19

Picture it. Evening has gathered over Vraja, and somewhere across the dusk a flute has begun to speak. It does not ask; it pulls. And in an inner bower of the heart the maidservant who is the singer of this prayer, the one the tradition knows as Prabodhānanda, is already moving in his siddha svarūpa, his perfected handmaid form, already dressing Her, already half undone with tenderness, because Rādhā has heard that sound and Rādhā can no longer be still. This is the scene the whole verse opens onto: Śrī Rādhā going out to meet Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and a kiṅkarī standing beside Her to make the going possible.

O Prāṇeśvarī, see how She is when the flute reaches Her. She is prema-pāgalini, mad with love, and She cannot fasten Her own ornaments. The tradition smiles at this with the most loving smile in all of devotion: were Svāminī left to robe Herself in this state, everything would turn upside-down. She would hang the girdle of bells at Her throat and the necklace at Her ankles and the anklebells at Her waist; She would smear the dark eyeliner across the soles of Her feet and paint the red foot-lac around Her eyes. This is not clumsiness. This is what love does to the body when the Beloved calls. So the handmaid must dress Her, fastening each thread, each bell, each anklet, and all the while speaking sweetly of Kṛṣṇa to keep Her standing upright at all.

And while the maidservant works, She is melting. "What can I say, sakhi," She breathes, "what misery is this. His flute pours poison into Me. The sound forces itself in through My ears, and the bashfulness in My body and mind dissolves at once; the hairs of My body rise, every pore awake, pulaka flooding through Me." Her voice catches and chokes in Her throat. She grows unsteady on Her feet from the single, total desire to soothe Her heart upon the sight of Kṛṣṇa, that enchanting flute player. The poison and the cure are the same dark boy.

So the handmaid, finishing Her ornaments, addresses Her with a love that is half teasing and half worship. "O Rādhike, no one in all the worlds knows how to worship Kṛṣṇa as You do. Then make Your name true. The very root of Rādhikā is to worship, to fulfill; so fulfill now the longing He confesses so openly with every note of His flute. Why this delay? Go to Him. Go quickly." And then, gazing at Her as She turns toward the path, the maidservant cries out the words of this verse.

O suratarangini, river of amorous play. The tradition lingers here without a flush of shame, for in this kingdom the body of Rādhā is not flesh as the world means flesh; it is rasa given shape, and Her hips are the very seat that reveals a thousand pastimes of love. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja fixes the wonder of it in the Govinda-līlāmṛta, that the words of the poets calling Rādhā's hips the bank of the Yamunā are simply true: Her braid falls long and dark and heavy, all the way down, like the black Yamunā flowing; the gentle slope of Her hips is the pale bank of sand along the water; and the girdle of small bells encircling that slope is the row of swans resting on the riverbank, calling kala-kala in their soft swan voices. For if this were not so, he asks, why would the king of dancers, the very mind of Hari, set up His Rāsa dance forever upon this ground, dancing without rest and never tiring, with the dancing-girls of His own desires? He has found His riverbank. He will not leave it.

And the bells, hear the bells. The handmaid teases Her on toward the path: with hips so full and graced by play She cannot hurry, and the very slowness sets the girdle singing, so that the bells announce Her like swans on the Yamunā's shore, proclaiming the command of Cupid himself down the length of Vraja. Jayadeva had already heard it in the Gīta Govinda, that the jeweled belt on the rounded slope of Her hips would ring out the decree of Manmatha, the god of love. Let the bells ring out, then. Let them be Kṛṣṇa's astonishment when He hears that soft river of swan-song approaching through the trees.

Now look down, O seeker, look to where She sets Her feet. The mañjīra bells at Her ankles jingle as She walks, and the sound is not the sound of metal at all; it is the humming of bumblebees. For real bees are following those feet. They have caught the fragrance and the honey of the lotuses that are Her soles, and they will not be left behind. Yadunātha dāsa sings it in his pada, that the bees trail Her footstep for footstep, drunk on Her sweetness, and wherever She has set down one charming footprint upon the earth they descend to kiss that very ground, greedy for the nectar She has left in the dust. The earth of Vraja grows fragrant under Her, and the bees and the anklets together make one music, the lotus feet humming as they go to meet the Beloved.

And then the prayer, the whole burning point of it, breaks open. Śiśiraya. Cool me. There is a fire in the one who prays, the fire of separation, of a heart scorched by love it cannot reach; and the cool is asked for from Rādhā's own rasa, the bright cool splendour, the chaṭā, of Her sweetness. The tradition turns this single phrase, sva-rasa-cchaṭābhiḥ, over and over like a jewel, and every facet is true. It can mean: O Rādhe, soothe Your own afflicted heart upon Kṛṣṇa, who is rasa itself made visible, who shines cool and dark and tender as a fresh raincloud, for He is Yours, sva, and He is the very flavour of all flavours. It can mean: O Rādhe, then cool Him, cool the afflicted heart of Kṛṣṇa, with the sweet rasa that is Your own. And sweetest of all, it can mean what the maidservant means most of all: cool me, this poor handmaid, with the cooling splendour of the vision itself, the vision of Your meeting with Śyāmasundara. Cool my ears with the sound of Your jingling bells. Cool my eyes with the sight of You walking. Cool my tongue by letting me glorify the sweetness of Your going-out to meet Him. Cool my nose with the fragrance of Your lotus feet that the bees pursue. And cool my very skin with the cooling touch of those feet. Cool every gate of this servant's senses, all at once, with You.

These are no ordinary words, O devotee. They are so sweet because they rise during absorption in the siddha svarūpa, from a heart so deep in remembrance that it stands as a handmaid within the pastime, watching Rādhā go to Kṛṣṇa with its own inner eyes. And the tender promise of this whole stream is that the one who simply practises, who sits and remembers with love, is not shut out of this. By Śrīmatī's own grace the practising devotee comes to taste it too. There is nothing sweeter in all the world. The remembrance grows until the heart feels itself standing right there in Her company; the attachment to dull material life loosens and falls away; and one revelation approaches after another, the stream of transcendental visions flowing on without a break. "O Rādhe Vinodini, why do You stand there? Go forward on the pathways of Vraja. O jewel-like lover of Kṛṣṇa, hear Your maidservant's words and go quickly, give Yourself to Govinda." And the handmaid's last sob, the words in which Prabodhānanda signs the song, is only this: O merciful Rādhike, as You walk, with the splendid outpouring of Your rasa, make this poor servant happy; cool this poor servant; do not leave me behind on the path.