---
type: Concept
bundle: bhakti-marga
bundle_version: "0.4.0"
id: bhava
title: "Bhāva — Devotional Disposition"
iast: "bhāva"
devanagari: "भाव"
description: "The abiding devotional disposition that structures the five rasas and ripens into prema. Not emotion, not mood, not aesthetic feeling."
darshana:
  - Bhakti (Vaiṣṇava Vedānta)
  - Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava
school_scope: "Given its technical architecture in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism (Rūpa Gosvāmī's rasa theology); the relationship-moods are recognized across the bhakti schools."
text_source: "Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.3.1, 2.1; Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.1.30 (the moods)"
tags:
  - bhava
  - rasa
  - devotion
  - gaudiya
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "emotion"
    why: "an emotion is a transient psychological state caused by circumstance; bhāva is a sthāyi-bhāva, a permanent constitutive orientation of the devotee's heart toward the Lord, not a passing affective reaction"
    instead: "Render bhāva as devotional disposition or constitutive mood; not as emotion."
  - term: "mood (psychological)"
    why: "a psychological mood is diffuse, temporary, and self-referential; bhāva is a specific, stable relationship-stance (servant, friend, parent, lover) toward a specific Beloved, and it is the very substance the rasa system formalizes"
  - term: "feeling"
    why: "'feeling' suggests a private sensation; bhāva is a structured, cultivable, theologically defined disposition with named varieties and a developmental sequence, not a raw inner sensation"
  - term: "aesthetic affect"
    why: "though the rasa vocabulary is borrowed from Sanskrit dramaturgy, bhakti-bhāva is not the spectator's relished emotion at a play; it is a real transformation of the devotee's own being and relationship to God, not a savored representation of someone else's feeling"
related:
  - /concepts/prema.md
  - /concepts/bhakti.md
  - /concepts/seva.md
  - /concepts/sharanagati.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Bhāva — भाव

**Not:** emotion, mood (psychological), feeling, aesthetic affect

Bhāva is the abiding inner disposition of devotion: the settled relational stance the devotee takes toward the Lord, which colors all practice and ripens into prema. In the Gauḍīya analysis it is the *sthāyi-bhāva*, the permanent emotion that, fed by the conditions of devotional life, matures into rasa — the relished, established loving relationship with God.

## Etymology

From the root √*bhū* — to be, to become. *Bhāva* is "a state of being," a *becoming*. The word names not a feeling that visits the self but a way the self comes to *be*. This is why it cannot be "emotion": an emotion is something one *has*; a bhāva is something one *is*.

## The Five Primary Rasas

Rūpa Gosvāmī systematizes devotional disposition into five primary relationship-moods, each a stable way of being-toward Kṛṣṇa:

1. **Śānta** — the peaceful mood of contemplative reverence
2. **Dāsya** — the servant's mood, devotion through loving service
3. **Sakhya** — the friend's mood, devotion through intimate companionship
4. **Vātsalya** — the parent's mood, devotion through protective tenderness
5. **Mādhurya** — the beloved's mood, devotion through total self-giving union

These are not feelings one passes through but relationships one inhabits. Each is complete; the tradition does not regard the higher ones as "better feelings" but as more intimate relational structures. Seven secondary emotions (laughter, wonder, compassion, anger, and so on) color these primary moods without becoming the abiding stance.

## How Bhāva Becomes Rasa

The dramaturgical model (adapted from Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra) is precise: the sthāyi-bhāva (abiding mood) is nourished by *vibhāva* (the excitants — Kṛṣṇa, his flute, Vṛndāvana), *anubhāva* (the expressive responses — tears, horripilation), *sāttvika-bhāva* (involuntary bodily transformations), and *vyabhicāri-bhāva* (the transient accompanying emotions). When these combine and the abiding mood is fully relished, *bhakti-rasa* arises. The crucial difference from secular aesthetics: in drama the spectator relishes a represented emotion that is not their own; in bhakti the devotee's own bhāva is the substance, and the relishing is a real change in the devotee, not the savoring of a fiction.

## Cross-References
- [Prema](prema.md) — bhāva is the immediate precursor of prema; the dawn before the full sun
- [Bhakti](bhakti.md) — the moods of bhāva give the limbs of bhakti their relational form
- [Sevā](seva.md) — dāsya-bhāva, the servant's disposition, is enacted as sevā
- [Śaraṇāgati](sharanagati.md) — surrender deepens and stabilizes the devotional disposition

## Audience Metaphor

Think of the standing relationships in a family: you are a daughter to your parents, a sister to your sibling, a parent to your child. These are not emotions you feel on Tuesdays; they are the abiding stances from which all your particular feelings arise. Your love for your child on a hard day and an easy day differs in feeling but not in *what you are to the child* — a parent, always. Bhāva is exactly such a standing relationship, but toward the Divine: are you God's servant, God's friend, God's parent, God's beloved? The passing feelings come and go; the relationship abides and shapes everything. That abiding relationship, not the day's weather of feeling, is bhāva.

## Citations

1. [Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu](/references/bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu.md) 1.3.1, 2.1.5 — bhāva as the dawning of prema; the architecture of bhakti-rasa
2. [Bhāgavata Purāṇa](/references/bhagavata-purana.md) 7.1.30 — the recognition that even adverse moods, when fixed on the Lord, become a path
3. [Nārada Bhakti Sūtra](/references/narada-bhakti-sutra.md) 82 — the manifold expressions of single-pointed devotional love
