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Picture it. The play in the Yamunā is over. By Her own grace Śrīmatī lets the seer who sings this verse regain the vision of that earlier sweet pastime, and so the grove opens again. The water still slips in bright beads from Her hair and from His, and the divine Couple steps from the river with Their sakhīs and maidservants close around, the way petals close around the heart of a flower. They are walking toward a small jewelled temple set deep in the grove, a kuñja-shrine where the leaves overhead make a ceiling and the breeze keeps watch at the doorway. There is laughter behind them, the slap of wet cloth, the ring of anklets. And there, somewhere in that hush of after-bath gladness, a longing is born in the heart of one who serves: when will I be given this, only this, forever.

See Her now, Svāminī, seated. She turns to Her maidservant and gives a single order with Her glance: sweep this jewelled temple, make it spotless, ready it for Me. And the maidservant, who has learned to read Her Mistress the way one reads the changing of light on water, bends to the work at once. The tradition fixes it in Śrīpāda's own Vṛndāvana Mahimāmṛta, "śrīśvarī-dṛṣṭi-vāg-ādi sarveṅgita-vicakṣaṇam": the maidservant expertly understands every hint Śrī-Īśvarī makes, with Her glances and with Her words. Nothing in Rādhikā can hide from this loving servant. So when, after the sweeping is done, Svāminī lowers Her lashes and lets a wish escape into the air, a wish too tender to be spoken outright, the maidservant catches it whole: today She wants Śyāma Himself to dress Her.

How beautiful that the servant becomes the bridge. She does not seize the wish; she lifts it gently and gives it voice. "Who," she asks aloud, as if to no one, "will dress Īśvarī today?" And from the green shadow Nāgara answers, eager, almost shy: "If you permit Me, I will dress Her today." A flutter of the servant's eyes gives consent. Nāgara is all eagerness, and Svāminī, who could refuse and does not, lets the faintest smile rise to Her lips. In that smile She gives Herself away. To accept His service is, for Her, to hand Herself into His hands. The whole grove seems to lean closer.

Now the work of the heart begins, and it begins through this servant's two hands. On Svāminī's order she fetches everything: flower-garlands strung of grove-blossoms, the cool pulp of sandalwood, musk and vermilion, perfumes that breathe from their little vessels, betel-leaves rolled and fragrant, water sweetly scented. She lays them ready. And Śyāma, who is the very Ocean of bliss, sets about adorning the One who is the rising of all sweetness. Watch Him measure each of Her limbs before He weaves the floral ornaments, so that nothing will fit but perfectly, so that the garland will fall exactly where it longs to fall. His senses are not elsewhere. His eyes drink Her form, His ears keep the sound of Her anklets, His hands learn Her touch, on His tongue is the memory of Her, His breath gathers Her fragrance. This is why the tradition names Him here Govinda: He whose every sense feels pleasure, each one flooded and absorbed in Her form, sound, touch, taste, and scent. And it names Him Indīvara-Śyāma, blue as the night-lotus, for it is as though the very touching of Her limbs has deepened His own darkness, dyed Him bluer still with nearness.

And She, watching His absorption, smiles again, and it is told that nectar drips from that smile. Nāgara will not let one drop be wasted. With the cups of His own lips He catches it. He kisses Her. Now hear why the servant calls Her by the name that opens this verse: rasaika-dāyinī, the one and only giver of rasa. To whom is She the sole giver. To Śyāmasundara Himself. The Ocean of bliss is moved to waves only when He is touched by the mahā-bhāva of Śrī Rādhā. He is the source of all sweetness to the worlds, yes, and yet His own sweetness She alone bestows. He receives. He is the beggar at Her gate. And the maidservants, standing a little apart, make their fish-like eyes swim out upon those waves of rasa, content to watch, asking nothing for themselves but the chance to keep watching and serving.

The dressing is finished. Śyāma steps back to look, and He is out of His mind at the sweetness of Her form. She stands before Him like a goddess of the bower itself, the grove given a face and a glance. And here is the wonder the tradition will not let us miss: it is He, the Lord of all, who now bows. "My life will be a success," He thinks, "if only I may sell it at Rādhikā's lotus feet." And down He goes, offering praṇāma to Her feet. The mere touch of those feet is to Him a festival, pada-sparśa-rasotsava: a high holiday of love. O wind of the grove, be still; O leaves, do not rustle; the Ocean is trembling at Her feet. Waves of rasa run the length of that blissful sea when mahā-bhāva touches it. And the servants let their little fish-eyes ride the waves.

Then merciful Svāminī bends and lifts Him up. She seats Him at Her right upon the jewelled throne. He is overcome by the tenderness of Her touch; the hairs of His body stand erect, and tears of love stream and stream. Now the servant brings a cup of cool sweet syrup. But mark the order of it, for the order is itself the sweetness: first Priyājī drinks, and then She passes the cup to Her Priyatama, so that He may taste, in the rim She has touched, the flavour of Her own lotus-mouth. The drink is no longer merely a drink. It is mixed now with prema, and so the tradition calls it sat-pānaka: the good drink, the true drink, the only kind worth the name. After this the servant offers the betel. Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī's longing, set down in the Cāṭu-Puṣpāñjalī, is recalled here, "kadā bimboṣṭhi tāmbūlam mayā tava mukhāmbuje, arpyamānaṁ vrajādhīśa-sūnur ācchidya bhokṣyate": O Rādhe, Your lips are red as the bimba-cherry; when will the prince of Vraja snatch from Your lotus-mouth the very betel the servant had first offered to Your lips, and eat it so? For what both have relished is, of all things, the most delicious. The servant's whole art is to set the stage where Their tasting can happen, and then to stand back and adore.

And then, as suddenly as it came, the vision lifts. The grove dissolves. Śrīpāda finds himself returned, emptied, aching, on this side of the veil. And out of that ache rises the prayer that is this verse, no longer a scene but a cry: "O rasaika-dāyini. O Śrī Rādhe. Bless this fallen one with the nectar of Your service. At Your word I will sweep the solitary bower; I will bring the garlands and the perfumes and the betel and the sandal, the cloth and the ornaments. When, O when, will You so mercifully set me to work." The whole festival of dressing and bowing and the shared cup was never asked for as a thing to possess. It was glimpsed only to make the longing pure: let me be the hands that carry the garland. Let me be the one who sweeps the floor She will stand upon. Make me Your preṣyā, Your sent-one, Your errand-running maid. That is the entire prayer, and it is enough.