183

Begin in the kuñja in the still hour after worship. The flowers have been offered, the lamp has been waved, and Govinda has received the love of His Prāṇeśvarī. There remains, upon a small leaf-plate, a portion of betel left over from that ārādhana of Govinda: tāmbūla that came from His worship, sweetened by having been near Him. And now Śrī Rādhā lifts a fragment of it to Her lips, and tastes, and tastes again, mudā svādaṁ svādaṁ, relishing joyfully and without end. See it slowly, O heart. She does not eat the way the hungry eat. She relishes. Each small chewing is a return to Him, a tasting of nearness; and Her body answers before any word can. The down on Her golden arms stands erect, a thrill runs across Her skin, every hair lifts. Pulakita-tanu, the body that erupts in horripilation. This is what the betel does to Her, because it is not betel She tastes but Govinda Himself remembered upon the tongue.

And look at how She is dressed. She wears a dukūla, a silken sārī, whose luster is the luster of the kiñjalka, the soft pollen-whorl at the heart of a lotus that has only this morning opened: nava-kamala-kiñjalka-ruci. Not the bold gold of noon but the tender, dawn-touched gold at a new flower's center, that pale fire that seems lit from within. Nivītāṅgī: Her limbs are wrapped in it, half-veiled, half-revealed, the way a lotus half-keeps its own heart. So She sits, fragrant, thrilled, freshly arisen from worship, glowing the color of fresh pollen. And the maidservant, this small one, stands near and dares to want one thing: that Rādhā would turn and say, learn this from Me. Saṅgītaka-nija-kalāḥ śikṣayati mām: that She would teach me Her own arts of song and dance. Kadā, O when, when will it be.

For these are not ordinary songs She teaches, and we must understand what is being asked. The arts She would impart, the saṅgītaka, the secret kalās of voice and string and gesture, have one subject only: Her own love for Śyāma. And the reason such songs must be learned is almost too tender to bear. There comes a moment in the love-play when Śyāma, drowned in the sweetness of union, faints away in amorous ecstasy, swooning out of the world, and even Svāminī Herself, with all Her power over His heart, cannot call Him back to life. In that helpless moment it falls to the maidservant to sing, for it is these very songs of Rādhā's love that reach Him where nothing else can reach and draw His breath back into His body. If the maidservant has not learned them, there will be obstacles in Rādhikā's own unique service to Her Beloved. Do you see, then, why this small one trembles to learn? Her music is not for display. It is the rope let down to a drowning Kṛṣṇa. To know these songs is to be entrusted with His very life.

And here is the wonder of Svāminī's trust. So intimate are these songs that She does not teach them even to Lalitā, even to Viśākhā, Her own dearest girlfriends; for they, in their playful intimacy, might hear them and make jokes about them to Her very face. But to Her maidservants She gives them freely, for She trusts the dāsī completely. The very secrecy of the gift is the measure of the love. To be lower than Lalitā, to be the unnamed servant, is here to be trusted with what even Lalitā is not given. O blessed smallness. O the strange wealth of the one who asks for nothing but to serve.

So picture the lesson itself, the scene this longing aches toward. Svāminī takes the Vīṇā into Her own hands. She begins to teach, and Her nectarean voice pours out, and Her fingers wake the strings, and how wonderfully She twangs them; and it is all so sweet, so impossibly sweet, that even She is astonished to hear Her maidservant catch it and give it back. From far across the groves Kṛṣṇa hears a thread of it on the air. What songs is She teaching now in the kuñja? Curiosity draws Him, He cannot stay away, and He enters and sits down close beside Her, quiet as a man enchanted by a mantra, bound and listening. The maidservant, ever serving, brings Him delicious betel. He chews it, and then, kissing His Beloved, He places the chewed leaf from His own mouth into Hers. That is the nectar that returns us to the first line. When Svāminī receives this prasāda of His lips, this is when Her body erupts in goosebumps, this is the relishing again and again. And now, knowing the desire risen in the heart of Her Prāṇanātha, Śrīmatī, Her limbs wrapped in that lotus-pollen silk, takes up the teaching once more.

Then comes the examination, and it is the sweetest of tests. Svāminī turns to the dāsī and says: let My Nāgara hear how well you have learned My songs. On Her order the maidservant lifts the Vīṇā and begins. And how astonishing is the prowess of this servant, who is no longer different from her Svāminī, for the dāsī is poured so full of Rādhā that the two become one in the singing. The song seems to take visible shape before the listeners, to stand in the air as a living thing. And this song does its work: it wakes desire in the divine Couple, it kindles Them toward Their love-pastimes. So the maidservant, having served the song, slips away from the kuñja and stands outside, and through the small holes in the woven vines she watches the pastimes she herself has set in motion. She asked only to learn, and learning, she became the one who serves Their union and then beholds it. Blessed, blessed is this maidservant. And the longing of this whole verse is simply, O Rādhe, when, when will You make me that one.