Churning the Nectar from Srimad Bhagavatam - 81

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> Could the learned assembly shed light on the following passage? I never

> quite understood it thoroughly, although I've read it many times. I do

> know mathemathics, but why the particular number of 81 appears there, that

> is, why the number nine is multiplied twice with three? (That is, not

> once, not thrice, like that.)

>

>

> "Devotional service in the modes of ignorance, passion and goodness can be

> divided into eighty-one categories. There are different devotional

> activities, such as hearing, chanting, remembering, worshiping, offering

> prayer, rendering service and surrendering everything, and each of them

> can be divided into three qualitative categories. There is hearing in the

> mode of passion, in the mode of ignorance and in the mode of goodness.

> Similarly, there is chanting in the mode of ignorance, passion and

> goodness, etc. Three multiplied by nine equals twenty-seven, and when

> again multiplied by three it becomes eighty-one."

>

> (SB 3.29.10)

 

A couple of months ago Bhanu Swami Maharaja asked me the same question.

Here is what I found in the commentaries:

 

Sridhara Svamin mentions 81 types of bhakti in his commentary to 3.29.10:

"... tad evam saguna bhaktir ekasiti-bheda bhavati."

 

He reasons as follows (summarized from his comments on these verses): the

three verses 29.8, 29.9 amd 29.10 each describe three types of tamasa,

rajasa and sattvika bhaktas (more precisely "prthag-darsi bhaktas")

respectively:

 

29.8 three types of tamasa bhaktas: those worshiping with himsa-, those

worshiping with dambha- and those worshiping with matsaryah- motives

respectively.

 

29.9 three types of rajasa bhaktas: those worshiping with visayah-, those

worshiping with yasas- and those worshiping with aisvaryah- motives

resepctively.

 

29.10 three types of sattvika bhaktas: those worshiping with a motive to

destroy their sins, those worshiping with a motive to please the Lord, and

those worshiping with the motive to fulfil their duties.

 

Then he applies the nine processes of devotional service to each of those,

and gets 81.

 

In Prabhupada's translation the threefold nature of tamasa, rajasa and

sattvika bhakti is not obvious.

 

Visvanatha, in his commentary on 29.8, quotes a couple of verses from the

Naradiya Purana. These verses too list tamasa, rajasa and sattvika types of

bhakti. The Naradiya says that in each of these three there are three more

sub-categories, namely adhama, madhyama and uttama. For tamasa bhakti one

then gets tamasadhama, tamasa-madhyama and tamasottama types. The Purana

then states that the same applies to rajasa and sattvika. The Naradiya's

example for the three types of tamasa bhakti is similar to the Bhagavata's:

 

yas canyasya vinasartham bhajate sraddhaya harim

phalavat prthivi-pala sa bhaktis tamasadhama

 

yo 'rcayet kaitava-dhiya svairini svapatim yatha

narayanam jagannatham sa vai tamasa-madhyama

 

devapujaparan drstva spardhaya yo 'rcayed dharim

srnusva prthivi-pala sa bhaktis tamasottama

 

ys end