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The moon has climbed full and unbroken over the groves of Vraja, an unbroken disc, round as the face of Ramā, the supreme goddess of fortune, washed in the soft red of new kuṅkuma. The Bhāgavata fixes the moment itself, that He looked up and saw the full lily-opening moon, dṛṣṭvā kumudvantam akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalaṁ ramānanābhaṁ nava-kuṅkumāruṇam, the moon like the face of Ramā reddened with fresh saffron. And Śyāmasundara, the dark and tender one, akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti, the very form of all the nectar of all the rasas, the crown of the relishers, the crest-jewel of youth, gopī-jana-vallabha, looks up at that disc of silver and remembers a face. Not the moon's face. Her face. He remembers Rādhā, for she who alone makes love with God, who alone delights Him, bhagavatā saha ramate, saiva ramā, is named Ramā, and the remembrance is unbearable. So He lifts the flute to His lips and pours the whole ache of His heart into a single melody that goes out across the night looking for one listener only.

Hear it as it travels. The flutesong does not call the whole world; it calls Her by name, for without Rāseśvarī there is no Rāsa at all. Kṛṣṇa especially called Her, because the dance cannot be accomplished without Her. So Madhusūdana plays, and the song slips through the kadamba leaves and over the dark Yamunā and into the inner chamber where Śrīmatī waits, and the moment it touches Her ears the ocean rises. The ocean of Her love for Him swells up from somewhere with no floor, and as it swells a light begins to gush out of Her very limbs, golden, the exact gold of a campaka flower, kanaka-campakābhaṁ mahaḥ, rays of mahā-bhāva made visible. This is the light the longing one is aching to see. Not painted gold, not a poet's borrowed gold. The radiance that pours from a body when love overflows it, the golden-champaka jyoti the Rādhāvallabha tradition simply gazes upon and names.

Now watch the dressing of Her, for this is where the longing settles its gaze. The maidservant, herself anurāginī, herself drowning in love, comes forward to prepare Svāminī for the festival, and every choice she makes is a thought of Kṛṣṇa. She reaches first for the dukūla, the soft two-piece cloth of kausumbha crimson, the kasūmbha-rang silk, and she chooses it doubly soft, ati komala, tender as a petal. Why so soft? Because She will run. When the Rāsa-circle is forming and the flute is still sounding, Rādhā will hurry, and the maidservant will not have any rough thread scour against that body or check that flight for even an instant, not while She runs to the circle, not while She dances. And why crimson? O, the red is not decoration. The red is the heart shown on the outside; it is the sign of Her passionate love for Śyāmasundara, hung where the eyes can read it. Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī unfolds the secret of it in the Gopāla-campū: that this golden one and that bluish one are reversed within and without, imau gauri-śyāmau manasi viparītau bahir api. Inwardly each lives inside the other's heart, and outwardly each wears the color of the other's complexion, so that, as the wise have ascertained, some one indescribable expression of the purest love has decided to become two inseparable bodies only so that it may play. The red She wears is His own dark passion answered, the burning of Her love made cloth.

Then the braid. The maidservant gathers the dhammilla and binds into it a garland of fresh jasmine, the madhu-mallikā, the basanti-mallikā, spring blossoms still wet with honey, lalita mālya, and she does this with a secret in her smile. She knows that honey. She knows that Madhusūdana is the slayer of the demon Madhu, yes, but here he is also madhu-sūdana in another sense: the bee at the honey. She is setting a snare of sweetness in Her hair. When the Kṛṣṇa-bee comes near, the sweet honey dripping from these fresh jasmine flowers will make Madhusūdana drunk with love, helpless, His whole mind reeling toward the fragrance crowning Her head. The garland is not an ornament. It is a trap laid by love for love.

And then the hips. Across the broad and beautiful curve of Her waist, bṛhat kaṭi-taṭa, the maidservant fastens the mekhalā, the jewelled sash strung with tiny bells, and again the choice is for Him. These are not silent jewels. They are mukhara, made to speak, sphurat and ringing, deedīpyamān, made to sound, and they will ring during the dance. When She moves in the Rāsa, when She turns and sways and the round of the dance carries Her, the little bells will jingle, and that sweet sound alone will madden our hero's mind, will pull His attention again and again to Her circling form. Everything on Her body is aimed at Him. The silk that will not slow Her, the jasmine that will intoxicate Him, the belt that will sing to Him. She is being dressed not for beauty's sake but for union's sake, every thread an instrument in the larger music.

And the maidservant, having tied the last bell, simply stops. She forgets herself. She stands and stares at the blazing ornaments on that golden body, lost in admiration, unable to finish her own task because the loveliness of what she is serving has swallowed her whole. This is the posture the longing soul wants for itself. Not to be the dancer. To be the one who tied the bells, who chose the soft cloth, who set the jasmine, and who now stands forgotten at the edge with shining eyes. For this, the tradition teaches, is the heart of Rādhā-dāsya. Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī tells us in the Bhakti Sandarbha that when the relationship of servanthood is attained, every item of worship becomes endowed with majesty, tad etad dāsya-sambandhenaiva sarvam api bhajanaṁ mahattaraṁ bhavati, and he names that dāsya: obeisances, praises, the offering of all one's deeds, worship, remembrance of the Lord's feet, hearing and chanting. Yet all that is still aiśvarya-kathā, the speech of majesty. In the pure mādhurya of Rādhā-dāsya something further blooms, where the offering of obeisance gives way to the pouring out of the heart, where one does not bow to the gold so much as tie its bells.

For notice whose voice is speaking. Kadā nu kalayāmi: when, when shall I see. This is not a description offered from comfort; the Rādhāvallabha edition rightly seats it under abhilāṣā, longing. It is a cry from absence. The one who longs has not yet been given this vision; the whole cry leans forward across a distance, aching toward a radiance it remembers and cannot yet touch. And this longing is the doorway into the highest pastime, the Rāsa-līlā, which the tradition calls the crown-jewel of all pastimes, sarva-līlā-mukuṭa-maṇi. In that dance Kṛṣṇa is the hero and the Vraja-sundarīs, every one a form of dense love, mahā-bhāva made image, are the heroines, and of them all Rāseśvarī Śrī Rādhā is the root and support. Two drums sound loudest above the rest there: the bherī-drum of Hari's cleverness and the dundubhi-drum of Rādhā's beauty and fortune, rāsa-līlā jayaty eṣā, harer vidagdhatā bheryā rādhā saubhāgya dundubhiḥ, His wit and Her radiance answering each other across the night. The speaker wants only to be near enough to hear both. To behold the gold. To witness the meeting. To serve the meeting and ask for nothing.

O wind that carried the flutesong to Her chamber, carry me too. O Rādhe, golden one, kanaka-campaka-light, when will You let these eyes rest on You as the soft crimson is wrapped and the bells are tied and the spring jasmine bound? When will I be allowed even to stand at the edge of the grove and watch the radiance gather? The whole heart is one question now, and it has no answer except more longing, and the longing itself is the gift.