Rāsa Krīḍā

The Rāsa Krīḍā is the great līlā (divine play) of Kṛshṇa in Vṛndāvana. On one night he danced the Rāsa with the gopīs, the cowherd women of Vṛndāvana, and the night stretched beyond ordinary time. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells this in the Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, in Chapters 28, 52 and 53. It names the sakhīs (the chief companions) who led the gopīs, tells of the first meeting of Kṛshṇa and Rādhā in the Rāsa Maṇḍala (the circle of the Rāsa dance), and explains the name Rādhā.

The night of Caitra Trayodaśī

The Rāsalīlā took place on the night of Caitra Śukla Trayodaśī. This is the thirteenth night of the bright half of the month of Caitra, when the moon moves toward its fullness. Vṛndāvana was full of fragrance. Jasmine and mālatī flowers were in bloom, the night breeze carried the scent of the kadamba tree, and the Yamunā shone like silver in the moonlight.

At the right hour Kṛshṇa played his veṇu (flute). The sound reached the heart of every gopī at the same moment. It took away every other thought and drew each one toward the forest.

In the wide open ground of Vṛndāvana, nine lakh (nine hundred thousand) Rāsa Maṇḍalas were formed. These were circles of dancers. By his yogamāyā (power of illusion and yoga), Kṛshṇa made many forms of himself and stood between every pair of gopīs, so that each gopī felt Kṛshṇa dancing beside her alone. The earth of Vṛndāvana became the most sacred ground in all the fourteen worlds.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28.

The thirty-three groups of sakhīs

Thirty-three chief sakhīs stood over the great gathering of gopīs. Each led many thousands of loving companions. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa names them with their groups.

Other sakhīs, each with her own group, complete the thirty-three. These sakhīs and their countless gopī companions formed the living circle of the Rāsalīlā.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28.

The divine witnesses

Gopīs were not the only ones who saw the Rāsalīlā. The greatest of the devas came with their śaktis to the edge of Vṛndāvana and watched with respect and wonder. They were:

• Śiva with Pārvatī
• Brahmā with Sarasvatī
• Dharma-Mūrti with his śakti
• Indra with Śacī
• Candra with Rohiṇī
• Agni with Svāhā
• Sūrya with Saṃjñā
• Manmatha (Kāma) with Rati

Each pair stood as a reflection of the eternal Purusha and Prakṛti. They watched the first Purusha play in his fullest play with his own Prakṛti-śaktis. None of them dared to enter the sacred circle. The Rāsa Maṇḍala was kept apart by the grace of Yogamāyā herself.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28.

The first meeting of Rādhā and Kṛshṇa

Rādhā and Kṛshṇa are eternally one, two aspects of a single reality. Their meeting in the Rāsa Maṇḍala, as if they were two separate beings, is told as the most moving moment of the whole event.

When Rādhā entered the Rāsa Maṇḍala and Kṛshṇa’s eyes fell on her, both were at once overcome with mūrcchā, a swoon of overwhelming ānanda (bliss). Kṛshṇa saw Rādhā as if for the first time in this form, and he felt the whole force of his own love gathered in one moment. Rādhā met Kṛshṇa’s eyes and was lost in a bliss too great for the body to hold. Both stood still for a moment, and then both fell into a divine swoon.

Kṛshṇa recovered first. He gently lifted Rādhā and carried her to the rati-gṛha (the bower of union) that Yogamāyā had prepared in the heart of Vṛndāvana. There, in the fragrant dark of the bower, the eternal union of Purusha and Prakṛti took place in its most private and sacred form.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28.

Jala-krīḍā in the Yamunā

After the first Rāsa dance, Kṛshṇa and the gopīs, led by Rādhā, went down to the Yamunā for jala-krīḍā (play in the water). The river received them with cool and fragrant currents under the moon.

In the joy of the water play, Rādhā’s love turned to playful boldness. She took Kṛshṇa’s veṇu from his hand and held it high, laughing. Then she caught the edge of his pītāmbara (yellow garment) and held it, teasing him while he tried to take it back.

The river Yamunā herself watched, and felt great good fortune to carry such a presence on her waters. The fish, the tortoises and the water birds all came close in delight.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28.

Sport across the thirty-three sacred forests

The Rāsalīlā did not take place in one spot. It went on through the thirty-three sacred forests (vana and upavana) of Vṛndāvana. Each forest had its own devatā (presiding power), its own fragrance and its own mood. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa names these forests:

Bhaṇḍīra, Śrī, Kadamba (Bṛndāvana), Kunda, Campaka, Nimba, Madhu, Jambīra, Nārikela, Pūga, Kadala, Badarī, Bilva, Nāraṅga, Aśvattha, Vaṃśa, Dādima, Mandāra, Tola, Cūta, Ketakī, Aśoka, Kharjūra, Āmrataka, Jambū, Śālaka, Kaṭaka, Padma (the lotus forest), Jājī, Nyagrodha and Śrīkhaṇḍa, and more. Each forest gave its own setting for one part of the divine play.

Kṛshṇa and Rādhā, with the gopīs, played in these forests for thirty days and thirty nights of divine time. Each night of Vṛndāvana equals a Brahma-kalpa in the outer world, and the whole span was folded into a single night as the gopīs knew it. They felt no tiredness, no hunger and no sense of passing time. This is the power of Yogamāyā: she stretches a moment into eternity for those who are lost in the presence of Kṛshṇa.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28.

Garva-bhaṅga, the breaking of pride

As the Rāsalīlā went on, some of the gopīs were overwhelmed by the beauty of Kṛshṇa’s attention and by how close he was to them. They began to feel garva (pride). Each felt, in her own way, that she was special and that Kṛshṇa’s grace was hers alone.

Kṛshṇa sees every state of the heart. For each case of garva he made a fitting līlā that broke the pride without lessening the love. In some cases he left the gopī’s side for a moment. In others he turned his attention openly to Rādhā. In others he asked the proud gopī a gentle question that showed her the nature of her attachment.

This is the garva-bhaṅga (breaking of pride) part of the Rāsalīlā.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 52.

Rādhā’s pranaya-kopa

Even Rādhā, the highest of the gopīs, once felt pranaya-kopa, the pique of deep love. This is not common jealousy or anger. It belongs to the highest stage of madhura-bhakti (devotion in the mood of sweet love). It is the beloved’s brief pulling back that comes from the strength of love itself, which cannot rest when it sees the beloved’s attention turned elsewhere.

When Rādhā’s pranaya-kopa arose, Kṛshṇa answered with complete and loving tenderness. He came to her and praised her beauty in verse. He spoke of how helpless he was before her grace. He told her that every act of his, even his seeming to attend to other gopīs, was in the end for her place as queen of his heart. After this the two came together again, and the account says their union was deeper and finer than before.

The Purāṇa teaches that those whose hearts cannot feel pranaya-kopa have not yet reached the depth of love in which such storms arise. The Purāṇa does not present the kopa as a fault in Rādhā. It is part of the highest love.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 52.

The thirty-six chief sakhīs as rāgas

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, in the chapters on the Rāsa, says that the thirty-six chief sakhīs of the Rāsa Maṇḍala are the thirty-six principal rāgas of Indian classical music (saṃgīta).

The teaching is given in the setting of the Rāsa itself. When Kṛshṇa played his veṇu during the Rāsa, the thirty-six main melodic forms (rāgas and rāgiṇīs) that are found in all music came out of that flute-song and returned to it. Each sakhī, in her own nature, is one rāga, a particular mood of the heart that is both a form of divine love and a form of cosmic sound. Together the thirty-six sakhīs make a complete circle of sound that matches the Rāsa Maṇḍala.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 52.

The meaning of the name Rādhā

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa gives a full explanation of the name Rādhā (rādhā-nāma-māhātmya, the greatness of the name Rādhā).

The name Rādhā (Rā-dhā) holds the first sound-seed (bīja) from which the whole Rāsa arises. “Rā” (रा) stands for the shining, creating power, the giving side of the supreme Śakti. “Dhā” (धा) stands for the side that sustains and holds. She holds the whole universe within herself as a mother holds a child. So Rādhā is the one who gives and holds all existence, the Śakti without whom Paramātmā Kṛshṇa has no creative expression.

The Purāṇa teaches further that to chant the name Rādhā is to chant the name that holds Kṛshṇa within it, for Rādhā is Kṛshṇa’s own hlādinī-śakti, his power of joy, in person. The call “Rādhe” (the form used when speaking to her) is declared the highest and most direct way to reach Kṛshṇa, because Kṛshṇa himself answers at once to the name of the one he loves most. The Purāṇa also teaches that Kṛshṇa is more pleased by the ārādhanā of Rādhā than by direct ārādhanā of himself. Rādhā is his own happiness, and to please Rādhā is to please Kṛshṇa at the deepest level.

The name is also explained as rādhyate yayā kṛshṇaḥ, which means “she by whom Kṛshṇa is pleased, approached and honoured”. Rādhā is therefore both the highest devotee and the one who is honoured with devotion. She is the Śakti who approaches the Śaktimān, and she is also his own bliss given a form.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 53.

The fruit of hearing the Rāsa account

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa gives the phala (fruit) of hearing the Rāsalīlā. Whoever listens to or reads this account with pure devotion and śraddhā (faith) will be freed from the cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra) within seven more births at most. Hearing the account of the Rāsa destroys the karma gathered over countless past lives and purifies the subtle body. It also plants the bhāva (feeling) of the gopīs in the heart of the listener. Even saying aloud the names of the sakhīs and their gopīs, Suśīla, Candramukhī, Mādhavī and the rest, gives the puṇya (merit) of a tīrtha-yātrā (pilgrimage) to all the sacred rivers.

The account ends by saying that Vṛndāvana itself, the ground where the Rāsa took place, is for ever filled with that event. Those who do parikramā (a walk around the sacred place) of Vṛndāvana with bhāva, chanting the name of Rādhā, move through a living circle that acts out the Rāsa again with every step.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 53.

Sources

• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28 (the night of the Rāsa, the sakhīs, the witnesses, the first meeting, the water play, the forests)
• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 52 (garva-bhaṅga, pranaya-kopa, the sakhīs as rāgas)
• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 53 (the name Rādhā, the fruit of hearing)