18

Begin in the evening hush of Yāvata, the in-laws' village where Śrī Rādhā is kept by the long courtesy of the household. The lamps are being lit; the day's duties are folding themselves away; and across an unseen distance, in some far thicket of Vṛndāvana, Śyāmasundara lifts His flute to His lips. You cannot see Him. Neither can She. But the wind carries one note, only one, and it crosses the fields like a messenger who knows the way to no other door but Hers. The tradition tells us this flute-song is no ordinary sound; it is like a mantra that draws in everyone's mind, a summoning that no heart in Vraja can refuse.

See what that single note does to Her. Her body, which a moment ago was simply Her body, becomes a Campaka vine struck through with wonder. Picture the golden Campaka of Vraja, that flowering creeper whose blossoms light the whole forest with a soft yellow fire. Rādhā's limbs take on exactly that glow, that astonished radiance, camatkṛtāṅgī, every limb flushed and luminous as though beauty itself had been startled awake in Her. And then the second wave, the wave that breaks over Her when the flute is heard: vihvalāṅgī, the body overwhelmed, the patience gone. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it for us forever, that Kṛṣṇa's flute is to Rādhā's composure what Indra's thunderbolt is to a mountain: rādhā-dhairya-dharādharendra-damane dambholir unmīlati. The mountain of Her dhairya, Her self-possession, simply crumbles. One note, and the granddaughter of all queenly restraint is undone.

And know why this astonishment is no small thing. Kavi Karṇapura sings in his Alaṅkāra Kaustubha that camatkāra, this very wonder, is the marrow of rasa itself: rase sāraś camatkāro yaṁ vinā na raso rasaḥ, without astonishment there is no real rasa at all. So when Her limbs are struck with wonder, it is not a passing tremor; it is rasa arriving at its own summit, the essence of all sweetness flowering in Her body at once.

O wind of Vraja, you knew. You did not bring the note to the cowherds in their sheds or to the elders at their evening fires. You brought it here, to Her ear alone, because this is what you were made for. And O flute, you bitter-sweet thief, you call and call. The Kṛṣṇa-bee is restless for the honey of this one vine. For here is the wonder the tradition lingers over: an ordinary Campaka, for all its golden splendor, the bees refuse, because its nectar is bitter on the tongue. But this Campaka-vine, this Vṛṣabhānu-nandinī, is no ordinary creeper. Her honey is the one sweetness the dark Bee will cross any forest to drink, and so He plays, and plays, summoning Her out into the night.

But here is the tender catastrophe at the heart of it. The flute that calls Her has also stolen Her strength to come. She is stunned, the body locked in astonishment, the hairs of Her limbs standing erect, the very rapture that the flute awakened now holding Her fast where She stands. She who is the mūla-śakti, the root-power from whom all power flows, the source of Kṛṣṇa's own delight, cannot lift Her own feet to go to Him. The fullness of feeling has fixed Her in place. Who, then, will give Śrī Rādhā back the strength to run to Her beloved?

Now lean close, for this is where the maidservant enters, and this is where the prayer of the whole verse is hidden. It is the kiṅkarīs, Rādhā's own handmaidens, who are the physicians of this sweet sickness, the best doctors for the disease of separation, and Śrīmatī Herself has personally taught them every art of this service. They have a medicine no apothecary keeps: the names, the play, the qualities of Hari, sung aloud. They are the most expert artists in all the worlds, and theirs only by Rādhā's own grace. First, with the brush of their own love, they paint the picture of Śyāma's pastimes upon the slates of their own hearts; and then, leaning to Her, they draw that same picture upon the slate of Rādhā's heart, stroke by living stroke. They sing to Her of how He stood, of how He smiled, of the tilt of His head and the mischief of His glance, until the describing itself becomes a vision, until Śrī Rādhā can no longer tell whether She is only hearing of Śyāma or whether He stands before Her very eyes. Slowly, slowly, the inertia loosens. Consciousness returns to Her limbs. The vine that hung stunned begins again to sway. They have sprinkled the reviving nectar, sudhā-sañjīvanī, the elixir that brings the dead to life, and Śrī Rādhā blooms back into the strength to go and meet Him.

And the one who sings this medicine is the very one whose heart is poured into this verse. The tradition gives us the kiṅkarī's whole secret longing in a handful of breaths. First: when Rādhā hears Śyāma Rāya, Nanda's son, sounding His enchanting flute in Vṛndāvana, and sees Him, She becomes mad with love and runs toward the direction of the song. Then: stunned at once by the rising stambha-bhāva, astonished in every limb, the hairs of Her body raised, Her vine-like form beyond compare adorned now with the very ornaments of ecstasy. And then the maidservant's own ache breaks open: "O, when will this servant of mine read the heart of overwhelmed Rādhikā, and sing to Her, in full kīrtana, the names and pastimes and glories of Hari that are the reviving elixir?" This is the whole prayer. Not to be embraced first, but to be of use first. Let me be the one who sings Her back to life.

For see what the singing earns, and tremble at its tenderness. When Śrī Rādhā is revived, when through the kiṅkarī's service Her mind and body, a moment ago unfit to stir, are made fit again to go to Kṛṣṇa, She is satisfied beyond words. And Svāminī rewards Her servant in the only currency of that realm: She turns Her beautiful eyes upon the maidservant in a merciful glance, and She folds her into a loving embrace. Understand what that embrace is. By embracing her servant, the merciful Mistress has given Her own self into the maidservant's arms. Who else in all existence is so merciful as this? And so the prayer that ends the verse rises like incense: prītā pariṣvajatu mām, may She, gladdened, embrace me. Vinodini Rādhā, my mistress, will then lovingly embrace me, sings Śrīpāda Prabodhānanda of the tradition; this longing fills my whole mind, and when, oh on what blessed day, will it be fulfilled?

How sweet is this stage of devotion in practice, this sādhana that is itself drenched in feeling, where one does not pray for liberation or for power but only to be allowed to serve, only to sing, only at the last to be drawn into the arms of the One served. Even the eternally liberated companions of the Lord beg for this taste, and He grants it; to Śrī Līlāśuka, Kṛṣṇa Himself promised, "I will make you taste the bliss of living in Vṛndāvana in the body of a practising devotee." The devotee who burns in separation is like the faithful wife whose husband has gone on a long journey: she does not visit the homes of others, does not go to the festivals, does not braid her hair or dress to be seen; she simply sits within and weeps for him. So too the heart that loves Kṛṣṇa lets every lesser sweetness fall away, melting wholly toward the one beloved. And the tradition records that when Mahāprabhu Himself, having taken on Rādhā's very mood, was overwhelmed by separation from Kṛṣṇa, He too was revived in just this way: by day His regular duties could distract Him, but at night the pangs grew unbearable, and then Rāmānanda Rāya recited verses of Kṛṣṇa's pastimes and Svarūpa Dāmodara sang the songs, the same medicine, the same physicians, the same flute-struck longing, brought to its only cure.