Love, Bodies, and Others

Abstract

Bernard of Clairvaux and Rūpa Gosvāmin are both ambivalent about the relation of the devotee's body to the eroticism of scripture; and this ambivalence is directed against “others” of their communities, particularly women and rival religious groups. This chapter argues that traditional claims about the allegorical nature of the divine-human love relationship attenuate the liberative social potential of devotion centered on the sentiment of love. The religious emotion of love is impoverished by concerns with proper (aucitya) behavior, especially insofar as these concerns define the boundaries and margins of religious communities. The chapter concludes by reclaiming the notion of propriety alongside the sensory aspects of rasa theory for a holistic notion of the spiritual senses.