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Begin at the kitchen-fire of Nandīśvara, where Her hands have moved all morning over the cooking, readying the food that will touch His lips. The work is finished. Madhusūdana has gone out behind His cows into the forest, and Śrī Rādhā turns homeward toward Yāvaṭa with Her girlfriends gathered around Her. At the threshold Kundalatā gives Her back into Jaṭilā's keeping with a laughing, half-teasing report: see, venerable lady, how carefully I have guarded your daughter-in-law, so carefully that not even Kṛṣṇa's shadow could fall across Her; and see these ornaments queen Yaśodā has heaped upon Her, delighting in Her expert cooking. Jaṭilā glows with greedy pleasure, and orders Her to make ready for Sūryakuṇḍa, to worship the sun-god there for the household's profit. The order is a door swinging open. The gopīs are quietly overjoyed, for what the mother-in-law means as an errand, love means as abhisāra, the going-out to the Beloved. They scatter home to rest a little, and Śrīpāda, the eternal handmaiden, is blessed in that very hour with the personal service of the Mistress.

Out in the forest Kṛṣṇa wanders among His cows, and the loveliness of Vṛndāvana keeps showing Him Her face. To draw Her toward His lake, Śrī Rādhākuṇḍa, He lifts the flute to His lips. O that flute-song. It pours out, and the moving and the unmoving alike grow still and lean toward the sound, and to Śrī Rādhā that music arrives not as melody only but as the very form of Him crystallized before Her, Vaṁśīdhārī come whole into Her hearing. She takes affectionate Viśākhā by the hand, and Her lament breaks open. Hear it as the tradition keeps it, in the Govinda-Līlāmṛta: O friend, the waves of the nectar-ocean of His beauty are flooding the mountain-hearts of the gopīs; His teasing, tender words are honey poured into the ear; His limbs, cooler than ten million moons, lay their coolness over our burning; the nectar-stream of His fragrance and the ambrosia of His lips drown the whole world; and in this way the prince of Vraja drags all five of My senses away by force. Seeing Her so unsteady, Her girlfriends arrange Her abhisāra, and as She rushes out, floating on the deep waves of love, Śrīpāda in her kiṅkarī-form follows Her like Her shadow.

And wherever Her glance falls in the forest, there He rises. This is what the Caitanya-Caritāmṛta means by calling Her kṛṣṇamayī, that Kṛṣṇa is within Her and without Her, and wherever Her eyes light, there Kṛṣṇa shines forth. See now why the tradition names Her premānanda-rasaika-vāridhi-mahā-kallola-mālā-ākulā: agitated by the great garland of waves on the one ocean of love's bliss. Count, if you can, the waves at play in that ocean. It is no ordinary sea. It is the ocean of mahā-bhāva, and that small word eka, one, points to mādana-mahā-bhāva, the highest crest of all love, the exclusive treasure of Śrī Rādhā alone, found in no other heart in all the worlds. How many waves rise and break across the surface of that mādana-rasa which is Her heart.

And watch what one such wave does to Her. Walking on, She sees a young Tamāla tree wound about by a golden Yūthikā creeper, and a peacock dancing before them, and the whole arrangement strikes Her at once: that is Kṛṣṇa. Her eyes redden and roll with sudden jealousy. Dhaniṣṭhe, She says, what is that? What, where, says Her friend. Look before you, there in the forest. Only the creatures of the wood, says Dhaniṣṭhā, nothing more. But Śrī Rādhā will not be put off: look, there is the crown-jewel of all cheaters, dancing, can you not see Him; O cheat, are your eyes shut? For Her the dark Tamāla is the dark Beloved, the golden creeper is some rival gopī clinging to Him, the peacock's dance is the very crown upon His head. Her sakhīs gently turn Her, explaining the illusion, and lead Her onward. Yet mark it: this trembling mistake, this love so total that the forest itself wears His face, is itself one of the wonderful waves on the ocean of Her ecstasy.

Meanwhile He too has slipped His friends, saying only that He wishes to admire the beauty of the woods, and with Madhumaṅgala and Subala has gone to Rādhākuṇḍa. The sight of the water makes Him remember His Priyājī, and the longing climbs higher in Him. By clever Vṛndā's mediation the moment is arranged, and suddenly He sees Her. And the Lord who is bliss itself, beholding this ocean of love-ecstasy that is Śrī Rādhā, is undone by wonder and asks His own heart, in the words the Govinda-Līlāmṛta keeps for us: is this the household goddess of all radiance, or the goddess of youthful beauty herself? Is this the very wealth of sweetness given a body, or a wild flood of grace? Is this a river of bliss, or a streaming of nectar poured into the ears? Or is this, can it be, My own Beloved come at last to delight every one of My senses?

And She, beholding the unbearable sweetness of Her Lover, is bewildered in the same instant. Is this Cupid? No, it cannot be, for Cupid has no body. Is it then the nectar-ocean of rasa? No, an ocean is too vast. Is it a blossoming wish-tree of love? No, for that does not move. Is it then truly my Beloved? Alas, could I ever be so fortunate? So the divine Pair stand trembling, each shaken to the depths by the sight of the other. Across Her limbs and eyes and face the whole company of love's adornments rises at once, vilāsa and lalita and kila-kiñcita, every flickering ornament of bhāva, and the ocean of Her mahā-bhāva is stirred to its very floor. This is the kāma-vaibhava the verse speaks of, the opulence of love, which here means nothing common but Her own unique mādanākhya-prema. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it in the Bhakti-Rasāmṛta-Sindhu, that this particular love attains a sweetness past all telling, and being the very root and cause of all these pastimes, it is called kāma by the wise only because there is no other word vast enough.

And then, the glance still gathering and sprinkling some small great-festival of the secret art of play, the two pass into a lovely bower, the most blessed shrine of love itself, the manmatha-mahā-tīrtha. There, in the leafy temple of Vṛndāvana, She rejoices and sports in bliss. Now hear why the handmaiden tastes Her sweetness by the name Jagan-mohinī, enchantress of the worlds. Because Kṛṣṇa fashions and bears the world He is called jagat, the world; and because Rādhā enchants even Him, She is jagan-mohinī, the one who enchants the enchanter. The Caitanya-Caritāmṛta sets it down plainly: Kṛṣṇa enchants the world, but Rādhā enchants even Him, and therefore She is the Supreme Goddess, the highest Ṭhākurāṇī of all. And She is jagaj-jīva-mohinī too, enchantress of every soul in the world, for whoever hears and chants of Her sweet Vṛndāvana-pastimes is taken captive by the wonder of Her.