Jagat

2. "Radha: Mistress, Mother, Mediatrix" by Su.. Su. is the most advanced student in the class, as she is now working towards a PhD, and it shows in her thorough research, sophisticated writing style and scholarly presentation. Her doctoral dissertation is to be based on Vallabhacharya's Bhagavata commentaries. I don't know exactly what part of Vallabha she intends to cover, but she evidently realizes the importance of understanding Radha in the historical context. Her desire to make a thorough inquire into the subject is clear and the research for this paper covers most of the significant secondary literature that has come out of the past three decades of Western scholarship on the subject. The stated goal of her paper is to contrast the Gaudiya Vaishnava vision of Radha with the one found in the Brahma-vaivarta Purana and to show how she ultimately functions in both as Mother to the devotees and Mediatrix between them and God, despite the somewhat different theologi...