VMA 2.37 : My Swamini and her peerless lover, Shyam

Dancing for Radha Raman in Vrindavan. Vrindavan Today.

śyāma-prāṇa-mṛgaika-khelana-vana-śreṇī sadā śyāmalot-
khelan-mānasa-mīna-divya-sarasī śyāmāli-sat-padminī |
śyāmānaṅga-sutapta-hṛc-chiśiratā-kāri-sphurac-candrikā
śyāmānanya-sunāgareṇa viharaty ekā mama svāminī ||

My Swamini is the forest

where gambols the black buck of Shyam's life-breath;

she is the divine clear lake

where glides the fish of Shyam's mind;

she is the lotus flower garden

where plays the Shyam honeybee,

and the brilliant moonlight

that cools Shyam's burning, passionate heart.

She alone dallies with Shyam,

her peerless lover.

---

This verse is unusual in the Vṛndāvana-mahimāmṛta because it does not fit the usual pattern of specifically mentioning Vrindavan by name. Instead Radha is herself identified with the forest in the first line where the word vana does appear. But throughout the verse, all the manifestations of Nature, whether the lakes or lotus flower garden, or even the moonlight, are identified with Radha.

Radha is metaphorically the forest in which Shyamasundar's life airs are the frolicking deer. Throughout VMA, Vrindavan is always the setting, the stage, the paradisiacal garden at the center of the mandala of spiritual attainment, and it is always the Divine Couple who stand at its center. For the sakhi, for the aspirant to Vraja-rasa, they are together the object or viṣaya of love.

But that is the point of view from a certain distance. When one comes closer, one sees that sometimes Radha is the āśraya and Krishna the viṣaya, and sometimes it is the other way around. In fact, it is not really possible to penetrate the perfect love where Radha and Krishna are in a competition of total absorption in each other.

In the previous verse we saw the manjari's feelings towards Krishna as the object of Radha's love. Here in this verse, we continue our entry into this series of meditations on the sakhis, where Radha is presented as our object of worship, our Swamini, our queen, our mistress, our all in all, our object of wonder and mystery.

She is the pre-eminent object of the manjari's love, for the manjaris are Rādhā-snehādhikā: their affection for Radha exceeds even their love for Krishna. They love Krishna because Radha loves him. He may be the ultimate truth in all the scriptures, but for the manjaris, Radha. the complete embodiment of love for him, is itself the object of divine worship. They see the power of her love as the highest truth. bhaktir eva bhūyasī.

The sakhis are the ones who take Radha's side, who see primarily her glory. They see Krishna's glory also, but mostly because it enhances hers: this Supreme Male, this all-attractive power, has been captivated by er love. To appreciate this is what it means to see Radha as Swamini.

In other words (as we saw in the previous verse), in order to be an audience, an attendant and a taster of the rasa of the Divine Sport in Vrindavan, one has to identify with Radha. And of course it is impossible to actually be Radha, so one identifies with her or enhances one's identification with her through the moods of service and friendship. But though such moods exist between the sakhis and Radha, the truest part of service and friendship is identity. I love my friend because there is something I admire in her that I know I can never have or be fully. To be friends with someone means to take part in their being, in their uniqueness, and to feel that one's own being and uniqueness are enhanced thereby. Without such a sense of identity,service can never be perfected.

The sakhis are lost in admiration for Radha. Rupa Goswami describes Chandravali as apparently a competitor to Radha, but he only does it because without comparison, one cannot know the superiority of any thing over another. Indeed, the entire Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi can be read as an exercise in comparison between the personalities of Radha and Chandravali, in particular their ways of loving Krishna. All ways of loving God are good, but that of the gopis is best, and among the gopis, Radha is the essence, the full manifestation of the power of bhakti.

So Sri Rupa says,

tayor apy ubhayor madhye rādhikā sarvathādhikā |
mahā-bhāva-svarūpeyaṁ guṇair ativarīyasī ||

Of these two, Radha and Chandravali, Radha is in every way superior. She is the embodiment of the highest realms of love, and in every way the epitome of excellence in all the virtues. (UN 4.2)

To glorify Vrindavan is to glorify Radha. The sakhis are the pathway to Radha and to the epitome of excellence of madhura rasa. Through service, one is able to enter the deepest recesses of her knowledge and love for Krishna, even though they are infinite. One needs an eternity to touch even the hem of her skirt, or those of her closest sakhis, indeed of any of her associates, to glimpse even the glories of the grass and dust that receive the tread of their feet. There is no delight in this world that compares to even an atomic morsel of those glories.

Though the quantity of Radha's love is infinite and unfathomable, it is through relishing the quality of that love, its virtues, guṇa, in which she is the epitome of excellence, through meditation on the visions of the great devotee poets, the mahājanas, those who have trod the path of sakhī-bhāva and madhura prema, where we are given gems of condensed expression of those excellences, windows by which to enter that dimension of transcendence.

cakoras te vaktrāmṛta-kiraṇa-bimbe madhukaras

tava śrī-pādābje jaghana-puline khañjana-varaḥ |

sphuran-mīno jātas tvayi rasa-sarasyāṁ madhu-pateḥ

sukhāṭavyāṁ rādhe tvayi ca hariṇas tasya nayanam ||

Oh Radhe! The Lord of Sweetness
is the chakora who drinks only the ambrosial rays
emanating from the mandala of your face.
He is the bee who enters the lotus of your feet,
the wagtail who struts on the shores of your buttocks,
the flourishing fish that swims in the lake of rasa you are,
Oh Radhe, his eyes are the deer
that wanders in the forest of bliss you are. (RRSN 252)

[Khanjana, known as a wagtail (motacilla alba). Anyone who has lived near a river in India knows this bird, its distinctive cry and walk. But I think this picture is maybe not the exact right species, there should be some yellow in there.]

Prabodhananda also talks about Radha's lotus feet cooling Krishna's flaming desires when placed upon his chest in the Sudhā-nidhi. It is a good place to complete this meditation on this glorification of our Swamini.

vṛndāvaneśvari tavaiva padāravindaṁ
premāmṛtaika-makaranda-rasaugha-pūrṇam |
hṛdy arpitaṁ madhupateḥ smara-tāpam ugraṁ
nirvāpayat parama-śītalam āśrayāmi ||

Oh queen of Vrindavan,
I take shelter of your lotus feet
which are filled with unlimited amounts of fragrant nectar,
the ambrosia of exclusive love.
When you place these superbly cooling feet
on Krishna's heart,
the terrible flames of desire that torment him,
are extinguished. (RRSN 13)

VMA 2.36 : Churning the Shyamsundar ocean to extract his essence
VMA 2.35 : The play at the center
VMA 2.34 : The fortunate, the more fortunate, and the most fortunate of all
VMA 2.33 : Vrindavan, on the divine island
VMA 2.30-32 : The ever youthful Divine Couple sport in the kunjas of Vrindavan
VMA 2.29 : Some dark ineffable youth has taken form to play here
VMA 2.28 : If one could constantly sing sweetly of your virtues
VMA 2.27 : Bathe in the dust of the residents of this supremely effulgent realm