How uttamā bhakti destroys the kleśa of pāpa

As mentioned in a previous article, I continue to examine the unique qualities of uttamā bhakti in this series. We have already seen that uttamā bhakti has six qualities. Śrī Rūpa Goswami examines the first one in kārikā 1.1.18-19:

tatrāsyāḥ kleśaghnatvam—

[the first quality is of] being the destroyer of kleśas is stated —

kleśās tu pāpaṁ tad-bījam avidyā ceti te tridhā ||

kleśas are of three types: pāpa, its seed (bīja), and avidyā

As we see, the word kleśa, which we would ordinarily translate as suffering, is to be taken as a technical word of which there are three types. Śrī Rūpa will show how uttamā bhakti destroys each of these kleśas. He first takes up pāpa, which is of two types:

tatra pāpam—

Among them, pāpa is explained —

aprārabdhaṁ bhavet pāpaṁ prārabdhaṁ ceti tad dvidhā ||

pāpa is of two types: aprārabdha and prārabdha

aprārabdha is that karma which has not started to yield its result. prārabdha is the karma that has started to yield its result. So our present body and circumstances refer to prārabdha karma. Śrī Rūpa Goswami must now show how uttamā bhakti destroys each of these types of karma by citing evidence from the Bhāgavata. And he promptly does so:

tatra aprārabdha-haratvam, yathā ekādaśe (11.14.19)—

yathāgniḥ susamiddhārciḥ karoty edhāṁsi bhasmasāt | tathā mad-viṣayā-bhaktir uddhavaināṁsi kṛtsnaśaḥ ||

That uttamā bhakti destroys aprārabdha is shown in the eleventh canto of the Bhāgavata:
As a blazing fire turns even a large pile of firewood to ashes, bhakti that has Me as its object destroys all sins in their entirety.

Next, he takes up how uttamā bhakti destroys prārabdha. I have discussed this part in some detail in this article, so I will not redo that here. There, I had not examined kārikā 23 which concludes the section on prārabdha karma and so I will translate it below, along with Śrī Jīva Goswami’s commentary.

Śrī Rūpa Goswami, at the end of the discussion on prārabdha karma, quotes a verse from a different purāna (the Padma-purāna) to support his thesis:

padma-purāne ca—

aprārabdha-phalaṁ pāpaṁ kūṭaṁ bījaṁ phalonmukham | krameṇaiva pralīyeta viṣṇu-bhakti-ratātmanām ||

It is also stated in the Padma-purāna:

pāpa, which is either the aprārabdha-phala (the result that has not yet begun), or kūṭa, or the bīja, or prārabdha (the result that has begun), is destroyed sequentially for those who are absorbed in bhakti of Viṣṇu.

I will now translate Śrī Jīva Goswami’s commentary on this part —

śrī-jīvaḥ : pūrvārtham eva spaṣṭayati—pādme ceti | pāpam iti viśeṣyam | tatra phalonmukhaṁ prārabdham | bījaṁ vāsanā-mayaṁ prārabdhatvonmukham iti yāvat | kūṭaṁ bījatvonmukham | aprārabdha-phalaṁ na prārabdhaṁ kūṭatvādi-rūpa-kāryāvasthatvaṁ yena tat | tac cānādi-siddham anantam eva | kārikāyāṁ tu etad evāprārabdham ity uktam | bīja-prārabdhe tu pūrvaṁ gaṇite | yat tu kūṭam avaśiṣṭaṁ tad apy aprārabdha evāntarbhāvyam |

He now clarifies what has been explained so far [on the topic of prārabdha]. In the verse, the word pāpa is the substantive [some of the other words are qualifiers of this substantive]. Here, the phalonmukha [pāpa], i.e. that which faces the fruit, is the prārabdha. bīja is [pāpa] consisting of predispositions. It faces the prārabdha. kūṭa faces the bīja. The aprārabdha fruit is that which is not prārabdha. It is that by which the kūṭa and others attain the state of being an effect [i.e. aprārabdha is the cause of the effects of kūṭa, bīja and prārabdha]. And this aprārabdha is beginningless and without end. But in the kārikā, this by itself is called aprārabdha. The bīja and prārabdha has already been listed before. But here, the remaining kūṭa is also to be subsumed in aprārabdha only.

The term bīja was seen in the first kārikā of this section (1.1.18). The term prārabdha was mentioned in 1.1.19. The new term in the verse from the Padma-purāna is kūṭa. Śrī Jīva states that this has to be subsumed in aprārabdha. This means that the term bīja in 1.1.18 is not different from the term bīja used here. This is a little confusing, because bīja in 1.1.18 was used in the sense of the seed of pāpa which itself is of two kinds: aprārabdha and prārabdha. And in the above commentary, bīja is an effect of aprārabdha, and is to be actually subsumed in aprārabdha. How can something that is subsumed in aprārabdha be the seed of that very aprārabdha?

The word bīja means ‘seed’. The seed of pāpa is desire. One’s mental make up (kūṭa) determines the types of desires one will get (which is bīja). One’s desire will cause action which will bring a result [prārabdha]. But not all results of one’s actions bring results that are about to manifest. Some results may come many births later. So this way, we see that desire is the seed of both prārabdha and aprārabdha. Ultimately, the means of obtaining results and also creating new, unmanifest results that will fructify in the future, is desire which culminates in action.

Śrī Jīva Goswami writes —

krameṇa pūrva-pūrvānukrameṇa, tathāpi pūrvoktaṁ sadyaḥ savanāya [bha.ra.si. 1.1.21] iti kamala-patra-śata-vedha-nyāyena kiṁcit-kāla-vilambo jñeya iti ||23||

The word krameṇa implies sequentially starting with the former to the later. [Then what is the meaning of the previously cited verse that] one becomes immediately qualified for savana-yaga — this has to be understood according to the logic of piercing a hundred lotus leaves. That is, one must assume some passage of time in between them [even though it may not be apparent that there is a passage of time between the piercing of successive leaves].

Śrī Mukunda Goswami adds here that the krama, or sequence here, refers not to the aprārabdha, kūṭa and so on, but rather to the sequence in the kārikā 1.1.18. That is, first pāpa is destroyed, and then the bīja. The point is that one’s entire stock of aprārabdha and prārabdha karma is destroyed first, followed by the predisposition to commit pāpa, and finally followed by avidyā. He based this interpretation on the fact that Ajamila’s bīja was destroyed simply by a semblance of the name, without following any sort of sequence.

I will take up the other two kleśas of bīja and avidyā in the next article.

Summary

kleśas are of three types: pāpa, its seed (bīja), and avidyā

pāpa is of two types: aprārabdha and prārabdha

aprārabdha is the cause from which come the effects of kūṭa and bīja.

prārabdha are reactions to actions which manifest from bīja, the seed of desire

Bhakti destroys aprārabdha, then prārabdha, then bīja, and then avidyā