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Picture Śrīpāda at the far end of his own great book. He has spent verse after verse pouring out the glories of Śrī Rādhā, and now, near the close, he sets down his pen and looks at what is in his hands. And what he feels is not pride but a sweet collapse. "Kva ahaṁ mūḍha-matiḥ, kva nāma": where, O where, am I, a creature of dull and foolish intelligence, and where is this thing I have presumed to touch, paramānanda-eka-sāraṁ rasaṁ, the rasa that is the single, undivided essence of the highest bliss? It is the cry of a small child who has wandered into a treasury of jewels and suddenly knows he does not belong. The tradition is careful here: this is not the false modesty of a man fishing for praise. It is the natural humility of a great saint. By Rādhārāṇī's own grace he was given to compose this marvel, the Rādhā-Rasa-Sudhā-Nidhi itself, and even so, with the finished garland in his hands, he honestly feels the abyss between his clouded mind and the endless sweetness it was trying to hold. The Rādhāvallabha stream names this very mood and writes it over the words like a title: dainya-bhāva, the posture of utter lowliness; and the cadence moves, fittingly, in the lion-paced Śārdūlavikrīḍita meter, a great rhythm carrying a small confession.

Now lean close to the secret folded inside his despair, for here the two traditions hear one word two ways, and both ways are sweet. Hear "nāma." The Gauḍīya teachers hear in it the holy Name, the kṛṣṇa-nāma that is itself paramānanda, the essence of all rasa: where is a fool like me, and where is the Name and the blissful flavour I would describe? The Rādhāvallabha teachers hear "śrī-nāma" turned toward Her: where is Her own glorious Name, the sār and the rasa-form of supreme joy? And the wonder is that both hearings rest on a single truth that the Gauḍīya tradition lays bare. Rūpa and the teachers in the wake of Mahāprabhu fix it firmly, and the Caitanya-caritāmṛta sings it: "kṛṣṇa nāma kṛṣṇa guṇa kṛṣṇa līlā-vṛnda, kṛṣṇera svarūpa sama sab cid ānanda": the Name, the qualities, the pastimes, and the very form of the Lord are all of one transcendental, conscious, blissful nature, not different from Him. So mark what follows. Śrī Rādhā is love itself in living form, prema given a body and feet and a fragrance. Therefore the words that truly describe Her are not mere talk about love; they are themselves drenched in prema-rasa, carrying inside them the very thing they name. This is why the essence of the most ecstatic rasa flows out of any honest description of Her divine attributes. The praise is never separate from the One praised. And this is exactly why he trembles: "It is improper for a fool like me," he thinks, "to describe lotus-feet so full of prema-rasa. How shall such a one find words for the nectarean love called mahā-bhāva?"

Then watch it turn, the way dawn turns the dark of the bower to gold. Having weighed how impossible his topic is, he stops asking whether he is worthy and begins instead to tell what these words actually do. "Niḥsyandamānāḥ giraḥ": his words come dripping, swaying, oozing out, as honey threads slowly from a comb, and what they drip from is anubhava, real first-hand experience, of Śrī Rādhā's lotus-feet. And being so born, they do not fall idle to the ground. "Lagnāḥ": they cling, they are fastened, to the komala-kuñja-puñja, the clustered tender arbours shining in the great circle of Vṛndāvana, vṛndāṭavī-maṇḍala. And there, in those bowers, they are caught up in light: krīḍat, the playful, the One forever at play, Vṛṣabhānu-nandinī, the beautiful daughter of Mahārāja Vṛṣabhānu, sports among the kuñjas, and from the very toenails of Her feet a luster streams, pada-nakha-jyotiḥ-chaṭāḥ, and his poor words are lit by it, prāyaśaḥ, for the most part, again and again.

O Rādhe, what the Gauḍīya teachers draw from this is a blessing hidden in a confession. These halting words are now a doorway. Whoever hears them, whoever sings them, whoever merely turns them over in remembrance, is touched by that transcendental splendour, the splendour of Your mahā-bhāva lotus-feet. The tradition unfolds it in the old Bengali songs of the heart: where, the soul cries, is my mistress Rādhikā, vṛndāvana-vilāsinī, kuñjeśvarī kamalinī, the lotus-queen who plays in the bowers, and where am I, fallen into the dreadful prison-ocean of saṁsāra? Where is the essence of rasa, the holy Name, the nectarean talk of Her feet? Where the tender groves of Her play? For from the soles of those feet waves of lāvaṇya, of pure loveliness, go rolling out, and Her toenails are caraṇa-nakhara-maṇi, gems, mines full of glistening jewels. "Streams of nectar pour from all these delicious sports," sighs the song in the tradition; "how can an unworthy one like me describe them? Śrīpāda Prabodhānanda says: I have not the proper words or letters for so much sweetness." And yet, precisely there, the promise stands: touched by that toenail-light, the seeker swiftly attains prema, and in time comes to relish the sweet pastimes of the divine Couple, Rādhikā and Mādhava, in the tender kuñjas, no longer as an outsider but in his own mañjarī-svarūpa, serving in the wake of the eternally perfect maidservants. This service, says the tradition, is the supreme goal of the whole path. So the words that open in self-reproach end as a guarantee: bow at these dripping words, and Her light will find you.