, whose power it is, and to whom it refers. Being a power of God it appears in the mental states of the devotee, becomes identified with them, and manifests itself in identity with them. Bhakti, as it appears in the devotee, is thus an identity of the transcendent and the phenomenal, and reveals the dual function of enjoying the sweetness of the nature of God and the self-revealing sweet enjoyable nature of its own. It is thus cognitive with reference to its object, and involves a dual enjoyment of God's sweet nature as well as the sweet nature of bhakti itself. It is the root of all rati (or enjoyment) and is therefore also called rati3. An inferior amount of it is generally common to all,
śarīrendriya-vargasya vikārāņām vidhāyikāh bhāva-vibhāva-janitās' citta-vrttayah iritäh.
Durgama-sangamana, 1. 3. 1. premnas tu prathamātasthā bhāva ity abhidhïyate sättvikāh stalpa-mātrāḥ syuryatrāšru-pulakādayah.
Bhakti-rasāmrta-sindhu, 1. 3. 3. 3 asau śuddha-sattva-visesarūpa-rati-müla-rūpatvena mukhya-urttyä tacchabda-vāryā să ratih sri-krsnūdi-sarin-prakasakatvena hetunā stayam-prakāśarūpā'pi prapancika-tat-priya jananam muno-urttau ātir-bhūya tat-tādātıyam utajanti tad-zrtlyā prakāsyarad bhāşamūno brahmarat tasyāh sphurantī, tathā svasatkrtena purvottarīvasthābhyām kārana-kary'ya-rūpena sri-bhagavadādimadhuryjānubhavena svāmsena svuda-rūpā'pi yāni krsnādirūpāņı teşām āsvādasya hetutām samvidumsena sūdhakatamatām pratipadyate hladinyamse tu stayam hlādayanti tisthati. Durgama-sangamana, 1. 3. 4.
