Verse Text
bhaktānāṁ paṣcadhoktānām eṣāṁ madhyata eva hi |
kvāpy ekaḥ kvāpy anekaś ca gauṇeṣv ālambano mataḥ ||5||
Translation
These secondary rasas appear only within the five types of persons possessing the five types of sthāyi-bhāva. Sometimes (in a particular situation) one among these five types of persons may experience a particular secondary rasa, and at other times all of these types may experience a particular secondary rasa.
Purport (Jiva Goswami)
Some people may argue that, as in the case of the primary rasas like śānta or dāsya, the secondary rasas like hāsya or adbhūta should also have particular persons as their shelter, because one sees fixed humor (hāsya) in the clown or steady bravery (vīra) in the leader of an army. The present verse answers this argument. These secondary rasas appear only among the five types of persons who are the shelter of the five primary ratis. The meaning is as follows. Kṛṣṇa as the viṣaya of the primary ratis and His corresponding devotees as the āśrayas of the primary ratis are the ālambanas for accomplishing the manifestation of rasas in all cases (including secondary rasas). However, the scriptures concerning material rasa claim that hāsya and the other secondary ratis, which actually attain the status of rati only by their relation to the primary ratis, attain the status of full sthāyi-bhāvas. Thus, according to those scriptures, the secondary rasas such as fear attain specific ālambanas, in persons such as demons. However, the author has previously quoted ancient authorities for the definition of vibhāva:
vibhāvyate hi raty-ādir yatra yena vibhāvyate
vibhāvo nāma sa dvedhālambanoddīpanātmakaḥ
Vibhāva refers to ālambana, the person in relation to whom (locative case) the rati and other elements are experienced with devotion (viṣaya) and also the person in whom the rati and other elements are experienced (āśraya), and uddīpana, the stimuli by which rati is experienced. BRS 2.1.15
In this definition, in all cases, the locative case (yatra “in relation to whom) is used to express the ālambana. The locative case denotes devotion towards or attachment to (raty-ādiḥ) the person indicated in the locative case. (For instance “I (āśraya) have devotional absorption in Kṛṣṇa (viṣaya).” Consequently, experiencing fear from a person, which is the ablative case, cannot be accepted as a proper relation to the viṣaya. The locative relation of favorableness in all ālambanas establishes the relationship between viṣaya and āśraya and the consequent type of rati (primary or secondary). [Note: Thus the viṣaya and āśraya are always Kṛṣṇa and His devotees, where the main relationship is one of the five primary ratis.]