Amongst prominent devotional traditions that are based in Braj and epistemologically rooted in the Bhāgavata, Puṣṭimārga offers a distinctive blend of Vedāntic hermeneutics and the culture of Braja. Vallabhācārya declares the love of the gopikās, described in the text of Bhāgavata, as an archetype of complete devotion and hermeneutically connects their perception of the Lord of Braja with the Brahman of the Upaniṣads.

The Puṣṭimārga tradition is essentially characterised by its feature of devotional worship of Kṛṣṇa in a personalised, private setting. This book attempts to unlock the ontological, epistemological, and soteriological details of Vallabhācārya’s devotional frame, which balances the paradigmatic love of Braja gopikās and the absolute sovereignty of the Upaniṣadic Brahman.

Prakriti Goswami is a doctoral candidate at Indiana University Bloomington with a prominent interest in studying Braja Vaiṣṇavism and the role of poetics, music,and aesthetics in the devotional theism within Indian religiosity.

As a member of the direct lineage of Vallabhācārya, her scholarship mainly focuses on the orthopraxis of Puṣṭimārga and the Vedāntic hermeneutics of Śuddhādvaita. She is a practitioner of Vallabha Sampradāya, and her experience with the musical heritage and the liturgical practice of the Puṣṭibhakti tradition provides rich ethnographical data for her study. Her first book, Mahārāsa Man͂juṣā: Sacred Poetry of the Divine Dance, presents an English translation of Nandadāsa’s exquisite poetic rendition of the Bhāgavata’s quintet on the mahārāsa.