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Picture it, O Rādhe. Śyāmasundara has stood behind You, His own fingers weaving the long night of Your hair into a braid, and now, the braiding finished, He steps round to the front. In His hand is a slender chain of new gold, the lalāṭikā, set with lovely jewels and pearls. He lifts it to Your brow and lays it down along the parting of Your hair, fastening it there Himself. This is no ordinary ornament now. It has been touched and placed by love made personal; it has come to rest where His own hands wished it to rest. That is why the maidservant at the edge of the bower cannot look away.

See how it lies along the sīmanta, the part of Your hair. The old teachers say a tender thing here: it is as if the very part has split into two sides out of rasāveśa, out of being soaked through with the taste of love, and the golden chain seems to be the thing that divides it. They know, of course, that a parting of hair cannot truly weep itself open from feeling. But its beauty becomes the material out of which the chain is worshipped. Hear the way they unfold it. Think of how daybreak is sung: the night, seeing her beloved moon set, begins to cry from the grief of parting, and the birdsong is her weeping, the dewdrops are her tears. The night cannot really cry; yet the loveliness of dawn supplies every ingredient of that crying, so the picture stands and it is true to the heart. Just so, the part of Your hair cannot really divide from rasa; yet its beauty supplies the ingredients by which the chain laid upon it is adored. The sīmanta's glory becomes worship offered to the lalāṭikā.

And there is another way the tradition tastes the word. Read rasāveśād vittaḥ, they say, and remember the saying "vittaṁ bhogyaṁ pratīte": that which is wealth is that which is enjoyed. In rasika absorption the beauty of this chain has become a treasure to be enjoyed by Nāgara-maṇi, by Kṛṣṇa Himself, and the maidservant can taste this with her own heart. She knows the chain is wonderful by its sweet amorous character, for she watched it placed by Śyāmasundara's very hands. O the scene she keeps. Seeing how lost He is in Your beauty, You smile, O Rādhe, only a little, and from Your moon-like face some nectar drips, and greedy Kṛṣṇa, unable to wait, at once drinks that nectar with the cups of His lips. How many sweet amorous moods are born in the single moment of fastening one chain. And how wonderfully it dangles upon Your forehead while You speak, swinging in its vicitra bhaṅgī, its varied and astonishing little movements, so that both Śyāma and the maidservant are struck silent with wonder: paraṁ camatkāraṁ yacchan, bestowing supreme astonishment upon the heart.

Why does so small a thing carry so much. Because, the teachers say, every ornament upon You is made of mahā-bhāva, for it is joined to You who are mahā-bhāva-svarūpiṇī, the very form of the highest love; and every ornament is steeped in śṛṅgāra-rasa, for it was placed by Him who is amorous rasa personified, by Śrī Kṛṣṇa. The gold is love; the jewels are love; the swinging is love. And wonder, after all, is the heart of rasa itself. Rūpa-rasa's own measure stands in the Alaṅkāra-Kaustubha, "rase sāraś camatkāro yaṁ vinā na raso rasaḥ": astonishment is the essence of rasa, without which rasa is no rasa at all. So when this chain astonishes, it is doing the deepest work of rasa, and the maidservant's whole heart is drowned in that astonishment.

The singers carry the same wonder in their own tongue. O Rasavatī Rādhe, they sing, Your part is beautified by gold and jewels, and the golden chain dangling beneath it astonishes in every respect. Hear me, O tender girl, they sing again: this enchanting golden chain, divided in two out of rasika absorption, abides there ever, proud and victorious, revealing all the sweet amorous characteristics. And Sarasvatī gives the loveliest figure of all: just as Vṛṣabhānu's tender princess stretches out both Her arms to embrace Her lover Śyāma, so this golden chain stretches itself across the parted hair to embrace Your brow. It clasps You as You clasp Him. All-victorious it is, this little golden chain, vijayate.