Rādhā’s Teaching to Yaśodā

This episode is told in the Brahma Vaivarta Mahā Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapters 110 and 111. After Bhagavān Kṛshṇa’s marriage to Rukmiṇī at Dvārakā, Nanda and Yaśodā go to Vṛndāvana. They find Rādhā in a deep viraha-samādhi (a trance of separation), and she does not know even familiar faces.

Rādhā comes back to awareness. She then gives Yaśodā a teaching on five kinds of jñāna (knowledge), on the meanings of eleven names of Kṛshṇa, and on who she herself is.

Yaśodā finds Rādhā (Chapter 110)

After the festivities of Rukmiṇī’s wedding were over, Nanda and Yaśodā went back from Mathurā to Vṛndāvana. They went straight to Rādhā’s āśrama and found her in a deep, unconscious state. She was lost in viraha. Her body was still but she was breathing, and her awareness was drawn far away from the ordinary world. She did not answer anyone who called her name or touched her.

Yaśodā, with a mother’s gentle authority, sat beside Rādhā and called her name again and again. Slowly Rādhā’s eyes opened. She looked at the faces around her without understanding, as if they were strangers. “Who are you?” she asked.

Yaśodā’s eyes filled with tears. She said who she was: “I am Yaśodā, Kṛshṇa’s mother. I have come to see you.” At the mention of Kṛshṇa’s name, something changed in Rādhā’s face.

Yaśodā comforted Rādhā: “Kṛshṇa is coming. When the śāpa of Śrīrāma is over, he will come to you. Bear this time with courage.”

The five kinds of jñāna (Chapter 111)

Moved by Yaśodā’s love, Rādhā began to teach. She spoke of five kinds of jñāna that shape spiritual understanding:

  1. Śāstrīya jñāna: knowledge that comes from the Vedas, Purāṇas and śāstras.
  2. Anubhava jñāna: knowledge from experience, born of one’s own tapas (austerity) and practice.
  3. Tarka jñāna: knowledge gained by reasoning.
  4. Sāṃsārika jñāna: worldly knowledge of material affairs.
  5. Bhaktyātmaka jñāna: knowledge that cannot be separated from bhakti, the love of Kṛshṇa.

Rādhā said that among these five, bhaktyātmaka jñāna is the highest: “The others without bhakti are dry rivers. They may carry water for a time, but they do not quench the final thirst of the ātmā. One who has bhaktyātmaka jñāna holds all other knowledge within that bhakti, as the ocean holds all rivers.”

The eleven names of Kṛshṇa (Chapter 111)

Rādhā then gave Yaśodā a teaching on the meanings of eleven names of Kṛshṇa, and urged her to chant them always:

  1. Rāma: he who fills all beings with ānanda (bliss), from the root rāmayati (causes delight).
  2. Nārāyaṇa: the eternal shelter (ayana) of all beings (the nāras, the souls). He is the one in whom all souls live and find rest.
  3. Ananta: the one who is without end, with no beginning, no middle and no end.
  4. Mukunda: the giver of mukti (liberation), who gives freedom from the cycle of birth and death.
  5. Madhusūdana: the slayer of the asura Madhu. He is also the one who destroys the madhu (honey) of worldly attachment.
  6. Kṛshṇa: he who attracts all. His beauty, his name and his qualities pull every being toward him without fail. The name comes from the root karshati (attracts).
  7. Keśava: the one with beautiful hair, and the slayer of the asura Keśī. He is also the lord of Brahmā (ka), Vishṇu (a) and Śiva (īśa).
  8. Kaṃsāri: the enemy of Kaṃsa, the destroyer of the pride that imprisons the ātmā.
  9. Hari: he who takes away (harati) all pāpa (sin), all sorrow and all bondage. He is the highest cleanser.
  10. Mādhava: the husband of Māyā (Mahālakshmī), or one born in the Yadu line of Madhu. He is also the lord of spring (the Mādhava ṛtu), whose coming ends the winter of saṃsāra.
  11. Vaikuṇṭha: the one without obstacle (kuṇṭha). He is the realm beyond all hindrance, and the lord of that realm.

Rādhā told Yaśodā: “Chanting these names once equals the puṇya of doing one thousand Aśvamedha yajñas. This is the highest sādhana for this age.”

Rādhā tells who she is (Chapter 111)

Then Rādhā spoke of herself:

“My name itself is a teaching. Rā holds within it all the worlds of Vishṇu. Rā is the syllable of Vishṇu’s cosmic realms. Dhā means Dhātṛ, the one who sustains, who holds up, who is the mother of all. I am from Goloka, the eternal, highest realm that is Kṛshṇa’s own dhāma (home). I am here on earth because of the śāpa of Sudāmā. That śāpa ordained my birth as Vṛshabhānu’s daughter, parted from my beloved. Kṛshṇa himself came to earth as Devakī’s son because of the same arrangement. My viraha is not suffering. It is the play of divine love acting itself out on the stage of the earth.”

Yaśodā listened with tears flowing freely. Her heart was opened by this teaching beyond anything she had known before.

Sources

  • Brahma Vaivarta Mahā Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 110 (Yaśodā finds Rādhā)
  • Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 111 (the five kinds of jñāna, the eleven names, Rādhā’s identity)