The Rādhāṣṭakams

First verse. I bow to her who is the cause that has no cause, the source out of which all sources flow. Before the universe, she. After the universe, she. In the gap between cycles, she alone, holding the seed.

Second verse. I bow to her who is Mūla-Prakṛti, the root of nature, from a fragment of whom Lakṣmī comes to keep wealth in the worlds, from a fragment of whom Sarasvatī comes to keep speech, from a fragment of whom Durgā comes to keep the gods unconquered.

Third verse. I bow to her who is the energy by which the absolute knows itself as joy. He is Brahman without her. With her he is the lover whose flute the cows answer and whose hand the gopis hold.

Fourth verse. I bow to her who became the bride of Govinda in the grove of tamāla trees, with the fire I myself kindled, with the mantras I myself recited. The wedding I attended was the wedding the universe has been arranging since before time.

Fifth verse. I bow to her who lives in Goloka above all heavens, where the cows do not age and the flowers do not fade, where the eight watches of the day return to each other like petals returning to a lotus.

Sixth verse. I bow to her who is also already in the heart of every being who has ever loved without asking why. Wherever there is love that does not measure, there she is, hidden like fragrance inside a closed flower.

Seventh verse. I bow to her by whose mercy alone Krishna can be approached. He is unreachable by Vedas, by sacrifice, by penance. Only her glance opens the door of him.

Eighth verse. I bow to her whose names I have not learned the half of. Whatever I have said is a fragment of a fragment. Let the fragment be accepted. Let me return to my lotus and to the work of making worlds.

First verse. I sing of her whose face outshines the autumn moon, whose eyes have the calm of two does at the edge of a forest pool, whose smile breaks the long fast of the seeker's heart.

Second verse. I sing of her whose dark hair is the night the cowherd boy walks into when he leaves his house and does not come back, whose forehead bears the saffron mark that is itself a small flame of Vraja.

Third verse. I sing of her whose voice when she calls his name is the only Vedic mantra the trees and the cows have ever heard and still remember.

Fourth verse. I sing of her who is herself the path and the destination, the discipline and the result, the question the seeker asks and the silence in which the question dissolves.

Fifth verse. I sing of her in whose presence the dualities the philosophers worry about lay themselves down to sleep. Subject and object, knower and known, lover and beloved: in the kunja they are one breath inhaled and exhaled.

Sixth verse. I sing of her whose grace is the first thing and the last thing. Without it no inquiry begins. Without it no inquiry ends. The Vedānta the wise have studied for sixty years opens at her glance in a moment.

Seventh verse. I sing of her who is the ocean of compassion that does not ask credentials. She does not test the seeker. She does not weigh the seeker's past. She is the mother who has been waiting for the child to look up.

Eighth verse. I sing of her whose eight verses, recited with simple attention, are themselves the eight petals of the heart-lotus opening. Recite them and the lotus opens. The one who lives inside the lotus is already there.

First verse. He says: I bow to my own life. The breath in my body is borrowed from her. The flute at my lips is borrowed from her. The cows behind me come because she has called them through me.

Second verse. I bow to the one whose footstep on the forest path I follow without knowing I am following. Where she has walked, the dust knows. The dust shows me where to walk next.

Third verse. I bow to the one who is Vṛndāvana itself. The trees of the forest are her body extended. The Yamunā is her presence flowing. I have not entered a forest. I have entered her.

Fourth verse. I bow to the one whose eight sakhīs are the eight directions of my own attention. Wherever I look, one of them is already there, having arranged what my eye is about to fall on.

Fifth verse. I bow to the one whose Rādhā Kuṇḍa is dearer to me than any of the seven oceans. Its water is one finger's width higher in honor than the Ganges. The fish in it are not fish. They are mañjarīs.

Sixth verse. I bow to the one who, when she pretends to be angry with me, makes the universe pause. The wind stops. The cows look up. The sakhīs hold their breath. I become the seeker she has trained me to become.

Seventh verse. I bow to the one who is the eight watches of the day made into a single woman. Morning is her waking. Noon is her play. Dusk is her dressing. Midnight is her secret. Each watch is one of her eight names.

Eighth verse. I bow to the one without whom I am only Brahman, formless and unreachable. With her I am Govinda, the one who can be loved and the one who loves back. I prefer the second. I have always preferred the second.

First verse. Rādhā and Krishna, the two who are one. Her name comes first because the lover comes before the beloved. Without her his name does not begin to mean anything.

Second verse. Rādhā and Krishna, seated together on the jeweled seat in the center of the kunja. Eight sakhīs around them. The seat is the heart of the disciple who has prepared the seat by years of remembrance.

Third verse. Rādhā and Krishna, neither older nor younger than the other. The ordinary world insists that the lover and the beloved are not equal. The Nimbārka rejects the insistence. They are equal. They have always been equal.

Fourth verse. Rādhā and Krishna, of whom she is the predominating energy and he the predominating energetic source. The two cannot be separated. To worship one alone is to misread both.

Fifth verse. Rādhā and Krishna, in whose presence the disciple does not ask for liberation. The disciple asks to be allowed to stand and look. To stand and look is itself liberation, and a liberation higher than the liberation the philosophers describe.

Sixth verse. Rādhā and Krishna, whose mercy is unconditional. The disciple does not earn it. The disciple receives it. Earning is for other relationships. This relationship is not earned.

Seventh verse. Rādhā and Krishna, whose names recited together are the mantra Nimbārka heard from Nārada at the bank of the Yamunā. The lineage descends from that recitation. Every disciple inherits it.

Eighth verse. Rādhā and Krishna, whose union the disciple does not interrupt. The disciple stands a little apart. The disciple offers garlands. The disciple is the youngest sister of the bride. The lineage is built of such younger sisters, generation after generation.

The eight verses move through familiar territory. Her grace as the only shelter. Her name as the only mantra the modern heart can remember. Her courtyard at Barsānā as the place the singer wants to die in. Her sakhīs as the only company worth keeping. Her glance as the only event worth waiting for. Her flute-player as the gift she gives, not the gift she keeps. Her recitation, eight verses long, as the only literature the singer has any use for. Her feet, finally, as the only destination.

What the modern hymn shows is that the form has stayed alive. Eight verses to Radha continue to be composed in Hindi, in Brajbhāṣā, in Bengali, in regional languages a pilgrim might not have heard. The Sanskrit Rādhāṣṭakams of the Padma and the Brahmavaivarta and the Garga gave the template. Every later century has built its own version on that template. The form, now, belongs to her. Whoever picks up a pen to praise her in eight verses is writing inside a tradition that Krishna himself, in the Padma, began.