Bhramara Gīta
Bhramara Gīta · bhramara-gīta, “the song to the bee”
The Bhramara Gīta, “the song to the bee”, is the speech of one gopī of Gokula to a bhramara, a bee, which she took to be a messenger sent by Śrī Kṛshṇa. Śuka Maharshi tells it to Parīkshit in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 47, when Uddhava came from Mathurā to Gokula with Śrī Kṛshṇa’s sandeśa. The gopīs, whose minds, speech and bodies were offered to Govinda alone, set aside before Śrī Kṛshṇa’s messenger all the reserve of worldly conduct, and one of them, meditating on her union with Śrī Kṛshṇa, poured out to the bee the love of separation: his garland bears the kuṅkuma of the women of Mathurā; he gave the nectar of his lips once and left; Lakshmī Devī herself serves the dust of his feet; for his sake they gave up children, husbands and the next world; and yet, she says, they cannot give up talk of his līlās. She ends by asking whether the son of Nanda remembers them, and when he will place his fragrant arm on their heads. The text does not name her.
The setting
Uddhava, the follower of Śrī Kṛshṇa, came to Gokula in a yellow garment and a garland of lotuses, his dress and ornaments like those of Śrī Kṛshṇa himself. The gopīs gathered round him asking who he was, and knowing that he had brought the sandeśa of Śrī Kṛshṇa, Lakshmīpati, the husband of Lakshmī, they seated him in a secluded place and honoured him with bashful smiles, sweet words and arghya. “We know you are the follower of Yādavaprabhu, the master of the Yādavas,” they said, “and that he has sent you to give joy to his mother and father. Apart from them we see nothing in Gokula that he would remember.” Friendship with those who are not kin, they said, lasts only until its purpose is served, as with bees and flowers: birds leave a tree whose fruit has fallen, guests leave a house once they have eaten, animals leave a burnt forest. Remembering again and again the dear līlās that Śrī Kṛshṇa had done from his childhood up to the age of ten, they sang them, cast off shame and wept.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 47
The gīta
One gopī, meditating on her union with Śrī Kṛshṇa, saw a bee. She imagined it was a messenger sent by her beloved, and spoke to it. The text counts no verses; her speech falls into ten parts, in this order.
- “O bee, you are the servant of that wily Śrī Kṛshṇa. The kuṅkuma from the breast of a rival, rubbed onto his garland of forest flowers, has stuck to your whiskers. Do not touch our feet with them. Śrī Kṛshṇa, master of Mathurā, wears the kuṅkuma that is the prasāda of the city women of Mathurā, and he will be laughed at in the assembly of the Yādavas. For such a one you are just the right messenger.”
- “You drink the honey and leave the flowers, and Śrī Kṛshṇa is just like you. Once only he made us drink the nectar of his lips, and at once he left us. How does Lakshmī Devī serve such a one? Perhaps her mind was stolen by the praises of Nārada and the others, who call him the one of holy fame.”
- “Why do you chatter so much about the master of the Yādavas before us who live in the forest? He is old to us. That friend of Arjuna now has new companions, the young women of Mathurā. Go and sing his tale to them; he has taken the sorrow from their hearts, and they will give you whatever you ask.”
- “What woman in svarga, on the earth or in Pātāla would not yield to his lovely smile and the arch of his brows? Lakshmī Devī herself serves the dust of his feet; what are we to him? Yet he bears the title Uttamaśloka, ‘the one of great fame’, and that title is true only for one who shows compassion to the afflicted.”
- “O bee, stop your false humility and let go of my foot that is on your head. You have learned this messenger-work and these sweet words from Śrī Kṛshṇa. He is fickle-minded. For his sake we gave up our children, our husbands and even the next world, and he has left us in this Bṛndāvana. What would we gain by making peace with him?”
- “In the Rāma avatāra this one killed Vālī, king of the vānaras, from hiding, like a hunter. Under the sway of one woman, he had another who loved him, Śūrpaṇakhā, disfigured. Like a crow he accepted the pūjā and offerings of Mahābali and then had him bound with nooses. So let us have no more friendship with this dark one. But we cannot give up talk of his līlās.”
- “The līlās of his avatāras are nectar to the ears. One who tastes even one drop of it even once has his attachment to pleasure and pain washed away. Such people no longer fit into worldly life; they leave their homes and their wretched families and live without comfort, begging like birds.”
- “O messenger, the does, beloveds of the black buck, hear the song of the hunter, take it for true and fall into his net. So we too believed his words to be true, and have seen this state many times. By the touch of his fingernails our love grew, and we have known only pain. Enough, enough! Tell some other news.”
- The bee had flown off and come back, and she spoke to it again: “O friend, you are Śrī Kṛshṇa’s dear friend, are you not? Have you come back, sent by my beloved? Ask for whatever you wish; to honour you is my dharma. Will you now take us to Śrī Kṛshṇa? He is already paired; he cannot leave his partner, O Priyadarśana, for Lakshmī Devī lives with him always on his chest.”
- “O Priyadarśana, is the son of the revered Nanda now staying in Mathurā? Does he remember his father’s house, his kin, the cowherds? Does he ever speak of us, his servant-women? When will he place on our heads his arm, fragrant with aguru?”
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 47
What followed
Seeing their longing, Uddhava consoled the gopīs. “You are fulfilled,” he said, “and the worlds will worship you, for your minds are offered wholly to Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa. Bhakti for him arises when dāna, vratas, tapas, homa, japa, Vedic study and restraint of the senses have ripened, yet you have given him the very highest bhakti, which even munis cannot reach.” Then he gave them Śrī Kṛshṇa’s sandeśa, in which Śrī Kṛshṇa said that he is the ātmā of all and is never separate from them; that he was far from their eyes only so that they would meditate on him unceasingly; and that by remembering him alone at all times they would soon attain him.
By the words of the sandeśa the burning pain of the gopīs’ separation went away. Knowing that Śrī Kṛshṇa’s svarūpa is beyond the senses and is the ātmā, they worshipped Uddhava, and he stayed in Gokula for some months, singing the līlās of Śrī Kṛshṇa. Before he left he bowed to the gopīs and sang a gīti in their praise: the love of these gopīs is set firmly on Govinda, the ātmā of all, and only their birth on earth is truly fruitful; even Lakshmī Devī did not receive the grace they received in the Rāsa; and he prayed to be born as a bush, a creeper or a plant of Bṛndāvana that receives the dust of the gopīs’ feet.
The phala
Uddhava’s gīti closes with its own promise: the life of the gopīs is sung together with the līlās of Śrī Hari, and by that song the three worlds are made pure. “Again and again I bow to the dust of the feet of the gopīs of Nanda‘s Gokula.”
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 47
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 47