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Begin with the morning in Vraja. The dew is still cool on the grasses, the cowsheds are stirring, and from Nanda's house in Nandīśvara a soft summons goes out across the fields to Yāvaṭa. Mother Yaśodā has sent word: let Rādhā come and cook for Kṛṣṇa today. For there is a secret in Her hands. Durvāsā Muni, pleased with Her, once gave Her a boon, so that whatever She prepares turns to nectar upon the tongue, sweet and life-giving; She is amṛta-pāṇi, the nectar-handed one. And Yaśodā, whose every thought circles the welfare of her Gopāla, will trust no other hands than these to feed her dark-blue child. So each dawn the call goes out, and each dawn Śrī Rādhā sets out toward Nandīśvara, the hill-village where Nanda dwells. See how She walks. She does not go alone. Her sakhīs ring Her like petals around the heart of a flower, and Her kiṅkarīs, Her loving maidservants, move close behind, one of them bearing a water-jug in her hand and following Śrīmatī like Her own shadow, never letting Her slip from sight. She is wrapped in colored silk; collyrium darkens and lengthens Her eyes; and when She smiles, Govinda Dāsa sings, pearls are put to shame by the light of Her teeth, and it is as if jewels were spilling softly from Her mouth as She laughs. No golden ray can stand beside the warm grain of Her complexion. Her voice undoes the cuckoo. The soles of Her feet and the palms of Her hands are red as the inner petals of a lotus, and at every step the small bells at Her ankles ring out their runu-jhunu, runu-jhunu, a music that goes ahead of Her like a herald. The crown-jewel of all lovely girls, She walks, and even King Cupid, Manmatha himself, is defeated by the walking. And now, at the very gate of Nandīśvara, He is standing. Śyāmasundara has come to the town-gate, and He cannot look away. He stares at the approaching Rādhā and does not blink, for to blink would be to lose Her for the breadth of a heartbeat, and that He cannot bear. And here the words of the tradition open like a lamp: pītāruṇa-chavi-mananta-taḍil-latābhām. Look at the light pouring off Her limbs. It is yellow shot through with red, a molten gold flushed at the edges with dawn-rose, and it does not glow steadily like a single flame; it leaps and branches and multiplies, like vine upon vine of lightning thrown across the whole quarter of the sky, ananta, without end, an endless garland of lightning, ananta-vidyut-mālā, as the Hit rendering names it. Yet here is the wonder. Ordinary lightning stabs the eyes; its flash is a small violence, a brightness that pains. But this is not weather. This is the radiance of mahā-bhāva itself breaking out of a body, and it is sweetness without limit; it does not wound the eye but soothes it, and the more you look the more your looking is healed. Lightning hurts; Her lightning heals. Then watch what happens to that very form as She sees Him standing there. Prauḍhānurāga-mada-vihvala-cāru-mūrtim: Her beautiful body is overcome. The mature, risen tide of Her love, anurāga grown deep and constant and full, rushes up in Her like a wine She cannot hold, and She sways, unsteady, vihvala, drunk on the simple fact of His face. Bashfulness rises in Her, and humility, and trembling joy, and a longing that cannot speak itself plainly, and all of these crowd together into one lovely form until She can scarcely move. And so She turns to Her friends and says, with the smallest catch in Her voice, "Sakhī, I cannot walk another step. There are great pebbles on this road." And the sakhīs, who see everything, who miss nothing, cover their laughter and answer Her, "Sakhī, are these stones lying on the road, or are they lodged in Your heart?" O the tenderness of that teasing. The stone is no stone. It is Him. He has fallen into Her chest and She cannot step past Him. And all the while Śyāma drinks the sight of this sweetness without moving, for now, at this gate, the two of Them are seeing with their open eyes the very One each of Them carries hidden in meditation. The meditated-upon has become the seen. Then She passes through the gate, and the morning turns to a mother's love. Yaśodā's heart blooms the instant Rādhā enters. She does not wait; she comes rushing out, and she gathers Her up in her arms and holds Her hard against herself with all the strength of mother-love, and the tears come, and she kisses Her as though She were her own young daughter-in-law come home. Rādhā, gentle, bends and offers Her obeisance at the feet of Mother Yaśodā and Mother Rohiṇī. But Yaśodā will not have Her bowed for long; she lifts Her up again, and embraces Her again, and smells the crown of Her head the way mothers do, and cuddles Her and kisses Her over and over, unable to stop. Here the tradition lays bare the heart of it: Yaśodā loves this girl exactly as much as she loves Govinda. Premāspadāṁ vraja-mahīpati-tan-mahiṣyoḥ, the abode of love for the king and queen of Vraja; and the great soul Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī, naming Her among Her hundred-and-eight names, fixes it as vrajendra-gṛhiṇī-kṛṣṇa-prāya-sneha-niketanām, the dwelling-place of a love in Vraja's matriarch that is almost the very love she pours on Kṛṣṇa Himself. The same melting. The same flood. No lesser portion kept back for Her. And Rādhā melts too, undone by being mothered. With a voice that falters She says only, "Mā, I am Yours." And Yaśodā strokes Her head and blesses Her: "O moon-faced one, may You live a hundred years, and may You keep coming to my house, and keep giving joy to my eyes and my heart." Nor are Her companions forgotten: Her girlfriends and Her maidservants bow at the mother's feet as well, and Yaśodā folds the same affection over them that she pours on Rādhā Herself. So Śrī Rādhā and all Her entourage stand wreathed in flowers gathered from the wish-fulfilling vine of Vraja's motherly love. Then She goes in and cooks for Kṛṣṇa with Her nectar hands, and when the cooking is done father Nanda too comes and pours over Her the very fatherly affection he keeps for his own son, no thinner, no cooler. Dear to the mother as dear to the father, dear to both exactly as Govinda is dear: this is why the Hit tradition gives it its very name, hṛdayābharaṇa Śrī Rādhā, Śrī Rādhā who is the ornament of the heart. This is what Śrīpāda's servant-heart finally asks for, set to the gentle measure of Vasantatilakā, and it is a small, immense thing. Govinda-van manasi tāṁ nidadhāmi rādhām: as one enshrines Govinda in the mind, so let me enshrine this Rādhā. Not glance at Her, not admire Her from the road, but take Her in and set Her down within the chamber of the heart and keep Her there, carefully, always; "I will always carefully carry this Rādhā in my heart." O Rādhe, gold flushed with rose, endless lightning that does not burn, treasure of Vraja's love, ornament of the heart, You who grow faint at the sight of Your own Beloved and cannot step past Him for the stone of Him in Your chest, come and live in this poor heart. Let me carry You there as I would carry Him. Let me never let the jug slip, never fall behind Your shadow, never blink.