Jagat

Krishna has left for Mathura in a manner quite different from the Bhagavatam. No Akrura, no scene of desperation at his departure, no invitation from Kamsa or wrestling match, no sense of heroic destiny. Krishna has said he needs to be pure in order to carry out his mission of killing Kamsa and the demons and so must abandon Radha. He seems to have not given up his deep-seated grudge at Radha's resistance to his earliest advances and other offenses she has committed. He seems to have stopped identifying himself as a cowherd; he says he is the son of Vasudeva and Devaki and that he has no further use for a cowherd woman. Even though both Krishna and Radha still refer to him as Narayan or Jagannath, or any of the other names of Vishnu, Krishna is using this in the way that any unscrupulous powerful person might use his status: to serve his own interests. Nevertheless, at Barai's request, after repeated refusals, Krishna finally agreed to meet Radha and the two made love, but...

We finished Part I of this review of the last chapter of Śrī-kṛṣṇa-kīrtana (SKK) in the middle of a bhāva-parīkṣā ("test of love") series of songs. Radha has met Krishna and is appealing to him to accept her, but Krishna steadfastly refuses, ironically reprising many of the arguments that Radha herself used in the very beginning of the book to state the impossibility of their affair. Now Radha appeals again to Krishna, begging him not to be cruel. She concludes, bujhiteṁ nārila tiri puruṣa jāti la : "Seeing the effects this is having on my body, your heart still remains so hard. Women have not been able to understand the male species." [Of course, this line could be read the other way round: "Men have not been able to understand women." Amitrasudan Bhattacharya has the strange, "I haven't been able to understand whether you are a man or a woman." Which is also the way that Basantaranjan Ray also seems to reads it: "If you were a wom...

So we start the last of the chapters ( khaṇḍas ) of Śrī-kṛṣṇa-kīrtana , called Rādhā-viraha . I have already discussed this chapter to some extent in a previous article . That article is from two years ago, so it really shows how long I have been doing this... I have reposted some of the quotes from that here again, but will give a more detailed summary. As we have already mentioned, the last few pages (how many we don’t know) are missing from the manuscript. The most valuable introductory and concluding portions of the work are both lost and this is deeply frustrating, for reasons that will be evident. Rādhā-viraha is the second longest portion of the book, with 68 extant songs and who knows how many went missing with the last pages? As was stated with regards to the dāna-keli chapter, the length likely reflects the popularity of the theme itself. And indeed, the theme of Radha’s separation from Krishna is one that continues to influence Bengali Vaishnavism in ways that other fo...

Rādhā-viraha . Nandalal Bose (1936) . I have been carrying on a multi-pronged research project in relation to the Dāna-līlā, part of which includes reading the Bengali texts that precede Mahaprabhu's incarnation. Now one thing that is very important to understand: Nothing happens in a vacuum. There are always preconditions that make subsequent events possible. If there were no Radha-consciousness before Mahaprabhu came, it would have been impossible for anyone to believe or accept the mythology of Mahaprabhu incarnating Radha's mood. The entire theological thrust of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta , which is only moderately present in Mahaprabhu's other biographies, is that Radha is superior to Krishna, not because of some glorious divine creative, mystical or magical powers, but because of her love. bhaktir evainaṁ nayati bhaktir evainaṁ darśayati bhakti-vaśaḥ pūruṣaḥ bhaktir eve bhūyasī Devotion leads the Supreme Lord. Devotion reveals Him. The Lord is und...