आमुक्तमाल्यदा (विजयनगर सम्राट् श्रीकृष्णदेवराय - गोदा देवी आण्डाल भक्ति एवं साम्राज्य-नीति)

22 Goda's Garland of Devotion
Knowledge of this Anandamaya Supreme and love for Him,
together with the will-power to achieve this constant union, mark
the basic tenets of Vaishnavism. Such a union leads the jeevatma,
not into any abstract Nirvana, but to the delight of existence.
Sri Aurobindo calls this "the sense of the supreme figure of the
intensest Indian religion of love, Sri Krishna, the All-blissful and
All-beautiful":
"We may seek after him passionately and pursue the un-
seen beloved; but also the lover whom we think not of, may
pursue us, may come upon us in the midst of the world and
seize on us for his own whether at first we will or no...it is
not possible for the tongue of human speech to tell all the utter
unity and all the utter variety of the ananda of divine love.
Our higher and lower members are both flooded with it, the
mind and life no less than the soul: even the physical body
takes its share of the joy, feels the touch, is filled in all its
limbs, veins, nerves with the flowing wine of the ecstasy,
amrta. Love and Ananda are the last word of being, the secret
of secrets, the mystery of mysteries".¹
Vishnuchitta was a Poorna Yogi whose very body rememb-
ered and reflected Krishna consciousness. The words of wisdom
he spoke in the Pandyan court were not dry theological formula-
tions but an experienced, intuitive Truth, as we can gauge from
his Tirumozhi hymns. The king now honoured Vishnuchitta and
the others who had taken part in the debate. They too had a role
in this drama, for they stimulated the search for the truth of exist-
ence leading to the Paratattva Nirupana of Narayana. The treasury
was almost emptied and precious stones lay strewn all over the
palace because of the abundant giving! Not only the godly men,
but the gods, the ancestors, the siddhas and Vidhyadharas too
hailed the victory as having transformed the Kali Yuga into a
Krita Yuga.
However, Krishnadeva Raya is vividly realistic. He is him-
self a King presiding over scholarly debates, and has given judge-
ments in the past. He had no doubt watched the emotions reflected
on the faces of the victors and the defeated. Therefore, we are
told, there were some bad losers who walked out of the palace in

1. The Synthesis of Yoga (1955), p. 690.