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Begin in the courtyard. Not a throne-room, not a battlefield of the worlds, but the small swept yard of a bower-house tucked into the kuñjas of Vraja, and the very first word is a cry of wonder: Aho! Something is happening here that even the wise can only marvel at. The fresh young Couple, nava-kiśora, have made of love a war and of war a festival, and the festival is spreading, jṛmbhate, swelling and opening like a flower past the edges of the bower. Picture it: clever Rādhā, the catura-nāgarī, the most clever of all that ever loved, and across from Her the thrice-bent prince. Anaṅga, bodiless Cupid, has won here, and the proof of His victory is being drummed out into the night. Listen, O wind: those are not war-drums of any army; those are Her tiny waist-bells, kiṅkiṇi, ringing like ḍiṇḍima-drums, anaṅga-jaya-maṅgala, sounding the auspicious triumph of love. And the strokes of this battle, stanādi-vara-tāḍana, nakhara-danta-ghāta: they are the press of breast against breast, the small bright signatures of nail and tooth left upon each other in the heat of the play.

Now hear who this prince is, for the whole sweetness turns on it. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes Him for us in the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, that in His dhīra-lalita feature Kṛṣṇa is vidagdha, clever; nava-tāruṇya, freshly youthful; parihāsa-viśārada, expert in joking; niścinta, utterly carefree; and, most astonishing of all, preyasī-vaśa, controlled by His beloved. Consider what that means. Every soul that breathes is held under time and karma and māyā and the dragging senses. And the great descents of the Lord, each avatāra, comes burdened with work: to make and keep and unmake the worlds, to slay the demons, to shelter the saints, to set dharma upright again, and each of them knows full well that He is God. But here, in Vraja alone, the dhīra-lalita Kṛṣṇa is niścinta, carefree, with nothing to administer and no Godhood to assert; here He is preyasī-vaśa, ruled by the love of His girlfriends. He is no king as in Dvārakā or Mathurā or Ayodhyā. He is only the prince. Let His father keep the cows and the village and all its cares; Kṛṣṇa simply enjoys Himself. The one who carries the universe sets the whole weight of it down and lets Himself be governed by love.

And the grove itself is built to keep it that way. The sakhīs have seen what the loving Couple wish; on the gentle pretext of picking flowers they slip out of the kuñja, and the maidservants stay back and make themselves ready for their service. Why does the verse call this yard mañjula, lovely? Because the kalpa-latikās all around, the wish-yielding creepers that could pour out any splendor at a thought, do not show even the faintest sign of divine prowess, not a glimmer of aiśvarya. Fresh flowers hang on their tender branches; the humming bumblebees stand as the kuñja's own gatekeepers; and there upon the walls hang amorous pictures painted in vermilion, kindling the young Couple to their love. Nothing of majesty is permitted past the gate. Only sweetness is allowed in.

So the battle goes on, and neither will surrender. Rādhā and Mādhava scratch and bite, and no one will admit defeat, for there is no defeat to admit. The old padas the tradition has carried beside this verse say it tenderly: in a jewelled temple in a lovely grove, maṇimaya śrī mandira, clever Śrī Rādhikā and Her tribhaṅga fresh-adolescent Kṛṣṇa swim upon the waves of a playful amorous battle. How wonderful, they sing, is the prowess of this fighting festival, which enchants Cupid Himself in its every phase; and those jingling waist-bells that announce Cupid's auspicious victory sound like an elixir, rasāyana, on the tongue. And one maidservant stands hidden and drinks it all in: the sight pours into the cups of her eyes, and the sounds, the inarticulate cries, the jingling anklebells and waistbells, the little drums of Cupid's triumph, enter her ears like streams of nectar.

Then comes the line that unlocks the whole scene. With equal strength these two attack each other; and the tradition seals it in the words it gives to Śrīpāda Prabodhānanda: nāhi jaya parājaya, "No one loses and no one wins in this rasika pastime." That is the secret folded inside the playful image of a war. It is a contest in which the scales never tip, because each gives all and each receives all. Equal love. No victor, no vanquished. The drums announce Cupid's victory, yes, but inside the bower neither lover is conquered, for love itself is the only one who wins.