9

The bower stands empty in the gathering dusk, before He has come. The appointed grove waits, the leaves still, the evening gathering its first blue. The one who sings this has been carried back into his true and eternal form, his siddha-svarūpa, the kiṅkarī standing in Her service; and you must understand at once that the deeper such a vision grows, the sweeter it becomes, and that there are no words fine enough to hold it. Only those who have tasted such sweetness will know what is meant. By Śrīmatī's own grace the heart is made conscious of this pastime, and so we are let in.

Picture Her arriving first, swift and eager along the forest path, because Her heart could not bear the slowness of Her feet. He is not here yet. And being certain He will come, certain the way one is certain of dawn, She begins to make the place ready. The tradition gives this waiting Her a name, and Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it in the Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi, in the chapter on the kinds of heroines, that the girl who decorates her bower and adorns her own body before her lover arrives, who plans the amorous play in her heart, who looks again and again down the road, who speaks of sweet things with her sakhīs and watches for her messenger-girls to return with word, is called the vāsaka-sajjikā. So stands Śrī Rādhā in the grove, smoothing the bed of petals, settling the creepers, touching the flowers in Her hair, settling the folds of Her garment, all of it for Him, all of it in the trembling sweetness of one who waits.

And what plans rise in Her. Vidyāpati has sung them: "When He comes into My yard, I will only faintly smile. When He grabs Me eagerly, I will try My best to slip away. When He pulls at My bodice, I will push His hands aside and look at Him sidelong, squinting. And when He draws near, I will turn My head away and say: No. No." Hundreds upon hundreds of such little waves, each one a small choreography of refusal, flow through a heart already flooded with passionate love for Him. She is rehearsing, in advance, the very denials by which She means to delight Him.

Then the Jewel of Lovers steps into the clearing, and watch what She does, for the kiṅkarī who led Her here is standing at the bower's edge, already in Her service. Seeing Him, Śrīmatī rises as if in anger to go home, and turns Her chastising glance upon Her own maidservant: "Why did you bring Me to this place? Quickly, take Me back home." The scolding is itself a thread of the play, and the dasi knows it, and bows, and stays. Now Kṛṣṇa, drawn helplessly by Her sweetness, reaches and takes the edge of Her sārī. And She tugs it back from His hand: "Leave it. Do not touch Me. I am a chaste housewife of this village." But across Her face, in the very moment of these words, a slight sweet smile is spreading, mixed with a feigned anger that only makes Her lovelier. How beautifully Her sweetness swells. And He, who is Himself the very form of transcendental bliss, becomes obsessed with longing to be united with Her. The fountain of all joy now stands as a beggar before the girl He has made the queen of His heart.

See it then, O my eyes. The most charming Lover, the nāgara-vara, the best of all who have ever loved, the very crest-jewel of clever youths, lets His body fall at Her feet, and not once only, but again and again. He does not command, He does not take. He prays. He asks for one thing alone, the festival of a single embrace, parirambha-rasa-utsava, an embrace that would be to Him a whole celebration of nectar caught in one moment of touch. And this prayer of His, this fall at Her feet, makes still more rasika feelings rise in Her, and they spill out across Her beautiful face and through Her beautiful eyes, which cannot keep the secret Her lips are trying to keep.

For the lips say one thing only. "Na hi, na hi." No, no. And the brows arch and break and dance in their lovely vibhaṅga, their playful frown, so that even the refusal becomes an ornament, even the "no" a flowering. But O seeker, listen closely, for here is the whole heart of it. There is no "no" inside that "no." It is as if a great "yes" has risen up and swallowed the "no" whole. Openly Svāminī says "No, no"; secretly, in the deep chamber of Her heart, She is saying, "Yes, yes." She would feel happy beyond telling if He drew Her close and enjoyed Her. The maidservant knows this; that is the very reason she calls Her raṅga-nidhi, a treasure-store, an ocean, of playfulness, and the same wonder cries out in the Rādhāvallabha tongue when She is hailed as ati-kautuka-nidhi, the great treasure of playful sport. Out of that ocean the "no" rises shining, and it means only love.

And why these feigned refusals at all? Never from coldness. All of this, the whole of it, is the work of Her mahā-bhāva, Her supreme love, and that is the very thing that so enchants rasika-śekhara, the crest-jewel of all who relish rasa. Rūpa Gosvāmī, again in the Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi, has drawn the bold and expert lover in a single breath: bhūri-bhāvodgama-abhijñā rasena-ākrānta-vallabhā, she who is expert in the welling-up of strong emotions and who attacks her beloved with rasa. And Jīva Gosvāmī, bending over this very verse in his Locana-Rocanī commentary, settles its inmost meaning: rasa here is the flavour of pure, selfless love, and every gesture, every "no," every arched brow and turned cheek, is aimed at one thing only, His joy. She withholds in order to swell His longing, and swells His longing in order to deepen His delight, and deepens His delight because His delight is Her whole life. The "no" is selflessness wearing the mask of refusal; it gives by seeming to deny.

And consider Her name, sung here as Śrī Rādhikā. She who worships Kṛṣṇa, whose ārādhana, whose adoring service, is the very root of Her name, is called Rādhikā. There are countless lovely girls in the groves of Vraja, but not one can worship and enchant the heart of the dark Beloved as sweetly as She, and so She alone in all of Vraja bears this name, nobody else; and therefore the one who sings calls out to Her, "Śrī Rādhike," naming the supreme worshipper of Kṛṣṇa, the one whose every breath is His delight, even Her playful "no."

Then the vision closes. The grove dims, the scene folds away, and the one who was granted this glimpse, the kiṅkarī gazing on the bower-play she so longs to taste, is left with empty hands and an aching, eager heart, and only a prayer remains. O Śrī Rādhike, ocean of play, when? Kadā, when will these eyes be given to see those sweet gestures of Yours, the dancing of Your brows? When will these ears be near enough to catch the two soft syllables falling from Your lips as He begins to draw You close, the "no, no" that is the truest "yes" the worlds have ever heard? When, O Radhe? Let me only stand at the bower's edge as Your servant, and hear it.