राधा रस सुधा निधि

The Treasury, verse by verse

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270 verses

Verse 1. Even Madhusūdana, our Śyāma, the goal so hard to reach that even the foremost yogīs cannot find the path to Him, counts Himself wholly fulfilled by nothing greater than a breeze: the blessed, more-than-blessed breeze that rises when the border of Rādhā's garment flutters at play and carries a trace of Her to Him. And so I do not even dare to bow to Her directly. I bow only toward the direction in which the daughter of Vṛṣabhānu may be walking. Even that quarter of the sky that faces Her, I touch with my head.
Verse 2. Let my whole being bow before the glory of Vṛṣabhānu's daughter, Śrī Rādhā. The lovely golden pollen-dust upon Her lotus feet lies so high and so hidden that even Brahmā the creator, Śiva the lord of yogis, and Lakṣmī the goddess of fortune cannot reach it; Her power is the greatest and most astonishing wonder in all the worlds. And when Her eyes turn soft and melting with mercy, they do not merely drop but rain down the very essence of every goal a soul could ever seek, the sweet rasa of love for Kṛṣṇa, given freely to whoever stands within that glance. To that majesty and that mercy I offer obeisance again and again.
Verse 3. I hold in constant remembrance the dust of Śrī Rādhikā's feet. That dust carries a power without end: in a single instant it draws and subdues even Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Person whom the very greatest souls, Brahmā, Śiva, Śukadeva, Nārada, Bhīṣma, cannot easily glimpse in His sweetest love. What they reach for and cannot grasp, that boundless treasure rests as a fragrant powder beneath Her wandering feet, and it is this dust, this one all-conquering thing, that I cherish and beg only to remember.
Verse 4. I hold in my heart the dust of Śrī Rādhikā's feet. The most openhanded gopīs of Vraja lift that dust onto their heads, longing for one cherished place above all else: to be Her own maidservants at Her feet. That place is so sweet, so rich with every dear quality, that even Kṛṣṇa, the boy crowned with peacock plumes, aches to have it. And to everyone who serves that dust with a heart kept like a festival of love, the dust becomes a wish-fulfilling cow of pure rasa, pouring out whatever the loving heart could ask.
Verse 5. Glory, all glory to a certain indescribable Goddess of the hidden bowers, Shri Radha, the one alone who can bring Krishna, the son of Nanda, back to life when He has swooned away, struck down and overcome by the arrows of millions of Cupids in His longing for Her. She bathes Him back to waking with wave upon wave of nectar, the very quintessence of divine joy, that wells up wherever Her own limbs come near His. May She be ever victorious.
Verse 6. O when will it dawn before us, that face of Śrī Rādhā? Her face is the very cream skimmed from the ocean of love, the treasure-house from which every sweet art of beauty first springs, the moonlike countenance whose playful, tender gestures astonish the heart afresh at every single moment and enchant even Mohana Himself until He stands bent in His triple curve. When, O when, will that face rise before our eyes?
Verse 7. When, oh when, will I become the broom that sweeps the courtyard of the little bower-cottage where Śrī Rādhā plays, the daughter of King Vṛṣabhānu who is Herself an ocean of sweet rasa? To Her very maidservants the Supreme Person, the dark Lord crowned with a peacock feather, again and again folds His hands and pours out His pleading, anxious prayers, begging only to be let in to Her presence. I do not ask to serve Her directly. Let me be only the broom in the hands of those blessed ones who do.
Verse 8. O my mind, leave behind every great thing the world bows to, leave it from far off, and follow the forest of Vrindavana with love. For there a divine treasure is enshrined, and Her name is Radha. She is an overflowing flood of the sweetest loving moods, a nectar-stream of good feeling, and She is the ferry who carries the sincere across the dark water of this world and home.
Verse 9. O Śrī Rādhike, jewel of all play, treasure-house of sweet sport! Kṛṣṇa, the finest and most clever of all lovers, comes and falls again and again at Your feet, begging You for the festival-joy of a single embrace. And You, though Your whole heart is glad, break Your eyebrows into a frown and say only, "No, no." When will I be near enough to see those dancing brows and to hear those two soft syllables fall from Your lips, that "no" with a hidden "yes" curled sleeping inside it?
Verse 10. May that Śrī Rādhikā one day, somehow, turn Her mercy even upon me. From the toenails of Her lotus-feet, each nail a cool moonstone, there breaks an indescribable splendour, and once, within the Rāsa-circle, that splendour was seen flashing among the gopa-women of Vraja. She is the living form of the very essence, the distilled cream, of a shoreless ocean of full and ever-fresh love; and to Her, the prayer for mercy, [कृपा याचना], rises from the dust: be gracious, even to me.
Verse 11. Her every limb rises and shimmers like the swelling waves of a brimming ocean of divine love, and Her eyes sway, restless with praṇaya, that love in which two hearts feel as one. She is the young presiding goddess of the fresh bowers of Vṛndāvana, sovereign of every newly woven kuñja. When, O when, will that Śrī Rādhā let Her pure and blessing glance, beautiful, favorable, redeeming, fall upon me?
Verse 12. O Śrī Rādhā, Queen of Vṛndāvana, I take shelter at Your lotus feet alone. They brim with the one peerless honey of love's nectar, a whole flood of sweetness. When Madhupati Kṛṣṇa draws those feet to His heart, their supreme coolness puts out the terrible, scorching fire of His desire. To those feet, and to no other refuge, this maidservant runs; for me there is no other recourse than these.
Verse 13. May my mind delight forever in Śrī Rādhā's playforest, where the tender vines bear sprouts and buds gathered by Her own hands, where the sweet ground glows luminous with the prints of Her feet, and where rows of birds, drunk with joy, can sing of nothing but Her glories. If I cannot stand among Her pastimes in the body, let me dwell there in loving remembrance, and never come out.
Verse 14. On a night still warm from love, Rādhā, so drowned in union that She has lost all count of the world, turns to Her dear sakhi and says, "Come, let us go plunge and bathe in Kṛṣṇāmṛta, the dark nectar-water." But Kṛṣṇāmṛta means two things at once: the blackish nectarean water of the Yamunā, and Kṛṣṇa Himself as nectar. So the laughing maidservant catches the second meaning and teases, "Be patient, beloved, just wait until night comes," for that solitary nectar is bathed in only by dark. From this gentle jest a sweetness blossoms; Śrīmatī smiles a small hidden smile, chastises Her playful friend with loving glances, and strikes her with a honey-dripping kadamba flower gathered that morning. And the kiṅkarī, blessed by that blow, cries out: O daughter of Vṛṣabhānu, when will I be made worthy of such nectar-giving, playful honour from You?
Verse 15. When, oh when, will my eyes be blessed to see Śrī Rādhā come? From a little way off She catches sight of the moon-bright face of Kṛṣṇa, the king of all who relish sweetness, and at once shyness floods Her and Her gaze drops all the way down to the painted nails of Her own toes. Her steps turn bashful and faltering as She moves toward the bower, Her ankle-bells ringing their soft music, and Her every gesture and bearing grow enchanting beyond telling. Alas, when will She grant me such a sight?
Verse 16. O Śrī Rādhe, all the night long You kept Your joyful vigil in the heart of the bower, awake in the play of love with Your rasika lover. Now at daybreak let me bathe You well, feed You honey-sweet morsels, and lay You upon a soft bed of flowers, and then with my own tender hands let me stroke and cradle Your lotus feet. When, O Rādhe, will that fortune be mine, to massage Your feet until You drift into sleep?
Verse 17. May Śrī Rādhikā dawn within my heart: She who is a whole ocean of cleverness, the one unrivalled ocean of ever-fresh love, an ocean of tender mothering affection, an ocean of mercy so dense it has no shore, an ocean of glistening loveliness, an ocean of nectar-bright form, and an ocean of sweet playful pastimes. Seven shoreless seas gathered into one slender girl of Vraja, set to the gentle sway of the Vasantatilakā meter. O Prāṇeśvarī, rise and shine in this poor heart, and having dawned, never set again.
Verse 18. The daughter of Vṛṣabhānu, Śrī Rādhā, glows and shivers with love: the very instant She beholds Her beloved Śyāmasundara, every limb is struck with wonder and shines like a golden Campaka vine; and when a soft, stray note of His flute reaches Her, Her whole body grows faint and overwhelmed. May that Rādhā, gladdened as I sing to Her the unending glories of dark-sweet Kṛṣṇa, lovingly fold me into Her arms.
Verse 19. O Śrī Rādhike, You are a river of love made of grace and play. The little bells of Your girdle, riding the slope of Your hips that bloom with a thousand amorous pastimes, call out softly like swans cooing along a riverbank; and the anklets at Your lotus feet hum like bees grown drunk on honey. With the cool, bright outpouring of Your own sweetness, soothe this burning heart.
Verse 20. O Śrī Rādhike, You are Sura-taraṅgiṇī, the heavenly Ganga come down into a girl, garlanded with the rolling waves of divine pastimes, Your face an open, shining lotus. Like a swollen river that breaks its banks in the rains and races to lose itself in the sea, You rush with overwhelming speed toward the nectar-ocean named Śyāma, and the deep lovely whirlpool of Your navel turns in that current. O river of all sweetness, draw near to me; stay close, and let me be beside You as You go.
Verse 21. O Śrī Rādhike, when will I lift Your lotus feet onto my head and carry them there? Those feet pour a ceaseless, fragrant stream of honey, the very nectar drawn from the ocean of true love, on every side and without pause, upon all who have taken shelter at them; and they are the whole treasure of Govinda's life. When, O Rādhe, will this servant be granted to bear them, so that not one thorn of Vraja touches them on the way to Śyāma?
Verse 22. O Śrī Rādhe, brimful with the eager longing of love's play, You go toward the secret bower with the slow, swaying step of a great elephant, gliding from grove to grove. And I, Your little maidservant, my arms heaped with cool sandal paste, fragrant perfumes, and divine soft garlands, mark out the trysting-place for You and walk behind, showing You the way. When, O Rādhe, will You grant me this one grace: to follow at Your heels and serve Your love?
Verse 23. O Śrī Rādhā, when will this vision be granted to me: that I have walked down with You to a deserted, hidden descent on the bank of the Yamunā, the river that is the sun's own daughter, and there, far from every other companion, I anoint Your nectarean limbs, the very life of love itself, while Your young lover, the crest-jewel of all fresh gallants of Vraja, sits hidden high in a tall Kadamba tree, His eyes drowned in the unguarded sweetness of Your form?
Verse 24. O Śrī Rādhā, when at last will my eyes be allowed to drink in Your face? It is a fresh lotus opened upon a lake that is nothing but true, abiding love for Krishna, the Real. It is a honey that intoxicates Krishna Himself and gladdens Your every maidservant. It is a full moon whose rising swells not the salt sea but the very ocean of bliss and rasa, until the tides break and overflow. And around its golden brightness Your dark, curling, freshly bathed locks hang down like black bees come thirsty to a flower full of honey. When, O when, will I be granted to gaze upon it?
Verse 25. My heart, rest now in Her whose very name is Rādhā. She is the distilled essence of loveliness, the essence of all sweet flavour, the one and only essence of joy; the essence of compassion, the essence of every sweet and lustrous form, the essence of all clever grace, the essence of love's tender play. She is the essence of every essence there is, the essence-beyond-essence in whom all that is precious is gathered. Let my mind dwell in Her, and take its delight in Her, and nowhere else.
Verse 26. She is the wish-fulfilling jewel for every soul who takes refuge and bows before Her, the crest-jewel of all the lovely young women of Vraja, the shining jewel of King Vṛṣabhānu's whole dynasty. She is the precious jewel that quiets the burning of Śyāma's longing, the jewel that adorns the secret bowers of Vṛndāvana, and the one true gem treasured in the jewel-box of our hearts. May Śrī Rādhikā, this living wishing-stone, the very essence of all essence, forever shine within us.
Verse 27. O good and saintly mind, do not wait even one more breath. Quickly take shelter of Her whose name is Rādhā: soft and sweet to the very root of Her nature, the wish-granting vine of all the bowers of Vraja, who reveals nothing but a wondrous, heaped-up abundance of the rasa of Her mercy, and who is Herself a deep, unbridled, shoreless ocean of the nectar of divine love. Run to Her now, fling yourself in, and stay there.
Verse 28. Blessed beyond all measure is the one who can hold Her in his heart: Śrī Rādhā speaking sweet, flattering, half-chiding words to Her clever Beloved, the loveliness streaming in little buds of light from Her reddened lips and spreading through the whole bower, the line of vermilion in the part of Her hair set with a glowing row of pearls, and Her teeth shining white as kunda-blossoms. To meditate on Her so, mid-conversation, melting Her loving pique away into a smile, is to be fortunate indeed.
Verse 29. Into my own heart I take Her: Śrī Rādhā, whose luster is golden flushed with rose, blazing like endless vines of lightning strung across the sky; whose lovely form sways and grows faint, intoxicated with a deep and mature love; She who is the very abode of love for the king and queen of Vraja, Nanda and Yaśodā, dear to them exactly as Govinda is dear; She whom the tradition names the ornament of the heart. As one enshrines Govinda in the mind, so do I enshrine this Rādhā.
Verse 30. O Śrī Rādhā, presiding goddess of Vṛndāvana's ever-fresh bowers, when will I become Your maidservant, hurrying to You with my own hands' work: a lovely crown fashioned from new peacock-feathers and a glimmering necklace strung from red-and-black guñjā berries, carrying them to You so that You may adorn Your beloved Śyāma with them?
Verse 31. O Śrī Rādhike, cast upon me Your merciful sidelong glance. This alone I hope for: to spread a fresh bed of tender leaves in every secret trysting-bower, leaf upon leaf; to lead You out quietly to Your meeting with Śyāmacandra, the dark moon of Vraja; and there, near at hand, to receive Your favor, whether it be the smallest token left from Your meeting or a loving command to serve. Holding fast to that one hope, I ask only that You be pleased with me and let Your glance fall.
Verse 32. From afar I have cast aside my own people, every comfort, the longing for crores of wealth; and for a long while now I have lost all hope even in the noblest of spiritual disciplines, finding rest in none of them. Now I remember only the dust of Śrī Rādhikā's feet, that dust which by its very nature rains down, and never stops raining, a stream of natural, wondrous bliss.
Verse 33. O my mind, remember the two breasts of Vṛṣabhānu's daughter, Śrī Rādhā, golden as twin pitchers, for they are the sealed casket that holds the whole wealth, the very life, of a certain moon-faced boy of Gokula: that adolescent who shines in the bowers of Vṛndāvana with the loveliness of ten million Cupids gathered into a single form.
Verse 34. I remember the youthful breasts of Vṛṣabhānu's daughter, fresh and golden as twin lotus-buds. They are like a single lotus risen in the lake of Her deep, dense, passionate love, a lake that holds the very essence of love's flavour; and when the moonlight of Her own radiant face fell upon that one lotus, it folded itself into two buds. Dense as a rain-cloud, they brim with the nectar-honey of Her own bliss, a bliss poured out wholly for Her Beloved.
Verse 35. Obeisance, O Śrī Rādhe, to the fresh young orb of Your breasts: two golden lotus buds opening upon the lake of divine play, the ripened fruits of the wish-granting tree whose every flavour is rasa and whose root is Your own boundless bliss, so lovely that they enchant the very One who enchants all the worlds.
Verse 36. O Śrī Rādhā, I am holding one hope alone in my heart: that I might paint delicate rows of leaves upon Your cheeks and breasts, bind fresh jasmine into the wonder of Your braid, and adorn Your tender limbs with jewelled ornaments. With this longing trembling in me, O Rādhike, ordain Your grace and cast upon me Your merciful glance.
Verse 37. Will Śrī Rādhikā ever be pleased with me? All the long day, with restless, anxious eyes searching the road, She murmurs His names again and again, eager and aching: "O Śyāma! O most beautiful of all! O enchanter of My heart! O You who are lovely as millions of Cupids! O sweet and expert lover, crown-jewel of all who know how to love!" When will She, lost in this longing, turn Her grace toward me?
Verse 38. When, O when, will I lovingly serve that Śrī Rādhikā with rasa, She whose single sidelong glance flies like an arrow into the heart of the Prince of Vraja, so that His flute falls from His hand, His peacock-feather crown slips loose, His yellow cloth comes undone at the waist, and Kṛṣṇa Himself, the conqueror of every heart, faints away under one look from His Beloved?
Verse 39. She is the living form of the play of the essence of all rasa, the source of bliss, the gentle and most wondrous goddess of fortune for Kṛṣṇa; Her path is sealed even to Brahmā and the gods. So this single longing rises and will not be set down: birth after birth, in body after body, let me be the maidservant of Vṛṣabhānu's daughter, serving Her lotus feet in the secret bower. Only that. Nothing else.
Verse 40. Let one longing stand above every other in me: to become a handmaid in the house of Vṛṣabhānu, serving His daughter Śrī Rādhā. She is the very form of full, unbroken love, a body of rasa shining like a vine of lightning across the dark sky. She is the supreme radiance, the hidden secret whom even the Lord Himself loves and desires, the light that draws Kṛṣṇa into Herself. By Her own mercy She came down and appeared in Her father's home. So this alone is my prayer: only to become Her maidservant.
Verse 41. I remember the moon of Śrī Rādhikā's face: the seed from which the whole gladdened play of love grows and blossoms, the single drink that the unsatisfied Cakora-bird eyes of Govinda can never stop drinking, and the face that pours out endless floods of wonderful moonlight, an amṛta of rasa that drenches all the worlds.
Verse 42. Will the day ever come when I take the daughter of Vṛṣabhānu by Her lotus hand and lead Her, with the gentlest insistence, into the secret bower where a bed of soft fresh leaves is spread, though She is full of fear and shyness before Her very first union with the king of all sweet rogues? That is the whole of my longing: to be the hand that escorts Her in.
Verse 43. O Adhīśvari, Queen of my heart, when You set out drunk with love, hurrying through the night to meet Your dark Śyāma, take me with You as Your tender attendant. Let me walk close behind, carrying fine perfumes, fresh jasmine garlands, and a little casket of betel-leaves folded around fresh camphor and clove. O Śrī Rādhike, by Your mercy alone, fashion me into such a follower of Yours.
Verse 44. O Śrī Rādhike, all glory to the springtime of Your girlhood. Picture the very first arising of Your beauty: the round, freshly budding lotuses at Your breast, like two closed buds that the heart longs to gaze upon; the curve of Your hips growing fuller as the rasika qualities of love ripen in You; and over all of it the bloom of Your kaiśora, Your tender adolescence, which steals the very heart of Mohana, the dark enchanter who bewitches the world. Victorious, all-conquering, is that fresh girlhood of Yours.
Verse 45. O Śrī Rādhike, when will I be allowed to stand close by, near enough to hear, and listen to You speaking with the gallant of Vraja, the two of You in that honeyed converse where rising waves of love sway Kṛṣṇa's very body, and where from every single syllable that falls from Your lips a limitless ocean of nectar comes streaming out? This is the one longing of my heart: not to gaze from afar, but to be drawn near enough to catch each word as it spills.
Verse 46. She is seated upon Her Beloved's very lap, His arm around Her, no space left between Them, and yet all at once a sweet and broken murmur rises from Her lips: "Hā Mohana! O Enchanter, where are You?" Her whole enchanting body trembles, overwhelmed by the intoxicating love She bears for Śyāma, so drunk on that nearness that even nearness cannot quench Her longing. Glory, all glory, to that indescribable jewel among the Śyāmā-girls, Śrī Rādhā, who shines unrivaled and victorious at the edge of the secret bower.
Verse 47. O Śrī Rādhā, somewhere deep inside a hidden bower an indescribable festival of sweetness has begun between You and Your Beloved. The murmur of Your tender conversation rises and braids itself with the soft jingling of Your ornaments. When will I, Your one confidential maidservant, stand at the door of that grove, and hearing those mingled sounds, grow faint with love and sink down at last into a whole pool of rasa, drowned in bliss?
Verse 48. May Śrī Rādhā come and dwell in my heart: She who lifts to Her lotus hands a sweet-voiced lute named Madhumatī, the honeyed one, and singing of the love-play of Her Beloved, the crown-jewel of all gallants, passes a day grown endless, weeping showers of tears, carrying Herself with great difficulty through hours that will not move. Overwhelmed by love itself, may this Rādhā take up Her dwelling in me.
Verse 49. O my heart, where have you gone? Some clever, radiant Couple is sporting in Vṛndāvana, laughing softly with each other, teasing and answering tease, playing in a hundred ever-changing ways; and out of that play the great rasa swells and overflows until the whole grove brims with sweetness. And somehow, by means I can neither name nor retrace, that expert Pair of lovers has carried off my heart entirely. Aho! Rādhā and Śyāma at Their meeting-play in Vṛndāvana, and my heart is Theirs now, gone, taken, gladly lost.
Verse 50. Out of the great rising ocean of ever-fresh love, the nectar-waves come pouring through the corners of Her eyes, and with the dancing of those sidelong glances She bathes the whole world. Golden as a garland of lightning, sweet with the indescribable freshness of new girlhood, She is the new gem set in the crown of all the lovely women of Vraja. All glory to Her. Śrī Rādhā, eternally, is victorious.
Verse 51. She is Rādhā: the one indescribable essence drawn up from the shoreless ocean of rasa, so tender that all the Vedas together cannot so much as glimpse Her, let alone hold Her. Her divine form is sweetness made visible, pearl-soft loveliness itself; Her mercy has no far shore. And the sure mark of Her unrivalled love for Kṛṣṇa is this: the not-feeble seal of that love is pressed so deep into Her heart that every binding, every duty and moral decree, has gone slack and slipped away of its own accord. Glory, glory, victory to this delicate girl.
Verse 52. When, O when, will I find myself here as a tender slip of a girl, eternally young, forever standing at my Svāminī Śrī Rādhā's side and deft in every small service She might wish, dressed in the silken sari and the bodice that She Herself, pleased with me, slipped from Her own body and pressed into my hands with love? When will I know myself not as this body, not as this mind, but as Her delicate kiśorī, Her little maidservant?
Verse 53. O Śrī Rādhe, when will I ever become Your good and skilled handmaid? Sometimes I would part and untangle the dark strands of Your hair with the tips of my fingernails; sometimes draw the silken bodice over the golden, pitcher-like swell of Your breasts; sometimes fasten the pair of jeweled anklebells upon Your lovely ankles. When, O when, will such service at last be mine?
Verse 54. O let my mind never once leave the soft lotus feet of Śrī Rādhā. Even as I sing Hari's names aloud, in a voice shaking with great affection. Even as I worship Him with fragrant sandal and a hundred tender offerings. Even as I wander Vṛndāvana and carry the highest bliss in my heart. Through all of it, in all of it, may my mind live and rest only at Her two delicate petal-feet.
Verse 55. O Śrī Rādhe, though Śyāma, knowing me to be one upon whom His own beloved Queen has poured Her mercy, kisses me and embraces me again and again, maddening me with the wine of love and weaving around me a strange and wondrous wealth of tenderness, still my mind clings to nothing but the wondrous flavour-play of Your lotus feet.
Verse 56. When, oh when, will I gather armfuls of fresh Vṛndāvana blossoms and carry them into the secret heart of a bower to celebrate, as a tender game of childhood play, the hidden wedding-festival of Śrī Rādhā and Mādhava? For They love each other always with a love beyond all naming, a love so dazzling even in Their earliest youth that the mere sound of one another's name lifts the hairs of Their bodies in ecstasy.
Verse 57. O when, on the banks of the Yamunā, will the daughter of Vṛṣabhānu come to meet Her beloved? He plays His lovely flute so skillfully in the fifth note that the bamboo sings like a vīṇā; and She, the very treasury of every sweet art, answers Him upon Her own lute. She comes with the stately, intoxicated grace of a she-elephant swaying toward the king of the elephants in the forest, and where the dark Lord and the golden Queen draw near, the river herself swells with joy. When, O when, will my eyes be given this meeting to serve?
Verse 58. When, oh when, will I joyfully serve that wondrous Pair, the best of all loving ladies, Śrī Rādhikā, and the crown of all relishers, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, whose cheeks are still moist with the dew of fatigue from Their incomparable, laughter-filled dancing in the enchanting Rāsa-festival, and so make my whole little life lovely by tending Their feet and softly fanning Them?
Verse 59. When, O when, will I wander from one lovely bower-house to another in hidden Vṛndāvana, searching everywhere for my own goddess, my Svāminī, and find the breath to cry, "Hā Rādhe! Why will You not walk the path I am showing You, You and Your clever Beloved?" And when, bathing again and again in the dark waters of the Kālindī, made muddy and fragrant with the musk washed loose from the slope of Her breasts, will this poor body shed at last the impurity born of its own wrong nature, so that I stand spotless and clean?
Verse 60. O Śrī Rādhā, sole giver of the nectar of love! When will You take me as Your own little serving-maid. Govinda Himself, blue as the night-lotus, dark and tender, finds a whole festival of sweetness simply in bowing low and touching Your feet; let me be the one who coaxes Him down to those feet, who sweeps clean Your loveliest hidden bower, and who carries to You garlands, sandal paste, perfumes, fragrant betel, and cooling sweet drinks. When, O when, will You set me to such work.
Verse 61. There is a hidden Sovereign-Lady of Vṛndāvana's bowers whom none can rightly name, an indescribable Svāminī who floods this whole world with the nectar-news of Her beauty, and whose moon-bright face pours out the light of countless, endless autumn full moons. She is the lovely housewife of the grove, dressing the kuñja with Her own hands for the One who is coming. And She makes every other spiritual goal and every practice seem small, almost nothing, the moment She bestows the one festival worth wanting: the joy of serving Her. This is Śrī Rādhā.
Verse 62. By great fortune, a day will come when Śrī Rādhā, who has refused Nanda's son again and again even as His glances begged Her for a meeting, and who yet, on the very pretext of that refusal, let Him glimpse the lovely trysting-grove, will send me to Him with these words: "O king of cheaters! My Svāminī fears Your deceit and will not walk alone into that secret Kadamba bower. Keep Your message to Yourself." O Rādhe, when will You trust me with that errand?
Verse 63. All glory to the matchless cleverness of Śrī Rādhā: the dancing of Her eyebrows, the playful sidelong glances from the corners of Her lovely eyes, the artful turns of Her speech, Her skill in slipping unseen to the trysting bower, Her genius for games of love that are forever new, and Her delight in the festival of laughter and teasing shared with Her sakhīs. Each one of these surpasses the last; every one is supreme; and in each She enchants even Her own Beloved.
Verse 64. May this rasa rise as the highest perfection our hearts can ever hold: the savour of Śrī Rādhā and Mādhava at play, the Two who from earliest youth ache with longing for one another and are never satiated, even in nearness. Their mutual love is forever opening like a flower that never finishes blooming, a generous, noble sweetness free of all self-seeking; and from its very depth pours a stream that bears the essence of all rasa, a festival of divine, delicate love-sports where, like Cupid's own holiday, They teach and initiate one another in the ever-new arts of love, wave upon wave. Let that, and only that, be the savour our hearts hold forever.
Verse 65. When, oh when, will this servant be made whole by the sight of Śrī Rādhā and the prince of Vraja at Their play in the lanes of the village, stealing away the hearts of the blessed as They go? On the open road They seem two small children; yet of a sudden, where seclusion folds around Them, Their childhood blossoms into the full splendor of new youth, and there They lose Themselves in laughter and loving jest.
Verse 66. O Śrī Rādhā, within my heart I remember You whole. I remember Your braided hair wound with a freshly blooming jasmine garland breathing new fragrance, the deep red drop of sindūra glowing on Your forehead and along Your part, the matchless light of Your long sidelong glances, Your tender moonbeam smile brimming with loving joy, and the sacred sweetness of Your breasts. Unable now to behold You with these eyes, I gather You within, and I remember, and I remember.
Verse 67. There is a certain light no words can hold, sweeter than every sweetness, that carries the supreme Name: Rādhā. The young maidens of Vraja, whose loveliness leaves millions of goddesses of fortune embarrassed, bow before this Name and worship it, for this light is the very source-seed of ujjvala-rasa, the most radiant love. And by a fortune almost too great to name, it is sprinkled into the heart, takes firm root there, and stretches open like dawn, in some rare blessed soul whom no one would think to point to.
Verse 68. May that golden light triumph forever, the light that is Śrī Rādhā. In the first dawning of Her youth She is made all of great, playful elegance; Her form is fashioned of thickened bliss and dense, ceaseless love, and it casts a spell over Kṛṣṇa Himself. Her luster is the soft gold of fresh saffron, and She is the soul of every tender game in the bowers of Vṛndāvana. And exactly as Mother Yaśodā loves Her own Govinda, so she loves this radiant Daughter of Vraja as the one supreme vessel of her heart.
Verse 69. Picture Her there in the leafy temple of Vṛndāvana: Śrī Rādhā, the enchantress of all the worlds. Within Her one ocean of love-bliss is rising into wave after wave, a whole garland of waves, and they break out through the corners of Her restless, reddish, sidelong eyes, glances so full of wonder that they astonish. By the marvel of those glances She is quietly gathering and sprinkling some small great-festival of the secret art of love, and brimming with the rare and wondrous opulence of that love, indescribable, She sports in joy within the bowers of the forest.
Verse 70. On the very border of Vṛndāvana's bowers a wonder rises into being: some indescribable woman, the crown-jewel of all lovely ones, the surpassing Enchantress. With nothing more than the faintest tremor of Her eyebrow, the small stir that ever-new love sets moving in Her, She enchants the Jewel of Vraja Himself, dark Śyāma. She alone is the wish-fulfilling touchstone of Her devotees; from Her streams the nectar of dense, overflowing love-rasa as from a living gem; and Her bodily radiance outshines ten million vines of lightning braided together. She appears now, on the outskirts of the kuñja, where the longing heart waits at the threshold.
Verse 71. Our Swāminī, Śrī Rādhā, lets Her playful sidelong glances ripple out like waves, and from each rippling wave there springs up a Cupid, one after another, by the millions, every one of them quivering a great bow and twanging its string with immense pride. And all this pours out at the very first moment She steps across the threshold into youth, when Her sweetness already runs as an endless, astonishing stream. May this Śrī Rādhikā be our mistress.
Verse 72. Even Brahmā the maker of worlds and Śiva the great destroyer, though they take up the very mood of the gopīs, never win the right to set so much as one grain of dust from Śrī Rādhā's lotus feet upon their heads. And yet She, the brimming ocean-treasury of love's nectar-rasa, the very wealth of Lālajī Himself, has now, by the powerful slow turning of mighty Time, become near and easily reached by ordinary hearts. O Fate, I bow to you; blessed is your glory.
Verse 73. Let Kṛṣṇa's affectionate elders go on flourishing, all glory to them, but far from here; let the dear circle of His friends keep their distance; let His servants stay farther still, and as for anyone else, what occasion could there ever be for them in this place? For here, deep within the bower, Śrī Vṛṣabhānu's beautiful daughter gives Herself in love to Her ardent Beloved, and I, Her own dear handmaid, stand at the doorway, longing only for this supreme thing: that I may hear some faint sound, the silver tremble of Her girdle-bells, and nothing more.
Verse 74. O Śrī Rādhe, let every grace of You rise before the eye of my meditation: the softness of Your golden limbs, the sweetness of Your faint smile, the long reach of Your sidelong glance, the fullness of Your breast, the slenderness of Your waist, the unhurried grace of Your steps, the broad curve of Your hips, the lovely bend of Your brows, the deep red of Your bimba-fruit lips, and the love-struck stillness of Your rasika heart. May all ten of these sweetnesses become visible to me when I sit to remember You.
Verse 75. O Nāgarī, O cultured Rādhā, when will the morning ever come that I may slip from Your body the yellow cloth You took home by mistake, the one that is truly Kṛṣṇa's, and clothe You again in Your own blue silk; that I may run back to the bower for the bodice You left there at night's end and bring it to You; that I may rebind Your loosened braid, restring the broken row of pearls, paint the kajal once more around Your eyes, and gently hide beneath musk and vermilion the love-marks Kṛṣṇa pressed into Your tender limbs? Will it ever, ever be so?
Verse 76. O wonder: there is a form that shows itself in Vṛndāvana alone and nowhere else; a form whose sweetness the Vedas and even the crown of the Upaniṣads cannot lift onto their heads to describe; a form that slips past the deep meditations of Śiva and Śuka and every sage; a form steeped through and through in the nectar-sweetness of love, and forever young, forever poised in the first bloom of girlhood. For that one form, the beauty of Śrī Rādhā, my eyes wander and will not rest, restless and greedy, searching everywhere to drink Her in.
Verse 77. Let the four great prizes of human life: duty well kept, wealth, sweet pleasure, and even final liberation, attain whatever glory the world can give them; let those who long for them have them. Why should I waste a single word on such idle talk? And let even exclusive, reverential devotion to the majestic Supreme Lord be set, honored, as a crown upon my head: revered, yes, but held aloft and apart, not pressed to the heart. For there, on the very border of Vṛndāvana, lives a certain someone, a dense and dazzling wonder, a young jewel of a girl beyond all comparison, and the nectar of the rasa of serving Her, of being Her maidservant, is the one thing in which my heart will rest. Nothing higher than that can ever please me.
Verse 78. Śrī Rādhā alone is the One I serve. She is the very heart of love that is at once true, sweet, and luminous; the farthest reach and the most wondrous art of every amorous play; a marvel that draws even Bhagavān Himself to worship Her. The great goddesses Pārvatī and Śacī are only Her energies; She is bliss given a body, the supreme power who answers to no one, free and self-ruling. Enthroned as the crowned Queen of the Lord of Vṛndāvana, Rādhā and Rādhā alone is mine to serve.
Verse 79. O heart, look closely: whoever lets go of Rādhā's service and strains toward Govinda only to stand near Him is like one who craves the full moon yet has no use for the full-moon night that lets it round to wholeness. And whoever does not know that Rādhā is the very seed of the rolling waves of Śyāma's love, the source of that whole flood, will come to the great ocean of nectar and carry home a single drop. Everything the heart searches for is kept at Her feet; without Her, even Kṛṣṇa's sweetness arrives half-grown.
Verse 80. Bow down with me, again and again, before those great souls whose every thought rests, without pause, on Śrī Rādhikā: on the astonishing sweetness of Her budding girlhood, by whose flood the luster of Her every limb stands foremost of all, and on the overflowing joy of love that lifts Her above all measure. These are the ones who have let go of fruitive action by their very self, mentally and from the root, who feel no clutching ownership even over the duties of religion. Indeed it is truer to say not that they gave up their works but that their works gave them up. By that very surrender they have arrived at the most wondrous of all destinations, a goal that is not a place but a taste, a goal made entirely of rasa. To them, the truly great, my repeated obeisance.
Verse 81. Who in all this world, O Radhe, are those rare and supremely intelligent souls who, by the very prowess they have drawn from serving their Guru, no longer stamp the conch and disc upon their arms, no longer trace the wondrous temple of Hari in tilaka upon their brow, and no longer hang the bright Tulasi-garland at their throat, and yet stand perfected? They are few indeed upon the earth: their whole worship has poured into Your lotus feet, and the outer signs have slipped away only because they have drowned so deep in an inner sweetness that they have lost all memory of them.
Verse 82. Let Rādhā's own perform the rites the Vedas teach, or leave them undone; let them take up garlands and sandal-paste and every sweet thing of the senses, or set them all aside. To these rasikas it is neither loss nor gain, for their minds have crossed to the far shore of the secret of bhāva and they belong wholly to Śrī Rādhikā's Beloved. And one wonders aloud: could such a soul ever be truly judged, or matched, or even reached by the lightly-learned, by the outward-faced, or by anyone still wandering after his own desires? No, never. They walk among all people, and their inner state never trembles.
Verse 83. Enough of all this chatter about the senses; it is loathsome as ten million hells. The labor of reciting and dissecting the Vedas is wasted breath, and oneness with the formless Absolute is a thing that makes me tremble with fear. Let Śukadeva and the great sages grow drunk on the worship of the Supreme Lord if they wish; what is any of that to me? For me there is one prayer only: let my mind sink down and drown in the nectar of Śrī Rādhikā's lotus feet.
Verse 84. Her beauty. The way ever-new youth is only now entering Her body. The arch and play of Her eyes, glance after glance. The wonder of Her breasts, brimming and dense with rasa. The honeyed red of Her bimba-fruit lips. Her gentle smile, Her voice, and the slow playful sway of Her walk. Not one of these can ever be forgotten of Śrī Rādhikā.
Verse 85. O Śrī Rādhe, young ladylove of the ever-new bowers of Vraja, when will You cast Your merciful glance upon me? I cling to one hope alone: that I might be granted the wonder of Your maidservice, that nectar so astonishing it floods every passing moment, the festival of love that Lakṣmī, Śuka, Nārada and the other great souls behold with amazement, and which each of the tender maidens of Vraja received by Your grace alone.
Verse 86. By Her boundless grace I am given the gift of serving Śrī Rādhā: I cradle and press Her lotus feet, the very treasury of all beauty, until She drifts down into sleep. And then, when shall I sit and feast, on and on, upon the leftover nectar of Her plate, sweeter than sweet because Mohana tasted it first and She tasted it after, until I am drowned in a joy that is fresh and new at every breath?
Verse 87. O Rādhe, suppose that out of Your own tenderness toward me You should one day send me to Your dearest one when His mood has turned wanton and greedy with longing. Then hear my resolve. Yes, I would glance at Him sidelong with a soft smile, and at that alone His body would thrill; yes, I would even hold Him close in a deep embrace until He grew faint with love. But through all of it, the only sweetness my heart would actually taste is the nectar of Your lotus feet, the joy of being Yours and serving none but You.
Verse 88. O Rādhe, every blue thing in the world is dear to You, for each one wears His name or His colour or His form. The dark fortnight of the moon that carries His name, kṛṣṇa-pakṣa; the fresh blue night-lotus; the black antelope called kṛṣṇasāra; the dark tamāla tree; the blue rain-swollen cloud; the Yamunā whose other name is Kṛṣṇā, dark in name and in water: all of these You love. So tell me, why have You turned Your face from Mohana alone, the enchanting dark-bodied one whom You adore in all His shadows? Speaking thus to coax the smile back to Your lips, when, O Rādhe, shall I at last see Your face break open in laughter, Your māna gone?
Verse 89. I hold in my heart the throng of young Vraja maidens who come running after Śrī Rādhā into the Rāsa night. The waves of their playful sidelong glances wash so far over the directions that the whole horizon turns blue-dark as the night-lotus; their swaying forms lend the sky a beauty like golden mountains rocking gently overhead; and wherever their feet are set down in the dance the earth blooms beneath them into open land-lotuses. By following Her their loveliness does not lessen but grows, a ring of moons about the one Moon, and the one who gives us this verse, watching from the rim as the least of handmaids, can only fold his hands and long to be allowed to see it.
Verse 90. O Rādhe, Your whole transcendental body is one shoreless ocean of rasa, the liquid sweetness of love for Kṛṣṇa. Your two eyes move through it like a pair of sweet fish that will not hold still, and Your breasts are like two ruddy cakravāka birds resting on a lake of nectar. O Surataraṅgiṇī, Gaṅgā of love-play, Your golden face is a lotus opening upon the river. O Swāminī, let even the bright spray flung from one wave of Your mercy come and meet in me.
Verse 91. May that wondrous, unnameable adolescent girl take me up, in some way I have no words for, into the play of Her grace. She is the crown-jewel of all beloved women, dearer than the astonishing consorts of the emperors of love, and She meets with Her own beloved, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. One drop of the moonlike luster on a single nail of Her lotus foot is the one wealth that millions of goddesses of fortune most crave. Her every limb blossoms in the deep, fathomless play and sweetness of a great ocean of passionate love, an ocean ever-swelling and free of every restraint. She is reachable by no one, not even Brahmā. O Kiśorī, color me with Your mercy, and accept me.
Verse 92. On the bank of the Yamunā, daughter of Mount Kalinda, there stands a little temple woven of mālatī vines, and into it Krishna has slipped, He who wears the garland of forest flowers. There His lovely play sets You all astir, O Rādhā, and from that play, at every single moment, an ocean of wonder-flavoured līlā breaks open afresh. You are that very ocean. O Rādhike, aim upon me the glowing, glittering wave of Your own mercy, and let it spread over me.
Verse 93. O daughter of Vṛṣabhānu, here is a wonder almost too sweet to utter: Kṛṣṇa Himself, the very Cupid of the Vṛndāvana forest, again and again coaxes and flatters Your maidservants, longing for nothing in all the worlds but the festival of Your indescribable grace. And from Your two lotus feet there pour, without ever ceasing, waves of dense, swelling, blissful love. To those feet, O Śrī Rādhe, I bow forever.
Verse 94. May these two syllables, Rā and Dhā, the wondrous name of Rādhā, dawn and shine within my heart. Spoken even once, they draw the Lord of Gokula to come running in an instant. Wherever love for this name awakens, every other prize the world chases, religion and wealth and pleasure and even liberation, suddenly looks small and worthless. This is the name that seals the great mantra which Mādhava Himself, even Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself, repeats forever with love. Let that astonishing name, "Rā-dhā," become manifest on my tongue.
Verse 95. On the bank of the Kālindī, hidden in a bower that is His own secret jewelled temple, Hari sits like the king of all yogīs, His eyes brimming with tears of love, lost in meditation upon the radiance streaming from Rādhā's lotus-feet. Drawn under by some wondrous, rising rapture of love, He mutters again and again the one Name He cannot put down. May that Name "Rādhā", these two syllables that are the supreme knowledge by which every longing of the heart is fulfilled, forever shine awake within my heart.
Verse 96. The nectar-name "Rādhā" is my very life. It is so rare a treasure that the gods in their heavens, the steady devotees, the liberated souls, and even Kṛṣṇa's own cowherd friends never quite reach it. Spoken aloud with love, it pours out the very flavor of prema, rasa, and ānanda, and it gives the greatest joy. And the most astonishing thing of all: Śrī Hari Himself listens to this name with love, murmurs it under His breath, joyfully sings it aloud to the sakhīs, and stammers it out through the tears running down His face. That tearful, name-drunk Hari, and the nectar-name He weeps over, is my whole reason for breathing.
Verse 97. Let Her be dear to me: Śrī Rādhā, whose very name means "She who worships," and who worships Her beloved, the jewel of Braj, with festival after festival of ripened love. By taking shelter of Her, the girls who long to become Govinda's own companions reach their fulfillment. Her worship is itself the one supreme attainment, the single vessel that holds the highest treasure. May that flowering vine who crowns the very head of the Upaniṣads, She whose name is the act of loving, plant Her love in me.
Verse 98. I bow to that radiance whose very name is Rādhā. Her whole body flashes like millions of lightnings at once, and Her lovely face shines with a bliss that keeps widening and overflowing its own borders. Her lips are the red of fresh coral, Her hands are tender as new banyan leaves, Her twin breasts glow like the golden buds of lotuses, and Her eyes open wide and blue as lotus blossoms. I praise the sweetness of Her play in the new-grown bowers of Vraja.
Verse 99. May Śrī Rādhā guard us. Her teeth gleam like a freshly strung row of pearls, Her lips are red and full as ripe bimba-fruit, Her waist is slender while Her navel deepens into a whirlpool where ever-fresh rasa turns and turns, Her hips are full, and now that youth has dawned in Her She has become a swelling ocean of pure loveliness. She is the indescribable heart and very life of all the clever, artful loving girls of Braj. May this Rādhā, jewel of all ladyloves, protect us.
Verse 100. O Śrī Rādhe, the lovegame is finished and You stand fresh from it: Your hair glossy and curling and blue-black, loosened where Hari Himself undid the braid; Your bimba-red lips bruised and split where His teeth pressed them; Your moon-face faintly stained where kissed kohl was carried back onto Your cheek; Your eyes more restless and playful than the little wagtail birds, which they utterly defeat; a bright pearl swinging at the tip of Your nose; Your hips full, Your waist a slender thread, Your breasts of a roundness exceedingly wonderful; and Your soft creeper-arms ringed with lovely bangles. By these very marks the heart names You, ten ways of calling You. And yet none of this can be seized by word or eye. So I do not say I see You. I beg: O Rādhe, reveal Your own true form to me.
Verse 101. On the new theater-stage of Rādhā's youthful body a wondrous dance is about to begin. Over it hangs the curtain of Her bashfulness; across the boards She has strewn the flowers of Her smile in welcome; and the loveliness of Her youth is the spoken prologue that opens the play. King Cupid has climbed onto His golden throne, the curve of Her hips, and seated there he commands the performance. At his order the king of dancers steps from behind the curtain: Her playful sidelong glances, wonderful in their intricate art, dancing a tāṇḍava so skilled it enchants even Mohana, the enchanter of all.
Verse 102. That wonder of loveliness, that ever-fresh youth, that form which enchants the very one who beholds it; wave upon wave of playful, artful loveplay, a cleverness that becomes the very soil where astonishment grows; and in all of it not one contrived gesture, no breach, no formal praise, no offence, no stiff awe: such is the spontaneous, indescribable festival of love between Rādhā and Mādhava. May it watch over you all and keep you.
Verse 103. Will these eyes of mine ever fall upon Śrī Rādhā's lotus footprints in Vṛndāvana, those wondrous treasure-houses of rasa whose glory works such astonishment through the whole forest that even cloud-dark Mukunda, sweetness folded upon sweetness, the very form of bliss, wanders the paths searching for them with a love that is forever new, openhanded, and deep?
Verse 104. O Rādhe, when will my eyes be granted to follow, through a single slit in the leafy wall of the bower, how Śyāmasundara, the very crown-jewel of all who taste sweetness, draws You by force to the flower-couch, folds You into an embrace no words can hold, drinks the nectar of Your lips, marks the fullness of Your breasts with the keen tips of His nails, and then, holding both Your lotus-hands in His own, loosens the knot of Your garment while You strive to stay Him? When, Prāṇeśvarī, will this hidden seeing be given to one so small as me?
Verse 105. O Rādhe, will that blessed day ever dawn for me? A day when these two hands paint the indescribable leaf-pictures upon Your breasts, when these two feet hurry behind You as You slip through the groves to meet Your beloved, and when these two eyes drink in Your hidden love-play, peering through the little gaps in the leafy walls of the bower. When, O Rādhe, when will such an auspicious morning come to be?
Verse 106. O Śrī Rādhe, will You grant me the festival-taste of being made fit to render the smallest, tenderest services in Your bower: to sit near and hear the soft secret talk You share with Your utterly amorous beloved, to take You by the hand and lead You to the fresh flower-bed, and to gather up and rebind the braid that came loose in the clashes of Your love? When, Prāṇeśvarī, will You give me this taste of qualification to serve?
Verse 107. All glory to the Relishing Couple, Śrī Rādhā and Śyāmasundara, who play together in the ever-fresh, bliss-heaped bowers of Vṛndāvana, where swarms of honeybee-girls keep up their humming song. Richly arrayed for their games, lost in love's abundance, They toss a golden ball back and forth, gather it up, and hide and seek, teasing each other with the loveliest of laughter. Glory to that couple at their play.
Verse 108. O Rādhe, when will my eyes drink in this wondrous form of Yours? Your face outshines millions of autumn moons; Your braid is bound with a jasmine-garland whose fragrance sends whole hosts of bees mad with longing; Your conch-smooth neck blazes with its Graiveya-necklace; Your soft vine-like arms ring with shifting bangles; You are clothed in a two-piece silken dress; and from Your lotus feet the anklebells sing. When, O when, shall this servant behold all of it at once?
Verse 109. Fear, shyness, the honor of His house, His fame, His fortune: each is a chain meant to hold Krishna back, yet for love of You alone, O Radhe, He who lives among the sakhis snaps every one of them and comes to You. And when Your maidservant tells You so, in a voice trembling with feeling, a budlike smile breaks across Your face, Your longing for Mohana wakes again, and You ask over and over, "How? How was it?", thirsting to hear it once more. When, O my Ishvari, will that day come when I am the one who stands at Your side and answers Your laughing, eager questions?
Verse 110. O Śyāme, O Rādhe, picture us standing together in talk, Your kinkarī and You, when Śyāmasundara comes near with His coaxing, honeyed words and catches at the soft falling edge of Your fine cloth. You cry out "aho!" and turn Your eyes on me, half in feigned anger, as if to say, who is this bold boy, stop Him for Me. Then He takes Your tender vine-like arm and holds it with such reverent care, and at His touch You blossom and a garland of thrilled, standing hair adorns Your every limb, and Your whole form melts and merges into the very rasa You are made of. When, O when, will I be allowed to see You so, dissolved in nectar, and then to see Your smile break open after?
Verse 111. O sakhi, behold! Some incomparable crown of all who know how to taste is shining forth in Vṛndāvana, the one to whom tender adolescent love-play in the bowers with the ever-fresh ladylove of the groves is dearest of all, the one whose very joy is to bow, unhesitating and wholly humble, before Her girlfriends. When His beloved turns away in proud sulking, He makes a full and open festival of His obeisance to Her sakhīs, and at last He lays His own crowned head upon the rasa-drenched feet of His dearmost. May that festival-hearted Lord show me His mercy, and grant me too an unshakable place forever at those nectar-soaked feet of His beloved.
Verse 112. When, O when, will my Svāminī, my Rādhā, step into the indescribably sweet festival of the rāsa? Her sakhīs have adorned Her with wonderful, excellent ornaments, a blazing two-piece silk and a fine fitted blouse, with tilak and fragrance and flower garlands, until She is beauty past all telling. And though She Herself is mistress of every art, the One who has trained even us, Her maidservants, in all knowledge and skill, She is too lovesick to dress Herself now; so they ready Her, and then the supreme dancer among dancers enters the circle where Śyāma waits. The maidservant's whole prayer is hidden inside that question: when will Rādhā let us into Her festival?
Verse 113. Listen, O lover of Rādhā. In the great wonderful circle of the Rāsa, where jeweled girdle-bells, bangles, and anklets ring out their bliss, where the play of the divine couple has become a festival of sweetness, even there, though the strong arm of our beloved Kṛṣṇa is wrapped about our necks and draws us close, our eyes will not stay on Him. They turn down to the ground. When, oh when, shall we be granted to gaze only upon the auspicious footprint-marks pressed into the sand by the lotus-feet of our Raseśvarī, Śrī Rādhā, the Queen of all sweetness?
Verse 114. Let everything I have ever done be carried to Her feet: whatever joy my mind has known sinking into the cool lake of Govinda's stories, whatever days I have spent singing His glories, worshipping His form and dressing Him in his ornaments, and whatever boundless love I have poured upon those who are dear to Him. By all of it, may Śrī Rādhikā, the very life-breath beloved of Kṛṣṇa the cowherd prince, be pleased with me.
Verse 115. If only I might receive Her confidential, intimate service, the secret service of Śrī Rādhikā, daughter of Vṛṣabhānu the foremost of Vraja, She who is the very embodiment of perfect love-nectar, then what would I want with religious duties, or with the whole host of gods, or with Brahmā and Śaṅkara, or even, O wonder, with any effort to meet beloved dark Śyāma Himself? Once Her hidden service is mine, every other treasure has lost its purpose.
Verse 116. O moon-faced, doe-eyed Goddess, with Your lovely nose, Your red lips, Your sweet smile; O You whose arms are flowering vines, whose neck is graceful as a conch marked with three lines, whose breasts rise like golden mountains; slender of waist, generous of hip, Your thighs smooth as the plantain's pith, Your feet two lotuses crowned by the rising little moons of Your gleaming nails: O Rādhe, when, oh when, will the day come that I am allowed to worship and serve You?
Verse 117. When Mohan sees how steady and unfeigned my love is for Rādhā's lotus-feet, He is more delighted by it than by devotion offered straight to Himself. So He draws me close and embraces me, He kisses me, He gives me the betel from His own mouth, and He lifts the wild-flower garland from His neck to lay it round mine. When, O when, will the Enchanter treat this little servant so?
Verse 118. Her loveliness is the supreme wonder; Her skill in the arts of love astonishes even the master of those arts; Her glow is a wonder beyond telling; the play of Her walk is a wonder; the bend of Her sidelong glance is more wonderful than wonder itself; and Her quiet smile is a wonder again. O when will She, Śrī Rādhā, who is wonder taken on a body, give me the service whose very flavour is wonder?
Verse 119. O Śrī Rādhe, I remember Thy radiant face, brimming with all the bliss of the loving arts. Thy delicate eyebrows wander and dance, Thy lovely bimba-red lower lip quivers, and as Śyāma-sundara catches hold of Thy creeper-soft arm there breaks from Thy mouth a sweet small sound of protest. Outwardly Thou art ruffled with feigned anger in the play of love, while the crown-jewel of all relishers gazes and keeps gazing upon Thee with wonder and a tender fear. That face, that play, I hold forever in my heart.
Verse 120. O my mind, worship the radiance whose very name is Rādhā. The splendour of Her manifest crown makes the whole circle of directions shine, out to the rim of the horizon. Her armlets and bracelets, Her necklaces and bangles, a whole array of them, flash so brilliantly that they put the lustre of jewels to shame. At Her hips the little girdle-bells ring their soft jingling chorus, and on Her glorious lotus feet the anklets murmur their own lovely music. O mind, worship those lotus feet. Worship that living light called Rādhā.
Verse 121. She is the single jewel that crowns the whole circle of Vraja's loveliest daughters, outshining them all in beauty, love, and grace; Her body breaks out into goosebumps of passionate love for dark Śyāma, and Her golden form takes on the saffron-vermilion glow of kuṅkuma where it meets His blue. Restless with the intoxicating delight of love-play, smiling Her soft slight smile, She comes into Her cottage-temple in the grove of wish-fulfilling Mandāra trees and seats Herself upon a jeweled throne. May this enthroned Queen of Govinda, Govinda-paṭṭeśvarī, protect me.
Verse 122. O my Mistress, O Adhīśvarī: Your lotus feet are worshipped by all the young girls of Vraja, and the festival of Your emotions cannot be fathomed even by the greatest of souls. Those feet are the dwelling-place of bottomless rasa. Grant me, I beg, only this: the sweet and shining duty of serving them.
Verse 123. O Rādhike, when, when will these eyes be given this one sight: Your moon-bright face gently lowered, the slow luster of Your sidelong glance moving beneath a veil that lets only a little of its splendor through, as You rest Your limbs upon Kṛṣṇa's and the two of You pass beyond every boundary of love's play. A bud-like cluster of Your curls has fallen across Your eyes, and I, unseen, steal close and with my fingertips lift that little blossom of hair aside, so that Your Lover may behold Your face again. You startle, and turn upon me one wide, trembling glance; and that, O Prāṇeśvarī, is the whole of what Your hidden maidservant lives to see.
Verse 124. The full moon is a poor and paltry thing beside Her. Even one atom of a single ray of the radiance that streams from Her incomparable moon-face, the very root of all relishable bliss, makes the night's full moon seem worthless. Upon Her rosy lips She holds an ocean of fresh nectar, the distilled essence of all sweetness. May this Rādhā, the life-giver of Madhupati who grows distraught when His desires are thwarted, be pleased with us.
Verse 125. O Rādhe, suppose not one moon but countless wondrous full moons rose all at once, and suppose each poured out its love-nectar light in wave upon wave until millions upon millions of universes brimmed over with that radiance. Even then, here at the border of Vṛndāvana's flowering bowers, all that shining would be only a faint semblance of Your face. I cannot truly weigh it; only with a feeling, only by bhāva, do I dare lay Your face beside the moon at all.
Verse 126. May She shine forth in us: Śrī Rādhā, who dwells at the foot of a wish-granting tree on the bank of the Yamunā, the very root from which every bright loving pastime springs. Forever She is found in Vṛndāvana, most present and yet most secret, adored through the inward mood of the cowherd-maidens, Lalitā and Her companions. From Her lotus feet, set within the heart-lotus of those who love Her, a sweet stream of nectar pours and never stops. She is the form of densest bliss, the goddess of fortune of love that is sweet and not merely reverent, ever-new and undimmed. May She, and no lesser fortune, arise within these hearts and never fade.
Verse 127. O when will Śrī Rādhā anoint me, pour over my head the deep and condensed nectar-flood of Her own service? She is the single, shoreless ocean of pure-love play, and so total is Her love that even seated upon Her Beloved's very lap She trembles with the dread of losing Him. She is the living form of plentiful, matchless mercy and affection and sweetness; the loveliness of Her feet is worshipped by millions of Her heart-dear girlfriends, and by Mādhava Himself, who waves the ārati of His very life-breaths before them. When, O when, will She sprinkle this lowly one into the deathless nectar of being Her maidservant?
Verse 128. When, oh when, will Śrī Rādhā, the Queen of Vṛndāvana, in Her mercy alone grant me Her service? Always, on the borders of the bowers of Vṛndā's forest, She is lost in a festival of Her own joy, drinking the wondrous honey of Mādhava's lips until She is drunk on it. This service of Hers is unattainable even for Govinda's own dear ones and unseen even by the whole circle of Her sakhīs; and for it, by grace and never by right, my whole heart aches.
Verse 129. I lift my eyes and behold the living light whose very name is Rādhā: a radiance like millions of fresh lightning-flashes, made wholly of love's festival. Her lovely braid is bound with a wreath of jasmine; a bright stripe of vermilion runs along the parting of Her hair; on Her broad brow rests a wondrous tilaka coloured with nine jewels; earrings make Her cheeks rejoice; a gold medallion and a generous garland grace Her throat; She is wrapped in new dawn-red silk. To see Her is the very fulfilment of being alive.
Verse 130. All glory to Śrī Rādhā, who stands at the outermost edge of everything fine. She is the only limit of love's bliss, the limit of rasa's highest wonder and astonishing variety, the only limit of beauty, the limit of an indescribable fresh-youthful form and grace, the limit of sweet pastime, the limit of self-giving generosity and tender motherly love toward Her own, the limit of all happiness, and the last sweetness of love's own art. Wherever the heart goes searching for "the most," it arrives at Her and can go no farther.
Verse 131. From the tender, beautiful toenails of Śrī Rādhā there blazes a soft moonlight, and a single drop of its loveliness is the very life of the whole circle of Vraja's dark-eyed gopīs. She is pure love at play, made visible; in Her, sweetness keeps unfolding more and ever more; and She alone is strong enough to bear the full flooding stream of the sweetness that is Kṛṣṇa's play. That Rādhikā, She and no other, is my refuge.
Verse 132. By the Yamunā in the finest bower of Vṛndāvana, some indescribably beautiful young Couple delight in one another. Soft of movement and sweetly wearied by Their wondrous love-play, set fast and rapt in the very greatest mellow, They are cooled by the dew the wind carries in from the river to ease Their fatigue, while swarms of nectar-laden bees hum all around the blossoming grove of Vraja.
Verse 133. In the groves of Vṛndāvana there shines an indescribable pair of lights, the very root of supreme bliss. They are like two open lotuses, one blue and one golden, swaying together in love's own play, and as They sway the honey of their amorous game trickles down; from Their lotus feet, too, a fresh nectar of ever-new rasa keeps streaming. No words can hold what this Couple is. They simply blaze there in Vṛndāvana, the source from which all joy grows.
Verse 134. When, oh when, will it be granted to me to serve Śrī Rādhā and Mādhava in Their own bower-home: sometimes offering Them betel, sometimes gently pressing Their feet, sometimes adorning Them with garlands and ornaments, sometimes fanning Them softly, and sometimes setting to Their lips a camphor-scented, nectar-sweet draught to drink? When, certainly, will such service ever be mine?
Verse 135. All glories to Śrī Rādhā, the one hidden treasure who reigns above all. From Her every limb a blazing nectar of amorous love comes pouring forth; She is the single shoreless ocean filled with prema and nothing else, the lone nectar-ocean of loveliness whose elegance has no equal in any world, and the deep sea that holds the very essence of great, tender, motherly grace. She is the ground on which youth's first sweetness rises into a whole kingdom of delight, a certain secret great jewel from whom the very oceans flow, the final limit and crown of all rasa, supremely victorious.
Verse 136. From a single flash of light leaping off the jewel-bright nails of Her toes, millions of vast oceans of deep, sweet love-nectar swell and play. If that Rādhā ever lets Her merciful glance fall upon me, even once, then liberation, and every splendor this world holds, and every splendor of the spiritual realms besides, all turn paltry and worthless in my eyes.
Verse 137. When, O when, will I go wandering through the ever-new bowers of sweet Vrindavan, those groves that pour out the sweetest of all sweet bliss, hunting for the play-cottage of my Pranesvari, the beloved Mistress of my Lord? And when will the streaming honey-wine that flows in overflowing waves from Sri Radha's lotus feet wash over my mind, my little bee of a mind, and make it reel and stagger, drunk and unsteady, maddened with love?
Verse 138. When will I wander the winding lanes of Rādhā's play-bowers with Her name breaking from my mouth, crying out "Rādhe, Rādhe"; living the one supreme duty that befits Her, my true maidservant-self, and living it with relish and not with duty's dryness; tending Her lotus feet with every loving offering, Tulasī and flowers and incense and cooling perfume, joy spilling over with each; and so walking an astonishing walk that rises above even the crown of the Vedas? Every clause is a question, never a boast: when, O when, will that blessed day be mine?
Verse 139. When, oh when, will I be blessed to hear the soft chiming of Rādhā and Mādhava's anklets and the ringing of Their bell-strung girdles, as They recline together upon the couch within a leafy cottage deep in the secret grove? They have come there only after a hundred goings and comings, a hundred searchings and waitings; and now, gazing upon each other's moon-bright faces, the boundless oceans of Their love swell and overflow on either side, and Their wondrous, divine play begins. To stand near enough to hear that anklet-music: this alone is the whole of the prayer.
Verse 140. Aho! When, O when, will this clever Couple, indescribable in Their blue and golden glow, the Enchanters of all the worlds, eager for the honey-festival beneath the sweet canopy of mādhavī blossoms and drunk on the rising joy of a mutual love that grows ever firmer, take this mind of mine and madden it with Their rapture forever?
Verse 141. May my tongue grow faint and helpless with longing, greedy only to taste the nectar of Śrī Rādhā's name. May my feet wander nowhere but the lanes of Vṛndāvana that wear the imprint of Her lotus-feet. May my hands do only Her work, and may my heart meditate on Her lovely feet, on Her whole form, Her pastimes, Her qualities. And out of that festival of Her bhāva, the overflowing celebration of Her mood, may a supreme love arise in me for the Lord of Her life, Her own Prāṇanātha.
Verse 142. There is a loving ecstasy that streams from Mukunda's two spotless, beautiful lotus feet, a bliss so intoxicating that even Śiva, the moon-crested lord, and the other great gods are made mad by it; it is the very root of all divine frenzy. Yet may my mind set even that aside as the lesser thing, and rejoice here instead, rocked by the restless waves of the nectar-ocean that is the telling of Rādhā's love-play, on the excellent terrace of a bower-temple deep in the forest of Vṛndāvana.
Verse 143. Day after day, let one thing be your whole work: the name of Rādhā, heard and sung on your lips. Beside that single name, millions of the kingliest disciplines fall away as things to be set down, and when you worship the nectar of Her lotus feet, even the truest and highest goals a soul can hold, liberation and the rest, are poured out at Her feet like an offering. That is why, on the playground of Her feet, which is Vṛndāvana itself, millions of wish-granting trees forever flourish, lavishing fruit and flower unasked; and at the feet of Her handmaidens, millions of wondrous mystic powers lie rolling in the dust, uncared for, not one of them so much as glanced at.
Verse 144. All glory to the ever-fresh adolescent Couple in the bower. From the countless small movements They make to each other, the lift of a brow, the dance of a glance, flows the nectar of unceasing love, rising in high waves until They are stirred inside and out, body and heart alike. Their eyes roll, drunk on each other, and there in the hidden grove Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa weave wonder after wonder of love's tender arts, and in this play They reach the very summit of all sweetness.
Verse 145. In a temple of fresh new flowering vines in Vṛndāvana there abides a certain young Girl, held so fast in the proud, strong arms of Nanda's Son that Her whole body has gone slack and still, unable to stir. And even so, motionless in His embrace, She goes on shaping endless wonders of love, art after wondrous art of rasa. She is condensed bliss, the nectar of flavor made thick and whole, love itself given a form you could embrace: She is the Kiśorī of Vṛndāvana.
Verse 146. Here is one who has given his whole heart, with firm certainty, to the rasa that is Rādhā and the bhāva that is Kṛṣṇa, the Jewel of Vraja, worshipping Them in a hidden, solitary place. He no longer knows, nor even wishes to know, the world and its customs, nor the whole body of the Vedas, nor the long succession of family and lineage, nor even the measured conduct of the saints. And aho, what a wonder: though he keeps none of the usual marks, his standing is not ordinary at all. His course is extraordinary, a secret road that does not run by the common way.
Verse 147. Some preach that the bliss of oneness with brahman is the only truth worth speaking. Some go mad with the joy of praising the Supreme Lord. Others taste a matchless, topmost sweetness in being Govinda's friend or His kin. But for the handmaids of Śrī Rādhā, the whole astonishment of joy, its very essence and its outermost edge, is reached in even a single ray of light flashing from the jewel-like nails of Her lotus feet.
Verse 148. What passes in secret between Rādhā and Madhupati is hidden even from Brahmā and the gods, hidden from the great devotees of Hari, hidden from Kṛṣṇa's own dear companions and from all who stand near Him. And still, O my heart, you nurse a hope you cannot govern: that by becoming the maidservant of these Two, you might one day behold, with the very eyes of the heart, that ever-thickening sweetness of Their play, that love-sport which only deepens and deepens without end.
Verse 149. On the petal-strewn bed in the bower, after love, Śyāma turns to Her and prays aloud: "O dark-bloomed Śyāme, O ever-beloved, O clever one, O dearest, You who are the very ocean of rasa, let My attachment to You grow firmer and firmer, again and again." And Rādhā, a soft smile rising on Her lips, answers: "O My Ramaṇa, those very words were already resting in My heart for You." May this smiling Rādhā, caught forever in that exchange, play and shine within my mind.
Verse 150. O may that youthful Pair, two ever-blissful living lights aglow in the best of Vṛndāvan's freshest vine-temples, the very wonder-play of love itself and maddened by Cupid's own sweetness, pacify the dreadful blaze of my worldly existence with the cool honey that drips from Their own lotus feet.
Verse 151. O Rādhe, fresh jasmine-blossoms shining in the heavy braid of Your hair, the little bells of Your sash murmuring softly upon Your full hips, sweet anklets ringing at Your feet, armlets and bangles flashing along Your slender vine-like arms, Your breasts like the buds of golden lotuses: when, oh when, will my thirsting eyes drink at last the nectar of beholding You?
Verse 152. O Śrī Rādhe, full-blown golden lotus that You are, You rest in the lap of Your Beloved, Your shining golden lotus-face open, Your whole body swaying and restless in an indescribable way, as though lifted and rocked on the towering waves of a boundless, swelling ocean of nectar, the nectar of love that has overflowed every bound. When, O Svāminī, will You grant this sight as a gift to the eyes of us, Your sakhīs?
Verse 153. Will the day ever come, O Rādhe, when You speak with me in a talk so tender that from each single syllable an incomparable ocean of love pours out? Every word would fall into the waiting cups of my ears like a shower of nectar: drenched in rasa, soft and true, soothing me to the depths, cooler than any coolness, and giving the very highest bliss. Such a talk no tongue can describe, and for it alone I long.
Verse 154. O Śrī Rādhe, the moment a soul tastes even once the nectar of Your holy name, Madhupati, Krishna Himself, drowned in love for You, no longer counts that soul's countless faults, not even the offenses laid against the saints. Instead He turns the matter over in His heart, weighing what to bestow in return: the supreme gift, Your own personal service. And so, O Rādhe, who could ever touch the limit of the glory of one whose whole mind rests on nothing but serving You?
Verse 155. When, O when will Śrī Rādhā, so tender toward Her maidservants, draw me close and slip into my mouth that indescribable morsel of betel, folded over fresh cloves and a breath of cooling camphor, the very piece that came out of Her beloved's moon-bright mouth, while She first savors it Herself and Her cheeks rise into a dense crowd of goosebumps from the joy and the camphor's coolness?
Verse 156. May that one indescribable Jewel among all young maidens grant me Her service. She is a boundless treasure of nectarean beauty, wondrous in the great and elegant arts of love-play; Her sidelong glances flash with a luster that defeats the lovely play of the Yamunā's dark waves; She is the very condensed form of loving bliss, blossoming into millions of tender, varied arts of amorous delight, so that all other great līlās of loveliness are but a single fragment of Her. O Kiśorī-maṇi, jewel of all girls, please bestow on me, of all things, Your service.
Verse 157. When, O when, shall these eyes behold that golden radiance who shines like the campaka blossom: Śrī Rādhā robed in the softest crimson silk, Her braid bound with a lovely garland of fresh spring jasmine, Her broad and beautiful hips encircled by a bright, speaking belt of little bells? When shall I be allowed to drink in that light?
Verse 158. When, oh when, will I be allowed to serve Her? Picture the Rāsa: Madhupati, the honey-lord, shining bright in the very center, and around Him the ring of sakhīs gathered close like a glittering bangle. There, with Her happy-hearted Beloved, my Svāminī Rādhā dances the dances She Herself invented, taught by no one, and the whole grove is mad with love, every pastime wondrous past telling. And I, one small servant, lifting a fan to cool Her glowing face, slipping fresh betel-leaves and fragrant areca into Her moving hands. When will that mercy be mine?
Verse 159. When, oh when, will I be allowed to wait upon Śrī Rādhā in that most lovely Rāsa dance? Her silken garment streams wide as She turns and fragrant powder drifts through the whole circle; Her love unfolds to its very limit; She smiles Her ever-so-sweet, sweet smile; Her divine ornaments flash and chime; and She lays Her soft, rope-like arm upon the shoulder of Her Beloved, a shoulder thrilling into gooseflesh at Her touch, while His arm binds Her in return. When will I be let near enough to serve that supremely tender sweetness?
Verse 160. Imagine a golden lotus brimming with the light of a million moons, ever-fresh honey trickling without end from its petals, and upon it a pair of restless wagtails at play. Even such a flower, the very home of beauty, could not earn the right to serve the sweetness of Śrī Rādhā's smiling face.
Verse 161. O Rādhike, when at last will my eyes behold the moon of Your face: that face which puts the very moon to shame and makes it useless, which at every instant pours forth ever-fresh moonbeams that are the choicest essence of sweetness, whose tide of moonlight swells the whole ocean of rasa, which is the one cooling nectar-drink for the two cakora-bird eyes of Hari that drink and drink and are never filled, and which rose, not from any sea of milk, but from the shoreless ocean of transcendental rasa itself?
Verse 162. Look at Her, this Rādhā: every limb and least limb of Her stirs and sways, and from each one pours an ocean of nectar-fame that is sweeter than the word sweet can hold. Her face shames the light of millions of moons, and Her eyes are restless, almost drunk, with love. She is wondrously tender, exquisitely graceful, and from Her love-play rise rivers that stream pure bliss and brim with the flavour of intimate love, flowing on without end. When, O when, will I be allowed to plunge into that streaming current of Her love?
Verse 163. O sakhi, when will that morning be mine? The long night of love is over, dawn breaks over the bower, and the clever she-parrot perches on a branch and prattles back, word for word, the teasing complaints Rādhā murmured to Her Beloved in the dark: "Why these sharp nails at my throat? I am no demon-king! Do not bruise my breast so. I am not the witch Pūtanā." And as I sweep the floor of Your secret play-grove at first light, sweet friend, when will I be near enough to overhear those very words flowing again from the parrot's tongue?
Verse 164. O let the splendor of Rādhā's lotus-feet shine within me always, whether I am awake, dreaming, or sunk in dreamless sleep; let me have no shelter and no destination other than Her, whether I am lifted into Vaikuṇṭha or cast down into hell; and wherever this body of mine may go, let my mind sway forever on the great waves of the nectar-ocean of Her pastimes, finding its only joy in the courtyard of a creeper-bower temple on the bank of the Yamunā, where She and Her Beloved play without ceasing.
Verse 165. On the bank of the Yamunā, inside a fresh little temple woven of new vines, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa rest upon the terrace after Their love-play, Their bodies drenched in the dew of effort, Their eyes drifting shut at the bliss of each other's touch. When, oh when, will I be the one to fan Them with a coolness beyond all comparison?
Verse 166. Aho! In Śrī Vṛndāvana the cleverest, loveliest jewel of all heroines and the crown of all who relish sweetness play Their endless games of pure, selfless love. One moment They sing sweet songs together; one moment They sway on a softly rocking jewelled swing; one moment a flower-scented breeze waits upon Them; one moment They are absorbed in the artful tenderness of love. This is the play of Śrī Priyājī and Śrī Lālajī, where love that lives only to gladden the Beloved spills over without ceasing.
Verse 167. This evening, at the very opening of night, Śyāma, the crown-jewel of all youthful boys, takes Rādhā by both hands and suddenly draws Her into a lonely Kadamba grove. There, upon a bed, the two are swept into a great surging flood of love, and from Her lips break the śītkāra, those small hissing cries that are blissful rebukes, scolding that is not scolding. Like waves they pour into Hari's ears. And the servant, waiting outside, asks only this: when will those sweet inarticulate shrieks, the cries that give Hari such joy, come to take shelter in the openings of my ears too?
Verse 168. O most beautiful Rādhe, now that sweet Yaśodā's son has crossed into His budding youth, You too, swept by the abundance of love and the rising tide of rasa, have ripened into that same tender season and grown lovely and fit for the meeting of hearts. Even as these coaxing words are spoken over You, little one, the age of the eternal pastimes enters You of itself, shining out of Your very appearing, naturally, all at once. Will that Kiśorī, Rādhikā in the first flower of Her youth, ever become visible to my longing eyes?
Verse 169. At the edge of a play-grove I gaze, and there They are: one shining like a golden campaka blossom, the other dark and soft as a rain-heavy cloud. Kṛṣṇa trembles with restless longing, leaning toward Her with sweet, coaxing, flattering words; Rādhā, full of proud refusal and its many graceful turns, will not yield on the outside, though within Her heart leans wholly toward Him. O what a Couple this is, who enchant even the enchanter. When, when will I be allowed to behold this supremely captivating Pair at Their eternal play within the bowers of Vṛndāvana?
Verse 170. In a hidden, lovely bower, swept up by the great surge of love, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa pour themselves into wondrous amorous play, by turns one leading and then the other. So lost are They to Themselves that They exchange Their new, indescribable garments without knowing it, His yellow cloth draping Her, Her blue cloth draping Him, until the two lights, one blue and one gold, meet and blaze together as a single wonder. All glory to that meeting radiance.
Verse 171. In beautiful Vṛndāvana, O my heart, remember the love-drunk Couple as They wander. In each hand a wondrous lotus turns, twirled round and round, each lotus spinning the other's mind. Their slender, vine-like arms rest upon each other's shoulders, and where the arms touch, the skin lifts into goosebumps of joy. Their soft laughter is itself a flavor, and They sway and step with the slow, grand, unhurried gait of stately elephants flushed with passion, making a hundred lovely gestures. Two relishers of love, walking the singing grove. O mind, simply remember Their beautiful gait.
Verse 172. I long for one thing alone: to be found worthy of serving the lotus-feet of Śrī Rādhā. For She is a vast ocean of nectar, the great love She bears for Śrī Hari, and in that sea Her innocent, playful eyes are the darting fishes, Her bright red lips the coral, Her broad hips a long island where the mad baby-elephants of Cupid roam, Her breasts the high frontal domes of those very elephants, and Her deep navel the great whirlpool of the waters, the whirlpool into which the boat of Kṛṣṇa's mind is forever drawn. To serve the lotus-feet that float upon this sea of love is the whole of my prayer.
Verse 173. Even the faintest semblance of parting, lasting less than a single moment, leaves Their limbs slack and Their whole being ablaze, as if millions of the fires that end an age were burning at once, outside and within. So tightly are They knotted together in deep mutual affection, these two wondrous forms made wholly of love. That sweet twin effulgence known in this world as Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava I know to be the supreme sweetness, and my own dearest refuge, the highest there is.
Verse 174. When at last the ever-fresh love-play within the bower has come to its rest, when, O when, shall I be the one to gather up Her braid, loosened in the sweet tumult, and bind it again? When shall I crawl through the kuñja to find the new pearls that broke and scattered, and string them once more? When shall I draw afresh the musk-tilaka upon Her brow, the mark Her own perspiration has washed away? This is the whole of my longing: to serve Śrī Rādhā, the jewel among all the young maidens of Vraja, in the tender hour after love.
Verse 175. What can we say of any other place, when even Śrī Vaikuṇṭha, that abode whose very name means "without sorrow," grows dull and narrow beside this ground? For only Kṛṣṇa, the lord of all sweetness, truly knows Rādhā's sweetness, and only Rādhā truly knows His. And here is the wonder: Vṛndāvana, the nectar-ocean brimming with supreme rasa, foremost of all sweetnesses, has taken that one relishable Couple and given Them whole, given Them entire, into the keeping of Rādhā's own maidservants.
Verse 176. She comes like a river hurrying to the sea. Her bright face is the golden lotus afloat on the water, Her deep fresh navel the turning whirlpool, the curve of Her hips the shining banks, and the jingling bells at Her waist a singing flock along the shore. Only the purest love flows in Her, never one drop for Herself, and She is maddened with the single longing to pour into the ocean of Her rasika Beloved. All glory to this nameless, indescribable river of the gods who forever shines and triumphs in Vṛndāvana.
Verse 177. Behold the wonder: within a Mādhavī bower soft with the humming of bees, a divine blue light, drunk on the nectar of love's union and shaken even now by Cupid's ache, does not dim but swells the brighter. That light is Śyāma, and within His own blissful body, an ocean of nectar-joy, He holds Rādhikā, the river of ever-new amorous play, who flows into Him and makes Him brim past all fullness.
Verse 178. The fine dark line of down along Her body runs like the Yamunā, daughter of the sun; Her glow is red as the bandhūka blossom, that flower's own kin; every limb shines with the open gold of the champaka; Her navel is a lovely lake; Her breasts are clustered bouquets atop the creeper-vines of Her arms; and Her moving ornaments jingle like the murmur of bees. So Śrī Rādhā, a second Vṛndāvana made all of beauty, steals away the mind of Madhupati, the honey-lord who is Himself the bee of love's nectar.
Verse 179. When, O when, will I slip into the bower at first light to sweep it clean, and there upon the rumpled bed of leaves and flowers where Rādhā and Mādhava have just begun Their wonderful love-play, find the unguents fallen from Their bodies, sandal and saffron and musk, and anoint my own limbs with them? And when will I gather the garlands that snapped and dropped in the abandon of Their love, restring them flower by flower with my own hands, and wear them about my neck as my dearest ornament?
Verse 180. Sometimes my dear Mistress Rādhā teaches Her pet parrots verses inscribed with Her Beloved's glory; sometimes She strings for Him a lovely necklace of guñjā berries and weaves a crown of peacock-feathers; and sometimes, drawing His likeness, with a heart all in turmoil She presses that image to Her breasts as though to gather Him into an embrace. Thus, with these small labors of love, my Rādhā, the dear Queen of my heart, lets Her long day of separation wear away.
Verse 181. May Śrī Rādhā alone be my shelter: She who forever tastes the nectar of Her Beloved's company, who lives already inside the tryst still to come (the ever-new loving One), who sings the passion of the fifth note in Her play, from whom a hundred and more tender arts of love come pouring forth, whose heart melts into a stream of compassion, at whose waist the little sash of bells jingles softly, and from whose lotus feet the nectar of pure love forever streams.
Verse 182. Her smile shines like a million moons, and Her every word pours out fresh nectar that is new in each syllable. The twin golden pitchers of Her breasts shame the proudest vessels of gold into silence, for in them Kṛṣṇa hides the jewels of His every longing. She dwells in a wondrous village, Barsānā, and blossoms in festivals of love that are forever new, sporting in the bowers of Vṛndāvana. Will this enchantress of the grove become, again and again, the one delight of my heart?
Verse 183. O when will my dear sakhī, Śrī Rādhā, again and again relish the bit of betel left over from Her worship of Govinda, Her whole body breaking into goosebumps of joy, draped in a fine silken cloth that glows like the pollen-whorl of a freshly opened lotus, and turn to teach me Her own arts of song and dance? This is the maidservant's one ache: not to be admired, but to be trained by Her very hand for the service of Her love.
Verse 184. O Śrī Rādhike, I keep Your spotless face before me always: lips fresh and tender as new sprouts, glowing red with a jewel's deep fire, parting over a row of teeth that shine out like the finest pearls; fish-shaped Makara-earrings that swing and dangle at Your cheeks as You laugh and murmur to Your beloved; and the wide, startled, lovely corners of Your restless eyes that drink Him in and dart with sudden alarm. This whole face of Yours, free of every shadow, I remember.
Verse 185. O Śrī Rādhe, I hold the circle of Your face before my heart and meditate upon it. Restless, crooked curls tremble at its edges; Your wide forehead is graced with the sweet mark of tilaka; from the tip of Your nose a pearl hangs, light as a little sesame flower; and the whole face glistens like a moon of nectar with no stain in it at all. This face, so full of tender amorous love, is what I think upon and adore.
Verse 186. In the bowers of Vraja there shines a young Pair of lights beyond all telling, the very essence of supreme bliss and the distilled cream of all good fortune: brimming with the full nectar of love, overflowing in delight. From grove to grove They go, always inventing fresh and playful arts of love, and Their bodies steal the hidden glow of the blooming blue lotus and the blooming golden lotus. This indescribable Twin Radiance, the root from which the highest joy springs, does not wound the eye like the sun but soothes it, and it blazes softly forever in Vṛndāvana.
Verse 187. With even a fraction of one playful, half-opening sidelong glance, Śrī Rādhā binds the proud, rutting elephant of Vṛndāvana, Kṛṣṇa Himself, and controls Him like a tame pet who waits on Her smallest command. May that Rādhā loosen the pull of my ordinary life and ordinary moods, so that nothing remains in me but the longing to serve Her.
Verse 188. O Rādhike, my mistress, You are the great enchantress whose shining sweetness charms even Kṛṣṇa, the prince of Vraja's cowherds. From the corners of Your eyes a boundless ocean of the very essence of sweet feeling flows of its own accord; Your sidelong glances are wet and melting with compassion; Your softly smiling face is a lotus. With a cry of longing I beg You, hā hā Svāmini Rādhike, cast on me even one slight merciful look, and rest Your kind heart upon this unworthy one.
Verse 189. Picture Rādhā standing radiant at Her Beloved's side. The edges of Her lips are stained red, not with paint but with the betel Kṛṣṇa pressed into Her mouth as He kissed Her, His own chewed pān still warm on Her lips. In a high, clear voice She sings new songs of Her own making, fresh tunes and rhythms no one has heard, drawing them out on Her vīṇā named Citrabhaṅgī. Her neck tilts gently to one side; Her lovely eyebrows lift and curve and knit as She keeps the beat; and as She watches how Her singing delights Him, joy breaks over Her skin in great waves of bristling hairs. This is how Rādhā shines.
Verse 190. "Hey there, You prince of cheaters, why are You sidling up to our dearest heart's-friend? Stay back. Surely this tender young girl would swoon at the merest brush against the edge of Her breast." O Rādhe, when will I walk the road and speak words like these, casting away with a teasing gesture the rasika lover who follows close at Your heels, and so enchant the hearts of You both at once?
Verse 191. This is a prayer made of two longings. When, oh when, will I gather Rādhā's lotus feet and set them upon my heart, and let every petty rule and worldly errand of this world fall away forever? And when will Govinda, who is the giver of every joy, be so pleased with my loving service that He Himself draws this one near and offers to teach her the very arts of love? Yet, as the tradition unfolds it, the blessed maidservant does not seize that prize. She flees it, calling on Rādhā to save her, because her whole life is the service of Rādhā's feet and nothing else.
Verse 192. When, O when, will I be lucky enough to go to the gate of the bower and gently fan Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, the supreme taster of love? Their amorous play has been intense, and now Their limbs are weak and wonderfully beautiful, drenched in the sweat of that loving battle, Their clothes and ornaments loosened, Their unguents washed away. The maidservant who is allowed to stand close, to send the cool breeze over Them and dry Their sweat, counts herself the most fortunate girl alive. That is what is longed for here: not to be loved, but to serve the love.
Verse 193. Deep inside the secluded grove, on a soft bed of fresh flowers she has just gathered and spread, the divine Couple lie down together, locked in a close, intense embrace. Their love runs so high that Their vine-like arms break out in thick goosebumps, and Their eyes stay wide open, drinking the festival of joy, refusing to sleep lest They lose a single moment of holding each other. Watching this, the maidservant who has already fanned away Their tiredness now prays from her whole heart: when, oh when, will I be allowed to make my king and queen happy by pressing Their tender lotus-feet, and by all the small loving services that flow from there?
Verse 194. I carry in my heart a golden light I cannot truly name. Her eyes are reddish, drunk on love itself; the glow of Her body shames the pride of gold; She is forever eager to taste the sweetness of the highest love-play; and She is young, fresh, and full of graceful, playful movement. This light is Śrī Rādhā, and I keep Her within me.
Verse 195. Their eyes roll, soft and dizzy with the wine of love. Their bodies shine and tremble, swept up in a delight that feels brand new at every instant, too much to bear. No closeness is higher than this; They are matchless in the tender art of loving, and dearer to each other than life. As They hold one another tight, the two seem to wind into a single shape, a bracelet of molten gold and dark green emerald twisted into one ring. May that Couple shine forever in my heart.
Verse 196. Deep inside Vrindavana, hidden in a fresh new grove that closes around Them like a little house, a dark-and-fair couple shines. He is dark, wrapped in yellow; She is fair, wrapped in blue. The two are drowned in the taste of loving each other, and out of that love Their play keeps unfolding into endless beautiful shapes, each one enchanting everyone who sees it.
Verse 197. O Rādhe, daughter of Vṛṣabhānu, I am sitting here on the bank of the Yamunā, longing only to serve You. When will the day finally come when I may walk like a welcomed guest along the little pathways through the groves of Vṛndāvana, hoping at every step for Your service?
Verse 198. On the bank of the Yamunā, deep inside the flowering bowers, something shines that no word can hold. It is rasa itself, the nectar the heart longs for, gathered and pressed together until it took a shape. It is the bottomless storehouse of every wondrous love-pastime. That shining, unnameable fullness is called Rādhā, and She glows there without pause, rejoicing forever.
Verse 199. All glories to the queen of Vṛndāvana. She is love itself given a body; She is the spotless treasure drawn from the ocean of sweetness, and that ocean is Kṛṣṇa Himself; She is the very heart of all the clever, loving gopīs. There is none to describe Her, and She alone is supreme.
Verse 200. I bow to Hari, who is sweetness itself grown thick and given a form, love so condensed it stands before you and enchants. He is glad with a great festival of wondrous play, and on His head He wears a beautiful crown of peacock-feathers, that very crown now rolling in the dust at Rādhā's feet, where He has fallen to beg Her forgiveness.
Verse 201. When will I, singing over and over in the sweetest of sweet ways of Madhusūdana's wondrous, endless deeds that brim thick with the nectar of love, sweep clean His lovely bower of play and sprinkle it again and again with cool sandal-scented water, and so go under, drowned at last in the ocean of pure rasa? That is the one desire of my heart.
Verse 202. When will I be that fortunate girl who gets to see it: Śrī Rādhā's body shivering, every hair lifted in joy, Her whole form nothing but supremely sweet play, while wondrous, indescribable leaf-designs in musk are being painted upon Her breasts? O when will such luck be mine?
Verse 203. All glory to Śrī Rādhā, jewel of King Vṛṣabhānu's house, the very form of unending bliss and of love itself. At love's peak She is past all words: one moment a small sharp cry breaks from Her, the next moment Her whole body shakes, and then, with every hair on Her skin standing up, She calls softly, "Śyāma! Śyāma!" This is the greatest love, and out of it She pours the overwhelming taste of amorous joy upon Kṛṣṇa, the Cupid of Vṛndāvana, who receives what only She can give.
Verse 204. When will She give me Her service? She is the young girl of Vraja whose very body is condensed love made solid. Moonlight streams from the nails of Her feet, and any heart bathed in that light finds a sweet, astonishing devotion waking inside it. She is the one who steals the mind even of Kṛṣṇa, the prince of Gokul. So this last prayer asks: when will this Kiśorī grant me Her most confidential service, the crown-jewel and supreme secret of all the Vedas?
Verse 205. Her feet are painted with red lac, the design drawn by Hari's own hand with a fine brush, and He takes His time, lingering as long as He pleases. The cowherd girls of Vraja, skilled in every art of love, bow and praise these feet, for these feet are their very life. They shine in secret in the heart of the Upaniṣads, hidden so that a plain reading walks right past them. They are full of dancing play. This single pair of Rādhā's feet is my one and only refuge.
Verse 206. O Śrī Rādhā, You rain down thick, deep love-rasa; You are the great, ever-fresh sweetness newly blossoming, and the play that crowns the empire of that sweetness pours out of You as a billowing river of compassion. You are the bright, manifest snare that binds the deer-like heart of Kṛṣṇa, the moon of Vṛndāvana. O clever young heroine of the new groves, in this fresh grove-city I have been purchased outright; I am sold into the glad festivals of Your service.
Verse 207. "O Rādhike, when will I hide from Your cruel watchers the signs of the union You Yourself arranged with Your Beloved? I will say to them: my dear friend only went far off to gather flowers, and on the way the thorns scratched Her breasts, Her own streaming sweat washed the tilaka from Her brow, and the icy wind cracked and bruised Her tender lips. These are no marks of any forbidden love. So I will cover, with clever and innocent words, the meeting between You and the One You love most."
Verse 208. When will I be lucky enough to see it? Kṛṣṇa comes to Rādhā as a bee to a flower. He falls at Her lotus-feet again and again, unsteady, and drinks the nectar of Her smiling, moon-like face. Then, drunk on that sweetness, He reaches for Her the way a bee pries at a closed lotus-bud, certain there is more honey within, and with the very tips of His nails He scratches at the golden lotus-buds of Her breasts, longing to enter where the sweetness hides. The one who sings only longs to stand near enough to watch.
Verse 209. Oh, look: these are the very bowers. This is that same matchless ground where the Rāsa dance turns, and these are the caves of Govardhana, the hill that loves the play of love, where You unfold Your tender pastimes. Everything still stands here, exactly as it was. And yet, alas, alas, Śrī Rādhā is nowhere to be seen. O Queen of my life, when, oh when, will my heart break into a hundred pieces at the sight of all this without You?
Verse 210. O Rādhe, I wander through Vṛndāvana and stop, trembling, at a single grove. It happened here, in this very kuñja: here You of the enchanting form played Your fresh, ever-new arts of love, and here You, the very ocean of sweetness, danced together with Your dearest one. Remembering that nectar-wave of Your pastimes again and again, when will I come to live here in this land of Vṛndāvana, my whole heart shaking with wonder?
Verse 211. O Rādhe, on Your beautiful cherry-red lower lip shine countless oceans of fresh nectar-sweetness; from the corners of Your eyes fly countless fierce, wonderful flower-arrows of the love-god; in Your breasts rests the whole essence of intoxicating, blissful love-art beyond counting; and from Your lotus feet an endless, limitless stream of the nectar of love keeps pouring. The word "millions" rests on every line, not to be counted, but to say that Your sweetness has no floor and no edge and never runs dry.
Verse 212. Inside the bower, on a bed of flowers, Rādhā and the lord of sweetness lie asleep side by side, worn out from Their love. They are the very form of dense, blissful, nectar-love. I want to be the one kneeling at the foot of that bed, pressing Their soft lotus feet so gently They never even feel it. And when sleep finally overtakes me too, I want to slump down right there at the edge of the bed and doze off at Their feet.
Verse 213. My heart dwells in a bower on the bank of the Yamunā, where fresh waves of love-nectar pour endlessly from Śrī Rādhā's lotus feet, and there it holds a vast, generous, sweet mood of love. I long to serve, in my mind alone, that queen of the lovely woodland paths of Vṛndāvana: She who is grave and deep as the ocean yet carries one single, blazing passion for Her beloved, She who knows every art of love. When will the day come, O when, that I wait upon Her in pure inward service and forget every other thing?
Verse 214. Until I can see Him, the jewel among all lovers, resting in Rādhā's lap even for the space of one blink, or playing His sweet and tender games of love with Her, I have no peace. So when will the day come that grief casts me all at once into a sea of sorrow, and I faint clean away, and afterward mourn my own state for a long, long while, that I lay senseless and could not console Her in Her pain instead of breaking down myself?
Verse 215. O lotus-eyed Rādhā, why keep forbidding Him again and again? It is no use. Mere words will never stop this clever rascal from following You. So try something else: draw Your garment aside just a little and let Him glimpse the edge of Your breast. Then His tender heart will pour out through His own eyes, fall upon that beauty, and shatter to powder. That, and that alone, is how You will finally stop Him.
Verse 216. What use to us are the finest holy books, or even the paths they teach that great saints walk, if they say nothing of the glory-nectar of Śrī Rādhā, who is love itself, and nothing of love for Her? And what would I do with all the splendor of Vaikuṇṭha, even with its supreme goddess of fortune, if my Rādhā is not there? No. Let only this one sweet hope remain with me: to long for the soil of Vṛndāvana, Her playground, even after millions of births.
Verse 217. Rādhā, lost in love for Śyāma, says His name over and over: "Śyāma, Śyāma." The two syllables are sweeter than anything, and as She pauses and says them again, each time more tenderly than the last, big tears like a strand of pearls spill from Her wide eyes. The hair on Her body stands up with joy, and at every single moment, startled by the thought that He is almost here, She is a fresh wonder to behold. May that Rādhā protect us.
Verse 218. O my Praṇayini, O Rādhe: that enchanting prince of Vraja, the son of Nanda in all His beauty, falls at my feet, presses a single clean blade of grass between the tips of His teeth, and pours out helpless, coaxing words to me. He will not stop following me; everything He does is one endeavour, that I might arrange His meeting with You. And I am left trembling with my own distress. How, O Rādhe, am I even to lay His plea before You?
Verse 219. See the clever Couple at play in Vṛndāvana. In one place, with playful steps, They walk behind a pair of swans and copy their graceful gait. In another, Kṛṣṇa acts out a peacock dancing before its mate. In another, Rādhā holds Him the way a flowering vine wraps a tall, strong tree. So the witty pair, full of delight, wander and sport here in the land of Vṛndāvana.
Verse 220. A twin radiance shines forth in Vṛndāvana, the very root from which the sweetest love grows: two transcendental lights set side by side, whose beauty steals the splendour of the blue lotus and the golden lotus alike. They have come to the bank of the Yamunā, and its cool, fragrant breeze serves Them as They rest. They are made of deep, thick bliss, and Their love-play is forever new, never once the same. This Pair, sweeter than sweetness itself, blazes out as the birthplace of all love.
Verse 221. In Vṛndāvana a wonderfully clever Couple appears, and everything They do is play. Sometimes They teach Their pet parrots to recite sweet verses in sweet voices, so the birds can sing them back later and delight Them. Sometimes They clap Their hands and set the peacocks dancing. And sometimes They simply stand entwined, a golden vine wrapped around a dark Tamāla tree. Rādhā glowing gold and Kṛṣṇa deep blue, Their play is Their only treasure, and the whole forest blazes with Their delight.
Verse 222. O Śrī Rādhe, when You are trembling with fresh eagerness for another meeting with Kṛṣṇa, will I ever be made the full and fortunate servant whose every wish is granted: the one whose loving hands paint the dainty leaf-designs upon Your cheeks, line Your lotus eyes with kajal, redden Your bimba-fruit lips, brush saffron across Your breasts, and lay the bright red lac along the rows of Your toes?
Verse 223. A maidservant, brimming with playful daring, imagines teasing Krishna. "You lifted Govardhana once, with great effort, and only one hill on one hand. Yet here is Śrī Rādhā, who carries two golden mountains upon Her own body every single day, with no effort at all; and You go weak and afraid at the mere sight of them. So, prince of the cowherds, give up Your empty boasting." Then she turns, longing, to Rādhā Herself: "O daughter of Vṛṣabhānu, when will the blessed day come that I may stand close enough to joke like this with Your beloved?"
Verse 224. Aho! In the lovely courtyard of a hidden bower-house in Vrindavan, the ever-fresh young Couple, clever Rādhā and Her tribhaṅga Kṛṣṇa, throw open a whole festival of love's playful battle. Their waist-bells ring out like little drums announcing Cupid's victory; in the closeness of the play, nails and teeth leave their marks upon each other's breast. Neither will yield. See how this sweet contest swells and overflows there in the grove.
Verse 225. In King Vṛṣabhānu's house lives a wonderful girl, the very crown of all the young maidens: She is Rādhā. Playing among Her circle of sakhīs, She watches young couples trade shy, half-hidden glances, and from them She learns the dancing art of the eyes, initiating Her own gaze into that bashful play. Then, startled, She draws Her scarf over Her jewel-like breasts. In all of this Her heart is quietly reaching for nearness to Kṛṣṇa, the enchanter of the whole world: not to become the same as Him, but to meet Him.
Verse 226. Kṛṣṇa is speaking to Himself, already half-undone. Looking at Rādhā He marvels: these two round, shining places on Her breast madden My heart by the mere sight of them, and I cannot even guess what more they will do to Me. And She has not yet bent the bow of Her eyebrows, has not yet fitted and loosed the arrows of Her loving glances. When at last She pierces My heart with those, what will become of Me I truly do not know.
Verse 227. Kṛṣṇa, still trembling, turns to His cowherd friends and calls their names: Śrīdāma, Subala, Vṛṣabha, Stoka-Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna, and the rest. What did you see? He asks. My startled eyes could not even reach into the grove. Some nameless, dazzling goddess, whose beauty floods every world, has stood far off and from that distance stolen everything from your dearest friend.
Verse 228. The cowherd boys are pleading with Kṛṣṇa. They say: O Śyāmasundara, the cows have strayed far off, the day has burned down to its last quarter, and we ourselves are worn out and cannot stir. Your mother is sitting at the edge of the road, her eyes fixed on the path, watching for You to come home. And here, all at once, You have gone silent. You have sunk to the ground, Your eyes brimming with tears, Your face lowered and stricken. Seeing You fallen like this, we tell You truly: we no longer have any wish to hold on to our own lives.
Verse 229. The maidservant turns to Rādhā and pleads with Her. Wear that bright new pearl on the very tip of Your nose, the one that glows gold in its setting. Move the way only You can, in wave upon wave of playful, loving grace. O Rādhe, with the beauty of Your breasts, gently veiled by a wonderful jeweled bodice patterned with pictures, draw the heart of Kṛṣṇa, the jewel of all Vraja, until He cannot bear to be anywhere but at Your side.
Verse 230. See what love does to Rādhā. She has sworn three vows: never to look at Kṛṣṇa again, never to speak to Him again, never to touch Him again. Yet She keeps stealing long glances at Him from the corners of Her eyes. Though She has taken firm shelter of silence, out it bursts: "Go back to that other girl!" And though She has held tight to Her resolve never to touch Him, She seizes both His hands and pushes Him out of the bower. The maidservant who watches longs only for one thing: when will the day come that she gets to stand near and smile at how hard it is for Rādhā to hold on to Her wounded pride?
Verse 231. May He meet me, the crown-jewel of all who taste sweetness. He floats like a swan in the deep nectar-lake of Rādhā's heart. In His hand rests the bamboo flute, and at every moment it pours streams of nectar-music into the ear. A peacock feather sways on His head. He wears earrings and a string of fresh guñjā-berries that some loving gopī made for Him with her own hands. O let that one, the king of all lovers, come to me.
Verse 232. Out of nowhere He tugs at one young gopī's fresh sari; with His flute He brushes the braided hair of a second; a third He catches by the hand. And yet, always and forever, He lies fallen at the soles of Śrī Rādhā's lotus-feet, begging Her mercy. This is how He wanders the lanes of Vraja-pura, this crown-jewel of all great gallants.
Verse 233. I know this great rascal well. He steals the very heart of one girl; he lays his hand, startling her, upon the breast of another; with his flute he tugs the jasmine garland loose from the braid of a third bright-eyed one; he clasps the trembling, vine-soft arm of a fourth until her skin shivers with joy; he signals a fifth to slip away and meet him in a bower. And then, after every bit of it, he comes and rolls helpless at Rādhā's feet. Yes, I know him. The king of flirts, the great debauchee, and not one of his tricks succeeds where She is.
Verse 234. Sometimes Śrī Hari roams the woods of Vṛndāvana with His arm laid across the shoulder of His beloved Rādhā, the arm bristling all over with goosebumps of joy at Her touch, and He moves like a great elephant drunk on the wine of love. At other times the two of Them slip into a hidden bower humming with bees, and there, alone, He unfolds for Her the most wonderful arts of love that He has devised Himself. Aho, how Hari plays.
Verse 235. Let the running of the universe stand far off; Kṛṣṇa gives it no thought. He will not spare even a glance for great devotees like Nārada, He will not go out to meet dear friends like Śrīdāma, and He will not let even His own mother and father deepen their love for Him. One thing alone holds Him. Knowing Śrī Rādhā to be the single outer limit of all love, an unfathomable ocean whose very essence is the nectar of sweet rasa, the bee-Lord haunts the grove pathways night and day, worshiping the paths by which She may come.
Verse 236. There is a light beyond all telling, resting like a jewel upon Śrī Rādhā's heart. It is delicious and sweet, brimming with the juice of love, fed so full it can barely stir. It is as lovely as a whole cluster of blue lotus flowers, and there, in Vṛndāvana, this light quietly revels and rejoices. The light is Kṛṣṇa Himself, made into Her ornament by Her love.
Verse 237. Here is a radiance unlike any other, a light so supreme it sets fresh moonlight glowing. Among Her companions of wonderful golden hue, Rādhā stands like a jewel set among them, and the loveliness of Her body keeps swelling moment by moment. She is bright with strings of true, brilliant pearls. Shy, with Her head a little bowed, made sweeter still by a soft, proud smile, She delights in the play of love. By offering Her whole self away, this matchless beauty makes Acyuta, the Lord who never falls, completely glad; and in that very giving, She too is filled with joy.
Verse 238. Deep in the lovely cane-grove of Vṛndāvana there lives a supreme secret. Even Nārada, Brahmā, Śiva and Śukadeva, towering as they are, cannot reach it or fully perceive it. And this secret is not a place or a doctrine but a person: the one who alone knows how to steal the very heart of Kṛṣṇa.
Verse 239. How could I ever become fit for this one joy: to serve Rādhā and Mādhava in Their hidden grove, alone with Them, with nothing held back? Lakṣmī, the goddess of fortune, cannot so much as glimpse this service. Kṛṣṇa's own dear friends never attain it. Brahmā, Nārada, Śiva, Svāyambhuva Manu and the other mighty ones cannot even imagine their way in. It is won by one road only, by any means at all: the mood of the cowherd women of Vṛndāvana. May that festival of secret service to the Divine Couple somehow, someday, be mine.
Verse 240. O Śrī Rādhe, giver of all taste, my whole life rests on You alone. I keep this body alive on nothing but the blessed remnants of Your food; my ears hear only the stories of Your play; my mind remembers only the dust of Your lotus-feet; my feet wander only through Your bowers, which are my only home; my voice sings only Your divine qualities; my eyes rest only on Your form. With body, speech, and mind made spotless in Your service, I am one who has taken shelter in You, and in You alone.
Verse 241. Here the singer asks for nothing for himself except one thing: to be made fit to serve. He sees Śrī Rādhā as a single boundless ocean of love for Hari, and every feature of Her is a part of that water. Her two eyes are playful fishes darting in it; Her bright lips are its coral; Her heavy hips are an island in it; and roaming that island are Her breasts, like the proud temple-bulges of Cupid's baby elephants. Her deep navel is a swirling whirlpool, and Her lotus-feet float upon the surface. Gazing at all of this, his whole prayer is only this: let me be found worthy to wait upon Her lotus-feet.
Verse 242. In the hidden bowers of Vṛndāvana, Rādhā is so overcome by the surging weight of love that She can no longer hold Herself together, and out of that helplessness rises this single longing: when, O when, will my queen accept me as Her maidservant and put my hands to work in the love She bears for Kṛṣṇa, the Lord of Her very life? When will She teach me to wind the flower garlands, order me to grind the soft, soft sandal paste until it gleams, set me to shaping wonderful sweetballs, and send me to sweep the grove clean before He comes? The whole prayer asks for nothing but to be made useful inside Her love.
Verse 243. On the outskirts of Vṛndāvana, in a kuñja that is the very home of bliss, Śrī Rādhā plays in the lap of Her beloved Śyāma. Her eyes are deep, for they have risen up at once from the ocean of love and from the first dawn of Her fresh youth. Her lovely face shines like a young moon, lit by the cool nectar of Her soft smile and Her ever-shifting tender gestures. She is the treasure-house of love's play, and there She delights Him with the sweet, playful sports of rati.
Verse 244. All glory to Śrī Rādhā; may She forever be victorious. She is the treasure-house of pure, selfless love and its play, the treasure of fresh youthful beauty, the treasure of clever charm and the sweet bend of Her every limb, the treasure of overflowing loveliness. She is the treasure of the deepest rasa and of love's own play, the single nectar-ocean of all beauty, and the very all-in-all of Kṛṣṇa, the bee who can never have enough of Her.
Verse 245. May the soft smile of Śrī Rādhā protect us. After Their love, as They rest among fallen ornaments and flowers, Kṛṣṇa paints little leaf-designs on Rādhā's body and suddenly catches His own face mirrored in the golden brightness of Her breasts. He sees two lovely young boys there, glowing brighter than whole clusters of blue lotuses, and He is so utterly charmed by their beauty that He forgets Himself and pleads, "Who are these two boys shining on You? Their loveliness has stolen My mind. Make Me Your girlfriend, so that, as two young women together, we may each be held close by these two boys." Hearing Her bewildered Beloved, Rādhā only smiles. May that smile keep us safe.
Verse 246. O Śrī Rādhe! Even as You have only just come together with Your beloved in the festival of love, You glance at the Kaustubha gem on His chest and see a sweet form shining there. It is Your own reflection, but You take it for another girl pressed against Him. Grief and anger flood You at once. You slap His hand away, call Him "O upholder of morals" in bitter sarcasm and fling the word "impropriety" at Him, then walk out of the bower and pour the whole story to Your friends through Your tears. When will I be given to hear You tell it like that?
Verse 247. O Rādhe, when will I be allowed to gaze on the heavy braid of Your hair? It is strung with the finest great jewels and gathered with clusters of fresh flowers; it shines with the splendour of great emerald, so dark and glossy that it enchants darkness itself. To me it looks like a wonderful, perfect throne, the very seat where the king of love takes His place. Even Kṛṣṇa is held by it. When, when will these eyes simply see it?
Verse 248. O Rādhe, when will my eyes be blessed to see Your long braid? Here and there along its length it is studded with flowers, bound with a strand of jewels, hung with fragrant garlands of jasmine whose perfume lies thick upon it, and at its end sways a cluster of fine rubies. And this whole braid, this veṇī-chabi, is being arranged and held in the very hand of Śrī Hari Himself. When, O when, will I see it?
Verse 249. O Rādhe, look at the new golden forehead-chain resting upon the part of Your hair. Studded with lovely jewels and pearls, it shines where Your hair is divided into two, and as You move and speak it swings in a hundred wonderful little ways. Krishna Himself braided Your hair and then, coming round in front, hung this chain upon Your brow with His own hands. So it carries every sweet mood of love, and it fills the watching heart with boundless wonder. All-victorious it is, this little golden chain.
Verse 250. O Rādhe, the line of fresh vermilion that Śyāma has set in the part of Your hair seems to rise up and announce something to us. It declares that only a smooth, unbroken stream of love's own nectar is fit to part Your dark, lovely, curling hair in two. A tending friend gazes at that one red stripe against the black and reads inside it the whole secret of Your love.
Verse 251. O Rādhe, look at what His eyes have become. To the moon of Your face they are cakora birds, the birds that live on moonlight; to Your lotus feet they are bees drunk on the honey there; on the shore of Your hips they are the finest wagtails, never holding still; in the lake of Your love they are quivering fish; in the forest of Your delight they are wandering deer. Kṛṣṇa's two eyes have multiplied into five glad creatures, and every one of them lives on You alone.
Verse 252. Rādhā is seated in Kṛṣṇa's lap. Again and again He brushes His soft palms over Her cool limbs, limb by limb, and with each touch He sinks deeper into a pool of dense, sweet, nectar-bliss, as though drowning in love itself. Her eyes are lotus petals; She is love wearing a body. He gathers Her into a tight embrace, and that very embrace lifts Her lovely chin a little, so He kisses Her, and the kiss leaves Her trembling and stirred. May this lotus-eyed Rādhā, the very form of love, protect us.
Verse 253. Always singing, over and over, the sweeter-than-sweet glories of Śrī Rādhā, the dearest one; always telling the deeply blissful, ever-fresh, taste-giving stories of Rādhā's beloved Lord; always abiding, on and on, in the ever-new secret forest of Rādhā's love; always meditating, again and again, with a heart that has lost all hold of itself, on the nectar of Śrī Rādhā's feet, when shall I be made helpless this way?
Verse 254. May Rādhā protect us. Apart from Kṛṣṇa, She murmurs His name over and over, "Śyāma, Śyāma," and the two syllables pour nectar across Her tongue. Then in a single moment longing rises so high that She cries the name aloud and the hair lifts all over Her body. Nowhere can She rest; She is driven from every corner as if by a spell, passing the day in pain heaped on pain, begging the hours to end, even growing angry at the sun for refusing to set.
Verse 255. When will Śrī Rādhā gladden us as She passes the day? Sometimes She sings the glory of Her beloved's skill and prowess in love. Sometimes She falls quiet and dreams ahead, picturing the meetings with Him still to come. And sometimes, dazed and sweet beyond words, She prattles, "Enough now. Let go. Let go. It's no use." We long for the day She comes this way and fills our hearts with joy.
Verse 256. O Govinda, hear me. Śrī Rādhā is the crown-jewel of all the lovely brides of Vraja, and Her lotus feet are dearer to You than millions of Your own lives. Again and again, at every moment, I beg You, my supreme master: let Her accept me into Her service, a service whose flavor is wonderful and forever fresh and new.
Verse 257. I hold the young Kṛṣṇa in my heart and gaze on Him: His body glowing like a dark-blue lotus, a crown of peacock feathers in His hair, His garment shining like molten gold. I meditate on Him for one reason only, that blissful Rādhā, seeing it, may be pleased with me and grant me the one thing I long for: a place among Her maidservants, the rare seat that only the far-seeing ever reach.
Verse 258. This is the closing wish, spoken by one still walking the path. Let me forever hold in mind the One who wears a crown of peacock feathers; let me sing His name aloud without ceasing; let me serve His lotus feet day after day and quietly murmur His finest mantra. And through every one of these acts let me carry, as the single dearest treasure of my heart, one wish only: the service of Śrī Rādhā's feet. When, O when, by Her grace, will the great festival of the deepest love at last rise up in me?
Verse 259. O Śrī Rādhe, when will the day come that I am Your maidservant in deed: singing before You and Your Beloved the songs that praise both Your beauty and Your virtues, laying down in front of You lovely necklaces of guñjā berries and crowns of peacock feathers and every fitting ornament, and carrying to You the betel nuts, the garlands, and the fresh perfumes that Śyāmā-sakhī has sent, to gladden the two of You? When, having served, will I sink and drown in the cool rasa-lake of bliss that pours from the luster of the nails on Your lotus feet?
Verse 260. Where is Śrī Rādhā, who has gone so far beyond that even the Vedas cannot trace Her path? And where is Kṛṣṇa, who dwells alone in the secret place at Her heart, nestled between Her budding breasts? And where am I, a tiny, fallen creature, full of shameful deeds? Yet still Their name rises on my tongue. There is only one explanation: this is the greatness of Śrī Vṛndāvana.
Verse 261. When, O when, will I lay down this body here in Vṛndāvana and become a maidservant of Śrī Rādhā? She is love itself given a form, tender, made of every fresh feeling and the delicate artistry of rasa. I long to meditate on Her as She plays Her loving games with Kṛṣṇa, the crown of all who relish sweetness, and to dwell forever at Her lotus feet, where fragrance and sweetness reach their very limit.
Verse 262. O Yamunā, in your waters my one treasure, Śrī Rādhā, has played with Her beloved. O wonderful, divine trees and vines, blessed again and again by the touch of Her soft hands when She gathers your flowers for Him! O parrots of Her love-bower, who know every secret of Her love! O deer and peacocks of this grove! Bowing to you again and again, I beg you for your mercy.
Verse 263. This is that same Yamunā. Her water gleams like a fresh blue lotus newly opened. And look: she carries the saffron paste that slipped from Rādhā's rounded breasts while Rādhā lost Herself in play in these very waters, the saffron that gives the taste of a love beyond all comparing. O Kālindī, daughter of Mount Kalinda, may you forever wake and brighten this dull, clouded heart of mine.
Verse 264. Here in Vṛndāvana, that wondrous, glorious, sweet land, all beings gather; and even those who look cruel or sinful, the ones the pious would not care to be seen with or to speak to, I now see as they truly are. Looking past the mask, I find them lovely as the very kings of mystics, dense embodiments of bliss, single forms made of sweet rasa; and so my settled conviction is that every one of them is most worthy of my worship.
Verse 265. May the astonishing glory of Vṛndāvana rise up and shine within my heart. It is a place almost impossible to enter; its true sweet form becomes fully visible only to those who hold in their hearts the mood of a maidservant at Rādhā's feet, and it can never even be meditated upon without one touch of Her mercy. Yet it pours out the very essence of the ocean of nectar-love, even into one who is nothing but a vessel of sin like me. So I do not claim it; I beg for it.
Verse 266. "When will I live at last in pure, holy Vṛndāvana, that blazing, wonder-filled abode which is itself the witness of Rādhā's love-arts, my whole being made helpless and maddened by love alone? And there, holding within my inner eye the effulgent grove, when will I gaze openly upon my own tender, divine body, fashioned exactly for the service that grove asks of me?"
Verse 267. Wherever my own deeds carry me, whether down into some hell or up into the highest heaven, I ask for one thing only: let the love-groves of Śrī Rādhā stay shining inside my heart there. Let me not bargain for a better address; let me only keep, in any room I wake in, that one hidden circle where Rādhā, Her Beloved, Her companions, and all of Vṛndāvana abide. Whether the next birth is a punishment or a reward, let that picture travel with me and never go dark.
Verse 268. Where am I, with my foolish, clouded mind, and where is this rasa that is the one pure essence of supreme bliss, the very sweetness of Her holy Name? Yet these halting words of mine, dripping out of a real taste of Śrī Rādhā's lotus-feet, are fastened to the soft, glowing bowers in the great circle of Vṛndāvana, and they are lit, again and again, by the luster that streams from the toenails of Vṛṣabhānu's lovely daughter as She plays there.
Verse 269. O Śrī Rādhe, Your true glory is so vast that the Vedas, the wise, and even the Lord Himself keep searching for it and never find its end. I am naturally unfit for this work; I am a constant offender who has gone against the very path of the great saints. Yet by Your grace alone You made it natural for me to sing You in these verses. So now, O You whose eyes are wet and trembling with tears of love, You are my one and only hope: please grant me some measure of love, an indescribable prīti, as Your own mercy.
Verse 270. The poem is complete. Śrīpāda gives his book its name, "Rasa-Sudhā-Nidhi," an ocean of the nectar of rasa, and turns to the wise with a single invitation: if you truly long for a wonder-filled bliss, then take this praise of Śrī Rādhā and drink it, slowly, through the pitchers of your ears.