| Sumario: | This paper argues that a concept of rebuking God (bhagavannindā) existed as a prohibited act in premodern Sanskrit Brahmanical texts, with the earliest examples in medieval Vaiava narratives (in the Bhāgavata Purāa and Viu Purāa) of Vena and Śiśupāla. The concept of bhagavannindā problematizes the Bhāgavata Purāa rereading of the Śiśupāla story: how can someone rebuke a god (here Ka) and be seemingly rewarded (through sāyujya [union] with the god)? I argue that to this problem in Vaiava and epic narratives the Bhāgavata Purāa offers dveabhakti / vairānubandha (liberation through enmity or hatred) as a potential solution . Finally, through investigation of two early modern commentaries on the Mahābhārata, I argue that reading this concept of divine censure into the epics was not without tensions . The epic commentators sometimes reveal their own ambivalent readings of episodes where Ka is rebuked. The paper draws attention to the importance of the Bhāgavata Purāa as a commentary on the Mahābhārata, upon which later exegetes relied . It surveys how and why the peculiar concept of dveabhakti emerges in Vaianava theology and presents narrative as both the source where this orthodox concept of divine censure emerges and the site where the concept is reinforced in commentary .
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