Singing Krishna: Sound Becomes Sight in Paramanand's Poetry

singingDkrishna

A. Whitney Sanford

Singing Krishna

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Singing Krishna Sound Becomes Sight in Paramānand’s Poetry

A. WHITNEY SANFORD

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2008 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Marilyn P. Semerad and Eileen Meehan Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Sanford, A. Whitney, 1961– Singing Krishna : sound becomes sight in Paramānand’s poetry / A. Whitney Sanford. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7914-7395-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Paramanandadasa, 1493–1584— Criticism and interpretation. 2. Krishna (Hindu deity) in literature. I. Title. PK1967.9.P36Z87 2008 891.4'312—dc22 2007025402 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

INTRODUCTION A Critical Perspective The Research Context The Experience of the Temple Situated Poetry: Sound Becoming Sight Plan for the Book: Following the Cycles

1 1 3 4 6 7

ONE

PARAMĀNAND’S POETIC WORLD About Paramānand’s Poetry Paramānand’s Poetic Environment Serving Krishna Synaesthesia, Metaphor, and Transformation

9 16 19 25 28

TWO

THE END OF THE NIGHT: POETRY, MEMORY, AND CULTURE Śayan: While Braj Sleeps Paramānand’s World Theater of Memory Man˙galā—Krishna Rises Śr.n˙gār—Ornamentation

33 33 35 42 51 58

v

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THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

KRISHNA’S MORNING GAMES: CREATING INTIMACY THROUGH TREACHERY Gvāl—Boyhood Play The Gopī’s Complaints to Yaśodā Mixed Bhāvas Shattered Boundaries and Spilled Milk: Metonymies of Love AFTERNOON: EXPERIENCING THE FOOD OF LOVE Rājbhog—A Lunchtime Tryst in the Forest Mahātmya: Separation during the Afternoon Watch Public and Private Līlā Utthāpan—Āvanī: Krishna’s Arrival in Braj Exemplars of Bhāva: The Cows and the Gopīs Bhog and Sandhyāratī—The Connoisseur of Rasa Eats and Goes to Bed NIGHT: PLAYING THE GAME OF LOVE Śayan Māna—Divine Jealousy The Sakhī’s Counsel to Rādhā about Her Sulking and Pride Setting the Stage: A Romantic Evening and the Beauty of the Lovers The Sakhī’s Warning The Sakhī’s Message to Krishna The Resolution of Māna Krishna’s Māna The Sakhī in Māna Poems AUTUMN TO SPRING: GOPĪS, BIRDS, AND THE MOON Śarad: The Autumn Full Moon Hemant: Vows of the Cold Winter Vasant: Spring and Holī

63 63 68 72 81

91 91 100 106 108 112 115 121 121 122 132 137 142 145 146 147

151 151 168 170

Contents SEVEN

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SUMMER—SEEING REALITY: THE SYNAESTHETIC TRANSFORMATION Grīs.ma: The Hot Season Vars.: The Rainy Season Back to the Beginning

173 173 179 184

Notes

189

Works Cited

195

Index

199

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Acknowledgments

This book project has taken many turns over the years, and I am grateful to those who have worked with me along the way. This book would not be possible without your insights, criticisms, and support: Robert Baird, Corinne Dempsey, Alan Entwistle, Kathleen Erndl, Nancy Falk, Maxine Grossman, Janet Krengel, Philip Lutgendorf, Rebecca Manring, Laurie Patton, Karen Piconi, Robin Rinehart, and Frederick Smith. The members of the Straw Dog reading group at Iowa State University provided a convivial atmosphere to discuss the material. I reserve a special appreciation for Tony K. Stewart, who helped me see the power of the poetic world. Christianna White’s excellent editorial skills polished the manuscript for this book, and my mistakes are solely my responsibility. I finally want to thank my parents, Mary and Charles Sanford, who have been with me on this project from beginning to end. Many people offered me much assistance and hospitality while I was doing research in India, including Shrivatsa Goswami and his family, Dr. Umesh Sharma, and Dr. C. B. Rawat. Many individuals associated with Sri Caitanya Prem Samsthan and Rādhāraman. Temple in Vrindavan were more than generous with their time. The research in India was made possible by a grant from the American Institute of Indian Studies. I would like to acknowledge that earlier treatments of this material have been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the Journal of Vaishnava Studies.

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Introduction

Paramānand is one of north India’s greatest medieval poets who sang in ritual service of Krishna, and the corpus of poetry attributed to him is sung in temples and homes across north India even today. This work explores how Paramānand’s poetry leads the devotee from this mundane world (laukik) to Krishna’s supramundane world (alaukik). This book progresses through the daily and annual cycles of poetry that depict Krishna’s life and that shape devotees’ lives in a manner that replicates the cycles that devotees hear in the poetry. Before moving to the explication of these cycles, however, the following sections of this introduction provide a critical perspective, the context within which the research took place, a description of the experience of Paramānand’s poetry in the temples, and a situated foundation for understanding the breadth and scope of Paramānand’s work.

A Critical Perspective Works such as Kenneth Bryant’s Poems to the Childhood God, John Hawley’s Sūr Dās: Poet, Singer, Saint, and Rupert Snell’s Eighty-Four Hymns of Hita Harivam.śa offer important and necessary work on the poetry and the relevant manuscript collections. These works are primarily situated historically and are important for establishing critical editions that will solve important issues of authorship and authenticity. They have been groundbreaking and have established a field in the realm of early languages and literatures in the Braj region. I suggest that the field would 1

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benefit from scholarship on Paramānand and his poetry, which represent an unbroken tradition of living poetry in the Braj region. Paramānand’s poetry offers a wealth of material for analysis, especially in the context of how the poetry influences the lives of modern Braj devotees who experience the sound of Paramānand’s lyrics every day, in cycles that stretch from the past through the present and on through perpetuity. On the six-kilometer pilgrimage road that circles Vrindavan, devotees and pilgrims sing poems as they walk barefoot on the very soil that Krishna’s feet touched thousands of years ago. Devotees stream to the city’s many temples and physically immerse themselves in the ritual practice that is critical to revealing the significance and meaning of Paramānand’s poetry. The physical landscape—replete with bird song, scents, and colors— reflects what devotees hear in Paramānand’s poems. This study reflects dual strategies of reading Paramānand’s poems and observing their performance in the ritual cycle in the temples. Every morning I read Paramānand’s poetry with a retired professor of aesthetics, Dr. C. B. Rawat. Dr. Rawat and I traveled throughout Braj and visited temples and pilgrimages sites, and through our extended discussions, I learned the aesthetics of Braj. Most evenings I sat in Rādhāraman. temple and listened to Vidur Malik and his family sing in service of Krishna. Hearing the poems in the context of ritual service is an essential aspect of their devotional function; there was clearly something significant in their role as practice. Hearing the poetry sung in the ritual cycle situated my reading in practice and provided the central focus for this study: exploring how hearing Paramānand’s poetry sung in its daily and annual cycles provides a portal between the devotees’ world and Krishna’s līlā. My interests lie in exploring how hearing the poetic cycles facilitates the devotee’s vision of Krishna’s līlā (activities) because this approach has much to tell us about how Paramānand’s poetry operates as a threshhold into Krishna’s world. To understand how this poetry functions as a threshhold, it was inevitable that my study of this poetry would take place in context. That is, I observed the poetry within its ritual cycles. Witnessing the experience of the poetry in practice was necessary for understanding the impact of the physical context and its relationship to the reception of the poetry. As I watched and listened, I became curious about the conflation—or arousal—of the senses in temple practice. The sensual and the physical realms are important because they are the tools through which the devotee can access Krishna’s realm. This is important

Introduction

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because the experience of the poetry is embodied, and the poetry itself is deeply sensual. Paramānand’s sophisticated literary techniques engage listeners through their senses and guide the devotees to a heightened perception of Krishna. In fact, the poetry conflates the senses so that, for example, hearing the poetry leads to a vision of Krishna’s world. The sensual images of Krishna’s world are mirrored in the sensual experience of the poetry, and the devotees’ experiences of the poetry mirror that of the poet. The effect is reflexive and relies on the body, as not only the means to experience Krishna’s world but also the means by which to serve Krishna. As we shall see, however, this sensual experience is not profane or worldly but is rendered sacred or otherworldly because it is directed toward Krishna. These poems—engaging and often humorous—help devotees to homologize their lives to that of Krishna, which means, to the extent possible, living their lives as actors in this cosmic drama. Poems are sung in north Indian Vais.n.ava temples as a formal mode of worship but also less formally, for example, by women working in their homes and by crowds on pilgrimage. By the time they are adults, it is not unusual for individual devotees to have committed scores of Paramānand’s poems to memory. As is the case in any religious tradition, the majority of these devotees of Krishna have never studied theology, nor probably do they care to. Although many devotees use poetic anthologies, the primary medium of this poetry is oral, and in this oral/aural form they become the basis for much of the local understanding of Krishna and of the practice of his devotion.

The Research Context Over the time that I was observing the poetic cycle, I explored the concept of the “ideal listener.” This constructed ideal listener emerged from conversations with devotees in Vrindavan, India, who were steeped in the poetry, texts, and traditions of Krishna devotion. Devotees stressed to me that they saw Krishna’s activities as they saw, or took darśan of, Krishna’s image during sevā (ritual service). Such a devotee is well steeped in Braj verse and lore and can identify and understand the poetry in its rich context. This listener not only brings a rich understanding to the poetry but knows the poems by heart and can sing along. Paramānand, as well as

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other contemporary Braj poets, wrote for a similar audience of insiders whom I consider ideal listeners whose memories and thoughts are steeped in Braj lore, so they can decode the range of interrelated images in the poetry. Obviously there are no objective means to prove how the poetry transforms the thought patterns of the devotee. However, I can surmise that the experience of the poetry in the context of ritual practice operates upon the ideal listener in a dialectical process in which each hearing of the poetry leads to a deepening understanding of Krishna. While the concept of the ideal listener is an abstraction, my conception of this ideal is grounded in my observations of the poetic ritual cycle in Vrindavan, India. Over two year-long fieldwork periods and several shorter visits to India, I witnessed the entire annual ritual cycle. I sat in temples in Vrindavan and Nathdvara, the primary pilgrimage site for the Vallabh Sampradāy.

The Experience of the Temple While the poetic cycle is manifested throughout Braj, I situate this study in Rādhāraman. temple for several reasons. Rādhāraman. is a representative temple where singers perform great ranges of poems in its ritual service. Rādhāraman. (the one who sports with Rādhā) manifested himself to Gopal Bhatt Goswami (1503–1578) in 1542, and the descendants of Gopal Bhatt Goswami perform sevā for Krishna in Rādhāraman. temple. Gopal Bhatt Goswami was one of the six theologian Goswamis associated with Caitanya, who founded Gaud.īya Vais.n.avism, one of the two predominant devotional communities of the sixteenth century, the other being the Vallabh Sampradāy. While scholars and practitioners of this tradition link Paramānand with the Vallabh Sampradāy, his poetry is sung in temples across Braj, therefore I consider him a Braj poet whose poetry transcends sectarian lines. Devotees might sing devotional poetry to Krishna at any time, but it is important that the poems be appropriate to the time of day and year. Shrivatsa Goswami and the other descendents of Gopal Bhatt share responsibility for serving Krishna. Each family is accorded a certain amount of time per year to perform sevā. Devotees come for darśan of Krishna at each of these sevā periods, and the Goswamis perform the sevā rituals. Typically, at Rādhāraman., in the time before and during ritual service, singers and musicians sing poems that describe Krishna’s activities at that very

Introduction

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moment. There is no prescribed liturgy or preset order of poems; the poems are sung depending on the inspiration of the singers or, perhaps, in response to a request from the audience. Singers and accompanying musicians usually appear for the evening ritual period, the most well-attended period of the day. In the absence of musicians, devotees themselves sing— most devotees have accumulated a vast repertoire of these poems through hearing them repeatedly. Anyone who knows the poems can sing them, and visitors can join the musicians to offer song to Krishna. While I was on site in Rādhāraman., Vidur Malik and his family and students were frequent singers. The Malik family originated in Bihar and sang in the dhrupad style, a style of classical north Indian music in which a poem is set to an elaborate rāga. The Malik family had moved to Vrindavan and had trained singers from India and abroad in the dhrupad style. The group typically includes at least one vocalist and accompanying musicians playing the tabla (drums), a tambura (a drone instrument), and occasionally a flute or a sitar. The Maliks play a wide repertoire of devotional poetry, as do most of the musicians who visited. They sing poems about Krishna by Paramānand and the other As.t. achāp poets (the group with which Paramānand is affiliated) and also offer songs to Śiva and Rāma. While Paramānand and the As.t. achāp poets are linked with the Vallabh Sampradāy, the other major sixteenth-century devotional community, their poetry is well represented in the ritual service in the different devotional communities in Braj. This eclecticism is important because it demonstrates that temple singers choose those poets whose poetry bests reflects a view of Krishna’s world. That Paramānand’s poetry is frequently sung indicates that devotees appreciate his special way of illustrating Krishna’s world. In Rādhāraman. temple, the singers sit on a recessed area in the back of the temple. When they sing, they face forward, toward Krishna; after all, the poems are an offering to the deity. When devotees arrive in the temple, they first pay respects to Krishna; some prostrate themselves on the floor in front of Krishna, while others may simply touch their right hands to the temple threshold and then to their foreheads. Some perform a circumambulation of the temple then sit and listen to the singers. Some devotees join the singers near the back, and others stand on the floor or on the recessed areas on either side of the temple. All face Krishna. Observing devotees’ practices in the temple reiterated the significance of the physical context and showed how all the senses are engaged in devotional practice.

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The musicians play for up to an hour before the actual sevā begins. When the Goswamis open the curtain for darśan of Krishna, everyone in the temple rises and vies for a spot with the best view. Some continue their devotional songs for Krishna during darśan, but, at this point, the focus is on seeing Krishna himself. The actual period of darśan lasts approximately fifteen minutes. Some devotees catch sight of Krishna and leave, but most remain standing and gaze fixedly upon Krishna. Many devotees routinely bring binoculars so that they can catch nuances in Krishna’s dress and ornamentation. This intense focus on the images of Krishna reiterates to me that Krishna devotion is ultimately grounded in the body. While devotees gaze upon Krishna, the enlivened eyes of Krishna’s image also fall upon the devotee so that the process is dialectical and mutual.1 The Goswamis perform ritual offerings for Krishna and offer prasād (consecrated offerings) to those in the temple. After the Goswamis close the curtain, the temple slowly empties until the devotees’ next opportunity to see Krishna. This is the goal, after all: to see Krishna’s cosmic world.

Situated Poetry: Sound Becoming Sight Paramānand’s poems are situated in the context of Krishna’s ritual cycle. While this analysis targets the ideal listener as postulated above, real devotees hear—and see—the poems in a physical context, usually in a temple or home, that facilitates their entry into Krishna’s līlā. It is important to examine Paramānand’s literary techniques and strategies within the context of the ritual cycles, as the poetry is heard by Krishna devotees across north India. These cycles, of course, parallel the cycles of Krishna’s līlā and the resulting cycles of the poetry’s composition and transmission. The daily and annual cycles are essential to the creation and reception of the poetry, and it is important to present the book in this way because these cycles draw the reader into Krishna’s world in much the same way as Paramānand’s poetry entices devotees. The extended discussion of these cycles provides examples of how Paramānand’s metaphors shape the devotee’s darśan of Krishna and, most important, how his poetry ritually acts upon the devotee. For the most part, I have remained faithful to the presentation of poems as they appear in the collections, but poems often appear multiple times in a single collection or in different collections with

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different rāgas and under different subject headings and so can be used more than once, making them context dependent.

Plan for the Book: Following the Cycles This book is organized according to the daily and annual cycles of Paramānand’s poetry in service of Krishna, with each chapter opening with a poem that is representative of the particular cycles discussed in each chapter. Chapter 1 provides an overview and a brief history of Paramānand’s poesy. Chapters 2 through 5 take the reader through Krishna’s daily life, from sunrise to sunset. Chapters 6 and 7 illustrate selected seasons and festivals of the year through Paramānand’s eyes. Although there is not a cycle of poetry dedicated to the cycle of the moon itself, the waxing and the waning of the moon determines the timing of many monthly rituals, such as vrats (vows) and festivals. The lunar cycle regulates when, on any given day within the month, a poem should be sung, thus this cycle also has important poetic as well as experiential functions. Throughout any devotee’s lifetime, these cycles within cycles repeat in perpetuity. Potentially, with each repetition, the devotee may attain a deeper understanding and remembrance of Krishna’s games and hear the poetry with a more nuanced and sophisticated ear. Through Paramānand’s poetry, during sevā, when Krishna manifests himself through his image, devotees stand in the temple, listen to the poetry, and see Krishna.

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CHAPTER ONE

Paramānand’s Poetic World

Rāga—bilāval Mother Yaśodā arose in the morning and churned the milk. She lovingly took some fresh butter and put it in her son’s hand. She skimmed cream from the boiled milk and fed it affectionately to Krishna. (S134) To the casual observer, these lines by the great Vais.n.ava poet Paramānand might simply appear to portray the pastoral idyll of Vrindavan in which foster mother Yaśodā dotes upon her young son Krishna. But, to the devotee of Krishna, this seemingly simple passage opens a doorway to an entirely new, different world. This vignette evokes a rich sensual world: the smooth coolness of the butter placed in Krishna’s hand and the sweet taste of the cream that Krishna drinks. We cannot help but be enticed by the sensuality of this poem. As we shall see, the earthy and grounded language of the poetic cycle uses the senses to lead devotees to an etherealized experience of Krishna’s world. The language appears ordinary, grounded in physical experience, and accessible to anyone. However, Paramānand illustrates scenarios in ritual service for Krishna that lead us to wonder about the role of the resonant language in his poesy. This query leads us to the central question of this book: How does hearing Paramānand’s poetry in context serve as a portal between this world and Krishna’s divine world? 9

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It is important to know that sight and sound are privileged modes in the divine encounter in the Hindu tradition. To “see Krishna” or receive his darśan is a primary goal of the devotee and is a basic mode of communication between devotee and deity. Using sophisticated literary strategies, the author Paramānand deftly constructs a “vision” for the devotee through words. This is not an ordinary language but a language that can entice the devotee into a new realization of Krishna’s world through a conflation of the senses. In the most general terms, Paramānand induces the devotee to “see” through what he or she “hears.” The techniques are familiar: simple metaphoric tropes, symbolic substitutions, puns, and other word games are employed in ever-changing combinations, but clearly, deliberately, and systematically. In what follows, I will show how Paramānand’s tales employ these and other strategies to allow the devotee to take the experience of this physical world and “see through it” to another world. This other world is called alaukik, a supramundane world, a world that stretches beyond the human imagination to that of the gods, but if Paramānand is to be believed, that world is visible here and now to those who learn how to see it. The locus of activity shifts by overriding the traditional sensory fields of this-worldly experience, an act that prevents the devotee from taking this seemingly ordinary world for granted. Paramānand—or at least the poems attributed to him—helps the devotee to break through to that other world, to learn to see that other world inherent in the physical world. To understand just how this manifests requires us to look systematically at the tales as they are sung in the context of the daily and annual ritual cycles—for the tales are always in a cycle. And it is that cycle of tales, not just one or two occasional poems, that holds the key that will enable us to discover the ways these poems work to transform the devotee’s vision. A host of poems bear the name of the sixteenth-century Indian poet Paramānand, many of which are undoubtedly his. That many additional poems are attributed and accepted as his suggests that authorship is not the real issue but, rather, how the poems affect the listener, the devotee. The poems are not just literary expressions; although clearly they are significant in that regard. They are also tools and devices to help the individual understand the truth of Krishna’s world, and therein lies much of their significance. Paramānand’s poetry is especially significant because he is one of the As.t. achāp poets—a group of eight poets associated with the Vallabh Sampradāy, a Braj-based devotional community. And it may well be

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that one of the primary reasons he is included in that august set of poets is precisely because his poetry operates on the devotees as a tool for entering this other world, a world not available to the ordinary senses or to ordinary people. The religious leader Vallabh founded the Sampradāy in the sixteenth century to worship Krishna, and, as part of his plan to develop devotion, he appointed Paramānand and the other As.t. achāp poets to sing sevā for Krishna. What little we know about Paramānand comes from the Vārtās, hagiographic texts produced within the Vallabh Sampradāy. The Vārtās are simple prose materials written for didactic purposes that present aspects of the poets’ lives (as well as those of other significant Sampradāy figures) and describe their devotional service of Krishna. But while the Vārtās themselves contain little that can be historically verified, they become all-important sources of inspiration to devotees, girding the primary work of the poems of the poets they portray. Krishna devotion, bhakti, is centered in Braj, a cultural and linguistic region of north India that includes parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Although a variety of religious expressions, including Islam as well as local forms of Hinduism, exist in Braj, the predominant religious expression is devotion to Krishna, a form of Vais.n.avism. Vais.n.avism is the worship of the deity Vis.n.u in one of his incarnations or descents, or avatārs. Krishna, like Vis.n.u’s other avatārs, descended to the earth when the earth and her denizens needed help. He and elder brother Balarām took birth in Braj to kill the tyrant Kamsa who ruled in nearby Mathura and was notorious for his oppression of the people. Until they came of age, they lived simply with their foster parents, Yaśodā and Nanda, in the cowherding region of Braj. The stories of Krishna’s adventures upon the earth have been told in literary and plastic arts for centuries, most notably in the tenth-century Sanskrit text Bhāgavata Purān.a. The tenth chapter of the Bhāgavata Purān.a, easily the most popular chapter because of its focus on Krishna’s early life, chronicles Krishna’s life from his decision to be born in Braj through his life in Dwarka, the capital of Krishna’s kingdom. After Krishna and Balarām leave Braj, they resume their destinies as rulers, but these are not the identities on which devotees choose to focus. Instead, through Paramānand’s guidance, devotees choose to focus on their days as simple cowherd youths in Braj. Certainly Krishna is more approachable as a small boy or cowherding youth than as a king with the distance and respect that such royalty implies. In the sixteenth century, as Krishna

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devotion flourished in north India, poets composed lyrics in the vernacular in response to Krishna’s popularity among all social levels. Paramānand and his contemporaries sang of Krishna’s adventures in Braj, narrating the stories of his life with his friends and family in Braj. And it was these poems that proved so effective in inculcating the devotional life. To invite the devotee into this world, Paramānand—or those who mimicked him, his proxies whose works also bear his name—acts as a guide to the uninitiated. The process is straightforward enough, but it requires us to be acutely aware of where each participant locates him- or herself in the process. Paramānand sees this higher reality through his distinct form of meditation; what he witnesses he shares in his poetry by constructing tableaus and peopling them with his divine characters, describing their play, their desires, and so forth. The content of this poetry is, then, not just depictions, but a kind of revelation, a vision vouchsafed to Paramānand, who in turn makes it available to those not so privileged. The listener “hears” Paramānand’s vision of Krishna’s play, simply at first but with an increased understanding and then, eventually, through repetition borne of love, at the most sophisticated level. In the end, the devotee’s very mode of conceiving Krishna is transformed through Paramānand’s literary techniques. But to guide the devotee to this new understanding, it is not sufficient to declare it outright, nor simply to declare it once. Rather the poet takes the listeners by the hand and walks them through the daily life of Krishna and, in turn, through an annual cycle of predictable repetitive events. But Paramānand uses different tactics that are repeated in individual poems and cyclically in the set of poems to structure comprehension of each event, each point in the nitya (constant) cycle, which occurs daily, and utsava (festival) cycle, which occurs annually. It is through the repetition of these cycles that devotees gradually transform their vision from laukik, this mundane world, to alaukik, Krishna’s supramundane world. Because the task of this book is to explore how Paramānand’s poetry transforms what the devotees “hear” into what they “see,” in the following chapters, we will walk with Paramānand through that cycle. First, though, the remainder of this chapter will explore how Paramānand brings devotees into the alaukik realm with increasingly more complex and deep understandings using language as synaesthesia. This section explores Paramānand’s linguistic tools and aesthetic structures, which provide a framework for devotees’ vision of Krishna.

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Paramānand’s poetry constantly bombards devotees with rich images of Krishna’s world. These images are not simplistic; they are complex codes that create a conceptual world. By conveying conceptual realms through words and images, these codes are critical elements of the poetic process in which devotees gain an increasingly sophisticated understanding of Krishna’s world. The poetic process, that devotees see through their ears, communicates Krishna’s līlā to devotees in a general—or macroscopic—way. Yet there are distinctions in the poetry—subtle ones—that affect the listeners; the ways they hear are important. On a microscopic level, Paramānand uses specific literary strategies, which—the metaphor of love as war, for example—operate upon the devotee by constructing the perceptual categories through which the devotee understands the world, but most important, Krishna’s world. The devotees’ modes of perception are reconfigured. Some of the specific literary strategies and tropes, such as metaphors and symbolic substitutions, are the focus of certain chapters. For instance, in chapter 4, food and the preparation and eating of it are substitutes for love, and in chapter 5, we will see a conflation of senses and emotions when anger is actually an expression of love. These devices (re)structure and constitute the way in which the devotees see Krishna’s world and are thus transformative. This transformation invites the devotees to see Krishna’s world well enough to enter it. The devotees follow Krishna through Paramānand’s eyes; hearing the poetry, then, becomes an act of emulation. Paramānand is particularly important because his poetry—as sound become sight—is a visual path to Krishna. Each devotee’s darśan of and relationship with Krishna is highly individualized and depends upon the devotee’s own inclinations. The devotees’ darśans are dialectical because (a) the text informs and lends shape to their daily lives, and (b) their daily activities and knowledge of Krishna inform and shape the ways in which they see Paramānand’s words. This is the basis for the dialectical relationship between the text of Paramānand’s poetry and the rituals and daily lives of Krishna devotees, and this dialectical relationship informs the devotees’ sight of Krishna. Devotees of Krishna conduct their lives in ways that encourage a constant focus on Krishna; for example, devotees synchronize their daily activities to Krishna’s that are detailed in the poetry and relate all sights and sounds to Krishna. When such devotees hear Paramānand’s poetry, this vast repertoire of knowledge determines the ways in which each devotee sees Paramānand’s words.

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Darśan—being both a reciprocal and a reflexive process—not only enables the devotee to realize the deity’s presence in the world but arouses the passion that helps the devotee develop a relationship with the divine. Not only does the devotee see the divine, but the divine—through the eyes that enliven the image—also sees the devotee.1 So this darśan is informed by a dialectical relationship between devotees’ individual experiences and their interpretations of the poetry. Because of the way Paramānand teaches the listener to see the alaukik reality through the devotee’s ordinary or laukik world, his poetry invites us to reconsider notions of the sacred and the profane, or supramundane and mundane, and that is where we will begin. The poetry is sung to a material object, usually an image in a temple or home, in which Krishna chooses to manifest himself; the divine reveals itself in material form for each devotee. When devotees take darśan of (or see) Krishna, they are not seeing merely a symbol or representation but Krishna himself. The profundity of this sight transforms the devotees’ emotions and perceptions from the worldly to the nonworldly. Without this transformative sight, the devotees are blind to Krishna’s alaukik realm—as Paramānand illustrates. Rāga—sārang Why [do we] desire youth? Seeing this body now, I’m sad, it was [meant] for Krishna. Ashamed of my body, speech does not come, my hair and speech have decayed. In the dark my eyes cannot see the path; I am slow with the thirst of love, Fate has put us in the third stage, our condition has become weak. Paramānand says, the gopīs are in the state of separation, again and again their hearts worry. (S903) Separation from her lover, Krishna, has blinded this young girl and robbed her of her youth. Sadly, she considers her once youthful body, meant only for Krishna, who has left Braj forever. She and her friends wasted their youth on this fickle boy who stole their love and fled. Their eyes, which once relished Krishna’s beauty, now thirst for his sight, and their desiccated bodies testify to the ravaging effects of separation from

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Krishna. While the sentiment may at first appear to a non-Indian reader somewhat melodramatic, what is most important in this poem is that estrangement from Krishna leads to blindness. This is no ordinary blindness, but the inability to see with alaukik (nonworldly) sight, to see Krishna’s presence in the world when it appears he is no longer there. The devotee’s problem is, of course, precisely the same as the young girl’s. This poem exemplifies Paramānand’s use of the trope of blindness and the metaphor of love as liquid sustenance. Paramānand metaphorically equates love with nourishment, which implies that this love—like food—is necessary for survival. This metaphoric construction builds into the devotee’s vision—through language—the concept that Krishna’s love is essential for life itself. Paramānand enhances this metaphor with the trope of blindness; Krishna has withdrawn his love-sustenance, and, as a result, the gopīs (cowherding girls) are now blind, literally and symbolically. Each of these literary devices is grounded in the material world, and each in turn invites the devotees to begin to question just how they should interpret the physical world. The division of worldly and nonworldly relies on a bifurcation reinterpreted by Vallabh: laukik (worldly) and alaukik (nonworldly).2 The terms laukik and alaukik derive from the Sanskrit loka, which means the world or people. ‘Laukik’ indicates being of the world, something normal and customary; ‘alaukik’ is beyond the world, in the realm of the sacred or the other. ‘Laukik’ and ‘alaukik’ can be understood in two ways: ontological and perspectival, that is, the nature of the thing itself or the devotee’s attitude toward it. Krishna’s alaukik games (līlā) or the svarūpa would be an example of ontology. Krishna himself manifests in a material object, so that object exemplifies embodied divinity. Substance does not automatically ontologically determine laukik or alaukik. In terms of perspective, a devotee’s attitude determines the alaukik status of a thing, emotion, or thought. Vallabh’s understanding of laukik and alaukik relies less on ontology and more on perspective. The devotee’s perspective of a thing—laukik or alaukik—is generally more important to devotion than the ontological status of the thing itself. As perspectives, laukik and alaukik indicate states or dynamic qualities instead of the static substances sacred and profane. The material world—when imbued with memories and love of Krishna—can be alaukik. Ordinary objects or daily activities can be rendered alaukik by virtue of the devotee’s emotion for Krishna. Thus devotees can live an entirely alaukik, or Krishna-centered, life within a social and material world.

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An object may have sacred or religious value to one person and not to another, and, in Braj devotion, objects such as images of Krishna can be coextensive with the divine, although the divine is never limited to an object. The material world is not rejected but used in service of Krishna. Devotees offer Krishna material objects, and the physical world reminds devotees that Krishna created the world for his own amusement. The material world is not glorified for its own sake but is lauded to the extent that it reflects Krishna. Sophisticated devotees are able to perceive the alaukik within the laukik. The poetry facilitates this perceptual shift by arousing the thoughts and emotions that make Krishna central to a devotee’s existence, and those thoughts and emotions focused on Krishna are alaukik. This alaukik perspective relying on emotion toward Krishna is the sine qua non for darśan of Krishna’s līlā. Understanding the poetry hinges on the ability to contextualize and transform thoughts and emotions rooted in the laukik realm. The gopīs’ bodies have wasted away, and they bemoan their fate. Such misery and the inevitable anger that ensues arise easily in the ordinary course of life. Loved ones die or choose to leave, and most people experience a range of emotional responses to these events. Emotions in response to the mundane world, such as jealousy at the fickleness of a lover, are laukik. Yet, the gopīs’ and the devotees’ emotions are evoked within the context of devotion to Krishna, and this devotional context renders them alaukik. As such, the poems provide frameworks for devotees’ responses to emotional and physical stimuli.

About Paramānand’s Poetry Rāga—sārang I’ve tried to make you appease māna, but I’m defeated. All is gone, ruined by your pride; Madanamurāri is dejected. Put on your blue sari, oh friend, take off your anklets. So when you go on this dark moonless night, no one will know. You just think about this and look inside yourself, why have you arranged your part in such a way? Just arrange it so that Nandakumār will find it even more becoming. Listen Rādhā, why make obstacles? You are a clever, though naive woman.

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Meet Paramānand’s lord who is all blissful with the rasa of love, don’t spill what you have already gained. (S728) Paramānand sings of the divine lovers Rādhā and Krishna, who are angry with one another, yet deeply in love. This pique-in-love, a state known as māna in aesthetic terms, has separated the couple, and neither can be happy until they are together again. Late at night, dejected Rādhā sulks and refuses to go to Krishna—although she desperately wants to be with him. Of all the gopīs who adore Krishna—and they all do—he has chosen Rādhā as his favorite. Rādhā’s girlfriend, the speaker in the poem, attempts to remedy the situation; she wants to reunite the sparring couple. She refers to Krishna by the name Madanamurāri—which indicates Krishna’s combat with the demon Murā—to convince Rādhā. Paramānand invokes the metaphor of love as war: the combative lovers need strategic advice, and Rādhā’s friend will act as the liaison. This friend offers romantic advice: she tells Rādhā to wear her blue sari to enhance her beauty and to conceal her fair body, and devotees know that Rādhā always wears blue. For village boys and girls, romantic meetings entail some planning. The dark moonless night is a perfect opportunity to slip away into the nearby forests, evading the vigilant eyes of family and neighbors. The gopī advises Rādhā to take off her anklets for their jingling would certainly give her away. This friend sees through Rādhā’s pretense: “Look inside yourself, think about it,” she says. Otherwise why would Rādhā arrange her hair just so if she did not plan on meeting Krishna? Inserting himself into the poem in the last line, Paramānand asks Rādhā how she can waste her good fortune when she has already gained Krishna’s love? Love, as Paramānand illustrates in this poem, is tangible, a liquid substance that must be guarded carefully or perhaps spilled and lost in this war of love. Paramānand’s metonymic equivalence of “love as liquid” embeds in the devotee’s view of this scene the various properties of liquid, such as its tangibility as well as its susceptibility to loss. This poem engages one of the most common tropes of Indian art and literature: viraha, the motif of separation. The mood of viraha explores the emotional states that arise from painful separations, such as Rādhā’s anguish at being separated from Krishna and the gulf between the devotee and divine. At one level, the love story here is between Rādhā and Krishna, but it is also a love story between the devotee and Krishna, and Paramānand’s poetry helps the devotee bridge the gulf.

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Paramānand’s vivid illustrations of Krishna’s life in Braj entice the devotee into seeing the world differently, that is, into seeing the mundane world in nonworldly terms. This sight will vary in its depth and intensity but no matter how great or small is indicative of the devotee’s entry and participation in Krishna’s play. The poetry sets the stage for the devotee to become an actor in the cosmic drama played around Krishna. The devotee cannot help but to establish a relationship with Krishna in a manner that is always appropriate to his or her own accomplishments in the realm of the emotions, and here is where the bhāva, the foundational emotional experience, is identified and cultivated. Bhāvas are those basic human emotional attitudes that are essential to the makeup of human beings. Every human being has these basic attitudes, but each individual is inclined to one or more. Rasa translates literally as “sap” or “essence” but indicates the emotion aroused in response to an aesthetic experience. Bhāva and rasa derive from the realm of Indian aesthetics, but sixteenth-century Braj theologians adapted these aesthetic concepts to devotion and made arousing these passions central to devotion. Some are likely to feel more comfortable in a devotional relationship that posits Krishna as the object of affection as a small boy, while others might prefer the erotic approach of a gopī or at least of one of the gopī’s helpers. But, in every case, the approach is highly individualized, tailored to the needs and proclivities of the devotee. Vais.n.ava tradition claims that five thousand years ago Krishna lived in the earthly Braj with his foster parents, Nanda and Yaśodā, and his friends, the gopas and gopīs (the cowherding men and women of Braj), yet his games occur perpetually in the alaukik realm. He lived as a typical Braj boy, and most Braj residents knew him as nothing other than a normal, though mischievous, boy: he herded the cows in the forests of Vrindavan with his friends and played with the young girls, in particular with his favorite, Rādhā. The word typically used to describe Krishna’s actions is līlā, which connotes play or sport. To devotees, this means that all of Krishna’s activities—from killing demons to creating the world—are forms of play. God does nothing of necessity, and divine activities are considered play, not work or obligatory action. Because Krishna loves his devotees, his games are eternal and perpetually accessible to the devotee. Krishna performs each one of his games at all times so that devotees have multiple avenues from which to approach him. At any given moment, devotees can focus on Krishna at different ages and within the contexts of different emotional relationships, such as lover-beloved or parent-child.

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Devotees appropriate the emotional attitudes of the characters in the līlā in their relationships with Krishna; depending on the individual’s temperament, the devotee might approach him as a parent to child or a lover to beloved. Krishna’s Braj family and friends—the gopīs, his mother, and the gopas—exemplify “roles” for the devotee who wants to participate in this drama. The mythic structure provides a framework that allows the devotee to interpret his or her own experience in terms of Krishna and that sets the stage for the devotee to enter Krishna’s games. The poetry directs the emotions in a mutually reinforcing process: the devotee’s emotions accord with the emotional resonance of the characters in the Braj drama, which renders the elements of the poetry even more meaningful. As devotees achieve greater sophistication in their poetic sensibilities, they are further sensitized to the emotional nuances and subtleties portrayed in Krishna’s līlā. According to tradition, the poet Paramānand himself witnessed Krishna’s games and revealed his insight to devotees through his poetry. Paramānand became their eyes, but he painted words through sound. Paramānand’s bhan.itā (signature line) in each poem is both commentary on and narrative of his participation in Krishna’s līlā and attests to Paramānand’s sight of Krishna’s play.3 The bhan.itā reflects the identity of Paramānand the poet, and this persona indicates Paramānand’s own participation in the līlā. Paramānand sings as if he were a particular character in each poem; thus he is embedded in the poem as he takes on the persona and experiences the emotions of a particular character. The tradition assigns Paramānand—as well as his contemporary poets—identities as one of Krishna’s male or female friends. Paramānand’s personal visions of and participation in the līlā authenticate his poetry, making it effective in communicating his lived experience to the devotee.

Paramānand’s Poetic Environment Paramānand’s primary contribution was the Krishna poetry compiled into the collection known as the Paramānandasāgar, literally Ocean of Paramānand or Ocean of the Highest Bliss. Paramānand composed padas (short lyrics of six to ten lines) to praise Krishna and honor his life. His poems also appear in sevā anthologies, which include poetry primarily from the As.t. achāp poets but also from other Braj poets. He composed this devotional poetry in the vernacular Brajbhās.ā, so it was accessible to a wide

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range of people. The corpus of poetry attributed to Paramānand developed over many centuries, and much of it could not have been composed by the “historical” Paramānand. Those poets attracted by Paramānand’s poetry attached his signature line to guarantee a reception. However, this body of poetry is considered the authentic testimony of Paramānand’s vision of Krishna’s līlā, and the entire corpus is deemed authentic by the Vallabhite and Braj community by virtue of its role in ritual performance. I will refer to Paramānand as the composer of these poems because that is how the devotees refer to him, but clearly there are many “Paramānands.” Certainly Paramānand inherited a variety of local, traditional, and philosophical influences, but these were filtered through the lens of the Bhāgavata Purān.a, as can be seen in the poetry. The Bhāgavata Purān.a was—and is—the focal text for the Braj devotional community. The Bhāgavata Purān.a incorporated a confluence of traditions and influences of south Indian Hinduism in approximately the tenth century.4 Although the Bhāgavata Purān.a attributes itself to Vyāsa (a divine sage to whom hagiographic tradition credits the Vedas, the Mahābhārata, and the Brahma Sūtras), its most probable authors were a group of south Indian learned ascetics, probably Brahmans, who were attempting to establish the doctrinal legitimacy of devotion.5 Other Sanskrit works are not disregarded, but their authority is superseded by that of the Bhāgavata Purān.a. The tenth chapter of the Bhāgavata Purān.a is most important for devotees of Krishna because this chapter narrates Krishna’s life in Braj. Vallabh tradition dictates that Paramānand himself experienced the entire līlā of the tenth chapter of the Bhāgavata Purān.a after he had been instructed by Vallabh, so his lyrics derive from personal experience.6 However, although the Bhāgavata Purān.a and other sources first informed him of these games, Paramānand was not merely recreating the poems from memory. For example, according to his Vārtā, Govindaswāmī, one of the eight poet saints, was singing for Krishna, but he suddenly stopped. When asked why, Govindaswāmī replied that he could no longer see the līlā. 7 The poems are traditionally considered to be not remembered or created but accurate depictions of the līlā. The poetry must be heard with the understanding that memory of Krishna’s līlā corresponds to a real subject, not an “imaginative universe.” Paramānand’s alaukik eyes allowed him to see beyond the laukik world to Krishna’s cosmic drama, a view not available to those with merely laukik vision. The richness of detail and sensual perception come from actual experience: Krishna reveals his alaukik play to his devotees who have alaukik eyes.

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It is important that devotees know that Paramānand’s vision of Krishna’s play is authentic. As a member of the As.t. achāp, the poet’s name on the signature line guaranteed the “truth” of the poetry and the weight of the tradition associated with that poet. The chāp (name or seal) ensured the poem’s credibility, as the signator “bears witness” to the activities of the poem.8 Each poet sang in response to a personal vision of Krishna’s līlā, but the As.t. achāp and their poetry became institutionalized in ritual service as mediators of this darśan: these poets see the līlā, and poetry becomes the appropriate vehicle for expressing and communicating their sight. The poet himself has played with Krishna, both as a gopa and as a gopī. Paramānand’s poetry brings devotees into this realm by offering them his lived experience of Krishna’s līlā. In the next poem, for example, he has himself experienced the emotions—as the gopī Chandrabhāgā (his gopī identity in the līlā)—of a young girl infatuated by the charming Krishna. Rāga—sārang Mohan! He has forgotten his nature. Because of love, whenever we asked for anything, he brought it and gave it to us. His charming hand plucked beautiful fragrant flowers from the Pārijāta tree. For my joy, Lotus eyes gives all his rasa. I’ll say all of this in front of Nanda the Yādava! Abandon your bashfulness, the shame in your mind. Though the lord of Paramānand is a king, he is favored by many women. (S1062) This girl has no shame, and shame is one of the qualities most prized in a young village girl. Her love for Krishna overwhelms her prescribed modesty, and she speaks freely in front of Nanda, the village headman. She is besotted with Mohan—the one who enchants or intoxicates— because he has given her all of his rasa, all of his love. Paramānand employs the simple substitution of love as intoxication to entail the loss of control and inevitable breaking of boundaries that results from intoxication. Drunk with love, the gopī abandons her shame, and Krishna serves the gopīs. Whatever the gopīs want, Krishna has given—he even brought flowers picked by his own hand from the tree of Vis.n.u’s paradise. The

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pārijāta tree is particularly auspicious as it is one of the five types of trees produced by the churning of the ocean of milk. As the rasarāja, the king of passion, Krishna appears to the devotee in that way most accessible to the devotee (bhāvātmaka), and, for this young girl, the love-sick Krishna is the way to her heart. In the final line, Paramānand comments on one of the reversals evident in this poem. Braj women—and devotees—are typically desperate to cater to Krishna’s needs. His mother Yaśodā is eager to offer him any food he might desire, and the gopīs assist him any way they can. This gopī, however, praises Krishna for his generosity, for he fulfills all of their desires. Paramānand notes that although Krishna is a king, he serves these women, not the reverse. These poems might seem to be simple vignettes; in this poem, Paramānand describes the scenario of a village girl so besotted by Krishna’s charms that she proclaims her love to the village headman. However, the shifts from Paramānand’s vision of the līlā to the poetic composition to the devotee’s own darśan are a process which contains multiple voices— Paramānand, the devotee, and the characters of the poetry. Each poem represents a highly individualized and cyclical process comprised of five distinct stages that ultimately results in the devotee’s apprehension of Krishna’s play. By investigating this process, we can determine the mode by which Paramānand’s language is transformed into vision. By isolating the different stages of this process, and, in doing so, Paramānand’s different points of view, we delineate the process by which Paramānand’s words become each devotee’s darśan. This process might best be construed as an iterative cycle, a process resulting in an evolving comprehension of Krishna. First, the action itself: Krishna operates in an alaukik world and reveals himself. Second, Paramānand takes darśan of Krishna’s alaukik action: he sees the līlā from a particular vantage point, in this case, that of the gopī. Third, Paramānand takes on a persona—he adapts a point of view as his narrative stance—and reveals his vision and brings the alaukik into the laukik world through poetry. Although Paramānand’s bhan.itā indicates his role as poet witness, his narrative stance represents an interpretive choice, his specific choice about how to tell the story. Fourth, the members of the audience hear and contextualize the poetry according to time and place as well as their individual predilections. Fifth, through Paramānand’s language, devotees “hear the vision” and are gradually incorporated into Krishna’s world.

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Individuals apprehend the “truth” of this poetry according to their own individual capacities. Ultimately, reception of the poetry—and the path of devotion itself—is highly individualized for each devotee. The general contours of the devotee’s experience may be similar to that of others; for example, most devotees know the basic context of Krishna’s life and use that narrative as a basic framework to structure their relationships with Krishna. However, the specifics of each devotee’s relationship with Krishna or apprehension of the poems are experienced by the devotee—to use a laukik phrase. Despite the individual differences, each devotee “sees” the truth, though in a slightly different way. The worldly Braj is manifest to all, yet only those who have trained their senses and emotions can see beyond to the nonworldly Braj. Every emotion, every sight, and every sound should be related to Krishna so that all perception constantly evokes smaran., memories of Krishna—as it does for the gopī in this poem: Rāga—sārang Why am I always speaking of Braj? Without Kamalanayan now the misery starts to burn as if millions of the sun’s rays sear our hearts. Without Syāmasundar, it is as if the moon of Gokul has been grabbed as in an eclipse. Who can vanquish the pain of separation? Such is my lot. Paramānand says, without the lord, my eyes flow with tears. (S1028) Remembrance of Krishna sears the gopī’s heart, and she can think of nothing but Krishna. Krishna’s absence has doomed the gopīs to the searing rays of the sun. She invokes Krishna by epithets that juxtapose the cooling relief of water to the burning sun and the rainy season to the end of summer. Krishna, as Kamalanayan, the “lotus-eyed one,” evokes the image of the still waters upon which this flower grows. The names Syāmasundar and Krishna both indicate the dark blue-gray color of a rain cloud about to burst, suggesting the relief of the monsoon rains. When the monsoon arrives, the sky fills with dark clouds heralding the end of the summer heat. Without beautiful Syām, the gopī says, it is as if the moon—another cooling agent—has been grabbed by an eclipse (Rāhū or Graha, grabber). From time to time, Rahū, both the cause of and the name for an eclipse,

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eats the moon. During the lunar eclipse, the moon disappears along with its cooling rays and no longer shades the earth from the sun’s heat. The water-borne lotus, the rain clouds, and the moon’s rays—in the form of Krishna’s presence—once protected this girl from the pains of separation, but without Krishna, her only relief is her tears. Paramānand’s metonymic identification of the moon with Krishna provides for the devotee a conceptual structure, which intimately links Krishna to cooling water and to the cessation of pain. Paramānand’s poetry uses the vitality and sensuality of the world to elicit and illustrate emotional states, in this case, the gopī’s anguish of separation. Anyone familiar with a mid-June day on the plains of India knows the torment of a still, cloudless day, and that experience informs the devotees’ perceptions of the poem’s emotion. The exterior landscape describes the emotional interior, playing with concepts of “rain” and “bounty,” which resonate with the devotee’s experience. The images of Krishna’s presence—the lotus and the clouds—suggest the monsoon, a time of agricultural bounty, a time of relief, and, most important for the gopī, a time for the reunion of lovers. While the gopī dreams of this plenitude, she is trapped in its opposite. Her tears mock her situation: her attempt to replicate the water’s cooling effects dooms her to desiccation and excessive thirst for Krishna. The poems highlight the physical world, and the senses are vehicles to the alaukik realm: Krishna reveals himself in the material world. The senses encourage memories of Krishna: the devotee can see and touch the very dust that Krishna once walked upon. Despite the privileging of sound and sight, tactile descriptions, such as the girl’s thirst for Krishna, reflect and communicate those emotional states indicative of the devotee’s relationship with Krishna. We should not underestimate the importance of the physical realm: the concrete experience of trees, birds, and plants, for example, provokes sensual responses that are rendered alaukik through passion for Krishna. Sevā and its poetry incorporate intense emotion and an emphasis on the senses to render the laukik world alaukik. Because the senses operate in both the laukik and alaukik realms, devotees can use the senses—rooted in the laukik world—to experience the stimuli of the alaukik realm. The adept devotee uses the world to maintain a focus on Krishna. The sight of butter, for example, evokes relevant responses, including the sweet taste of butter, Krishna’s love of butter, and images of a mischievous Krishna stealing butter. As devotees sing or hear these poems, they can

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connect visions of their “real life” with the visions in the poems. The poems are not maudlin; the language is elevated and dignified. The use of daily objects and events grounds the poetry in real life and narrates episodes of daily life that devotees can easily assimilate to their own lives. So, as we can see, Paramānand’s words render the ordinary extraordinary, and the simplicities of daily life—with the appropriate attitude—become a threshold to Krishna’s world.

Serving Krishna The sevā periods and the descriptive poetry help devotees synchronize their lives with the daily and seasonal patterns of Krishna’s life. The ritual patterns of sevā that devotees follow today were first developed in the sixteenth century by Vallabh and his son Vit.t.halnāth. Many devotees rise in the morning with Krishna, eat only the foods that Krishna eats, and eat only when or after he does—according to sevā patterns. In this way, devotees can engage in Krishna’s alaukik play and render alaukik what would otherwise be mundane aspects of life. To encourage this process, specific poems are sung only during the designated time of day or year or at the appropriate festival. Singing a poem at the inappropriate time would disrupt the devotee’s routine and would reveal an essentially incorrect understanding of the poem. The sevā periods are based on patterns of life of sixteenth-century Braj. Each day is divided into the as.t.ayām (eight periods of the daily ritual cycle), each of which represents the different events of a typical day for the boy Krishna.9 The eight daily periods in sevā are as follows: 1. Man˙galā (early morning). Like most women of Braj, Yaśodā is the first in the household to wake, so she can begin her morning chores. She is delighted to wake at this early hour for she has not seen Krishna all night. Her first sight of him in the morning is auspicious. 2. Śr.n˙gār (adornment). Yaśodā dresses and adorns Krishna before he leaves the house. Yaśodā gives Krishna his morning bath and applies perfumed oils to his body. These different oils heat and cool the body depending on the season. She dresses him in his characteristic yellow clothes; his brother, Balarām, wears blue. Finally, Yaśodā adorns Krishna with ornaments, such as

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

earrings, different crests, and flowered garlands that devotees know about and associate with Krishna. Gvāl (cowherding). This period particularly reflects the different devotional approaches that depend on Krishna’s age. As an infant, Krishna and Balarām play in their courtyard, watched closely by mothers Yaśodā and Rohin.ī. In temples where Krishna is worshipped as an infant, he might be swung in his cradle or crawl in the courtyard. As a child, Krishna is renowned for wreaking havoc on Braj. With his friends, he races through the village, looting houses of their butter and curd. No matter how much the women complain, Yaśodā never believes her darling boy to be capable of such mischief. As an older boy, Krishna takes the cows to pasture with the other boys of Braj, and they spend the day grazing in the forests and return home in the evening. Rājabhog (midday meal). At midday, Krishna eats a large meal. Often, he is in the forest with the boys, and the gopīs bear containers of food. The gopīs are thrilled to have this task. Not only do they escape their mothers’ watchful eyes, but they meet with Krishna. Far from their neighbors’ prying eyes, the boys and girls cavort in the dense forest. Many poems highlight Krishna and the gopīs’ romantic trysts at this time. Utthāpan (after the nap). After a large meal, in the heat of the day, Krishna and the residents of Braj rest. During this time, most temples are closed and reopen later in the afternoon after Krishna wakes from his nap. This darśan period reflects the joy of reunion because Krishna returns from the forest, covered with dust kicked up by the cows. Yaśodā and the other women have not seen him all day and anticipate the moment at which they will spy the telltale clouds of dust that announce his arrival with the cows. Bhog (meal). After his nap, Krishna eats a light meal. He usually eats snack foods, fried foods eaten in the late afternoon, which hold him until a later dinner. Sandhyāratī (dinner). Yaśodā serves dinner to Krishna, Balarām, and Nanda. She takes care to prepare delicacies that appeal to Krishna’s tastes, so he will eat. Śayan (bedtime). Yaśodā puts Krishna to sleep for the night. According to the aesthetic of the līlā, Yaśodā assumes Krishna

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to be asleep all night in his bed. Krishna, however, sneaks out of the house to meet with the gopīs. Many poems specify Rādhā as the chief recipient of his affections, while others are less specific. When Krishna plays with Rādhā, Rādhā’s sakhīs (girl friends) attend them by making this romantic meeting possible. They serve snacks, play music, and ensure that both return home undetected. In each of the periods, the devotee views the deity in a jhān¯kī or tableau. Jhān¯kī literally means “tableau” or “scene” and refers to the scene portrayed during darśan. Krishna’s dress and his accoutrements in the jhān¯kī reflect the particular darśan period. For instance, images of the baby Krishna might be surrounded by child’s toys. The foods, scents, and clothes reflect the season; after all, who would clothe Krishna in heavy clothes during the hot Indian summer? The accompanying poems set the scenario for the devotee and offer details about Krishna’s actions at that particular time. The majority of the poems are performed in sevā during the jhān¯kī periods, and the poems usually thematically match the tableau. The tableau is enlivened by stimuli that arouse all of the senses, not merely sight. The poetry and the temple service evoke the senses and relevant emotions for that period of darśan, so the devotees can experience the richness of Krishna’s līlā at that particular time. For any given episode, Paramānand describes the sights, sounds, and, often, tastes—a significant proportion of Paramānand’s poems involve food—so that the devotees “see” the scenario with all five senses. For example, in the previous poem, the heat of the physical landscape is illustrated by the gopīs’ misery. This multidimensional mode of interpreting emotions offers a rich and multisensual understanding. This full-body experience means that devotees not only see Krishna’s world but also feel and perhaps taste it as a gestalt. The conflation of the senses is important for the devotees’ perceptions of the līlā. Devotees experience the līlā as an integrated whole, not a disjointed series of sensual impulses, an experience that can be described as synaesthetic. In this synaesthesic experience, each sense is experienced through another so that the senses are integrated into a gestalt, a total experience. This concept accords with Lawrence Sullivan’s argument that synaesthesia in performance facilitates the appearance of a “unity of the senses,” which allows for the semblance of a “unity of meaning” within a culture.10

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It is important not to conflate synaesthetic apprehension with “smaran.” (evocation from memory), although the two can appear to be similar. In the latter, one stimulus leads to another. For example, feeling a cooling breeze might evoke the scent of fresh flowers, which, in turn, could evoke the remembered sight of Krishna picking flowers; these evoked memories are not synaesthesia themselves. Similarly, the mention of a tree might lodge that image in a devotee’s mind, yet that is memory or imagination. So, although Alan Entwistle, for example, has identified the “confusion of the senses” during temple sevā as synaesthesia, he rightly admits that this experience is “not so much synaesthesia in stricto sensu, but rather a Gesamkunstwerk, or what is now called a multi-media event.”11 Entwistle’s “confusion” seems to be more a case of evocation through memory than a form of synaesthesia. The devotee sees Krishna’s alaukik world, that is, something real, and that is radically different from an evoked memory. When these nonvisual stimuli are apprehended through the medium of vision, at this point, the path of bhakti (devotion) moves beyond evocation of memory to the apprehension of the alaukik world: Krishna’s līlā is perceived through the senses of touch, sight, and smell. More precisely, synaesthesia is the experience of one sense in terms of another, so synaesthesia occurs not in the “confusion of senses” during sevā, but in the transformation of sound into sight.

Synaesthesia, Metaphor, and Transformation Synaesthesia is a type of the larger category of metaphor, defined as “understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another.” Metaphor provides a conceptual structure for the images in poetry, and each metaphoric image or concept suggests a range of meaning that adds depth and breadth to this realm. When we hear metaphoric language, we bring interpretations to the material that range far beyond the immediate and limited meaning of the words themselves. The devotee integrates the images of the poetry into a system of personal and cultural meaning. These metaphors not only reflect an understanding of the various facets of Krishna’s realm, but they also structure the devotee’s thoughts and concepts, and therein lies the transformation. Indeed, metaphors are embedded so deeply in language that we confuse statements of fact with metaphorical statements, and such terms appear “natural.” Language and

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metaphor so shape our thinking that most of us are unaware of the pervasive hidden metaphors in everyday speech.12 Metaphors that appear so commonsensical as to seem trite permeate everyday speech and determine related concepts and images. Love is war, for example, reflects and determines the idea that love is a combative relationship, requiring the entailments of negotiations, liaisons, and concessions. This metaphor can be traced back as far as the Kāma Sūtra and is quite evident in the Gītagovinda (a twelfth-century Sanskrit poem), which frequently describes the act of love making in martial terms and suggests concepts of strategies and negotiations, of messengers and secret codes.13 Rāga—sārang Let’s go, why not look at the hut in the arbor. Madanagopāl, the hero of Kāmadeva’s army, grabs the spoils. Fighting a battle of lovers, the sakhī’s garland of pearls was broken. Her blouse was torn from her chest, the knots of her waist-cloth came undone. The gem of gems of the rasika, the son of Nanda offers the nectar of his lower lip. Paramānand says, Govind is paired with this beautiful gopī. (K950; L132; P3, 232; S704) Here, lovers wage war, and the gopīs—or their hearts—are the spoils. Madanagopāl is Krishna, the conquering hero of Kāmadeva’s army. Kāmadeva, the god of love, uses a bow of sugarcane and a bowstring of bees, and his arrows are tipped with five fragrant flowers: blue lotus, jasmine, mango, golden campā, and sirisa (mimosa tree) flowers. His weapons and arsenal are the tools of romance, and the battleground is the romantic arbor of Krishna’s nightly trysts. Ultimately Krishna, or Govind, emerges victorious in this battle of love. The love-is-war metaphor structures the listener’s response to this poem. Such an approach emphasizes certain entailments: love is a battle; there are winners and losers, and those with superior weapons emerge victorious. This panorama suppresses qualities that, at times, are also associated with love, such as love as mutual harmony or sustenance that appear in other poetic scenarios. Other poems reveal different and conflicting representations of love: “love as nourishment” in which Krishna’s love— frequently substantialized in physical substances such as milk or food—

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sustains those who love him. In this case, food is love, and this nourishment ensures Krishna’s and the gopīs’ survival. Culture provides the interpretive framework and paradigm for metaphoric understanding. For example, “love is war” appears to be universal, but, in this poem, it is primarily understood within a cultural framework. For example, the name Kāmadeva and the flowers of his arrows import specific connotations and memories to those familiar with Indian culture. Devotees of Krishna primarily emerge from a cultural paradigm that encourages particular emotional responses to stimuli of Krishna’s līlā. These cultural frameworks suggest and stimulate certain responses but do not compel them, although stimuli can be manipulated to suggest certain emotions. The poetry incorporates human emotions and images readily decodable to anyone familiar with the Braj tradition, as devotees would be. Although these portrayals use culturally specific motifs, they are firmly anchored within the very real human emotions that make them accessible and comprehensible to virtually anyone, especially an ideal listener. An ideal listener is firmly grounded in Braj tradition and can decode the range of interrelated images in the poetry. Members of this fully enculturated audience can, from their previous laukik and alaukik experiences, supply the detail necessary to understand and reexperience the narrative.14 The poems employ specific Braj themes to elicit basic human emotions that are redirected toward Krishna. As short but dense structures, the poems incorporate words, phrases, and images, each of which triggers a myriad of associations, limited only by the depth of the devotee’s familiarity with Krishna’s world. Love for Krishna is not a worldly love, but it is modeled on it. Devotees interpret the lyrics as alaukik and feel prem—not kām—for Krishna. In this case, kām and prem translate roughly as love and desire, a distinction that roughly parallels the distinction in Greek between, respectively, agape and eros. Kām is the profane love that may entail marriage, offspring, and other consequences. Prem is the nonworldly love that characterizes the devotee’s love for Krishna; this love is considered to be purified of worldly consequences. The kām/prem distinction parallels the laukik/alaukik distinction. Kām involves worldly or social concerns (such as children) or, worse, selfish gratification of one’s desires. Prem places Krishna as the focal point of desire, which makes those desires nonworldly and not selfish. The poems are a path or guide to the transformation from the laukik/kām to the alaukik/prem.

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These transformations—themselves the path of bhakti—reflect the devotee’s shift of perception from laukik to alaukik. Paramānand’s poems guide the devotee: the devotee hearing this poetry “sees” the word image. The poet’s metaphors and metonyms inform the reader/listener’s reception of the poetry. For example, the metaphor of love as a commodity suggests the entailments of shortages and competition, details that nuance the reader/listener’s vision of the līlā. This transformation appears in two capacities: first, the transformation of sound into an actual sight; and second, the transformation of the broader figure of speech of sight into comprehension. The transformation is one example of figurative speech: the metaphor of “seeing” the message through words, such as “I see your point!” The dominant metaphor of expressing comprehension though visual language provides a trope through which to express this transformation. To further understand how these transformations contextualize Paramānand’s poetry, let us revisit momentarily the poetic cycle, which takes devotees from Paramānand’s alaukik vision of the līlā to the devotees’ apprehension of this līlā. Krishna’s līlā eternally occurs in daily and annual cycles—without change—in perpetuity. Krishna’s līlā is not understood as a linear system in which there is a beginning and end. Certainly, devotees can chart Krishna’s life from beginning to end, birth to death, and texts such as the Bhāgavata Purān.a narrate his entire life. Yet the Braj devotional community—through poetry, music, and ritual— emphasizes the cyclical nature of Krishna’s brief time in Braj, that he repeats his same activities on a daily basis and repeats his festival and seasonal games on an annual basis. Paramānand’s darśan of the līlā and his poetic rendering of it adhere to these cyclical contours, institutionalized in sevā, and these cycles mediate Paramānand’s, and, thus, the devotee’s reception and transmission of the līlā. Devotees “see” the līlā within this cyclical structure. The poems as vignettes reflect points or times in these cycles, and each offers access to the “eternally present” alaukik līlā. Paramānand sang of what he saw at that moment—not the past or anticipated future. He and the devotee then supplement that particular scenario through remembered laukik and alaukik. The cyclic nature of the poetry allows the devotee a unique access to experience Krishna’s games because all of these games occur in the “eternal present.” Paramānand’s experience and darśan of Krishna’s līlā—as well as his poetic skill—allow him to manipulate language, to employ metaphors

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that resonate within both the Braj cultural framework and the devotees’ own experiences. Like our ideal listeners, we will travel through the cycles, and, reflectively, with each telling—as the poetry acts upon us—our understanding of Krishna’s world becomes more sophisticated and nuanced. To begin our journey through Paramānand’s poetic cycle, the next chapter starts with a poem sung late in the evening that commemorates a gopī’s tryst with Krishna under the romantic full moon of autumn.

C H A P T E R T WO

The End of the Night Poetry, Memory, and Culture

Late in the evening, poets sing of a romantic moonlit night—and the inevitable heartbreak it brings, for both gopī and devotees. Hearing the gopī’s lament no doubt brings to mind recollections of Krishna’s fickle behavior as well as memories of one’s own lost loves. For Krishna’s devotees, these memories are visceral and embodied both because they are triggered by hearing the poetry at the appropriate time, such as evening or midmorning, and also because the memories mutually reinforce current conditions, such as the phase of the moon. In this way, the material and poetic worlds are mutually reinforcing, and Paramānand’s poetry becomes the interpretive framework for devotees’ experience of their world.

Śayan: While Braj Sleeps Rāga—kedārau Watching the full moon reminds me of the deer-eyed Madhva’s face. Again and again, as I remember the rāsa dance, I hang my head, and my eyes fill [with tears]. Why did the Braj lord go to Mathura? Why must he slay the sinner Kamsa? A cooling breeze has arisen on the banks of the Yamuna; in the darkness, Kāma steals our hearts. On that day when Hari returns, we’ll rejoice when he embraces us in his lotus arms. 33

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Separation from the lord of Paramānand ravages our faces and sears our hearts. (S1004) This adolescent gopī yearns for her beloved Krishna, who has abandoned her on this romantic night. Calling Krishna by the name Madhva (of honey or honeylike) identifies him with the obviously desirable honey or nectar but also is suggestive of his action as the fickle bee who raids nectar from one flower and then abruptly leaves for another. The full moon that rises as the cool winds begin to waft across the Yamuna River is provocative, evoking memories of the gopī’s last meeting with Krishna. This meeting was especially significant because, on that special and auspicious night of the full moon of the first autumn month (which straddles the Western months of September and October), she and the other gopīs danced what tradition now calls by the shorthand of the “rāsa līlā.” On that most romantic night, Krishna fulfilled the desires of the gopīs by multiplying himself sixteen thousand times over that so that each gopī danced with Krishna by herself or at least believed it to be so, such was his wizardry. Yet the following morning, Krishna and his elder brother Balarām left for nearby Mathura—nearby by today’s standards, but a continent away for a village girl. They went to slay the demon Kamsa, another kind of work that this descent of god in the form of Krishna was obliged to do. Krishna promised to return to Braj after a week, but that solitary week stretched indefinitely into the future until it became clear that he was never returning. This abrupt departure devastated his young girlfriends, leaving them pining for his presence, desperate for reunion, and yearning for an opportunity to renew their vows of love. They nurture his memory, for that is all they have left to help them through the searing pain of separation. As a new actor in the divine drama of Braj, the devotee forges an emotional bond with Krishna that is based on stylized roles, each of which has been depicted in extenso in the narratives of the Bhāgavata Purān.a. The four primary approaches, against which all individual permutations are measured, are called by the Sanskrit names of dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, and mādhurya. Dāsya means servitude and is characterized as similar to the love a subject might have for his or her ruler, a somewhat remote love tinged by images of retribution resulting in awe, a sensation not particularly satisfying to Krishna as lord. The second is sakhya, which means friendship, based on a relationship with Krishna that emphasizes mutuality and equality, where the devotee is a “friend” of Krishna. Third—and

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this is generally considered above, but occasionally considered below or at least equal to sakhya—is vātsalya, parental love. The model for this love is, of course, Yaśodā, Krishna’s foster mother, who nurtures and indulges her darling baby. Last, and the top of this hierarchical order, is mādhurya, literally denoting the “sweetness” of this love but generally understood to mean the erotic. The erotic mode pairs the devotee as a gopī or the helper of the gopī with Krishna in full erotic encounter, but the devotee does not seek to be gratified by Krishna but quite the opposite. These four (or five; some articulate a fifth, śānta, which means peace or repose but that is often considered not to be a form of love) emotional stances are ranked in what Tony K. Stewart has labeled a “progressive hierarchy” or “hierarchy of inclusion,” wherein each level subsumes those below it, rather than being ranked in simple mutually exclusive strata.1 So, for instance, this gopī’s mādhurya love is understood to include the nurturing and awe of, respectively, the vātsalya and dāsya modes, but the reverse is not true. This ranking is significant because the higher modes are, by virtue of their being more complete, deemed to be more emotionally satisfying to Krishna and therefore a better or at least more desirable form of devotion. Paramānand sings each of his poems through one of these stylized approaches, and devotees feel bhāva according to their own temperaments. The overwhelming bhāva, Vallabh states, that arises from bhāvanā (constantly recollecting) about Krishna forces the realization that Krishna is the basis of all existence.2 It is important to distinguish between kalpanā (imagination), bhāvanā (the emulation of the bhāva), and the bhāva itself. Kalpanā does not give the sense of having insight or knowledge; it is fairly superficial. Bhāvanā, on the other hand, indicates the emulation of the ways of Braj by the Braj devotee and suggests a deeper realization of the “truth” of Krishna’s līlā. Bhāvanā implies vision of and/or participation in Krishna’s play, while kalpanā is only what one might produce in the imagination.3 Paramānand’s participation in the līlā exemplifies this critical distinction between imagining the play and actually seeing it, and the bhāva aroused by his poetry results from his direct experience of these emotional approaches to Krishna.

Paramānand’s World That Paramānand is believed to have witnessed Krishna’s līlā determines not only how the poetry operates on devotees but what constitutes the

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corpus of Paramānand’s poetry. For devotees, Paramānand’s sight of Krishna’s līlā is contingent on his hagiographic link to the Vallabh Sampradāy, and this linkage in part determines his poetic authority. Understanding the cultural and religious world of Paramānand and Braj devotion is important precisely because the poetic process is dialectical, and what each individual devotee brings to the experience shapes that devotee’s reception of Paramānand’s poetry. For example, just as the gopī’s memories of Krishna’s face inform her vision of the full moon, devotees interpret the poetry through their memories and knowledge of Krishna’s līlā and the Paramānand tradition. Paramānand composed in a poetic form called the pada (poem or lyric), a rhymed poetic structure that contains the poet’s signature in the last or penultimate line.4 Most padas are approximately six to ten lines long, but the length can vary significantly from four to one hundred lines. Because the required structure is loose, the poet has a great deal of freedom within this genre. The pada format was adapted by Paramānand and his fellow poets for Krishna devotion and fills several devotional functions. For example, the pada serves as liturgy through its role in sevā, resembles narrative in its capacity for telling Krishna’s story, and resembles a hymn of praise in its role of glorifying Krishna. The Paramānand corpus includes the printed Paramānandasāgar (a compilation of whatever the editor[s] took to be Paramānand’s work) and poems included in the compilations of poetry of the Vallabh Sampradāy, also known as the Pus.t.imārg, or the “Path of Grace.” In the Kankaroli edition of the Paramānandasāgar, the editor has created an order primarily based on the as.t.ayām (the eight periods of the day). The Pus.t.imārg produced a four-part volume titled Pus.t.imārg Kīrtan Samgrah, a popular anthology that predominantly includes poems by the As.t. achāp. This anthology organizes the poetry according to the daily and yearly cycles so that it is clear when each poem should be sung. For example, poems sung according to the nityalīlā schedule—regardless of the time of year—are organized under subject headings that determine time of day, and each category is further divided according to rāga. The different Sampradāys additionally publish a variety of smaller collections, as both hardback books and inexpensive pamphlets, so collections are accessible to a wide range of devotees.5 The earliest compilations of Paramānand’s poetry appeared in the early part of the seventeenth century, shortly after Paramānand’s death in

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1585. At present there exists a corpus of approximately one thousand to fifteen hundred poems, only a fraction of which are clearly those of the historical Paramānand.6 Given this rapid and significant enlargement of the corpus, the question of authenticity naturally arises—and authenticity matters here because these poems bear witness to Krishna’s līlā. For devotees, the standard of authenticity is the poet’s signature. The signature line serves as a “symbol of authority rather than of personal identity,” and the title As.t. achāp adds the weight of authority.7 It is clear that the corpus attributed to Paramānand includes many “Paramānands,” yet the community of practitioners has deemed the extant Paramānand corpus authentic by virtue of this signature line. Paramānand and the other As.t. achāp poets are accorded a special poetic authenticity due both to their connections with Vallabh and his son Vit.t.halnāth and to their own experience of the līlā. Vallabh installed four poets (Paramānand, Sūrdās, Kr.s.n.adās and Kumbhanadās) to sing sevā for Krishna, and Vit.t.halnāth later expanded the singers to eight (adding Nandadās, Govindaswāmī, Chitaswāmī, and Caturbhujdās), creating the As.t. achāp, or eight seals. These poets were the first to comprehensively sing sevā for Krishna, and, because they were the first, they established the poetic compositions and styles deemed appropriate for sevā. Other poets adopted their conventions, even adding chāps (names of popular poets) to their own poetry. As.t. achāp poets are particularly important because they are seen as ideal devotees: they saw the līlā and dedicated their lives to serving Krishna. Each of the eight poets bears the līlā identity of a male and a female friend of Krishna. Paramānand assumes ādhidaivika (the perfected form) of the sakhā Tok (male friend) and the sakhī Chandrabhāgā (female friend and helper). Although the As.t. achāp poets established and followed a particular poetic style, they are not an amorphous and singular entity. Each has a specific hagiography and poetic style that determines both his role in sevā and his role as a devotee within the Vallabh Sampradāy and Braj devotion. Finding nonsectarian sources about Paramānand proves difficult. The Vallabh Sampradāy presents a hagiography of Paramānand that clearly links him to Vallabh and the Vallabh Sampradāy, and much of this hagiography is invested with substantiating Paramānand’s links with and indebtedness to Vallabh. The Sampradāy specifically ties the authenticity of Paramānand’s darśan to Vallabh’s instruction. The Vārtās are the first hagiographic materials and primary sources regarding the As.t. achāp and

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their role within the Vallabh Sampradāy. These simple Brajbhās.ā texts were teaching materials written to spread the “Sampradāy” version of the lives of the eight poets as well as those of other important initiates. According to the Caurāsī Vais.n.ava kī Vārtā, written by Vallabh’s grandson Gokulnāth (1552–1641), Paramānand was born in 1494 to a family of Kannauj Brahmans. His well-off and traditional Brahman upbringing included a solid education in Sanskrit and the Vedas. He died in 1585, making him remarkably long lived. Vallabh initiated Paramānand into the Vallabh Sampradāy in 1521 and persuaded him to turn his talents toward praise of Krishna’s childhood life in Vrindavan and the Braj area as depicted in the Bhāgavata Purān.a. After initiation, Vallabh taught him the tenth chapter of the Bhāgavata Purān.a. Vallabh is understood to be an avatār (incarnation) of Krishna, an identity that his male descendants also assume. Thus Vallabh gave Paramānand firsthand experience of Krishna’s play. Vallabh tradition dictates that Paramānand’s knowledge and experience of Krishna’s līlā came from Vallabh’s revelation of the Bhāgavata Purān.a. According to the Vārtā, Paramānand was in Ad.el (a village in Braj) singing to Krishna when Vallabh and his disciple Kapūr Ks.atriya arrived in the area. Kapūr, Vallabh’s aide in serving Śrīnāthjī (a form of Krishna), heard about Paramānand from one of Vallabh’s devotees and discovered that he sang all night on Ekādaśi, the eleventh night of each half of the month. Kapūr was awestruck by Paramānand’s skill but also puzzled for he heard Paramānand sing about viraha (separation from Krishna), and, according to Vallabh, one can only experience this separation after seeing Śrīnāthjī and Vallabh (or one of his later descendants). So how could Paramānand sing so beautifully of separation? Night was ending, and Kapūr had to leave for his sevā duty with his question unanswered. At the end of the night Paramānand went to sleep and dreamed that Śrī Navanītapriyajī (Krishna as a small child who loves butter) was sitting in Kapūr’s lap. Kapūr’s līlā identity is Sonajuhī, a friend of Chandrabhāgā, Paramānand’s līlā identity.8 Kapūr, Vallabh’s disciple, then was an appropriate choice for Paramānand. Anxious for further sight of Śrī Navanītapriyajī, Paramānand sought out Kapūr, who, Paramānand assumed, was the link to Śrī Navanītapriyajī. Yet, when he saw Vallabh, he had a vision of Vallabh as the self-manifestation (svarūp) of Krishna. At Vallabh’s command, Paramānand sang several poems about separation. Vallabh then commanded him to sing about Krishna’s childhood, but Paramānand replied that he knew nothing about Krishna’s bāl-līlā (boyhood play).

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Paramānand’s Vārtā emphasizes that Paramānand came to Vallabh and that Vallabh’s holiness drew Paramānand, who already had a great following of his own prior to initiation. The Vārtā acknowledges that he was a renowned poet prior to his meeting with Vallabh and claims that his soul was pus.t.i (in a state of grace) from birth. So Paramānand was perpetually in a state of separation from—and thus desired reunion with— Krishna and Vallabh. This statement answers Kapūr’s initial question about how Paramānand could sing of separation from Krishna and Vallabh and gives justification to the Sampradāy to claim that Paramānand sought out Vallabh and Krishna to alleviate his suffering.9 Most devotees consider Paramānand to be a poet affiliated with and informed by the Vallabh Sampradāy. The hagiographic connection between the Pus.t.imārg and the As.t. achāp was forged early in Sampradāy history and mediates most people’s understandings about Paramānand’s poetry. Although most of the Paramānand corpus depicts scenes of Krishna’s līlā, some of this poetry explicitly stresses Paramānand’s relationship to Vallabh and his male descendants. Rāga—bihāg After great pains, I obtained the gem of Vallabh. I was going, floating, and he rescued me. Hearing me, he grabbed my hand. He removed the fault of associating with bad people. I bow my head to his feet. Paramānand’s lord revealed himself to my eyes. (S1238) Rāga—devagandhār The son of Vallabh is the source of bliss. To exorcise the philosophy of the Māyāvādins, he, twice-born, the moon of Vrindavan, appeared. He is the bliss of devotional songs and lives in the forest arbor; he dances the rāsa and is the greatest bliss. The plenitude of Paramānand’s lord is innumerable. Vedic meters can never reach the end. (P2/157; S1187) These poems appear, respectively, in the section titled “Mahāprabhu” (an epithet that that identifies Vallabh as Krishna) and in the section titled

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“Śrī Gusainjī” (his son Vit.t.halnāth, and an epithet to indicate a Vallabhite ¯ first depicts the devotee rescued from the ocean of sam.sāra leader). The (transience) and stresses Vallabh’s power to remove the impurity that results from associating with unworthy people. Paramānand invokes the Upanishadic image of one adrift on the ocean of existence. Such a person endures birth after birth due to cravings and attachments. Groups such as the Māyāvādins, philosophical opponents of Vallabh, advocate union with the formless Brahman as a release from this cycle.10 For devotees of Krishna, union with a formless absolute is only a temporary goal. Union specifically with Krishna is the final and most complete goal. Vallabh’s rescue leads devotees to Krishna by removing them from those “bad people” who are ignorant of Krishna. The latter poem stresses the identity of Vit.t.halnāth with Krishna and depicts his appearance on the earth.11 Vit.t.halnāth is called the “moon of Vrindavan,” a title that specifically identifies him with Krishna. Paramānand’s use of this symbolic substitution for Vit.t.halnāth thus extends attributes usually associated with Krishna to Vit.t.halnāth. Paramānand claims that Vit.t.halnāth appeared to contradict the Māyāvādins. Whereas the Māyāvādins claimed that all phenomena are māyā (illusory) and ultimately misleading, Vallabh and Vit.t.halnāth encouraged devotees to use worldly phenomena and the senses to direct themselves toward Krishna. These poems emphasize Paramānand’s link to Vallabh and Vit.t.halnāth and stress their role in saving devotees from the ocean of worldly desires. The linkage between the Vallabh Sampradāy and Paramānand in terms of popularity and authority begins to answer questions of how and why the Paramānand corpus expanded as it did. As Paramānand became more popular as a Braj poet, other poets composed lyrics and affixed Paramānand’s bhan.itā. Paramānand’s popularity would have guaranteed a receptive audience for this poetry, but certainly those who chose to use Paramānand’s signature knew and liked his poetry and would have tried to imitate it as much as possible. The generic and formulaic nature of the poems enabled a good poet to mimic the As.t. achāp style. The As.t. achāp poets conformed to the pada styles and metrical conventions and followed content conventions, based on the Bhāgavata Purān.a and Braj lore. Within particular episodes, a uniformity of expression is evident both within a particular poet’s corpus and within the As.t. achāp. Paramānand composed numerous poems describing a single event, and, though these poems might each take a different angle, they are remarkably similar. As Paramānand’s corpus grew in popularity, audiences became familiar with

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his signature, and, if a poem did not ring true, it would not be sung. Paramānand’s signature became a marker for “authenticity.” The growing popularity of the Paramānand tradition was coupled with the increasing popularity of the Vallabh Sampradāy. In the years after the deaths of Paramānand and Vallabh, the Sampradāy grew rapidly and became increasingly more popular in areas beyond the Braj region. At the same time, undoubtedly, Paramānand’s popularity encouraged poets to compose poetry and use his name. Most likely, this growth in Paramānand’s corpus was not discouraged by the expanding Sampradāy. A larger corpus elevated Paramānand’s status, which, in turn, further elevated Vallabh and the Sampradāy due to the hagiographically forged links between the two. Vallabh Sampradāy theologians interpreted Paramānand’s poems and life according to their theological concerns. Doing so enhanced their goals and popularity and solidified the linkage between Paramānand and the Vallabh Sampradāy. This practice exemplifies what Foucault defines as the “author-function,” a psychological process by which concerns and issues of a group are projected upon the text and are perceived to be its message.12 The author then becomes the interpretive lens through which the work is understood in what Rinehart suggests is a circular hermeneutic process.13 The result is that devotees interpret Paramānand through this connection with the Vallabh Sampradāy, and this connection shapes the way in which devotees receive the poetry. Though Paramānand is particularly important to the Vallabh Sampradāy, other Vais.n.ava communities revere him as a poet and saint who both participated in Krishna’s play and offered humanity the benefits of his experience. In Braj, Paramānand’s poetry is frequently heard in a variety of temples and in rāsa līlā (dramatic performances). Thus, he should be considered a Braj poet and not linked exclusively with the Vallabh Sampradāy. However, for most devotees, Paramānand’s relationship with Vallabh is important because it reveals a lineage and transmission of knowledge and authority. Paramānand’s bhan.itā bears the authority of the Vallabh Sampradāy and confirms Paramānand’s vision of the līlā. The linkage between the Vallabh Sampradāy and Paramānand assumes great prominence in the devotees’ reception of the poetry, in part, because the poetry is oral literature. Devotees hear the poetry in particular temples or homes and thus receive it within a particular social milieu. The community’s knowledge of the līlā, Paramānand’s hagiography, and Paramānand’s actual experience of the līlā affects how the poetry operates

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on each individual devotee. While texts might be read in what Ong calls “context-free autonomous discourse,” oral material must be received in some sort of context and social setting.14 Paramānand sang to a responsive audience, which considered the līlā real and to devotees who had individual and particular relationships with Krishna; however, the realities of sectarian influences affect the way in which they hear the poetry.

Theater of Memory Our ideal listeners who know well Paramānand’s background also bring to the poetry a variety of experiences and memories that condition their responses. The poems do not rely on images alone but evoke all the senses that, in turn, evoke memories. Memories are certainly linked to sensual experience. The devotee’s knowledge and sensitivity determine the experience of the lyrics, and, in a dialectical process, the theater of memory—to borrow Barbara Stoler Miller’s phrase15—provides depth to the devotee’s interpretation of the poems. For instance, in the following poem, this gopī visualizes her last embrace with Krishna. This memory evokes remembrance of his strong embrace, which leads to an endless regression of memories and associations. Paramānand plays with memory as a rhetorical device, and the gopī’s memories become those of the devotees. Rāga—sārang She remembers his lotus petal eyes. Again and again her eyes fill up with great distress, remembering their carefree love in Vrindavan. As soon as they met in the hut in the arbor of trees and creepers, they tightly embraced again and again. How could he forget these things? Our arms clasped in an embrace. We lived in the arbor and danced the rāsa; he removed the pain of Kāmadeva. How can we live without the nourishment of the sweet speech of Paramānand’s lord? (S893) After Krishna’s departure, the gopī is left with only his memory. Her eyes fill with tears as she recalls meeting her lotus-eyed lover in the arbor,

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their embraces as closely entwined as trees and vines. Seeing the vines wound tightly around trees elicits the memory of embracing Krishna. The creepers and trees are sages and their wives who yearned to be close to Krishna. These sages and their wives took birth in a previous incarnation to be close to Rāma and are depicted in the Sanskrit epic Ramāyan.a. Their devotion to Rāma, a previous descent of Vis.n.u, earned them the fortune of birth in Vrindavan, so they could be near Krishna in yet another lifetime. The gopī (and the devotee) might also recall Mādhavī, the wife of Vis.n.u (Śrī) in his form as Madhva, a name of Krishna. As the creeper, she clings to the tree, Vis.n.u.16 As the gopī remembers her past love, she reflects on the cues that evoke these memories, such as the hut in the arbor and the vines. Because the rāsa līlā dance with Krishna fulfilled her very reason for living, she wonders how Krishna could have forgotten such a thing. It seems painfully clear to the saddened gopī that Krishna has forgotten his old friends. Yet the gopīs think about nothing but Krishna, and almost everything they see triggers further memories of the old days. But how, the gopī laments, can they survive on only Krishna’s memory? These memories of Krishna that torment the gopī evoke the bhāva (passion) that makes Krishna the absolute center of their existence—and also nourishes them. Paramānand symbolically equates Krishna’s words to sustenance. Krishna’s speech is sweet like honey, and Paramānand, as the gopī, wonders how he can live without this nourishment of Krishna’s sweet speech. Ironically, their memories and associations—expressed through language—relate every thought, emotion, and perception to Krishna and sustain them by keeping Krishna ever present in their minds. Memory evokes not only past action but past emotions and accompanying awareness and consciousness so that the past becomes the present. Remembrances of the beloved bring the beloved into one’s presence; separated lovers might be reunited within the lover’s mind. The love is then strengthened and brought into the present.17 The lover remembers not only the details of the love but the thoughts, introspection, and reflection that accompanied the events and images. The gopī remembers the joy of their union, making her present anguish of separation even harder to bear. Yet she cherishes these memories, as do devotees who cultivate the mood of viraha (separation), so they reenact the gopī’s love for Krishna and her consequent suffering. The individual’s memory is an interior replica of the eternal līlā.

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The memory functions as a repository for all knowledge of Krishna’s play and emotional responses to the līlā. Different poems highlight different events, each evoking associations that bring to mind Krishna’s activities. The ideal listener retains within memory a vast reservoir of details concerning Krishna’s life. The poems—in concert with the depth memory provides—concentrate the devotee’s thoughts and emotions solely on Krishna. These details in the theater of memory do not change, although their interpretation might. Krishna’s alaukik līlā remains the same, but, because each poem presents Krishna’s games from a slightly different perspective, Paramānand’s presentation always appears fresh. Memories aid in the devotees’ comprehension of the poetry. In the poetry, there is often little or no action, and the characters of Braj never change; in fact, their constancy contributes to the development of bhāva and each devotee’s growing sophistication. The audience knows the characters and can fill in any narrative gaps. Any surprises or changes in Krishna or his games would destroy the aesthetic. As in classical Sanskrit drama, bhāva depends not on character development but on its remaining stable so that with each revolution of the poetic cycles, devotees can achieve more depth in their knowledge of these characters.18 For example, devotees know that Rādhā and Krishna will meet at night. With this base of knowledge, they can better appreciate Krishna’s machinations to intensify the bhāva, and these rasikas (sophisticated connoisseurs of art) appreciate aesthetically emotions associated with Krishna’s love play. Rāga—kānarī Covered with a sheet of fine cloth, Krishna sleeps, with the daughter of Śr.īvr.s.abhān, a treasure of beautiful rasa. Crocodile earrings, twisted curls, a garland of guñja berries. As their limbs intertwined during the night, they exchanged their yellow and blue clothes. Breast to breast, lip to lip, and eye to eye. Eyebrow to eyebrow, head to head, arm locked in arm. White and yellow jasmine and fragrant blossoms from flowering trees. The servant Paramānand says, the wise companion collects and gives away the flowers. (K1514; P3/355; S821) Late in the night, Rādhā, the daughter of Śrīvr.s.abhān, and Krishna sleep in the arbor, surrounded by plants, trees, and flowers, which reflect

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the natural beauty of the woodland scene. Krishna wears his garland of red guñja berries (of the extremely poisonous shrub rosary pea (Abrus precatorious). The guñja berry is also a jeweler’s weight used to measure the worth of gold and gems, so this berry is a simple substitution for gems and jewels. With this identification of Krishna as a “treasure of rasa,” Paramānand evokes a world of monetary value, but this treasure of rasa is measured by a garland of forest berries. Devotees know that Krishna abandoned the treasures of his royal heritage when he came to Braj and chose the simplicity and beauty of Vrindavan. Paramānand’s wordplay configures this truism: Krishna himself is a treasure whose worth transcends the gold standard of a worldly monetary system, so his beauty can only be counted by the weights and measures of the forest. Paramānand’s language paints more than a picture: his metaphors— in this case, love is a treasure—create a conceptual framework that structures the devotee’s thought process and thus how the devotee sees. Each of Paramānand’s varying linguistic maneuvers elicits different conceptual frameworks. For example, Paramānand’s equivalence of Krishna as treasure evokes a different set of word images than the metaphor of love as sustenance. Yet, as we will see, Paramānand’s unique vision combines these metaphoric incongruities to help the devotee see Krishna’s līlā. Paramānand represents Krishna and Rādhā’s intimacy through their switching of clothes, their wrapping themselves in each other’s color. At some point in the night, Krishna and Rādhā have switched their clothes. The story, which the audience surely knows, goes as follows: Rādhā dons Krishna’s yellow clothes, and Krishna, Rādhā’s blue, and each must convince his or her mother that she was wrong when she (thought she) saw the wrong color clothing. Rādhā and her best friend, Lalitā, convince Rādhā’s mother that the bright sunlight made the blue cloth appear golden and that, of course, Rādhā was wearing her own blue outfit. The two gopīs persuade Rādhā’s mother that her faulty eyesight transformed the glow of Rādhā’s skin and made her clothes appear yellow. Scents arising from the yellow and white jasmine blossoms adorning the arbor reflect the scene’s lushness. The mālatī (a form of jasmine) is a white flower on a vine, which represents the moon’s rays, thus a substitution for Krishna’s presence. Jāī (or camelī, jasminum floridum) is a small shrub with a delicate yellow blossom. Fragrant yellow-white campā (michelia campak) blossoms and the perfumed flowers of the evergreen (bakul, mimusops elengi) complete the scene so that the devotees smell the fragrance permeating the scene. The blooming flowers and their scents

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demonstrate the qualities of freshness and potency, yet incorporate the warning that such freshness is short-lived. Like freshly bloomed flowers, Rādhā’s beauty is at its peak, and, the poem advises, the gopī should invest this passion well. Those unused flowers will only wilt and fade in time. Paramānand praises Krishna’s beloved as the “wise companion,” for she does not hoard her short-lived beauty but judiciously invests it in Krishna. Paramānand’s simple substitution of flowers for Krishna’s love illustrates the daunting truth: the metaphoric equivalence that love is a perishable substance or quality. Love and beauty—as expressed through the flowers and Rādhā’s youth—will disappear. Paramānand’s equivalence of love as a treasure and love as a perishable substance might appear to inhabit vastly different semantic realms, yet Paramānand deftly combines the two worlds to suggest that such a treasure must not be hoarded but wisely invested before it disappears. In the previous poem, Paramānand sang from the point of view of an observer, one of Rādhā’s friends, a girl whose joy comes from assisting the couple. In the following poem, he speaks as one with a more direct role: Krishna’s spurned lover. Rāga—lalit Beautiful Syām, you have been awake all night, your lotus eyes are drowsy. Red fingernail marks are etched upon your chest like half moons. Your turban once tied, now dangles on your head, your clothes are falling off, and your tilak is gone. Your flower garland is crushed on your chest, your ornaments have fallen from your body from your embrace. Bristling with the passion of love-making, the hairs on your arms remain standing. Paramānand, the rasikarāja, the fortune of Krishna, was poured into another. (K207; P3/146; S832) In the wee hours of the morning, after a night of passion, Krishna slinks back to his lover. He has been awake all night, and his body sports the inevitable marks of his love play. The gopī addresses him as Śyām, a name which—like the name Krishna—indicates the dark blue-gray hue of

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his body. This color, that of a cloud about to burst, evokes the relief of the monsoon after the unbearable summer. The gopī has waited all night for Krishna to appear; now it is almost morning. This image of the rain cloud should be one of relief, yet Paramānand throws out an ironic twist: Śyām’s appearance elicits a confusion of relief and fury. His disheveled state makes it clear that he has spent the night with another woman. The nail marks etched into his chest leave no question as to his whereabouts, and his garland has obviously been crushed against the chest of another woman. The previous poem revealed Paramānand’s equivalence of flowers with the perishable nature of beauty and love. Using the crushed garland, Paramānand takes this metaphor one step further to illustrate the apparent destruction of love. His bristling arm hairs make obvious his infidelity. In Indian aesthetics, physical phenomena such as horripilation are considered to be sāttvikabhāvas, the incontrovertible physical manifestations of emotions that cannot be faked or stopped. The khan.d.itā poems reveal a highly nuanced expression of Krishna as the rasikarāja, the connoisseur of emotion. Here, love is expressed as anger. According to Sanskrit aesthetic theory, the khan.d.itā nāyikā (broken[-hearted] heroine) is the one whose lover, the aparādhī nāyaka (the criminal hero), appears the following morning, apparently having spent the night with another lover. In real life, such a lover might deservedly receive an unpleasant welcome, but the devotee with an alaukik perspective relishes Krishna’s subtle manipulation of emotion and uses this anger to intensify the love. Krishna, as the connoisseur of love, manipulates the devotee’s emotion commensurate with the devotee’s ability to appreciate the emotion. For example, Krishna’s love games arouse passion and jealousy and do not destroy love but enhance it. Devotees understand Krishna’s actions to be a game, one played for the benefit of his devotees to enhance their relationships with him. The khan.d.itā nāyikā of this poem has only harsh words for Krishna. As the gopī, Paramānand’s description of Krishna not only betrays the gopī’s righteous anger, but also his own emotions. Paramānand seamlessly weaves the different strands so that it is difficult to see where one ends and another begins. Krishna has revealed his līlā to Paramānand, and Paramānand sees this episode in which the heroine meets her bedraggled lover who has apparently spent the night with another woman. Paramānand articulates the spurned lover’s point of view as he relates her description of

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Krishna and focuses on that moment when the gopī sees Krishna’s body to communicate her anguish. The final line wherein he testifies to his own experience of the līlā reveals Paramānand’s identity within the poem. He speaks as both the poet and the gopī, a different stance from the previous lines, when he writes, “Paramānand, [says] the rasikarāja, the fortune of him, was poured into another,” thereby lamenting that the boon of Krishna was bestowed upon another. Here Paramānand draws on the metaphor of love as perishable, something that can be spilled or lost. That devotees hear this poem and see Krishna’s drowsiness in the early morning when they themselves have just arisen underscores the embodied and totalizing nature of the poetry. Not only do devotees physically live according to the daily and yearly cycles, but the synaesthetic integration of the senses in the poetry enables the devotee to experience the totality of the līlā. The sensory data do not appear as separate pieces of information (e.g., the sight of his crushed garland and the feel of his embrace) but rather are integrated so that the devotee hearing the poem “sees” the scenario as a unified whole, using all the senses. A particularly adept devotee—our ideal listener—involves the entire body as well as the mind and emotions. Adept devotees who hear this poem understand, in part, the emotional import due to the theater of memory but “see” the action through Paramānand’s word images synaesthetically transformed into sight. It is important to consider the distinction between evocation through memory and synaesthesia, because it is the synaesthetic process that provides for devotees the unified and embodied experience of the līlā. In the poem just discussed, Paramānand portrayed Krishna’s wretched appearance; as the gopī, Paramānand recognized the cause of this disarray and surely recalled past embraces with Krishna, the touch of his creeperlike embrace, as well as the sweetness of his voice—a clear case of evocation through memory. When devotees apprehend and interpret these poems, they use all of their knowledge of the poetry—including their own emotional and physical experiences—as well as their understanding of Krishna’s līlā. Although devotees vary individually in their sophistication, most share a common ground of knowledge, which is why Paramānand’s literary techniques are so effective. Each of Paramānand’s word games draws on this shared memory and subtly shapes the devotees’ conceptions of the līlā, and that is the transformational mechanism of devotional synaesthesia. The gopī in this next poem has spent the night with Krishna and stumbles home in the dark hours before dawn.

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Rāga—bilāval In the morning, she arises and leaves the forest shelter. She staggers, her locks of hair hang loose. She wears Krishna’s yellow silk. Her red eyes wander lazily like a wave on the ocean of rasa. Wilted flowers fall from her hair. The string for her hair has broken. The marks of the youthful groom’s nails shine and render her golden body lovely. Up to now the Lord of Paramānand passed the night in sport. Leaving him, she laughs and turns her face. (K312; S824) Paramānand sings of the gopī’s reddened, sleepy eyes, her ragged braid, and her lurching gait. Krishna’s nail marks upon her body are her finest ornament. Devotees visualize this image of the drowsy gopī, and the depth of their memories determines the resonance of Paramānand’s symbolic substitutions—and thus the extent to which this poem will actually transform the devotee. The gopī’s body narrates the story of her complete envelopment in Krishna’s love. She staggers home wrapped in Krishna’s yellow garment, and Krishna’s nail marks emblematically engrave his love upon her body. These marks are the synecdochic presence of Krishna himself, the part for the whole. And, devotees know, Krishna’s toenails are likened to the moon. Paramānand plays with the symbolic substitution, equating Krishna to the moon, a well-known substitution in Braj poetry. This gopī then is symbolically immersed in the rasa (nectar) produced by the moon. Structuring this set of images is Paramānand’s metaphoric equivalence of love as possession, similar but not identical to the metaphor of love as immersion. Krishna has established his territorial rights on this girl’s body. No longer the coy maiden, this girl “laughs and turns her face.” Ironically, the phrase mukha mor.i (turning one’s face in shame) usually refers to a heroine in the early stages of love while she is inexperienced and hesitating— not one who has consummated her love. This laughter creates a tension between the idea of an inexperienced girl and this gopī who is so clearly branded by Krishna. A respectable woman would have neatly braided hair and a well-tied sari, yet this woman’s physical appearance indicates that she has cast aside social decorum in favor of abandoning herself to Krishna’s love. The wilted flowers that once adorned her now loose hair trail behind her, representing decay and use—contrasting with the freshness and purity of an inexperienced girl.

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Paramānand illustrates Krishna’s līlā immediately prior to and after his love games but never describes the love games themselves: no devotee could ever see Krishna actually engaged in love play. According to Braj tradition, while Krishna and Rādhā played in the arbor, Paramānand and the other As.t. achāp poets waited outside at their assigned gates and only saw the pair afterward. Knowledge of Krishna’s līlā informs devotees that the tired, wretched gopī must rush home before her mother discovers her absence and that, meanwhile, Krishna rushes to his own home for the same reason. Devotees further understand—possibly from both cultural experience in an Indian village and/or familiarity with basic aesthetic theory—that the gopī’s laughter belies her status as a naive young woman. Instead of hiding her face in shame—as would befit a modest girl—the gopī laughs, a sure sign that she has cast aside her humility. Devotees can decode Paramānand’s cryptic language and fill narrative gaps because they know the story and can incorporate personal and cultural interpretations into it. When devotees hear Paramānand’s narration of events, at one level, they follow the basic action of the vignette. At the same time, they contextualize this action and the images within their greater knowledge of Krishna’s līlā and interpret the material according to their own life histories, experiences, and proclivities. Because Paramānand assumed his audience to be knowledgeable about Krishna’s līlā, he composed the poems in a sort of shorthand, a compressed and dense form in which a word or phrase may bring about numerous cognitive, mythological, or philosophical associations. The poems may be short in length, but they are dense with meaning. Devotees’ familiarity with sociocultural paradigms informs their reception of the poetry. Nonetheless, devotees respond to the poetry in an intensely personal manner: no single response is required by the poetry. Although much of the līlā can be understood universally (e.g., Yaśodā’s maternal attentions), each poem’s details will resonate deeply for one steeped in Braj culture. As devotees achieve greater levels of sophistication, they respond to ever more subtle nuances in the poetry, and Paramānand’s rhetorical devices operate with greater precision because of the devotees’ increased sensitivity. Yet the reception of these stimuli depends on the interpretive framework of the recipient. The devotees who can invoke rich fields of associations from their stores of memories can better fathom the nuances and subtleties of the lyrics in the same way that a connoisseur of Western

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classical music is more likely to have a richer experience of a complex Bach fugue than one who is unschooled in music. In this last period before morning, the devotees see—through Paramānand’s words—the lovely sleeping couple in the arbor, and their knowledge of Krishna—filtered through cultural, mythical, and personal schemas—is unique to each devotee, although their knowledge is based on the four stylized roles presented in the Bhāgavata Purān.a. As the night’s events draw to a close, the devotees know that Krishna and the gopīs must leave the arbor and return to their families. Man˙galā—Krishna Rises

Rāga—bhairav Wake up Gopāl darling! Mother gives her blessing. Get up darling! It’s morning, the darkness of night has gone. All the cowherds are calling, my enchanting boy Kānha. Get up, my font of bliss; the moon slowly appears in the sky. The sun’s rays give the lotus joy. The boys all play their flutes; they won’t untie their cows without you. Get up Lāl, get out of bed, oh handsome king of bride-grooms. He removed the cloth from his face and gave Yaśodā darśan. He asked for curd and a variety of sweets. Both Syām and Balarām ate, treasure troves of all auspicious qualities. Paramānand obtained those leftovers which remained on the tray. (K68; P3/16) Rāga—kachu khevo Wake up, darling Gopāl! I want to see your face. I’ll finish the house work and my daily prayers later. There is red in the east; night has gone, and the sun has risen. The bees flew out of the lotus; get up, Bhagavān. The adoring women stand at the door and sing your praises. They sing of the passionate mystery of the play of the avatār. Paramānand’s lord Gopāl is the highest form of auspiciousness. The Vedas and the Purān.as sing of his unparalleled play. (K71; P3/19; S85)

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Yaśodā awakens Gopāl, or Lāl (darling), in his own bed after he has returned from his night of love. Yaśodā has not seen her darling boy all night and is ecstatic to see him first thing in the morning. When Yaśodā put him to bed the previous night, she—according to the aesthetic of the līlā—assumed that he would remain there. Instead, the devotees know that Krishna has slipped out of his home to cavort throughout the night with the gopīs. Yaśodā—who sees Krishna as her sweet boy—knows nothing of Krishna’s love games with the gopīs. Like most women of rural India, Yaśodā has risen long before the sun and earlier than the rest of the family. She performs her chores, such as milking the cows and preparing breakfast, under the cover of darkness. When she finally awakens her sleeping Krishna, who has been out all night, he is understandably reluctant to get out of bed. She lures him out of bed, bribing him with breakfast and telling him that the boys are waiting for him. Finally, he arises and gives Yaśodā the auspicious vision of his face. The first sight of Krishna after the night’s separation is auspicious. Yaśodā does not perform her daily prayers until she has had her first sight of Krishna, suggesting the relative importance given to worship of Krishna as opposed to Vedic and more traditional religious practices. The poem advocates singing the Vedas and the Purān.as but elevates vision and devotion of Krishna over the former. The gopīs come to see Krishna first thing in the morning in accord with the folk belief that seeing something auspicious that time of day makes the entire day productive and good. Even today residents of Braj place a picture of a deity or a guru where they will see it first thing in the morning. This sight renders the entire day auspicious, whereas a bad sight makes the day inauspicious. Paramānand describes a typical morning for Krishna, the scene illustrated broadly through the poetic transformation of word into sound. On the microscopic level, though, we can see Paramānand’s rhetorical strategies that subtly manipulate the devotees’ vision. Paramānand’s illustration of the rising sun and its warm rays is obvious, but what is less obvious is the way in which the sun’s symbolic equivalence with Krishna and its consequent entailments configure the poem. He is loathe to get out of bed, even though the sun’s rays have dispelled the darkness—the sunrise symbolically recapitulated when Krishna throws off the bedsheet to reveal his face. Although Krishna is typically associated with the moon, here Paramānand employs a different symbolic substitution: Krishna = sun and

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its life-giving rays, and this equivalence evokes the sustenance and plenitude associated with Krishna’s presence. When Krishna reveals his face, the sun bathes the world in its soft morning rays. The light dispels the chill of the night and reveals the world born anew, fears of the unknown banished with the darkness. These concepts of ‘plenitude’ and ‘warmth’ that configure the poem’s reception are not culturally specific; that the sun encourages growth and plenitude is a universal phenomenon. However, additional entailments of this symbolic realm are specific to Braj devotion. For example, the adept Braj devotee hears the poem knowing that the sun stalks the gopīs as an enemy. In Krishna’s absence, the sun’s harsh rays sear the gopīs, and only Krishna’s presence—as the moon and its cooling rays—mitigates the heat of separation. Paramānand explores the exception to this rule when he depicts Krishna as the beneficent sun, which sustains rather than desiccates. Like the kamal (lotus), which closes at night but opens with the sun’s light, Yaśodā blooms in the morning after seeing Krishna. When the lotus reopens its petals at sunrise, it releases the bee that has been trapped all night. The closed lotus suggests the closed embrace of Rādhā and Krishna during the night; during the day they remain apart like the petals of the bloomed lotus. At sunset, the lotus catches the bee that flies from flower to flower. The bee, of course, is the fickle Krishna who takes what he needs from each gopī and flits away. During the night, Krishna has been trapped within the embrace of a single gopī, yet in the morning, he is released to seek the embrace of another. The gopīs know him from past experience as the fickle boy who was so cavalier with the nectar of their youthful love. In his illustration of this scene, Paramānand sings the poem from Yaśodā’s point of view, but Krishna’s reluctance to rise is contextualized by devotees who know that Krishna has been up all night with the girls of Braj. Paramānand manipulates the trope of Yaśodā’s necessary ignorance of Krishna’s divine status. Without this ignorance, how could Yaśodā act as a true mother to Krishna? Aesthetically, she must see him as her small son, not as the lord. Bhagavān is an address of the lord, not one of the typical Braj epithets of Krishna, which indicate his qualities as a Braj youth, such as Lotus-eyes. In the poem, it is deliberately unclear whether Yaśodā is invoking the lord while trying to get Krishna out of bed or addressing Krishna as the lord. This trope reflects the distinction—and deliberate ambiguity—in the devotee between comprehensive knowledge of the līlā

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and full immersion in the emotions (and necessary blind spots) of a particular character such as Yaśodā. Paramānand continues to manipulate this distinction when Yaśodā, in her attempt to get Krishna up, tells Krishna that the adoring girls are outside singing his praises, a common Braj theme. From the time of Krishna’s birth through his adolescence, the gopīs have come to Yaśodā’s door every day to see Krishna. Krishna’s beauty has captivated these girls, and they devise a variety of pretexts to come near him. Paramānand sets the stage as if he were describing the adoration of a deity—which he is— but according to the līlā, these girls are infatuated with a regular boy. Yaśodā continues, telling Krishna that the women speak of the “passionate mystery of the avatār,” a line that suggests both Krishna’s divine heritage and his erotic escapades—both of which are hidden to Yaśodā. Yaśodā sees Krishna only as a little boy, her innocent son, and cannot know of his amorous escapades, nor can she ever realize his erotic tendencies. When frustrated gopīs confront her with Krishna’s (mis)deeds, Yaśodā routinely denies their insistent complaints of Krishna’s sexual nature. Her emotional approach is solely parental and does not include the erotic elements. The gopī women, unlike Yaśodā, can love Krishna either solely with an erotic or parental approach or with a mixture of the parental and erotic, because the mādhurya bhāva is considered to be inclusive of all approaches. The village boys—exemplars of the sakhya approach—also wait for Krishna in the morning, so they can graze their cows in the forest. The lowing of the cows and the music of the boys’ flutes evoke not only the boys’ joy at playing with Krishna but all the memories and emotions associated with Krishna’s tending the cows in the forest. Krishna’s simple wooden flute epitomizes his assumed guise as a rural Braj boy—in contrast to his royal lineage. When he left the heavenly Vaikun.t.h, his divine dwelling, he took on all the accouterments of a village boy. The boys’ flutes also evoke the siren song of Muralī, Krishna’s enchanting flute, whose call none can resist—an interesting reversal. Here, the boys’ flutes entice Krishna, whereas it is usually Krishna’s flute that lures the gopīs. For example, Krishna’s flute Muralī called the gopīs to dance the rāsa līlā, and, at the sound of his flute, they abandoned their chores and their families to join Krishna. The gopīs are eternally jealous of Muralī’s pride of place on Krishna’s lower lip, and mention of the boys’ flutes evokes the gopīs’ desire for Krishna and fuels their jealousy.

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While both of these early morning poems focus on obvious parental affection, Paramānand interweaves threads of the erotic, such as his mention of Muralī. Further, Yaśodā’s—and the other women’s—devotion to Krishna outweighs her interest in her household tasks; her attention to chores and social decorum wanes in comparison to the desire to see Krishna. The gopīs are only too willing to delay their housework for the opportunity to see Krishna’s face, a foreshadowing of the gopīs’ abandonment of their wife–daughter roles to dance with Krishna, a theme that fully emerges in the rāsa līlā poems. At the time of the rāsa līlā dance, the gopīs’ love for Krishna overwhelms any concerns for social propriety. The gopīs will do virtually anything to achieve this auspicious darśan. Rāga—rāmakalī I came to see Lāl’s face. Yesterday, I saw his face, and as soon as I left to sell the milk, it was sold. From that day, there were double benefits: the black cow bore a calf. I came running and stopped suddenly: let me wake Mohan! Hearing her sweet speech and laughter, he awoke and sat up; the urbane one called them near. Paramānand says, the wise gopī communicated through gestures and winks. (K108; L8; P3/24; S83) Krishna wakes to the sweet sound of the gopī’s laughter. The gopī (and Paramānand) knows that Yaśodā is inside with Krishna and that she must plot to meet him without Yaśodā’s knowledge. While Yaśodā focuses on her maternal duties—waking Krishna and feeding him breakfast—Krishna and the gopī signal each other for a clandestine encounter. This gopī, who has met Krishna, realizes the gain—phrased in the language of economics—from seeing Krishna first thing in the morning: her milk sold, and her cow bore a calf. The real profit—and milk is metonymic for love—is not cash but the rasa or bhāva produced by darśan of Krishna, and there is no shortage of love. Paramānand’s metonymic use of milk indicates that these benefits will multiply: while the cow produces a calf and thus more milk, love begets love. Paramānand maneuvers through two semantic complexes in this poem—the realm of economics and the realm of battle—and each realm includes certain entailments and precludes others. The rasa that cannot be bought or sold is love, and the concept of ‘love as nourishment’

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suggests cooperation and profit for all. Competition for scarce resources is belied by the plenitude of Krishna’s love. In the realm of battle, however, competition is necessary because Krishna and the gopī must subvert their “enemy,” Yaśodā. Paramānand praises the wisdom of the secretive gopī who has eluded her own mother and Yaśodā to meet with Krishna. Lovers—like warriors—obscure their plans by communicating through signals. The lovers themselves are not (usually) adversaries but must hide their love from their disapproving families and neighbors. Both Krishna and the gopī know that they must meet covertly, and often they use one of Rādhā’s friends, the sakhīs, as liaisons. As noted above, Paramānand’s bhan.itā indicates his own darśan of the līlā and reveals his role as a poet. Paramānand himself saw the totality of the līlā, but chose a specific point of view to present this darśan to devotees. In this poem, he had been speaking from the perspective of the gopī, but, in the end, he comments as a third-party observer. When, in the early morning, Paramānand sang a poem about Yaśodā preparing Krishna’s breakfast, devotees understood this to be direct revelation, and aesthetics provides the key to decoding this revelation. Rāga—bilāval Yaśodā arose in the morning and churned the milk. She lovingly took some fresh butter and put it in her son’s hand. She skimmed cream from the boiled milk and fed it affectionately to Hari. She took honey, nuts, food and sweets and put them in his mouth. Every day he plays many games which thrill Yaśodā’s heart. Paramānand sings daily about his enchanting boyhood play. (S134) Yaśodā arises early each morning to perform her chores. One of them is churning butter for the household. She knows how much Krishna loves butter. She offers him the cream—the most valuable part of the milk—which is symbolic of her love for him. Nurturing Krishna concretely expresses her maternal love, and doting on a small child, particularly a son, resonates with most devotees. In Braj and elsewhere in India, feeding someone is an expression of affection—something devotees know from their own lives. Yaśodā’s careful preparation and the variety of delicacies reveal the depth and nuances of her love. With these milk

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products—metonymic for love—she sustains and nourishes Krishna. Yaśodā’s maternal ministrations point to an important truth for the devotee. Yaśodā’s boon is her opportunity to lavish her maternal attentions on Krishna, and devotees know that Krishna himself nourishes the world. In the same way that Yaśodā offers Krishna a range of foods, Krishna appears to devotees in a variety of forms—in whatever form is most appropriate for each devotee. Rāga—dhanāśrī She bestows blessings upon Syām’s alluring body. Your face is a cooling ocean of nectar; just sipping it can’t sate my eyes. Mother Yaśodā says, don’t go for even the blink of an eye. That one moment when he plays in the cow’s pen passes as an eternity. Come and eat your food, you two boys, darling sons. Paramānand says, Nandarānī’s speech is entwined with love. (K716; P3/76; S310) Nandarānī (Nanda’s wife, Yaśodā) cannot bear to be separated from Krishna for even a moment. His face is the nectar that soothes the burning pain she experiences when separated from him. Like the gopīs, Yaśodā also experiences searing pain when separated from Krishna. Her only relief is Krishna’s face, and Paramānand metonymically identifies Krishna’s face with the moon—a font of nectar. The poem explores the semantic possibilities of love as rasa or as relief-providing liquid. Krishna’s face is a cooling ocean of nectar, and his name, Śyām, connotes the dark rain cloud ready to burst. However, just as Yaśodā can never feed Krishna too much, no amount of this nectar—or darśan of Krishna—will ever satiate Yaśodā or any devotee for that matter. This impossibility of satiation is an aesthetic point; the mood would be lost if satiation were possible. Yaśodā sips the rasa (nectar), but her thirst is not quenched. Yaśodā can hardly bear even a short separation from Krishna; her eyes burn during that moment of distance but are soothed when he returns. Literally this line means, “Don’t go for as long as it takes to blink,” not even a moment. Images of relief—Śyām as the dark rain cloud—are paired with the trope of separation. She cannot let him out of her sight for even a minute lest she feel the resulting anguish. Yaśodā gains relief, but

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where is the relief for the residents of Braj when Krishna leaves for good, when the moments stretch into days and weeks? This brief pain foreshadows the longer periods of separation Yaśodā and the gopīs will endure as Krishna grows older. For the present time, Yaśodā is happy in union with Krishna. Her longest time apart from her small son is when he plays in the cow pen just outside. She knows that as he grows older he and his cowherding friends will spend the entire day grazing the cows in the forest. However, she has no way of anticipating the day of his permanent departure for Mathura, which will be the last time her eyes receive his cooling darśan. For now, Yaśodā cherishes her time with Krishna and rarely lets him out of her sight.

Śr.n˙gār—Ornamentation Rāga—bilāval Mother ornaments her darling. With love, her hands bathe and anoint the two brothers Hari and Haladhar with perfumed oils. Her hands adorn him with his two-stringed garland and his necklace of coins. Over and over again, the life of Paramānandadās receives blessings. (K469; L62; P2/116; S1167) In the śr.n˙gār darśan period, Yaśodā adorns Krishna and Balarām (Haladhar, the one who holds a plow) in all of their finery. Everyday Yaśodā dresses the boys in their fine clothes and beautifies them with bracelets, garlands, and earrings—the finest she has to offer. Braj residents and devotees recognize Krishna’s adornments; these items are stock descriptive elements of his splendor. Krishna’s necklace of coins suggests his worth, and devotees surely know of Krishna as a “treasure of rasa.” His garlands and yellow clothes are also well known to devotees, and each of these items brings about a myriad of associations and memories, both of the līlā and of each devotee’s own sevā. The detailing of the śr.n˙gār or adornment process shows devotees all facets of Krishna’s beauty, and each piece provides yet another focal point for the devotee. Yaśodā anoints her sons with perfumed oils, which evokes the senses of sight, touch, and smell. Devotees know that perfumed oils are part of the daily routine; for example,

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sandalwood oil is an appropriate cooling agent for the summer and is treasured for its delicate fragrance. Aesthetic theory based on Bharatamuni’s Nāt. yaśāstra provides a heuristic framework for interpreting the poetry. The linkage of rasa, passion, and liquid is firmly rooted within traditional Indian aesthetics.19 The term rasa, which can be traced to Vedic sources, literally means “sap” or “essence.”20 Rasa comes to be considered a taste, an emotional awareness that the audience apprehends as the experience of art. Although Bharatamuni postulated eight rasas—erotic (śrn˙gāra); comic (hāsya); pitiable (karun.a); violent (raudra); heroic (vīra); terrifying (bhayānaka); disgusting (bībhatsā); and wondrous (adbhuta)—it is only love, erotic and other, that concerns the devotee. Aestheticians such as the tenth-century Kashmiri Śaivite Abhinavagupta linked religious experience and aesthetics, but theoreticians of sixteenth-century Braj systematized this linkage and made the aesthetic concepts ‘rasa’ and ‘bhāva’ indispensable to Braj devotion. Although rasa and bhāva traditionally have had distinct meanings, they are conflated in popular imagination. In traditional Indian aesthetics, the rasika (connoisseur of rasa) cultivates taste for the rasas or emotional states—as one would for art or fine wine—through the arousal of bhāva, the personal and particular emotion. Each devotee enters into a relationship with Krishna based upon the bhāva to which the devotee is most inclined. Rūpa Goswāmī, one of the six Goswāmīs affiliated with Gaud.īya Vais.n.avism, wrote the Bhaktirasāmr.tasindhu and the Ujjvalanīlaman.i, which synthesized and adapted aesthetic theory to Krishna devotion. Aesthetic theory had been applied to Krishna devotion long before Rūpa Goswāmī. For example, Jayadeva’s Sanskrit poem Gītagovinda links the earthly erotic and divine forms of love, but the contributions of Rūpa Goswāmī and Vallabh (in his Subhodinī) became the blueprint for Braj devotional aesthetics, and aesthetics became the interpretive strategy for experiencing union with Krishna. In Rūpa Goswāmī’s most important contribution, he subordinated and reorganized the traditional eight rasas into five rasas that comprise the relationships through which the devotee approaches Krishna. Ultimately, he considered the five rasas to be one: rati, or love, which he further subdivided into śānta (peace), dāsya (servitude), sakhya (friendship), vātsalya (parental love), and mādhurya (erotic love).21 Rūpa also ranked the primary bhāvas (peace, servitude, friendship, parental love, and erotic love) in terms of their intimacy between the

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devotee and Krishna, from minimal in the case of peace to maximal in the case of the erotic.22 Vallabh theorized that rasa, which must be present in sevā, is transformed into the personal bhāva, and the devotee’s personal relationship with Krishna divinizes the passions.23 The devotee enhances this personal and intimate relationship with Krishna through cultivating bhāva. Rasa and bhāva are not “produced” by poetry, but rather the poetry evokes emotions that exist a priori within each of us.24 Familiarity with the significance of the details facilitates the bhāva’s arousal. Indian aesthetics offers two basic vibhāvas (categories of stimulants): ālambana and uddīpan.25 Ālambana is a character, such as Krishna, who stimulates a particular emotion, while uddīpan is the scene and setting that arouses the emotion. When Paramānand sings of Yaśodā dressing Krishna, Krishna himself is the ālambana because the devotee’s relationship is with Krishna. Yaśodā is the āśraya (the recipient) because bhāva for Krishna arises within her. The uddīpan comprises the details of the scenario (e.g., Krishna’s clothing and adornments), which themselves are significant within Braj culture. For example, for many American women, a description of a mother dressing a little girl in a frilly party dress and Mary Janes evokes memories or associations because these details are available to them either from personal experience or through enculturating sources such as the media or picture books. Rāga—bilāval Mother dresses him in a yellow tunic. She drapes a fine gold ornament on her son. Embroidered gold threads embellish her darling’s pants. His bracelet is studded with jewels; and a diamond is emblazoned upon his chest. Mother Yaśodā stands and stares; she can’t contain herself for joy. She marks him with collyrium, and the women of Braj smile. Father Nanda gives him his flute and tells him to play something. Hearing this captivates the heart, Paramānand says, surrender to him. (K465; P3/155; S573) Yaśodā and Nanda delight in their small son. His fine clothes and jewelry accentuate his beauty in this poem of the hot season. Krishna’s bejeweled resplendence marks Yaśodā and Nanda’s pride in him. The gold-laden image is ironic because Krishna abandoned the treasures of Vaikun.t.h when he appeared in Braj. Yet, this image points to a greater

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truth: that the person of Krishna himself is the treasure. Watching him, Yaśodā can barely contain her love and pride. Nanda completes the picture by offering him Muralī, his flute. This image of Krishna with his flute is one of the best known images of Braj and arouses not only tender love for the child Krishna but also the more erotic love for the youth Krishna. Although Krishna’s beauty might be appreciated by anyone seeing it, the strongest responses will come from those culturally conditioned to respond to such stimuli. A devotee—an ideal listener—integrates these stimuli into an interpretive framework so that each sound, image, and concept makes sense in terms of this system of meaning. The devotee who takes the midmorning Śr.n˙gār darśan of Krishna in his fine dress knows that Krishna is now ready to leave his home and can follow Krishna on his adventures—and havoc—through Braj.

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CHAPTER THREE

Krishna’s Morning Games Creating Intimacy through Treachery

During the midmorning, devotees hear tales of the divinity who has taken the form of a mischievous young boy who tends the cows. These accounts of Krishna’s morning games are not bewildering or wondrous, but, in fact, seem quite ordinary, and therein lies much of their potency. As a young child, Krishna stays home with his mother, and, as an older child, he goes to the forest with the cows, and both of these scenarios replicate the daily activities of many families. The familiarity of the scenarios and activities makes them readily accessible to devotees so that devotees can adopt an appropriate emotional stance. However, Paramānand’s—and Krishna’s— manipulations of the emotions are anything but ordinary.

Gvāl—Boyhood Play Every morning the gopīs arrive on Yaśodā’s doorstep to complain about Krishna’s destructive pranks. He steals butter from their houses and feeds it to his friends. If he spots a pot of curd, he overturns it. When the girls go to market to sell the milk, he traps them in narrow alleys and demands a toll. Krishna infuriates everyone in Braj, but his seemingly obnoxious behavior ultimately enhances the devotees’ intimacy with Krishna. His pranks subvert the normal hierarchies—God-human, Brahman-cowherd—that impede intimacy. Everything is upside-down in Braj, devotees note, and images of crookedness demonstrate this Braj perspective. Paramānand’s rhetorical strategies illustrate the “topsy-turvy” 63

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and “crooked” nature of Braj, and his tableaus of destruction demonstrate the importance of the free flow of Krishna’s rasa. Krishna’s thievery and lying become exemplary strategies for demolishing the constraints of social decorum. Rāga—sārang Look at the splendid play of Gopāl. Brahma and Mahādev are amazed; Mother Yaśodā took a stick and rope in her hands. Oh, the boys told her what happened: darling Syām ate dirt. She lifted his face and looked in his mouth; the form of the expanded three worlds. The Vedas narrate the qualities of Keśav; the 1,000 mouths of Śes.a became exhausted. None of these qualities can be written; knowledge cannot cross this difficult pass. The sum of his deeds, qualities and birth are told, but the depths of this esoteric tradition are incomprehensible. Whoever takes refuge in him has no fear; he, Paramānand says, destroys doubt. (P1/141; S131) When he suffers his punishment for eating dirt, Krishna bestows upon Yaśodā the boon of intimacy, meanwhile briefly revealing to her the immensity of his divinity. Krishna, like any toddler, constantly puts anything and everything into his mouth despite Yaśodā’s pleas. After the boys tell Yaśodā that Krishna has eaten dirt, she looks in his mouth and sees his awesome divinity, the immensity of the three worlds that is Krishna’s cosmic form. Yaśodā’s vision is similar to Krishna’s revelation to Arjun in the Bhagavad-Gītā. Paramānand demonstrates the figure of speech “seeing is comprehension”: Yaśodā sees and realizes Krishna’s true form. The deities Brahma and Śiva are spellbound, and even the thousand mouths of Śes.a (the cosmic serpent) cannot adequately speak of Krishna’s qualities. Language is not adequate to describe Krishna’s divinity, but Paramānand’s words translate this theophany into sight. Despite his divinity and grandeur, Krishna allows Yaśodā the joy of performing her maternal duties, and he accepts her punishment. Although he gives her a glimpse of his magnitude, he quickly erases this

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memory, and again Yaśodā sees Krishna as a small boy. Krishna’s concealment of his divinity is an aspect of his grace because Yaśodā could not possibly treat him as her son if she realized his divinity. Such awareness would destroy the parental attitude: it would be difficult to punish god, so Krishna erases any hierarchical distinctions that might separate him from his devotees. The parental affections rely on the closeness between parent and child, and Krishna gives Yaśodā that passion by submitting to her maternal authority. Krishna, though, is well aware of his own nature and incorporates that awareness into his pranks. Rāga—asāvarī The Brahman can’t offer the meal. Mother chastises, he is offering this pure food, yet again and again you come and touch it. I invited the Brahman for the ritual of mourning. You are teasing him, Gopāl. He feeds his Th.ākur, but you come and touch it. Oh mother, you know nothing of this matter. How can you blame me? Paramānand says, the Brahman closed his eyes and called me. (K708) Yaśodā has called the family priest to perform the Śrāddha ritual, but Krishna hints at his own divine status—and mocks the presumed superiority of the Brahman—by eating the offered food, and, in doing so, ridicules those hierarchies that create social distances. As part of this ritual, the Brahman tries to offer food to T.hākur, which is both a name of god and the name by which most svarūps of Krishna are known. Krishna, as a deity, is the proper recipient of these offerings, but, as a lowly cowherd boy, he defiles the food that the Brahman is offering to the deities. No one, especially a non-Brahman, should touch an offering before it is given to a deity because that would render it impure. Yaśodā, ironically, is furious at Krishna for taking what is rightfully his. Krishna manipulates Yaśodā’s and the Brahman’s ignorance of his status. He teases the Brahman by polluting the offerings and affects innocence, asking “How can you blame me?” Paramānand’s poem wryly notes the irony of Yaśodā denying Krishna what has been offered to him. Paramānand says, in defense of Krishna, “the Brahman called me, and I came,” so devotees

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can imagine Krishna’s feigned bewilderment at his predicament. Speaking as an observer, Paramānand comments on the irony of the situation. He and the devotees understand Krishna’s big joke. As the prankster par excellence, Krishna has declared war on his own village. He constantly torments his mother and the girls and women of the village. Devotees revel in Krishna’s plots and jokes, which illustrate the dynamic of union and separation in Braj. Krishna’s antics and subsequent punishment by Yaśodā create an intimacy not possible in other contexts. His boyhood appearance and playful nature allow much closer relationships than are typical between humans and deities. Most devotees approach Krishna through either the parental or erotic categories, which inspire more intimacy than friendship and servitude. Much of Rāma devotion, particularly that attributed to Tulsīdās, falls into the servitude category that requires a greater distance and an inferior/superior relationship between Rāma and the devotee. In Tulsīdās’ Vinayapatrikā, the poet Tulsīdās portrays himself as a lowly being unfit to grace Rāma’s court. In this case, the devotees feel awe and love for the divine but do not participate in a personal relationship of a more egalitarian nature. Krishna, though, has abandoned Vaikun.t.h for the pastoral and humble setting of Braj and placed himself in a position of “ungodlike” closeness with the people of Braj. Yet devotees emulate the people of Braj and strive for this intimacy. Krishna does not partially enter his role as the foster child of Yaśodā and Nanda but fully lives and partakes of this role. He is not a “godlike” child, a temporary village resident, who exists on the fringe of village life. Instead Krishna conceals his divinity so that the residents of Braj can intimately relate to him. If devotees saw him as other than a mischievous little boy, such intimacy would be impossible. Devotees can approach Krishna as a Braj child or youth, and the residents of Braj treat him as one of their own. Each devotee ultimately knows that Krishna is Purus.ottam—a name of Krishna or Vis.n.u indicating the supreme being—with his six majestic qualities, but paradoxically this knowledge causes a distance that impedes intimacy with Krishna. Because the devotional community supports Paramānand’s connection to Vallabh, an ideal listener would likely contextualize the poetry’s philosophical basis according to Vallabh’s ideas about Krishna’s nature. For example, how does Krishna as a deity participate in the phenomenal world? Vallabh developed the philosophical system Śuddhādvaita (pure nondualism), which posits that all existence is real, not illusory, and exists within and through Krishna.1 Krishna as Brahman created the

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world through play or sport (līlā) and manifests himself in it for his own delight. There is no necessity here, only the sense of free and spontaneous play. The concept of ‘creation through play’ has long roots in Indian thought, and creation was considered an act of play even as far back as the Brahma-Sūtras.2 The Vallabh Sampradāy conceives of a tripartite existence: jagat (the world), aks.ar, the nirgun. (unqualified) Brahman, and Purus.ottam, the sagun. (qualified) supreme entity that incorporates the first two. The qualified Purus.ottam contains and reveals Krishna’s complete līlā, and the devotee knows the divine as Krishna. The aks.ar Brahman, an intermediate stage, also reveals the līlā, but incompletely. In the world (jagat), the divine is concealed and only revealed to those who understand the nature of Purus.ottam. That is, divinity permeates the world and all matter, but most people are ignorant of this fact. This ignorance is the primary fault (dos.a) of humans. Those knowledgeable of the nature of Purus.ottam see Krishna’s presence in all aspects of existence. Vallabh’s categories of laukik and alaukik make sense in this description of existence. Krishna permeates jagat (the world), and devotees’ attitudes render things laukik or alaukik. The aks.ar Brahman is the unqualified, nirgun. Brahman of the Upanis.ads, philosophical-speculative texts developed between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE. They claimed that nothing could be said of Brahman because qualifications are inherently limiting. Devotees and sages have continuously debated whether the qualified or unqualified form of the divine is the higher expression, although Krishna devotees unequivocally state that the path of Krishna devotion is superior. The aks.ar Brahman is the goal of the yogīs (ascetics), who conceive of the divine as nonqualified. Through meditation and wisdom, the ascetic strives for union with Brahman as a drop of water merges with the ocean, but this is an intermediate goal for the devotee. The ascetic loses the self in Brahman, whereas the devotee maintains a necessary duality for relationship with Krishna. Those sages seeking union with Brahman often appear in Paramānand’s poetry as stock characters whose search for the formless ironically leads them even farther from the divine. On the other side of the ocean of the formless Brahman exist Krishna’s līlā and Purus.ottam. The devotee must cross—and not merge with—this aks.ar (unqualified) ocean before emerging on the shore of līlā. The devotee then sees and participates in the līlā. Devotion to Krishna, not ascetic practice, gains the devotee this reward. Paramānand’s poems depict Krishna as a boatman who helps his devotees across this ocean. The

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devotees who see Krishna’s nonworldly play also understand the nature of the three aspects of existence. Devotees acting as one of the Braj characters must suspend their theological awareness and fully participate in the moment of the līlā with the immediacy of the characters involved, a process similar to the “willing suspension of disbelief ” in reading a novel. Devotees bring only those elements of their own backgrounds that best help them engage with the aesthetic of the poem. The Gopī’s Complaints to Yaśodā Rāga—sārang Mohan, you are the son of a great man. I do not understand this. You, the clever gem of gems, quarrel in the forest. The wives and daughters come and go to the Yamuna embankment for water. You break our pitchers and twist our arms, we can’t go on the path. Yaśodā should hear of this matter, or the great chief of the cowherds. Her one son, so darling with that lock of hair, has such odd behavior. Hearing this speech delights my heart. Hari’s play is enchanting. The life of Paramānandadās, the creeper of Nanda grows. (P1/244; S596) This irate gopī confronts Krishna with his mischief. You come from a good family, she says, and you are clever, and yet you cause trouble all over Braj. These women come daily to the Yamuna to get water for the household—village women throughout Braj perform this chore, bearing heavy clay or metal pots. Krishna apparently has no regard for their labor. How are they supposed to get water when he blocks the path and smashes their pots? She threatens “if Yaśodā or Nanda should hear of this matter” but then quickly relents, and here, her heart melts. When she sees darling Krishna with his hair just so, her anger turns to delight, and she is captivated by his games. Krishna’s “odd behavior” creates a form of māna, which portends his adolescent love games with Rādhā. The gopīs become angry with Krishna but love him even more after their anger dissolves. In

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this poem and the next, Paramānand’s language suggests that love is war, or at best a minor skirmish, and any tactics are permissible to increase intimacy, whether twisting arms or breaking pots. Both sides retreat, and the perceived loser seeks justice from Yaśodā. Daily, the enraged gopīs appear at Krishna’s house to complain to Yaśodā about his behavior. Rāga—bilāval Who can make you do anything? You milk my cows and feed all the boys. I went to Vrindavan just for a moment, and you have looted the house of all the butter. I beg and plead of you, but from afar you mock me. When I complain to Yaśodā, you roll your eyes at me. Separation from Paramānandadās’ lord pleases my soul. (S214) The gopī is furious. Krishna once again has destroyed her morning’s work by stealing all her milk and butter. This boy is out of control: “Who can make you do anything?” To make matters worse, he has no remorse. Instead, he mocks her from a safe distance. Complaining to Yaśodā is futile, she has discovered. Krishna hides behind his protective mother and rolls his eyes at her, and separation from Krishna, Paramānand says, would be a relief for this gopī. Narrating from this frustrated gopī’s perspective, Paramānand illustrates a scene that must resonate with many devotees. This mischievous boy not only wreaks havoc on his neighbors— and young boys in India are subject to very little discipline—but he ridicules the gopīs’ anger, which further enrages them. He knows his mother will shelter him from their wrath and righteously proclaim his innocence—a point of view seen in other poems. What possibly infuriates the gopīs even more is awareness of their intense attraction to Krishna. Ironically the vehemence of the gopī’s anger strengthens her love for Krishna. The gopī’s anger is an expression of love, and Krishna’s breakage and destruction are emblematic of freedom from the stranglehold of propriety, a freedom that facilitates the gopī’s love. Krishna’s boyhood games and pranks intensify the passion Yaśodā and the gopīs feel toward him. Through his grace, Krishna performs all of his games for the devotee’s benefit, and these actions tighten the bond between deity and devotees by enhancing the devotees’ bhāva. Krishna’s

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escapades are not bad or evil, just mischievous. People shake their heads and throw up their hands at his behavior but, at the same time, laugh at his boldness and creativity. Krishna does what others would like to do but are constrained from doing in the social realm. Just as we smile and forgive those who toe the line of acceptable social behavior and dare us to challenge them, so, too, Krishna is appreciated. Krishna acts upon—and vicariously fulfills—some of our urges whether we acknowledge them or not. He expresses the childlike trickster nature that most people suppress to survive in society, so, consciously or not, we all cheer for him as he repeatedly violates societal conventions. Through his childhood and adolescence, Krishna constantly harasses the gopīs. As a young boy he and his friends sneak into the women’s homes, steal their butter and curd, and smash the pots of hanging curd. As a youth, he stops them on their way to market and demands a toll. The incensed gopīs complain to Yaśodā about his boorish conduct, but Yaśodā disputes these allegations. He is just a young boy. How could he do these things? she asks, when they accuse him of ripping their blouses and stealing their milk. She accuses them of fabricating stories as a pretext to see Krishna. Yet, when Yaśodā punishes Krishna for eating dirt—the sole charge not levied by the gopīs—the gopīs revile her as a bad mother. When they see young Krishna tied to the heavy grinding mortar, the gopīs, who demanded punishment all along, cannot bear this indignity and call Yaśodā cruel. These poems of boyhood pranks, complaints, and punishments create a dynamic of separation and union within the devotees’ hearts. Krishna’s pranks and teasing make the gopīs simultaneously feel distant and close to him; friendly teasing occurs in an atmosphere of closeness or intimacy. The gopīs complain but are proud to be singled out for Krishna’s attentions, thus their complaints are also boasts—a situation Yaśodā wisely understands. At the same time, their genuine anger at his pranks generates an internal distance between the gopīs and Krishna. They complain to Yaśodā, but she sees their complaints solely as a pretext to see Krishna. The gopīs prove her assessment correct when they complain about Krishna’s punishment. Yaśodā and devotees oscillate between feelings of irritation at and love of Krishna, though no one can stay angry with Krishna for too long. Krishna eventually charms the gopīs, and their anger disappears. The brief separation caused by the feelings of anger strengthens their love for Krishna, who is both in and outside the activity. He is wholly engaged in

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his Braj līlā yet also orchestrates the scene by manipulating everyone’s actions and passions, a role similar to the poet Paramānand’s. When Paramānand visualizes the līlā, he fully participates in the emotions, but, as a poet, he makes narrative choices and observations that place him outside the action. Poems about Krishna’s boyhood pranks demonstrate vātsalya bhāva (the parental approach), but they also allude to the more intimate adolescent relationships between the gopīs and Krishna. The childhood play and its accompanying parental approach are accessible for many devotees. His childhood antics parallel his erotic youthful exploits such as the māna (annoyance in love) or khan.d.itā play of later years. His adolescent pranks are overtly sexual. For example, he demands a toll on the road to market and traps the gopīs on the ghāt. (steps to the river). The erotic approach is a delicate matter because of the danger of misinterpreting the erotic approach as kām (something physically sexual) in a worldly manner, rather than as an alaukik approach to devotion. Poems with the erotic approach frequently embed erotic nuances within the parental attitude so that only more sophisticated devotees would appreciate, or even apprehend, these subtleties. Less sophisticated individuals would then hear the obvious parental approach and not misread the erotic emotion in a worldly sense. Krishna’s play, and particularly the erotic approach, only makes sense if understood with an alaukik perspective. Rāga—sārang The clothes are in the Tamāl tree. But what did the beautiful women of Braj take from darling Lāl who is curved in three places? He saw their braceleted hands [which are] like nets over their now revealed beautiful bodies. You, your minds not immersed in his rasa, don’t understand the meaning of the boyhood play in Braj. Night and day, Gopāl who has huge restless eyes remains with the group of cowherds. The lord of Paramānand grazes the cow-wealth, moving with the passion of the king of elephants. (K530; P3/287; S829) Paramānand narrates the scene in which Krishna has just stolen the gopīs’ clothes while they are bathing. Naked, they are too ashamed to

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come out of the water while Krishna sits in the tree and laughs. They attempt to protect their modesty with their hands, but Krishna sees through their netted hands. Paramānand suggests that there is more here than meets the eye, although not everyone understands the meaning of Krishna’s Braj play. Like Krishna, devotees must look beyond the exterior to see what is really there and see beyond the obvious. Just as Yaśodā and the Brahman know Krishna as only a little boy, superficial sight is deceptive. This poem, like many, demonstrates layers of meaning within the poems. Only those immersed in rasa, or passion, realize the identification of Krishna as an elephant in rut. On one level, Krishna’s play is meaningful, and the devotee uses this play to enhance the devotional relationship. On another level, this poem suggests a more theological message: devotees should not, and, indeed, cannot hide anything from Krishna. Devotees should divest themselves of their worldly pretensions, such as modesty and pride, before Krishna because these have no intrinsic value and only impede devotion to Krishna. Krishna’s actions might appear to be entertaining, but they carry deeper meanings for devotees. As devotees become more sophisticated—connoisseurs of rasa, they are better able to grasp— with alaukik sensibilities—subtle nuances in the poetry. Mixed Bhāvas Rāga—bilāval The boyhood play of Hari is captivating. They laugh, watching Keśav and Rāma. Mothers Rohinī and Yaśodā are delighted. In the courtyard, his body is resplendent with rubies. Hearing his anklets jingle with each step, their hearts leap with joy. The greatest love grows in the mothers. They lift both squirming and wiggling boys onto their laps. The most fickle one, the giver of all joy; night and day they remain immersed in the rasa of his play. Again and again the Braj women look at the lotus eyes of Paramānand’s lord. (P1/150; S93) Paramānand sings of a simple courtyard scene with Krishna, Balarām, and their mothers. Mothers Yaśodā and Rohin.ī, Balarām’s mother, watch

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in delight as their sons toddle across the courtyard, and they listen to the jingling of the boys’ anklets. Devotees empathize with the mothers’ love for their children. Although this poem depicts Krishna’s childhood play, it also resonates with the exploits of the youth Krishna. The sounds of the jingling anklets suggest the sounds of young women and hence have erotic connotations. Most women wear silver anklets that make their presence heard. The word capal (wavering or fickle) intimates his later love play with the gopīs and foreshadows the accusations of fickleness and philandering that they subsequently fling at him. The descriptive elements capal and wiggling point to Krishna’s nature as crooked, not straight. This poem exemplifies the concept of ‘mixed bhāvas’ in which both the parental and erotic approaches are implied. In some poems, certain words and images that ostensibly allude to the parental sentiment also indicate Krishna’s adolescent games. The adept devotee understands the esoteric meaning of the poems. Though Paramānand’s Vārtā links him primarily to Krishna’s bāl-līlā (childhood play), his lyrics are more complex than simply a presentation of this approach.3 Many of Paramānand’s poems illustrate Krishna’s boyhood play yet, upon closer examination, also lead the devotee into the erotic emotion or Swāminī līlā. In the Vallabh tradition, Swāminī is the term for Krishna’s favorite gopī, a term that often, although not necessarily, refers to Rādhā. According to classical aesthetics, the bhāvas were to be kept separate; a work of art led to the arousal of one bhāva, not to a mixture. Emotions were isolated, not mixed and conflated. Rūpa Goswāmī suggests that some bhāvas can be mixed, but definitely not the parental and erotic, which are antagonistic.4 Braj poetry, however, blends the bhāvas, and the boundaries—which are of little significance to most devotees—between the mādhurya and vātsalya bhāvas dissolve into the more amorphous emotion of prem.5 Paramānand’s poetry consistently mixes the two approaches, leading to a mix of the parental and erotic. Often, the parental theme is overt and draws the sophisticated devotee into the concealed erotic approach. The Vallabh Sampradāy is primarily associated with Krishna’s childhood play as a mode of sevā and devotion. The emotional attitudes are often mixed, and what might appear as parental also has an element of the erotic. The poems might be understood as coded texts in that the erotic approach is often available to more adept devotees. The Vallabh Sampradāy distinguishes between private and public sevā; the childhood scene shrouds the erotic play because the erotic games are extremely esoteric and

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not for public consumption, but only for the advanced and initiated. Nondevotees might misinterpret Krishna’s antics and pranks, but those who are immersed in his līlā and rasa know the truth and can relish Paramānand’s subtleties. The minds of the gopīs are already attached to Krishna. Krishna has snared their affections, and their attraction will become more overtly erotic as Krishna gets older. In the minds of the gopīs, the union is already there: Krishna controls their hearts and minds. His mischief—whether in childhood or adolescence—gives the gopīs the opportunity to develop the passions of separation and also anger: the gopīs’ anger separates them emotionally from Krishna. While complaining, they are both angry and happy to see him and taste this delicious mixture of union and separation. Rāga—sārang Hey Yaśodā, your boy Gopāl does not heed my words. He has never been like this before; he does not know what is his own or someone else’s. Because of this resident of Nanda’s Gokul, no one wants to live in this Braj. There have been many boys before this, but none like him. Hearing of Kānha’s strange deeds, Nanda’s wife laughed. The wise one knows of the thievery of Paramānand’s lord, but keeps it secret. (S165) This gopī complains that Krishna does not listen to her words, and no one wants to live in Braj with this strange boy. Yaśodā knows of his thievery but feigns ignorance, laughing at her son’s antics. Paramānand suggests that Yaśodā is the wise one, while the complaining gopīs are fools. In this trope of thievery, the gopī accuses Krishna of stealing milk, but the “wise one” knows that milk is love, and love is not a commodity that can be stolen. In any normal social setting, the gopīs would be correct about Krishna’s theft, but, as Paramānand’s wise one knows, Krishna’s only theft is of the gopīs’ hearts and minds, which results in intimacy. Although the gopīs are physically close to Krishna, he has created distance in their minds. The gopīs complain that Krishna’s mischief has driven everybody out of Braj, but his actions make Braj all the more enticing.

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Rāga—sārang Oh cowherd woman, Govind is under your spell. You get up in the morning and come here first thing, maddening my son. Darling Syām is only five years old; he is captivated by your speech. He sees your creeper hands from afar, your eyes speak to my son. I don’t understand this boy, his whole being is topsy-turvy. My ears hear nothing, and my eyes see nothing; the Vedas can’t explain this mystery. I know and understand that he is the son of another, yet he lives in my own home. Paramānand says, Yaśodā is frustrated, what kind of age has come? (S188) Yaśodā claims to not understand Krishna’s behavior. She states that his nature is topsy-turvy and wonders: what sort of age has come when a child can act like this? She accuses the gopīs of enchanting her young son and blames them for his behavior. On one level it appears that nothing is as it should be: young Krishna is captivated by the gopīs’ hands and eyes. But this enchantment is how things should be in Braj, and the Vedas— representing propriety—are no help for the reversals of Braj. Although this poem overtly depicts the parental approach, the erotic attitude is evoked, foreshadowing the gopīs’ relationship with the adolescent Krishna. Although Krishna is a young child, his sexuality is clearly present even in his early relationships with the gopīs. Yaśodā loves her son and defends his trickery, but even she cannot understand him. He is beyond her comprehension, and she blames the gopīs for provoking him. Although he is merely five years old, they treat him as they would an adolescent boy. Their speech and hand gestures enchant Krishna so he cannot act appropriately for his age. Reference to hand gestures as “creeper-like” is a common allusion suggesting the sensual movement and intertwining of vines, which themselves are sensual and suggest the graceful movements of dance. The gopīs have driven Krishna to madness by their inappropriate actions. The allusions to the creepers encourage the devotee to read this poem in an erotic context. The last three lines suggest Yaśodā’s realization that Krishna is not a regular boy; she seems aware of her son’s superhuman nature. Yet, this

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reference is ambiguous; Krishna’s behavior is clearly a mystery to Yaśodā. On one level, Krishna’s great energy and mischief often baffle Yaśodā, yet this behavior is puzzling in a very human sense. His wild behavior is unknowable, but he is still a normal boy. On another level, she intuits that Krishna’s mysterious nature extends far above and beyond that of a regular boy: even the Vedas cannot “explain this mystery.” Yaśodā’s invocation of the Vedas suggests that she must have some perception of her son’s superhuman nature even though she might be barely conscious of this realization. Further, Yaśodā recognizes that, because she is Krishna’s foster mother, Krishna is the son of another. However, her parental love depends on her seeing Krishna as her real son. This poem also suggests a common theme: Krishna’s childhood sexuality. Krishna’s antics and the gopīs’ interaction with him suggest that Krishna relates to the gopīs on a more sexual level than is obvious. Krishna responds to devotees in whatever manner is appropriate for them. He allows his devotees to meet him according to their needs and emotional constitution, so he can at once fulfill the parental and erotic approaches. In the dān-līlā, the youth Krishna traps the gopīs in a narrow alley and demands a toll. Rāga—kānharau Hey, you forest-dweller with the forest garland. Your antics no longer please me; I laugh hesitatingly at your inappropriate jokes. I say, let go of my sari! I’m not your father’s servant. You have such passion, you are sassy and crooked. Why don’t you take a different path? Who else is like you? You don’t care that you frighten me. Paramānand says, he makes mischief here and there with a group of friends. (S603) Krishna has trapped the gopī on the path. By addressing Krishna as “You, . . . with the forest garland,” she alludes to his beauty by referring to the forest garland, a well-known adornment of Krishna. This allusion suggests the gopī’s initial attraction (or pleasure) at this surprise meeting with Krishna. Her initial thoughts quickly turn sour as Krishna makes inappropriate jokes, and his teasing perhaps goes too far. She demands that he

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release her sari and states that she is not one of his father’s servants that he can treat in that way. This indignant gopī wonders why Krishna cannot just take another path and stop his mischief with the girls. Her anger and exasperation with Krishna are the reverse of their attraction. She is furious with him only because she loves him so much: without an emotional investment, no reaction is possible. She accuses Krishna of being sassy and crooked, qualities she intends to be insulting to him. Yet, in the Braj aesthetic, Krishna’s crookedness is an asset because nothing is as it seems. Krishna’s crooked sense of propriety defies laukik community norms, but he plays his games for the benefit of his devotees, so the līlā must be understood as alaukik. Paramānand illustrates scenarios of grabbing and breaking blouse ties, and these images graphically depict the destruction of normal social boundaries. The gopīs’ relationship with the adolescent Krishna manifests an overt sexuality and demonstrates the gopīs’ enjoyment of Krishna’s play—despite their complaints. This enjoyment illustrates an assumption within Braj devotion: that because Krishna appears in the way most appropriate to each devotee, any protests are merely window dressing. Krishna’s beneficence and omniscience toward his devotees make him acutely aware of each devotee’s needs and the best way to address those needs, so the gopīs’ complaints are part of the game. The gopī laughs at Krishna’s jokes—that usually carry sexual connotations—but she complains nonetheless, albeit a somewhat pro forma complaint. This poem makes several cultural assumptions, such that the gopī’s laughter rings true. The poem first assumes a male cultural ideology in which men imagine that the girl enjoys this treatment, and second, assumes that Krishna emerges from a well-off family of the village, and thus the gopī’s complaints would be ineffective. In the context of the līlā, however, Krishna’s pranks and the gopī’s pretexts—or lies, depending on your perspective—are games within a game to snare devotees. Rāga—āsāvarī Ma! Just now they have come to complain. They have no business or purpose; they are arguing a lie. I was with a group of my friends, and she yanked my arm roughly. She squeezed my cheek and smeared me with butter, and she grabbed Śrīdāma there. Her throat was choked with emotion, and tears filled her eyes;

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Yaśodā’s heart went out to him. Paramānand says, the sage Śuka’s song cannot capture this boyhood play. (S221) Rāga—sārang Gopāl is so very innocent. Why do you make up lies? When did he break the ties of your blouses? Darling Syām is only five years old, such a delicate boy. At the time, my boy with his curly hair was running and playing with the cowherd boys. Oh cowherd women, listening to your talk makes me ashamed. Nanda’s wife stands there irritated: all of this is your doing! Get up and go home! Don’t act so impudent! Women should protect their honor. Paramānandadās says, she knows about this habit of yours. (S195) In S221, Paramānand speaks for Krishna. Krishna argues that he did nothing, but, for some reason, the girls grabbed him and smeared butter on him, and now they tell lies about him. Krishna knows that his mother’s heart will melt at his protestations of innocence, and, sure enough, her heart goes out to this victim of female cruelty. S195 continues with this theme of the gopīs’ lies. Yaśodā teases them, but with some anger. She believes that the girls are inventing stories of Krishna’s behavior. He is only five years old. Why would he be untying their blouses? Why would her five-year-old son torment these older girls? Like any normal boy, he was running around with his friends. Yaśodā then questions their virtue: No upstanding girl would be running around the village after her son; these gopīs should be home, guarding their reputations. Yaśodā is ashamed for them. Paramānand says that Yaśodā knows their habits, which, ironically, can refer to either the gopīs’ lies or to Krishna’s egregious behavior. Yaśodā, however, has become wise to the gopīs’ tricks. Every day Yaśodā endures a parade of complaining women, but she knows that they come simply to see Krishna. They are entranced by Krishna’s rasa and will use any pretext to see him. Like Yaśodā, we know the truth of the gopī bhāva. The devotees have the knowledge and perspective of Yaśodā and understand the fabrications. The devotee perceives Krishna’s games on different levels. On one level, the devotees see the play

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from an outsider’s perspective and realize the truth of Yaśodā’s argument in a manner that is similar to the omniscient narrator who knows and reveals the thoughts of all the characters in a book. On another level, depending on the roles they adopt, the devotees fully participate in the thoughts and passions of Yaśodā and/or the gopīs (the two different perspectives that these poems have shown) but do not have the transcendent bird’s-eye perspective. Despite their complaints and anger, the gopīs cannot bear it when Yaśodā punishes Krishna by tying him to a mortar. They vilify her and doubt her maternal capabilities. Rāga—sorathī Again and again she looks in Govind’s mouth. Lotus-eyed Hari catches his breath and cries. Yaśodā releases his bonds. This is your son, born of your own womb: true or false? What kind of boy of the household steals and eats butter from his own home? The fresh pot of curd I set aside was not available for worship of the Yaks.as. What is left for the gods and ancestors of a house into which Krishna comes. His name is the sword’s edge that cuts through Yama’s snare. Hari is bound by the rope of love. Yaśodā takes a stick in hand and scolds him. Paramānandadās’ lord does as he pleases. See the misery of the two sons of Kuber who up to that time were bound. (P1/142; S140) Rāga—sārang My darling Lāl, I give you my blessing. She embraces him and kisses the face of beautiful Syāmamurārī. Why is he tied to the mortar? Oh, what kind of a mother are you? The wind was not so high. Why are the trees broken? Again and again, Yaśodā considers the play of this incarnation. Paramānand’s lord extends himself for the gods, philosophers, renunciants and ritualists. (S141)

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The two sons of the Yaks.a Kuber, Nalakūbar and Man.igrīv, had been imprisoned as the two Arjun trees that Krishna eventually uprooted when Yaśodā bound him to the grinding mortar. The pair had become drunk and sported with some women in the Gangā. The sage Nārada spied them, but they remained unashamedly naked. Nārada cursed them for their vanity and sentenced them to live as trees. Nārada allowed them to retain their memories so that they would not repeat their sin. Nalakūbar and Man.igrīv were to remain the two Arjun trees for one hundred celestial years, after which they would regain their celestial status. At the appointed time, Krishna crawled between the trees and uprooted them, thus making good on the sage Nārada’s word. The freed brothers recognized Krishna as the lord even though he was tied to the mortar. They circumambulated him and prostrated themselves before him.6 Krishna bestows grace upon Yaśodā and his devotees by allowing himself to be bound with the rope. As allegory, her binding of Krishna to the mortar parallels the bond between Krishna and his devotees; as an avatār, Krishna has bound himself in a human form (hiding his divinity) for the benefit of his devotees. Paramānand manipulates the incongruity and irony of Krishna’s apparent childhood status and the enormity of his divinity. The gopī addresses him as the beautiful Syāmamurārī, a name that indicates his role as the foe of the demon Mura. This tiny child bound by a rope is also the powerful slayer of demons. Ironically, while Krishna allows himself to be bound by a rope, his own name is that which severs the snare of Yama, the lord of the underworld. Krishna’s rope of love defeats the bonds of death. Yaśodā and the gopīs complain that no offerings for the deities or Yaks.as are safe when Krishna is around. The butter and curd designated for the gods mysteriously disappears when Krishna is present. The allusion to Krishna’s theft demonstrates the reverse: that Krishna is the true recipient of these offerings. Yaśodā’s accusation alludes to the contrast between Krishna’s human and divine status. Krishna fulfills the role of the errant little boy so that Yaśodā and the others might fully experience the parental mood of devotion by acting as real parents to him. A parent who truly loves a child must also discipline the child, and Yaśodā disciplines Krishna out of love. In taking her punishment, Krishna unconditionally adopts the guise of a little boy; he partakes in all aspects of childhood, including the loss of autonomy. Krishna’s full assumption of this role deepens the maternal bond with Yaśodā and strengthens her love for him. She does not merely go through the motions of motherhood: she is his mother in her eyes. She even endures the taunts

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of the gopīs who criticize her maternal skills. She and the devotees fully experience the depths of parenthood. Although Krishna’s punishment—and that of Nalakūbar and Man.igrīv—is binding, the ethic of Braj is freedom and lack of restriction. Krishna’s smashing of the pots and his liberal distribution of their contents illustrates this freedom from restrictions and the free flow of rasa—a contrast from tightly regulated social mores.

Shattered Boundaries and Spilled Milk: Metonymies of Love Rāga—sārang I surrender to the son of Nanda. Whose arm has Kānha twisted? Whose sari has he torn? I was just going to fill the pots with Yamuna water when Giridhar met me on the way. He smashed my pot and broke my nine-stringed necklace, then he gave me much abuse. Again Syām started to ask me: to which cowherd family do you belong? I am under the control of Paramānand’s lord; the arrows of his eyes have struck me. (S250) The gopī has gone to the banks of the Yamuna to fetch water: Krishna rips her sari, breaks her necklace, and twists the gopī’s arm. He breaks, rips, or bends everything he can. Paramānand frequently sings of Krishna’s destruction of various items. Although the gopīs complain bitterly about his wild behavior, Krishna’s destruction of containers and boundaries alludes to the shattering of worldly conventions. Items such as pots and clothing confine and bind; they keep things in their designated place. When Krishna smashes pots, breaks a necklace, or tears a blouse, he obliterates rules of decorum and propriety that bind people, particularly women, to rigid behavioral codes. He frees devotees from worldly concerns and proprieties by smashing the laws and mores that constrain behavior in the mundane world. The immaculate and modest gopī with necklace and well-tied sari is a model of decorum: Krishna destroys these emblems of propriety so that the gopīs are no longer bound by worldly convention but, like devotees, are free to enjoy Krishna’s rasa.

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In addition to breaking things, Krishna is a thief. He breaks into houses to steal butter and traps women in narrow alleys, demanding milk as a tax for safe passage. These stories establish his reputation as a thief of butter, but, more important, when Krishna harasses the gopīs and steals their wares, he is, in truth, stealing their love. Milk and butter, also identified with rasa, are metonymies for love. In this case, love—depicted as milk and butter—appears as a commodity in the poetry, as something that can be bought, traded, and stolen. Love is subject to laws of social convention and economics in what John S. Hawley terms the “economy of love,” and actions ignoble in the laukik become commendable in the alaukik. In a worldly economy, theft of milk and butter is wrong. However, Krishna’s thievery takes on a new meaning in the alaukik economy: who can put a price on love?7 Whereas, in the simple village economy of money and goods, milk can be bought and sold, such economics have no place in Krishna’s alaukik realm, which is judged under different criteria. Milk and love are plentiful and should not be hoarded or subject to laws of supply and demand. In the alaukik, where an infinite supply of the love/milk/rasa exists, dispensing love increases the supply, unlike in the laukik economy in which distribution diminishes the supply. Krishna disburses his love and increases the supply far beyond its original proportions. Love transcends any system of monetary exchange, and, as a physical manifestation of rasa, it flows freely. Poems such as these use this economic metaphor to point to an opposite truth: that ultimately love is not reduced when distributed, but increased. Thus Govind spoke to Rādhā: whatever I demand, you should give. If you offer some of this curd to me, I’ll give back much more. (S228) As curd expands from a small amount of culture, a little bit of love grows, and we receive far more than is given. Love is an investment. The donor does not lose the gift but instead gains a bounteous return. For devotees, the love and devotion offered to Krishna result in access to the infinitude of rasa that is Krishna. The gopīs’ love, as represented by the curd, should not be purchased for money. A monetary purchase would destroy the taste and ruin the rasa, so Krishna argues that the gopī should give him the curd for free.

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Rāga—sārang Today I’ll take the value of the curd. He tore the elephant-pearl from Candrāvalī’s neck. I’ll give its price to you in secret. He took her hands, and held her in the middle of the path. Then he started a quarrel. I swear on my father, I won’t go. Nanda’s son is so stubborn and mischievous. When love is influenced by greed, sweet words become tasteless. Those clever ones who know the greatness of Paramānand’s lord praise Hari. (P1/243; S623) Rāga—devagāndhār Rādhā took her butter on the path. It is invaluable for the customer, the Lāl of Nanda. She left Braj, and he grabbed her. Tell me the proper price of the curd, he said. I’ll take the whole pot. He took some tax and stopped for a bit. Now, you wise girl, where will you go after the curd is gone? Nanda’s darling boy quarrels over the tax on the curd. Meet with Paramānand’s lord and give everyone a share. (S627) Paramānand suggests that Krishna’s trickery and quarreling enhance the gopīs’ and, by extension, the devotees’ love for Krishna. The curd is the gopī’s love, and Krishna says he will take all of it. Krishna demands to know the proper price of the curd, which, as he knows, is nothing: love has no price tag. He asks what she will do when all of the love is gone. He sarcastically refers to this simple country girl as a wise girl and banks on her misunderstanding the rules of the alaukik economy where there is no shortage of love. Indeed Paramānand comments that she should give a share to everyone: Krishna’s love can never be exhausted. These poems contrast two metaphoric realms: the idea of love as a limited commodity and love as free-flowing bounty. Foundational metaphors and metonyms are not necessarily complementary or coherent, but such inconsistency allows for a wide range of figurative expression. In the laukik realm, love appears as a commodity, something that might be bought and sold—and even stolen, as a heart. In the alaukik realm, love

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multiplies to meet the demand and flows endlessly. Paramānand illustrates these contrasting metaphoric realms visually through the motifs of theft and economics. An infinite supply of love matched with an infinite demand exists for all to freely taste of the rasa. It is difficult to determine whether Krishna or Rādhā (or both) is the primary actor in the first poem. The gopī Candrāvali is merely a foil for the action; her pearl has no real value. Both Krishna and Rādhā could speak the line about wanting the value of the curd. Rādhā wants the money that she would receive for selling the curd, in which case, Krishna accuses her of greed. In any case, without regard for who started it, a quarrel over who should receive the curd ensues. Krishna speaks the lines about greed and love because he knows that purchasing the curd would spoil the rasa. Love quickly spoils when valued according to laukik monetary standards. Paramānand’s poems depict rasas as metonymically linked with substances, such as milk or food, which are, in turn, linked to emotional responses. Krishna—as the abode of all rasas—holds all the rasas within him and is called the “rasarāja,” the king of rasa. In an aesthetic sense, rasa means love or emotion, but its original meaning, sap, suggests its embodied, fluid nature. In Paramānand’s poetry, Krishna’s love takes on the physical form of rasa, which appears in numerous liquid forms, such as sap, juice, and milk, and embodies the metaphor of love as sustenance. These embodiments of rasa physically represent Krishna’s love and pus.t.ī (grace) that sustain the devotees. These embodiments of love remind the devotee of the presence of Krishna’s love in the world. The rasa flows freely in Braj; love is substantialized as a fluid and is identified with milk. Everything in Braj suggests the vastness and abundance of the rasa of love. The liquid nature of rasa breaks all boundaries and dissolves the false borders erected between the laukik and alaukik. The different liquid metonymies particular to and well known within the Indian tradition inculcate responses to Krishna that are available primarily to those informed by this cultural paradigm. The synaesthetic transformation is deeply connected with rasa theory. The terms synaesthesia (a conflation of the senses) and rasa are not synonymous but are intertwined and interdependent in the context of Braj poetry. First, as a gestalt, a total experience, synaesthesia is essential for creating rasa or bhāva in its capacity as the prevailing aesthetic mood. For example, the total of the word images in the previous poem create for devotees a mixture of anger and love. Second, synaesthesia underlies the

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embodied and multivalent nature of rasa. For example, Krishna’s love is nourishment to be seen, tasted, and felt so that devotees see—or comprehend, to stress the figure of speech that posits sight as comprehension— Krishna’s love in its various manifestations. Paramānand plays with the different forms of Krishna’s rasa, or love, and allows the devotee to perceive Krishna’s love through all five senses. The use of rasa in its multiple connotations parallels the Vallabh Sampradāy’s use of the word pus.t.i (literally, “nourishment”). Vallabh considered pus.t.i and anugraha (favor or support) to be synonymous.8 The basic meaning suggests a “condition of physical prosperity and success” but connotes causing something to flourish or prosper, both physically and spiritually. Without the original condition of Krishna’s grace, devotees would not desire to serve Krishna or feel any passion toward Krishna, so pus.t.i or anugraha are the sine qua non for devotion. In this case, pus.t.i and rasa have similar patterns of multivalence: at one level, both suggest a physical necessity. Rasa indicates both a liquid and the emotional attachment or desire for Krishna, while pus.t.i also indicates physical nourishment as well as the necessary, salvific grace. Vallabh conceived of two levels of devotion: he distinguished pus.t. imārg (the path of grace), in which humans depend on Brahman’s grace for their salvation, from maryādāmārg (the path of convention) wherein human effort determines release—a lesser goal according to the Sampradāy. Pus.t. i derives from the Sanskrit verb √pus., which means to nourish or cause to thrive. A primary connotation is of physical nourishment, but Vallabh extends the connotation to spiritual nourishment, in this case, grace. The implication is that Krishna’s grace will strengthen the soul, which has become weak from impurity. The physically nourishing aspect of pus.t. i emerges in the idea of prasād in which consecrated food (among other things) is first offered to Krishna then given back to the devotees.9 The maryādāmārg is an initial or basic attitude of worship toward Krishna characterized by rules and conventions. Attention to detail and perfecting ritual technique similar to Vedic ritual techniques are among the concerns at this level. At the maryādā stage, human effort effectively causes release. In contrast, in the pus.t.imārg (the higher path), grace is an arbitrary gift from Krishna, and no cause-effect relationship exists between Krishna’s grace and human devotion.10 Whereas, in the maryādāmārg, devotion is a means to an end, the pus.t.imārg stresses that devotion to Krishna is an end in itself, thus a more elevated goal.

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The pus.t.imārg emphasizes one’s emotion or attitude toward Krishna in contrast to the maryādāmārg’s focus on convention and ritual. At the pus.t.imārg stage, devotees have been graced with a loving relationship with Krishna and attempt to deepen this relationship. The path of grace or emotion is the heart of Krishna devotion. Though the maryādāmārg is necessary, and ritual is important, the goal of each devotee is an intimate relationship with Krishna. Adept devotees use the erotic approach and the poems of complaint to enhance their own emotions. The mixture of anger and love, desire and frustration enable sophisticated devotees to heighten their bhāva for Krishna. These poems detailing the adolescent Krishna’s teasing and thievery portray the erotic passion overtly, and devotees are able to interpret Krishna’s erotic pranks in an alaukik framework free of worldly social conventions. All of Krishna’s actions, the devotees understand, exist to deepen each devotee’s attraction toward Krishna. Krishna constantly starts quarrels with the gopīs when he grabs them and steals their milk. However, the standard conventions no longer apply in Krishna’s alaukik realm. Instead, the rasa has no price and flows freely, nourishing and sustaining devotees. Although the gopī wants to sell her curd, Krishna steals it, demonstrating the inapplicability of laukik rules. He grabs whatever bits of love he can. Like the bees full of the nectar of rasa, Krishna is intoxicated by the taste of the curd/love and can no longer restrain himself. Rāga—sārang Madhva, you have started this war with us. As we go along the road, you demand a tax. That love is so sweet. You are a boy, we are young women, now we humbly beg you to stop your mischief. This special rasa of the jasmine controls the bee, so you should appease our anger. After you appease us, we’ll touch your feet. Why do you break this love? When will we meet Paramānand’s lord? Now prove my doubts false. (S607) No matter how angry the gopīs might be, Krishna’s unique rasa appeases them. For this rasa, the gopīs’ anger and the appeasement are positive

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because both strengthen the gopīs’ love and feelings for Krishna. Despite the anger Krishna’s pranks arouse, only his rasa will satisfy them. No one else in Braj could have this effect on the gopīs. One of Krishna’s strategies for securing the gopīs’ love is the motif of separation. Although he is physically present with them in these morning poems, he has created a psychological distance through their frustration and anger. Yet this anger is not permanent but only draws them closer in a cycle of anger and reconciliation. Krishna’s provocation of the gopīs, his pranks, and his antics create the emotional counterpart to physical separation. He torments the residents of Braj by stealing their curd and teasing the girls. He plays pranks on everyone, including Brahmans; no one is safe. Krishna leads Braj in a romp through a varied emotional terrain rather than a flat emotional landscape—from the greatest of joys to the worst of miseries. Rāga—sārang How can we live in one village? I must have patience. Although I’ve tried, I can’t restrain my greedy eyes. When Hari goes on the road to graze the cows, I come out to take the curd. My hair bristles with excitement. Delighted, my voice chokes with joy. Bliss swells and fills me with joy. Just a moment of averted eyes seems like an aeon as I burn with the fires of separation. Paramānand says, day after day, how can I stay on an honorable path? (S422) Krishna plays hide and seek with the gopīs by giving them a small glimpse of himself then teases them by hiding. Through this game, which is similar to his other manipulations of behavior, he recapitulates the process of union and separation. In his love games, Krishna alternately reveals and conceals himself, playing with the gopīs’ passions. The situation is never static; he always keeps them guessing. He offers himself then tears himself away just when they are relieved of their anxieties, keeping them constantly on the edge. Krishna orchestrates all this emotional turmoil as a gift of love for his devotees. The fires of separation burn—but always more intensely after the brief but ultimately unsatisfactory union. Devotees are never satiated. Any separation is too harsh, and the mere blink of an eye seems an entire age. The gopīs’ delirious joy at reuniting with Krishna matches the

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depths of their despair in the darkest hours of their separation. Without union—whether emotional or physical—devotees cannot have the passions of separation: they do not miss what they never had. However, those who are the most intimate with Krishna feel the pain of his absence most deeply. To experience intensely any passions related to Krishna, particularly those of separation, indicates the existence of the devotee’s relationship with Krishna, so these passions are a great, if not the greatest, boon. The “contrived absences” of Krishna’s pranks, the māna (annoyance in love) and khan.d.itā (temporary infidelity) episodes, and then his final and ultimate absence all intensify the devotees’ passions. Although Krishna’s behavior, notably his lying and stealing, may appear to be antisocial, in reality, these acts are gifts to the devotees. Like the gopīs and residents of Braj, the devotees partake in the ever-changing states of union and separation. As the relationships develop and intensify and each devotee forges a closer relationship with Krishna, the burning and pain of the separation from Krishna become all the more harsh and intense and the greater is the relief at the restoration of union. In reality, the stronger the agony of separation is felt, the closer is the underlying union with Krishna. Rāga—kānharau You play hide and seek with your two eyes. Again and again she peeks through the door at the form of the wily Madanagopāl. When she doesn’t see Hari’s beauty, her heart becomes restless. You and we are neighbors; the cowherd girls love his lotus feet. You are so wise and all of us ignorant; your own true nature is revealed. Spellbound by the rasa of Paramānand’s lord, every day we come because of our attraction to him. (S506) Krishna’s game of hide-and-seek with Yaśodā is a microcosm of his greater cycle of āvirbhāva and tirobhāva (manifestation and concealment) in which he is alternately present and absent in the world. In one wellknown scenario, Krishna shuts his eyes, and the world is plunged into darkness for that time. Paramānand demonstrates Yaśodā’s misery at even the slightest separation from Krishna. As Purus.ottam, Krishna makes himself known as ānand (bliss) in the world and does not reveal himself in

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his fullness. All of Krishna’s actions on earth dramatize this ontological dynamic. Ontologically Krishna is always present whether devotees are experiencing the fires of separation or exulting in the joys of union. Even so, he hides his presence to give the illusion of separation, a feeling to be cherished and cultivated. Axiomatically, something static produces no change. If Krishna appeared consistently present, then no dynamic would exist to enhance the devotees’ love and passion. Krishna’s games—whether in the village or in the forest with the cows—occupy his and the devotees’ mornings. His constant pranks draw the gopīs and devotees even closer to him by creating the illusion of separation and reunion, These morning poems focus on Krishna’s presence in the village as a young boy, and devotees hearing the poems in the morning can play Krishna’s games along with the gopīs. When Krishna is older, he takes the cows to the forest for grazing, and Yaśodā does not see him all day. Only those gopīs who have the honor of carrying his lunch to the forest experience the joys of union and the food of love during Krishna’s afternoon.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Afternoon Experiencing the Food of Love

The poems sung at midday—when Krishna and his friends eat lunch— allow devotees to experience the gopīs’ joy at seeing Krishna, after they have been separated all morning. Devotees also have been separated from Krishna when the temple is closed in the morning, and this midday darśan helps them participate in Krishna’s world through seeing Krishna and through sharing the joy of reunion with the gopīs. After seeing Krishna—through the poetry—take lunch with the gopīs, devotees themselves will eat. Thus the poems help synchronize devotees’ lives with that of Krishna. Understanding how this poetry is experienced in ritual context, that is, how it structures devotees’ lives, helps us understand how this poetry functions as a threshhold to Krishna’s world.

Rājbhog: A Lunchtime Tryst in the Forest As a youth, Krishna grazes the cows in the forest with the other boys, leaving Yaśodā and the gopīs both proud and sad. Forest creatures delight in his presence, but the gopīs lament the separation. Only the possibility of serving Krishna and his friends their midday meal or of engaging in an afternoon tryst eases their pain. The gopīs are joyous at their first sight of Krishna after a separation whether at lunchtime or at the end of the day. Sometimes Rādhā and her friends carry tins of food to Krishna while he

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and his friends remain in the forest with the cows. The gopīs are delighted to perform this task because this is a chance to meet Krishna far from their mothers’ watchful eyes. Here Paramānand uses the food as love metaphor and illustrates Krishna’s afternoon games through the extensions of this semantic realm, as in the following poem in which a gopī fears not being able to find Krishna. Rāga—sārang Again and again I have called out to you, I am losing heart. Manmohan, where have you been up until now? Don’t you want to take your meal? She got lost while coming on the road. Why couldn’t she find the path? She asked again and again until she found him. Then you played your flute. Look at the sweat on my body! The sari on my chest is soaked. She ran to the beloved lord of Paramānand and embraced him. (K788; L106; P3/198; S297) Somehow this gopī got lost on the road and missed the path. Alone in the forest, the young girl called out again and again to Krishna but received no answer. Finally he called to her on his flute. Why didn’t Krishna call to her earlier, she wonders, suspecting that Krishna, prankster par excellence, is playing a game with her. In witnessing this scene, Paramānand sings the poem through the trope of separation. The sweat on the gopī’s sari embodies her fear of separation. This physical sign of loss reminds devotees of the gopīs who become parched through endless crying after Krishna’s final departure from Braj. Those desiccated gopīs have lost Krishna’s sustaining love. Yet this fortunate girl will momentarily receive the nourishment of Krishna’s love as embodied in the foods he distributes to his friends. This motif of losing Krishna draws out the gopīs’ and devotees’ anticipation of reunion and implies that there might be no meeting. Extending the pain of separation felt by the gopīs and devotees foreshadows their great loss when Krishna goes to Mathura. Krishna, of course, plays these games for his devotees’ benefit, to nourish their passions. Similarly, when the girl arrives, Krishna divides the food up among his friends. This distribution reveals Krishna’s emotional and physical nourishment of his devotees.

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Rāga—sārang Clean the grains and let’s eat. Who has prepared these elegant delicacies? Taste them all, then offer them to everyone. Ho, ho Subal, ho Śrīdāmā and Arjun, Bhoj and Viśāl. Gopāl gave the order: Bring rice for every one. He put the fruit into their cupped hands; he gave everyone a share. The rasa of Paramānand’s lord is enchanting, a bridge linking us to this mound of love. (P3/204; K819) When Krishna offers food to his friends, he reveals his love for them, and everyone shares Krishna’s rasa. As the rasarāja (king of rasa), Gopāl— the one who protects his herd—appears to the devotees bhāvātmaka (full of feeling) that is most accessible to each devotee. For the most sophisticated devotees, food and its preparation substitute for love and lovemaking. Krishna responds to all needs, and varieties of food are metonymic for the multiple means by which he sustains his devotees. Just as people savor various types of food, Krishna offers different forms of love to meet each devotee’s needs. Krishna is nirodha (the abode of all contradictions including stopping or checking), the source and summation of all existence, a concept illustrated by his simultaneous appearance as both an adored baby and the object of the gopī’s desire. The usual meaning of nirodha is constraint or restriction, but the term has a two-part connotation in the Vallabh Sampradāy. First, in taking birth in human form on the earth, Krishna limited himself to certain qualities, and second, Krishna’s wonderful qualities pull devotees away from the world and toward devotion to Krishna. Nirodha is both a means and a reward.1 As rasātmaka, the abode of all the rasas, Krishna is the source from which all rasas originate. He dispenses rasa, giving his devotees whatever they need. Krishna has enough rasa for everyone to have a share; there is no shortage. Paramānand expresses this theological concept through poesies, elaborating upon the metonymic equations that love is food and love is liquid, such as milk or water. Love as liquid exemplifies Vallabh’s metaphor from his Siddhāntarahasya in the S.od.aśagrantha of Gangā water as a purifying agent.2 Just as Gangā water purifies any water it encounters, rasa transforms laukik to alaukik, and Krishna’s love becomes a purifying agent.

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Rāga—gaurī Nandanandana, the crown-jewel of rasikas. Full of rasa, his incomparable beauty adorns the gopas’ wives, like cooling sandal paste. Rasa in his eyes, rasa in his sight; rasa in his speech, humans and animals are spellbound. Rasa in the village, rasa in his presence, the rasa of his sweet speech seems to purify everything. Intoxicated with rasa, sages roam about like the bees who seek this rasa which has accumulated in Braj and Vrindavan. The connoisseur of rasa adores the abode of Syām, Paramānand’s heart flows with love. (S547) Paramānand describes the varieties of Krishna’s amazing rasa, which purifies or renders all things alaukik. The metaphoric equivalence of rasa as liquid invokes qualities of liquid (e.g., water permeates everything; liquid nectar is released from flowers). Krishna’s rasa is omnipresent in all things and courses through Paramānand’s heart. Krishna is “the indescribable rasika worshipped by all, the giver of all joy and bliss” (S585). He is both the abode and source of all rasa and the greatest connoisseur of rasa, both the taster and the tasted. He is at once the cause of all rasa and its beneficiary. This concept suggests the necessity of duality within devotion. Krishna needs a partner so that he might enjoy himself. Without the apparent multiplicity within unity, Krishna could not experience his own bliss. Rāga—sārang Rādhā, why have you blossomed? I think that you met and embraced Madhva, your profound love is revealed. Again and again, a smile on your beautiful face, like a lotus half bloomed. A crooked glance renders your eyes beautiful; desire makes you dance, “tadhe.” The passion maddened sages zig-zag like bees; Śiva remains in daily meditation. The servant Paramānand says, that very rasa of the abode of Śrī, he gave to Rādhā. (S827)

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Rādhā is the half-bloomed lotus whose rasa or nectar Krishna has ravished. Her joy at meeting Krishna is such that she cannot contain it. Her smile and her crooked glances are sāttvikabhāvas, revealing her bliss, and desire animates her feet to tā-dhe, the dance rhythm. This lowly Braj girl has received the rasa meant for Śrī, Vis.n.u’s royal consort of the heavenly Vaikun.t.h. Those who meditate—like Śiva—will not taste Krishna’s nectar. Paramānand structures this poem with the metaphor of love as intoxication and implies that Śiva, among those who meditate, impervious to Krishna’s intoxication, will not taste the rasa of Krishna’s passion. Rādhā, however, intoxicated by Krishna’s love, has become “crooked” and dances with passion, having obviously abandoned her social shame. This metaphor connotes Krishna’s fickle nature because this intoxicating nectar causes the bees to flit from flower to flower, tasting the nectar of each one. The bees are symbolic substitutes for Krishna, and Krishna himself stands accused of this very same crime: helping himself to the nectar of a gopī and then moving on to the next one. Several poems use the love-is-intoxication metaphor, yet each poem develops a different aspect of the metaphor. The refinements of this metaphor subtly affect the devotee’s reception, and the different entailments of this one metaphor fashion precisely each devotee’s understanding of the scenario. The rasa of union gives the sages such ecstatic joy that they are like bees. According to this poetic tradition, a bee intoxicated by nectar appears delirious with joy and expresses this bliss through an erratic flight pattern. Whereas bees normally have rigid patterns and social networks, intoxicated bees violate their patterned flights, and their actions appear haphazard. This movement is also a sāttvikabhāva in which uncontrollable physical manifestations—here bliss—express passion. This bliss engulfs the dispassionate austerities usually associated with sages. The rasa of Krishna’s love intoxicates any who taste it, including the intoxicated sages. Krishna and Rādhā’s intoxicating beauty surpasses a newly bloomed arbor. The dark Krishna and golden Rādhā are entwined like the creeper wrapped around the tall, dark tamāl tree (garcinia xanthocymus). Rāga—sārang Great beauty adorns the freshly bloomed arbor. Such wondrous beauty: delicate golden creepers entwined around the dark tamāl tree. His face and eyes like a blooming lotus; seeing this splendor gives such joy.

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Paramānand’s lord is drunk like a bee, the daughter of Vr.s.abhān is a garden of flowers. (K966) The simple substitutions of the final line draw upon the love-is-intoxication metaphor, and the entailments of the metaphor direct the scene. Paramānand compares Krishna to a bee, drunk with the nectar of the flowers that he has visited; the flower bed is Rādhā. This nectar, rasa, the liquid of love, is at once produced by love and representative of it. Paramānand paints a delightful scene in this poem, yet the metaphor of intoxication and the substitution of the bee for Krishna draw devotees down a darker path. Because Krishna’s fickleness and betrayal are intimately connected with the image of Krishna as the bee intoxicated with Rādhā’s love, devotees know that neither Krishna nor the bee confines himself to one flower and that the bee drunk on the nectar of one flower quickly flies to another after drinking his fill. So this tableau, a garden of delight, subtly encodes the seeds of Krishna’s betrayal. The gopīs, too, are intoxicated by love and can think of nothing but Krishna. Rāga—rāmakalī Oh friend, what should I do now? After my eyes fell upon the son of Nanda, I can’t remain apart from him for even the blink of an eye. Inside my mother and father frighten me, they invoke the honor of the family. Outside all voices speak out loudly: here comes the lover of Kānha. Neither night nor day passes easily for me; the house and the courtyard are no longer pleasant. The lord of Paramānand laughs, he has stolen my mind. (K367; P3/99) The gopīs under Krishna’s spell cannot remain apart from him, even at the expense of family shame. They care nothing for family attachments or decorum. Their houses have become prisons, and they endure their neighbors’ taunts: “here comes the lover of Kānha.” The previous poems illustrated the power of intoxication by love, and that love inhibits social pretensions. This poem expresses a similar loss of shame through the motif of entrapment and theft. Krishna is a thief, and he has stolen the gopīs’ minds so that they only think of him.

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This poem falls into the category of hilag, which suggests that the gopīs have irrevocably been snared or snagged by love. Hilag is derived from the Hindi verb in hilaganā, which literally means “attached” or “joined” and connotes snare, as a sari might snag on a thorn. In local sectarian usage, hilag suggests a manner of love that cannot be cured, which is not an elite concept from Sanskrit poetics but a local Braj connotation. Poems and scenes in the rāsa līlās dramatize episodes in which Rādhā’s sari catches on a thorn, and Krishna stays behind to unsnag her. This scene usually happens at midday when the gopīs and gopas are in the forest. Her predicament—like dropping the proverbial hankie—is a pretext for a quick meeting with Krishna. The gopīs abandon all sense of propriety in their quest to see Krishna. They think only about him. Rāga—dhanaśrī My mind is united with Hari, joined only with Hari, and has broken with all else. So how can a dancer dance with a veil, fearing the shame of society? She threw down the shawl. All thought of before and after destroyed; he shattered my mind, just like the pots shattered in the middle of the path. This is the story, so tell me; oh friends, so what if I turned my face in shame. This body has drowned in the passion of love for my beloved, the young Lālagiridharan. Paramānand’s lord laughs at the people of the Vedas as if in great surprise. (K417; P3/92; S431) The gopī throws off anything that stands between her and Krishna. Just as a veil would hamper the movements of a dancer, social shame inhibits the gopī’s relationship with Krishna, so she throws off her shawl, emblematic of modesty. This image of the veiled dance alludes to the gopīs’ shame when Krishna stole their clothes. When they emerged from the water naked, nothing stood between them and Krishna physically or emotionally. Each gopī, too, wants—like each devotee wants—nothing between her and Krishna. The gopī claims that Krishna has shattered her mind and that all thoughts of before and after have flowed out of her mind just as milk pours out of a broken pot. She no longer cares to turn

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her face in shame because she has drowned in Krishna’s love. Aesthetically, turning one’s face in shame is the first step of love for the nāyikā, the young heroine, but this girl has traveled well beyond the initial stages of love. This poem explores several entailments of the metonym of love as liquid rasa, including the ocean of rasa in which the gopī has drowned. Paramānand illustrates this tactile experience of Krishna’s love, and this gopī is fully immersed in Krishna’s love—“joined only with Hari.” Anything that prevents this immersion is an obstacle, and Paramānand illustrates the obstacles through a series of simple substitutions of physical boundaries that contain the rasa. The veil of decorum and the pots that Krishna shatters are physical boundaries that separate the gopī from Krishna’s love. Most important though, Krishna breaks the mind’s attachment to society or to anything that is not Hari, for the mind establishes itself as the greatest bulwark against immersion in Krishna’s love. Paramānand says the Braj lord laughs at those people of the Vedas, those people who worry about ritual, prohibition, and society. Those devotees who come to him with the single-mindedness of this entranced gopī gain his love. Rāga—rāmakalī I am entranced by the dust of his lotus feet. How can I abandon Madanagopāl after wandering about for so many days? My mother, father, brother and husband meet me. Again and again, they stop me. They slander and laugh at me; they scare and threaten me, then I get up and creep out. The strength of my intellect has made me shrewd, it is good I am capable of such devices. Paramānand knows the lord is the gem of gems, the clever dancer applies the arts of love. (K392) The word at.aki (entranced) means stopped in the sense of both “stopped in one’s tracks because of entrancement” and stopped as in “prevented from going,” and, in this case, both senses are valid. The gopī must be wise and clever to sneak out of the house to meet her lover. This is also

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a hilag poem, and the metaphors of love as entrapment and love as war structure the poem. The gopī is doubly entrapped: she is captivated by love and a captive of her family. Ironically, her entrapment is also her path to freedom. Neither shame nor her family’s attempts to stop her can prevent her sojourns with Krishna. And here we see an aspect of love as war wherein the gopī’s cleverness and strategy—enhanced by Krishna—enable her to outsmart her captors. In this war, Krishna and the gopī are not combatants but must collude to escape their oppressors. Paramānand identifies Krishna with the cintāman.i, the wish-fulfilling stone, the gem of gems that relieves all anxieties caused by desire and soothes anything that distresses the mind. Krishna is both the cause of and the cure for the gopī’s anxiety: he has caused her captivation and the resulting anxiety, and, at the same time, he is the highly sought bounty, the treasure in her battle against her family. Rāga—sārang Hey friend, my eyes are greedy. I get agitated without seeing him. The sight of him gives relief. He has a peacock crest and yellow clothes; the speech from his mouth is lovely. One cannot describe the beauty of his limbs. Seeing him exhausts even Kāmadeva. The sound of his flute is enticing so that birds, deer and cows stare. Paramānand says, in this way, they stand and watch the lord of love. (P3/94; P3/173; S470) Sight of Krishna relieves the gopī of her anxieties. The gopī’s eyes are personified, and the part represents the whole. Her eyes are greedy for sight of Krishna’s indescribable beauty, which entrances not only the gopīs but also Kāmadeva, the god of love, and the animals of the forest. His beauty immobilizes them so that they can only stand motionless, staring. As above, Krishna’s love entraps those who see him, whether animals or gopīs. His beauty itself is a powerful agent and actively snares the viewers; it is Krishna’s chief weapon in his captivation of the gopīs. Like the gopī’s eyes, devotees’ eyes become greedy for the sight of Krishna, and their eyes and minds remain focused on Krishna. Paramānand’s descriptions of Krishna’s beauty compel devotees to concentrate on Krishna much like the forest animals that can only stop and stare.

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Rāga—sārang The darling of Nanda controls my heart. Oh friend, I took a peek, then turned and hid. From that moment on I have been overjoyed. This man of sophistication, this dark beauty has bound my heart. Paramānand’s lord, who is an ocean of joy, his rasa flows throughout Braj. (S429) This gopī relinquishes her heart to Krishna after just one glance at him. These vignettes depicting the gopīs’ sight of Krishna demonstrate the power of vision to captivate and snare the devotee. Darśan of Krishna hooks devotees and reels them in until they see nothing but Krishna. Seeing Krishna creates a powerful draw that inextricably links the gopīs and Krishna. One glimpse of him, and they are caught. Ironically, the gopīs’ hearts are bound by Krishna, whose rasa destroys boundaries, an example of nirodha, which simultaneously constrains and pulls toward devotion. Paramānand juxtaposes two contrasting metaphoric realms: love as binding or captivation and love as freedom and without boundaries. And this contradiction points to a greater truth for the devotee: to bind oneself to Krishna is freedom. Mahātmya: Separation during the Afternoon Watch The gopīs’ afternoon reunion with Krishna is followed by a long afternoon period of separation. Krishna once again is off in the forests with the cows, and the gopīs lament his absence. Temples are usually closed from approximately one o’clock (or lunchtime) until five or so when he returns. The poetry sung in these periods highlights Krishna’s divine magnificence and not his līlā. Rāga—mālav He holds the lotus which removes the pain of the devotees. His lotus hand holds the disk Sudarśan which protects his devotees. He holds the conch which rent the enemy’s stomach; Narasim˙ha wielded the mace to destroy the wicked. His four arms of Nārāyan. who relieves the earth

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of its burden hold these weapons. The lord of humility who is merciful, the world’s guru, and gem of gems removes the devotee’s anguish. Oh lord of the servant Paramānand: don’t ever abandon us. (K1614; L330; L523; P1/81; P2/94; S1318) Paramānand invokes the glory of Krishna’s many forms and contrasts this magnificence with the lowliness of the devotee who pleads for Krishna’s protection. Most devotees picture Krishna as a Braj boy, and Paramānand’s poetry encourages that perception. Yet, for the devotee to feel human emotions towards Krishna, the devotee must see Krishna as a normal boy, not as a deity, so Krishna is rarely depicted in his glorious four-armed form. Krishna’s beneficent concealment of these qualities makes a relationship possible. Paramānand also illustrates Krishna’s divine capacities, particularly his role as protector of his devotees. These poems highlight the dāsya, or “servitude,” bhāva in which the devotee feels awe toward a remote, but benign, deity. Paramānand lists the traditional objects held by the four-armed figure of Vis.n.u: the conch, mace, discus, and lotus. Each of these objects is a weapon used to protect the world, and together they remind the devotees of Vis.n.u’s power and commitment to protecting the earth and her denizens. Hearing this poem, devotees would recall Vis.n.u’s fourth descent to the earth in which he appeared as the fearsome Narasim˙ha (man-lion). The demon Hiran.yakaśipu had won a boon from Brahmā that he could be destroyed by neither god, man, nor beast, neither by day nor by night. This demon had reached such a point of invincibility that the gods had to intervene. Vis.n.u assumed the form of Narasim ˙ ha, the half-man, half-lion, and destroyed Hiran.yakaśipu at twilight. Paramānand sings of Nārāyan., a title of Vis.n.u/Krishna, in his full four-armed glory. Portraying Krishna with all of his qualities manifest inspires the attitude of servitude, not the more egalitarian parental, friendly, or erotic approaches typically depicted in the poetry. Nārāyan. is the great and powerful god who removes the earth’s burdens. Rāga—sārang If I abandoned you, who would I go to as king? If I bow my head to his feet in his doorway, how could I be sold into the hands of others? You are the lord of Laks.mī, the hero of the three worlds. I bow to him,

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the supreme lord. The wishing tree, the cow of plenty, the gem of gems: I honor him who is the entire world. Who gives more than you? Who is capable of more? Surrendered to him, I am satisfied. Paramānand says, if I abandon the ocean of Hari, then how could I come to the river for refuge? (S1321) Paramānand pleads for Krishna’s āśraya (shelter) and bows to his majesty, recognizing that Krishna is the supreme lord. In this viniti (petition), Paramānand speaks as a humble penitent and shows no trace of the mood of sassy gopīs who tease and insult Krishna in the līlā. Many of Paramānand’s līlā poems point out the irony of the divine in the guise of a small mischievous boy, but there is no irony here. Krishna is the wish-fulfilling cow, the gem of gems, who sustains the entire world. Rāga—sārang Why don’t you take refuge in him? As a mother nurtures with food, his lotus feet are a boat for the ocean of existence. Knowing our difficult situation, the guru of the world appeared and helped. The lord of the Yadus established Ugrasena. He made him king and beat the drums. He protected Nanda and the rest of the Braj folk, the many milkmaids and cowherds. Gopāl, who is tender to his devotees and destroys misery, lifted the mountain and protected them from Indra’s anger. As Madhva, the giver of mercy, such a lord enchants the three worlds. The lord of Paramānandadās, the destroyer of Kesi, vanquished the family of Kamśa. (S1317) Take refuge in the lotus feet of Krishna, Paramānand says. Krishna’s own lotus feet are the boats that help devotees navigate the treacherous ocean of existence. Devotees who are aware of the lotus flower’s special

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qualities understand Paramānand’s symbolic substitution of the lotus for Krishna. The lotus grows in shallow, still waters. Its bloomed flower sits pristinely upon the surface, and its roots reach toward the muddy depths. The lotus represents one like Krishna who is rooted in the laukik but blooms in the alaukik. Paramānand invokes the love-as-nurturance metaphor and expresses this concept through the range of ways in which Krishna sustains his devotees. For example, Krishna nurtures his devotees as a mother nourishes her child. Paramānand praises the heroic deeds of Krishna who responded to the earth’s pleas and appeared in Braj to dethrone the tyrant Kamsa. Kamsa had deposed Ugrasena, the benevolent king of Mathura, and Krishna restored him to the throne after killing Kamsa. Calling Krishna by the name Gopāl, which means the protector of the cows, Paramānand honors Krishna’s protection of his Braj family and friends. As Madhva, Krishna’s charm captivates all three worlds, and he shows mercy to his devotees. The poems of viniti (petitioning), āśraya (shelter), and mahātmya (the magnificence of the lord) are not sung during the part of the sevā when devotees view the image; these poems are either sung before or after sevā or at pada-man.d.alīs or bhajan (devotional singing) sessions. Often a devotee will sing these poems after sevā to extinguish any ego claims to having done sevā. As a verbal prostration, this singing establishes the devotee’s humility toward Krishna, in significant contrast to the poems about Krishna’s Braj play, which encourage an intimate parity between Krishna and his devotees. Instead these poems inspire dāsya bhāva (attitudes of servitude and humility) and emphasize Krishna’s full glory with all of his divine qualities in contrast to the devotees’ lowliness. As Parabrahman or Purus.ottam, Krishna has six qualities that are manifest only in that form: aiśvarya (majesty), vīrya (strength), yaśa (fame), śrī (fortune), jñāna (knowledge), and vairāgya (freedom from attachment).3 These poems that stress Krishna’s magnificence arouse feelings of awe and humility in devotees, yet this dāsya bhāva is the least satisfying for both Krishna and his devotees. Most devotees are far more comfortable relating to Krishna in terms of the bhāvas that emphasize intimacy. It is precisely because of this closeness between devotees and Krishna that long periods of separation from Krishna are so difficult to endure for the devotees as well as the gopīs. Those days in which Krishna grazes the cows in the forest are some of the longer periods of separation, yet at least the gopīs

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know that he will return at the end of the day. Nonetheless, they remember the moment when he left in the morning and anticipate the time when he will return. Rāga—sārang Oh ma, Gopāl went to the forest in the morning. His lunch basket filled with rice and curd hangs over his shoulder; he protects the herd of cows. Hearing the cows low in the morning, the gopas sound their horns. The boys leave in the same manner as a bee escapes the hollow of a lotus as it opens in the morning. His flute appears in his hand; a necklace and a peacock feather adorn his body. The hero of Braj poses like a dancer; the gods and sages delight in seeing him. Birds, deer and trees are all joyous while the gopas’ wives lament. The wise Paramānand knows the grief of being separated from Krishna’s love. (P2/107; S272) While the forest creatures feel the joy of union, the gopīs feel the pangs of separation from Krishna. They recall their last sight of him as he left with the herd of cows, his lunch basket slung over his shoulder. They see his fine clothing and peacock feather, making him even more alluring. His graceful stature delights even the gods and sages. The gopīs and Paramānand have only this remembered image of Krishna until they see him again in the evening. Vallabh himself saw viraha as the most important mode of relating to Krishna and as a means of purifying devotees of worldliness. In Paramānand’s Vārtā, Harirāya quotes Vallabh as stating that “everything is to be given up for the experience of viraha. In the state of viraha, there is absolutely no remembrance of laukik or Vedic affairs.”4 The viraha scenarios are not remote and unimaginable situations but are close to real life— at least for those living a rural or village life. During the rainy season when rivers swell and roads become impassable, travel is typically halted, and lovers are reunited: the rainy season symbolizes union. Yet, if the lovers happen to be separated at this time—as is the case when Krishna leaves for Mathura—the separation is especially painful.

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Separation means nothing in a vacuum and must be understood in conjunction with its opposite: sam˙yoga (union). Paramānand’s Vārtā illustrates the need of a previous union for the experience of separation. Prior to his meeting with Vallabh, Paramānand had forgotten his līlā activities with Krishna, and, from birth, unknowingly suffered viraha. Once he recalled the līlā and experienced union with Krishna, he felt the gopīs’ pains of separation. Vallabh asked Paramānand to sing of Krishna’s childhood play because when one has “experienced the childhood līlā which is sam˙yoga rasa, then one will immediately understand viraha.”5 The experience of separation implies an a priori union. Although feelings of anger and separation might obscure the underlying union, union must still be present. Krishna and those who love him participate in an eternal dance of separation and union, a process that parallels āvirbhāva (continual revelation) and tirobhāva (concealment) of Purus.ottam in the world through Krishna’s līlā. The dynamic of separation and union in Braj is a playful one; Krishna reveals and conceals himself for the devotees’ benefit. Ultimately, the separation is not real or ultimate: Krishna and his devotees are never absolutely apart. Although devotees cultivate the pain of separation, ontologically, a monistic worldview denies the possibility of absolute separation. This monism does not invalidate the experience of separation. The experience of separation is not an illusion or fantasy but exists within the structure of Krishna’s being as a necessary duality within unity. Within the human realm, this separation might feel real, but because this dynamic of separation and union occurs within a monistic whole, ontologically it is not real. The motifs of separation in Krishna’s play function as heuristic devices enabling each devotee to engage the passions and create a relationship with Krishna, thus enacting union and reunion. Paramānand’s poems exemplify a variety of modes of separation and union. Some of these separations—though causing distress to those involved—occur naturally and derive from patterns of daily life. As part of Krishna’s daily activities, he grazes his cows in the forests of Vrindavan, and, during this period, all the women and girls of Braj mourn his absence. Yaśodā and the other women are overjoyed upon his return (āvanī); they have awaited this sight of Krishna, who is now covered with the dust kicked up by the cows. This particular image of the dust-covered Krishna returning with the cows is a popular and endearing one in the poetry. This period of separation is brief, and the women anticipate—and

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are certain of—his return in the late afternoon. At this time they do not experience the anguish of Krishna’s later and permanent departure. Nonetheless, even the minor and manageable pain of missing him for those few hours makes Krishna’s return all the sweeter. Public and Private Līlā During the afternoon while Krishna grazes the cows and during the night while the rest of Braj and Yaśodā sleep, the devotee enjoys either the anguish of separation or the joys of union along with the gopīs. Temples are closed during those afternoon and night periods in which Krishna engages in his erotic dalliances. Krishna’s lovemaking is private, so no temple would offer darśan at this time. Most of Paramānand’s poems illustrate Krishna’s boyhood games and only hint at his erotic nature. Rāga—sārang Lāl is intent on this one game. He seats himself in the middle of the boys, he plays in this way. He gives whatever pleases the heart; he respects everybody’s wishes. Take Sankars.an with you and move the cows forward, Kanha. Come brother, let’s go to the forest Talaban and drink some Yamuna water. Brother Kanha, so well you saved us from the demon Rasabh. Who could break your strength? Laughing, they went to Gokul. They all knew it was evening. The lord of Paramānand has a white umbrella spread over his head. (S262) Paramānand sees the cowherd boy Krishna in the forest, intent on his game. Lāl, a diminutive often used for young children, denotes Krishna as a young child. He sits surrounded by his friends, and the cows graze nearby. Evening approaches, and the boys move the cows toward their home in Gokul. Paramānand emphasizes the relationship between Krishna and his cowherd friends, which is the primary stance for those devotees who are not inclined towards the erotic approach.

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Vallabh himself realized that the erotic approach could be misinterpreted by ignorant people and made distinctions between public and private līlā. He took great pains to distinguish between prem (purified love) and kām (desire). For example, Vallabh states that the rāsa līlā dance, though real, is “devoid of sensualism.” Devotees should not understand the rāsa līlā (or rāsapāñcādhyāya) dance in the worldly, laukik sense but as love in the alaukik sense of prem, not kām.6 Paramānand himself frequently shrouded Krishna’s esoteric erotic games within episodes of childhood play. The movement inward from the parental approach to the erotic approach relates to the Pus.t.imārg dichotomy of interiority and exteriority seen in sevā. Vallabh and the Vallabh Sampradāy distinguished between public temple play and private arbor play. During the periods in which the temple is open for darśan, Krishna’s games should be suitable for “family viewing,” thus focusing on Krishna’s childhood games and the parental feelings of devotees as the predominant emotion. This childhood play is the exoteric approach, while those accomplished devotees ascend to the more esoteric erotic play and, ultimately, to the most sublime, love play in the forest arbor. Paramānand’s poetry operates on each devotee relative to the devotee’s sophistication; the more sophisticated devotees grasp subtleties that the less adept might not. When the temples are closed, each devotee feels separation from Krishna and so strives to retain proximity to Krishna by performing a variety of poems. Devotees emphasize the erotic attitude at this time; Krishna is with a gopī, so the līlā is private. During the evening, there is a public display in which Yaśodā puts Krishna to bed, and, after this period, he slips out to the forest arbor. In this period, the devotees experience sam˙yoga-līlā (union) even while the temple is closed. Vallabh developed, and his son Vit.t.halnāth embellished, this sādhanā (secret practice) in which adept devotees experience union with Krishna while less sophisticated devotees experience separation. Vallabh and Vit.t.halnāth feared that a non-adept public might misinterpret the subtleties of the erotic approach, so they shrouded it within the more accessible parental approach. While Paramānand’s lyrics may outwardly indicate boyhood play, the majority of the poems, either openly or subtly, evoke the mādhurya bhāva (erotic stance). The majority of Paramānand’s poems were composed for public sevā, because that is when Paramānand saw Krishna’s līlā and sung his lyrics.

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For Paramānand, as much as any devotee, the late afternoon reopening of the temple must have been a welcome relief from the long separation from Krishna. Krishna—like most residents of Braj—rests in the afternoon. The devotees’ next opportunity for darśan is Utthāpan, the time in which Krishna has awoken from his nap and returns to Braj from the forest.

Utthāpan—Āvanī: Krishna’s Arrival in Braj Rāga—āsāvarī Madhva’s arrival is enchanting. A peacock’s crown and a garland of red berries; the flute plays sweet sounds. Syām’s charming body is smeared with dust raised by the cows; he created this wondrous guise. The son of Nanda is amidst the group of boys; the amount of bliss expands. For the group’s benefit at the end of the day, he reveals his beautiful dance steps. Paramānand says, the gopīs’ hearts are in bliss, he erased the pain of separation. (S353) Āvanī, Krishna’s afternoon arrival, is one of the most significant reunion periods of the day. The gopīs savor their first sight of Krishna whose epithet Madhva evokes the sweet taste of honey. The sweet sounds emanating from Krishna’s flute have alerted the waiting gopīs to his arrival. The gopīs’ joy at seeing him demonstrates their distress at the separation; after all, they have been waiting all day for his return. The cloud of dust that alerts the others to the boys’ and cows’ return home is a potent Braj image. From afar, the women see the cloud of dust that precedes the boys. Devotees and the gopīs cherish this dust trod upon by Krishna. Many poems portray devotees taking this dust and putting it on their own heads, enacting their voluntary self-subordination to Krishna. This action parallels pran.ām, the gesture in which one symbolically places another person’s feet upon his or her head, acknowledging their relative social positions. In Nandadās’ Bhramargīt (Song of the Bee), Uddhava wishes to be reborn as a creeper, so the gopīs’ feet and the dust of Vrinda-

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van will crown his head. Many Braj devotees today wear amulets filled with Braj-raj, the dust of Braj, around their necks. A popular narrative recapitulates the importance of this Braj dust. While in Dwarka, the sage Nārada noticed that Krishna had a problem. Krishna replied that he had a headache and that the only remedy was to apply the dust from a pure devotee’s feet to his head. Nārada searched for someone willing to offer this dust but was unsuccessful until he ultimately arrived in Braj. Hearing of Krishna’s plight, Rādhā immediately sat down and scraped the dust off her feet. Nārada tried to speak, but she told him to rush back to Dwarka. Her only concern was Krishna. Finally she asked why he had come all the way to Braj from Dwarka. He replied that no one else would give him the dust for fear of going to hell. They believed that to put the dust of their feet on his head would be blasphemy. Out of all the devotees, only Rādhā and the gopīs had no regard for their own salvation: their sole concern was Krishna. These gopīs who repeatedly risk their social standing—kalanka, literally, “blemish” or “flaw”—to serve Krishna are considered the ideal devotees.7 Rāga—gaurī Mohan arrives with the cows. He plays the flute, his body smeared with dust; he puts an arm on Śrīdāmā’s shoulder. A yellow waist-band, red scarf and a fresh forest garland upon his chest. A sweet earring decorates his cheek; a peacock feather-crest adorns his head. The Braj women watch him and bloom like lotuses, their eyes drink the nectar of his beauty. The lord of Paramānand has destroyed the fires of separation. (K1066; P3/292) Paramānand illustrates well-known signs of Krishna’s beauty; his yellow clothing and forest garland are familiar to devotees. Krishna’s cheek, the spot under the ear lobe where his earring touches his face, is considered one of the most charming and sweetest parts of his body. The sight of Krishna alleviates the burning pains of separation. Like the moon whose cooling rays ease pain, Krishna’s nectar heals burns like a soothing balm. Krishna is a symbolic substitution for the moon, though his candramā (moon-face) is understood, not stated explicitly. The kumud, the

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lotus—and, by extension, the gopīs—blooms only in response to the moon, Krishna’s face. The gopīs drink greedily of this cooling nectar: darśan of Krishna’s rasa has extinguished the fires of separation. Paramānand’s often-used metonym of rasa as liquid underlies this poem, and the equivalence of beauty and nectar is one of numerous entailments of this metaphor. Paramānand expresses the relief of Krishna’s arrival using different facets of this metonym, and each variation—whether nectar or milk—evokes its own semantic field of perception for the listener. Rāga—āsāvarī Kānha, gray like a rain-cloud, sings and sings on the banks of the Yamuna. He has adopted the guise of a dancer and dances in a circle of Abhirs. Sweet eyes and a beautiful voice, his lower lip holds the flute. They circle the beautiful one with lotus-eyes; his body is smeared with dust. The flow of water slows, the cows stop chewing their straw. The calves won’t drink milk; their hearts are given over to the sound. Deer, birds, trees, bees, sages and ascetics: all are captivated. Paramānand’s lord Gopāl plays in the forest. (P2/429; S344) Nature, too, is enamored of Krishna. The sight of Krishna renders Braj immobile: animals become still, and rivers halt their course. Ghanasyām indicates Krishna’s dark-blue color, similar to a cloud about to burst. This much-anticipated cloudburst relieves the unbearable heat of the hot season just as Krishna’s arrival douses the fires of separation. This symbolic substitute of Krishna for rain cloud equates the relief of seeing Krishna to the relief of the monsoon rains. Krishna’s peacock dance adds another dimension to the monsoon imagery. When Krishna arrives back in Braj, he dances like a peacock and plays his flute amidst a circle of boys, offering the gopīs a tableau of his splendor. Krishna is often portrayed as the master of the dance, which suggests his grace and beauty as well as his sensuous charm. As the rasarāja or rasanāyaka (hero of rasa), he is the master of all the bhāvas and rasas related to arts. As a sāttvikabhāva, Krishna’s peacock dance manifests his happiness at seeing the gopīs—particularly when he dances after having been separated from the gopīs all day. Seeing Krishna’s joy is a boon for the

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gopīs, and the dance prolongs their sight of him. In Indian lore, the peacock’s dance anticipates the arrival of the rainy season. Paramānand’s references to the monsoon heighten the erotic component of the poem because all devotees know that the monsoon is the time for the reunion of lovers. The Braj residents realize that any meeting with Krishna is to be treasured, and the gopīs—no strangers to pretexts—time their chores to end just prior to his return. Rāga—gaurī When she heard the call of the flute, she sank down. At the time of the cows’ return, she came here on the pretext of fetching water. A peacock’s crown adorns his head, his fickle eyes wander. She met Paramānand’s lord in the cow pen, because of that she was late. (K1081; P3/291) The gopī heard Krishna’s flute and knew it was time to be devious. She feigned a need for water at the time of Krishna’s return. The gopī plots a seemingly coincidental meeting, which delays her return home, but these gopīs subordinate their household duties and family propriety to meeting with Krishna. No matter how fleeting the union or how great the risk of punishment, the gopīs know their priorities. Paramānand embeds a variant of the metaphor of love as war in the poem. Like any war, this one requires tactics and the full dedication of the warriors. While the gopī’s plotting pretext and her willingness to risk social standing point to her warrior status, these actions also explicitly reveal the need to break boundaries. And this notion brings us back to the power of rasa, and one aspect of rasa as liquid is the breaking of limits. This poem and others depict the violation of social boundaries and norms. For devotees, rasa as Krishna love’s helps to break down the wall between Krishna and the devotees or between the humans and the divine. Hearing this poetry and seeing through to Krishna’s world helps devotees see past the illusions of the laukik realm and onto the more real alaukik realm. Although the gopī’s bent stature indicates the weight of some household chore, a more nuanced reading points to the weight of Krishna’s rasa. The rasa for Krishna weighs down her mind, so she can only think of

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him. The image of the bent gopī alludes to the Braj theme of crookedness in which crookedness is linked to a rakish sensuality. As water breaks its bounds, rasa eliminates borders and cannot be contained. Rāga—gaurī Giridhar’s whole body is crooked. He moves with a crooked gait in Gokul; Oh, the beauty of this romantic. Crooked eyebrows, crooked gait; the crookedness of his heart. The lord of Paramānandadās has made a narrow alley in Braj. (K1078; P3/297; P3/299; S554) As Tribhangi, Krishna’s body shows off its characteristic three bends. In this classic pose, Krishna stands, holding his flute to his lips, one foot crossed over the other and hips bent. This bent and crooked posture suggests both a rakish adolescent and a toddler. As a toddler, he staggers across the floor, and when learning to speak, he lisps his words in a “charming baby-talk.” His crooked eyebrows suggest more mature, erotic charms and something rakishly alluring. The crooked alley, the sankarī khor or sān¯ko khor, embodies Krishna’s crooked nature because, in this winding and narrow alley that is wide enough for only one to pass, he traps the girls and women of Braj and demands favors. Yet this poem of arrival details the gopīs’ delight—not annoyance—at seeing Krishna. Exemplars of Bhāva: The Cows and the Gopīs The gopīs are not the only creatures overjoyed to see Krishna. Perhaps no animal is so affected by Krishna as the cow. The cows love Krishna unconditionally and cannot produce milk without him. Paramānand equates the cows with ideal devotees. Rāga—sārang Listen to my pleas, Lady Yaśodā. All of a sudden the cows trust only your son. This evening after they came from the forest, they were separated from Hari and became agitated. They will give no milk now that so much of the night has passed.

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I have come to tell you that I now realize the milk is useless. How can we speak with Nanda? Talking like this scares me. Hey, quickly go and get Madanagopāl! Listen and do this, wife of Nanda. Paramānand’s lord arose and came, how can this be told? (S390) Rāga—gaurī Govind, your cow has grown. Listen Braj lord, I can’t collect enough milk for your greed. Notorious, you eat according to your own wishes; any scruples eased. Beautiful Syām, they trust you, they must recognize you. Ears perked, they watch me. They stand, peeping and spying. Paramānand says, the boy of Nanda’s house grows. (K689; P3/306; S396) Like the gopīs, the cows pine for Krishna. They urgently need milking—but only by Krishna. Although this might appear to be a ruse by the women to see Krishna—a ploy we have seen before—in this case, they speak the truth. The cows will let only Krishna milk them. The cows prosper under Krishna’s touch, and only he can make them grow and produce milk. The cows’ perked ears, a sāttvikabhāva, manifests their adoration of Krishna. The gopī in S390 who complains to Yaśodā has a serious concern: her cows had become agitated at not seeing Krishna and refused give milk. The milk—an economic and dietary staple in Braj—has gone bad. This complaint, for once, is no pretext: how can they survive with no milk, which, devotees know, is rasa, the embodiment of Krishna’s love? Without Krishna’s presence, there is no sustenance. The gopī is frustrated by Krishna’s greed for milk. Krishna has no scruples about consuming copious amounts of milk, and the cows cannot produce enough to meet his demands. Paramānand sings from the point of view of this worried gopī, yet he and the devotee can supply a broader reading to these situations. Those who understand Krishna’s economy of love know that neither milk nor love is ever truly in short supply. Instead, Krishna’s rasa is an endless ocean, and any apparent shortage—or the feeling of separation or lack—results from the devotees’ previous immersion in Krishna’s rasa. As compared to the situation of a person who floats on the ocean seeking water, it is a matter of knowing where to look.

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However, these cows who so desperately yearn to be milked by Krishna do not have access to the memories that allow devotees to contemplate these scenarios. Rāga—gaurī Mother sent for Giridharan. Without Syām, who can they trust? Sniffing, they reject their own calves. The other cowherds, the group of friends, and Balarām are defeated. Mooing and lowing, they looked in all directions. My cow prefers his touch. The woman hears the speech. Both hands at her sides, she glances at the boy Krishna. Yaśodā smiles and joins Paramānand’s lord of Gokul. (K697; P3/306; S225) The gopī’s mother has sent for Krishna. The cow pen is a scene of desolation: the lowing cows look about for Krishna. His absence has even eradicated their maternal devotion to their calves. This image of the cows’ inability to nurse their calves is particularly resonant in Braj. The cow is the mother who gives everything to her children. Indian mythology speaks of kāmadhenu, the wish-fulfilling cow, the cow of plenty that appeared after the churning of the ocean of milk and that fulfills any request. In reality, the cow is an economic and nutritional mainstay of Braj. A cow’s rejection of her own calf is a harbinger of impending disaster and scarcity: a dearth of love, milk, and rasa. Without Krishna, this cow gives nothing. Sight of Krishna is the catalyst for this cow of plenty. When she sees Krishna, she will produce the milk—and the love and rasa—that sustains Braj. The other cowherd boys and even Balarām are only spectators to this drama: like stubborn gopīs, the cows accept no substitute for Krishna. Unlike the gopīs, the cows do not understand Krishna’s absences and cannot intellectualize the situation. No amount of rationalization can fill the void left by him (similar to the Bhramargīt story told in the Bhāgavata Purān.a and by Nandadās). The cows feel the pain of Krishna’s absences with full force and have no buffers between them and their feelings. Their bhāva is one of pure faith and trust in Krishna. Both Paramānand and Vallabh compare the cows to the gopīs in terms of their simple

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adoration and trust of Krishna. They blindly and stubbornly trust that Krishna knows what is best for them. The cows personify the types of ideal devotees portrayed in Vallabh’s Subodhinī.8 Their steadfast unquestioning devotion to Krishna is a model, particularly for the gopīs, and their dominant quality, tāmasa (stubbornness), becomes a virtue in the alaukik realm. Cows produce rasa or milk, and milk, the food of love, cannot exist without Krishna. The rasa is swallowed as a physical thing and as a form of nourishment, but the rasa also should be savored, and devotees must cultivate a taste to appreciate the subtleties of passion. When Yaśodā prepares food for Krishna, she encourages him to relish the different tastes in the food. Preparing delicacies is her way of expressing her love for Krishna. Not only are the foods metonymic for love, but the different types of foods represent the six different tastes necessary to appreciate the food as well as rasa and Krishna’s līlā itself. Soon after his return from the forest, Yaśodā has the opportunity to feed Krishna.

Bhog and Sandhyāratī: The Connoisseur of Rasa Eats and Goes to Bed When Krishna grows older, Yaśodā urges him to relish his meal, to taste his food and enjoy it as a connoisseur, not a glutton. The devotee, too, must be a connoisseur and appreciate the delicacies and subtleties of the rasas. Krishna only has to take what he likes—sweet things and nothing else if that is his wish—just as the devotees experience Krishna according to their own needs and tastes. Krishna’s delight in the sweet taste mirrors the devotees’ delight in Krishna’s love. Yaśodā’s love for Krishna is substantiated in the food she prepares for him. Butter and milk are the physical manifestations of her emotion toward him and embody the rasa. Rasa implies cultivation and nourishment in its metonymic identification as pus.t.i—substantiation, food, or sustenance—all of which are central features of the Vallabh Sampradāy.9 This relationship accords with the Sampradāy’s metonymic equation of Krishna’s love with prasād. Taste, both aesthetic and sensory, is an important aspect of rasa. Nourishment and the cultivation of taste and food are central for the apprehension of the rasas. Paramānand himself identifies the rasas with the six basic flavors that Yaśodā feeds Krishna to

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cultivate these tastes. Similarly, devotees cultivate the rasas or bhāvas as tastes to enhance the aesthetic and emotional experience. After cultivating the tastes, devotees appreciate the subtleties and nuances overlooked by others. Rāga—dhanāśrī Gopāl eats his food. Yaśodā prepared the six rasas and put them on the adorned gold plate. She made supper and now watches her son’s face with his huge restless eyes. Take whatever you want, my Mohan, sweets and honey treats. This joy which the Braj women see is rare and hidden to Sanaka and the other sages. Long live the darling of Nanda, the lord of Paramānandadās. (K719; P3/77; S322) Yaśodā has prepared the six different flavors in order to sharpen Krishna’s tastes. For example, when Yaśodā offers Krishna khīr (milk pudding) at six months in his annaprāśana (first solid food) ceremony, she arouses in him the rasa or taste for milk pudding just as devotees cultivate a taste for the richness and fullness of Krishna’s love. The ability to taste these flavors resides within Krishna, but they first must be invoked and enhanced, so he can derive the fullest experience of them. This process parallels the devotees’ cultivation of tasting the rasas. The potential to experience rasa lies within all humans, but, through practice and cultivation, each devotee can intensify the experience. Different stimuli evoke different responses, just as different foods evoke their respective tastes. Cultivation of the passions is an art that develops the devotee’s ability to relish the subtleties and nuances and should be encouraged and enhanced; practice actualizes the potential. For the devotee, this development is a process of exposure to the various stimuli that evoke passion. These techniques enhance the devotees’ abilities to see Krishna. But, as with Krishna’s first tastes, awakening the various tastes is the first step in the process of cultivation. While Yaśodā and the gopīs offer Krishna sustenance, Krishna continually nourishes and creates the world: thus paradoxically the maintainer is maintained. In addition to nourishing Krishna with food, Yaśodā and Paramānand offer a blessing to him as one would to a small child. The

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poet knows Krishna as a normal child, so he blesses him as a child, which would not be possible if Krishna was seen as a divinity. Normally blessings only flow downward, from elder to younger, but, because of his total absorption in the līlā, Paramānand has “forgotten” Krishna’s true identity. As the poet, Paramānand notes the irony of offering a blessing to the divine, another example of status reversal in Braj. Yaśodā also frequently blesses Krishna as mother to child. When these vāri, nichāvara, balihari or baleiyā le (blessings) are performed by devotees to ward off evil spirits, something, either food or coins, is usually offered. These blessings also indicate surrender or acquiescence as in the devotees’ total surrender to Krishna. An object is waved around the devotee’s head and given away to remove and dispose of impure substances. The item or the person who receives it absorbs the evil spirits, and the devotee receives protection. Yaśodā protects as well as nurtures Krishna. Like most children, Krishna initially prefers the sweetness of milk pudding or butter to the bitter flavors that require more sophistication. Similarly, developing a taste for the sweetness of Krishna’s love is far simpler than cultivating a taste for the bittersweet pains of separation. Paramānand contrasts the sweetness of Krishna’s love with the saltiness or bitterness of buttermilk. The gopīs slander him as the fickle bee who darts from flower to flower and complain that Krishna, who once fed them milk pudding, now will not even give them buttermilk. Rāga—sārang My own eyes have seen what people are talking about. After speaking such sweet words, he made his lotus eyes just so. Concerned with only his own desires, he invited himself to be fed khīr. Once he fulfilled his desires, he forgot our misery. Now that he is gone, he won’t even give us buttermilk. When we still had the treasure of youth, then he loved us. Paramānand’s lord Hari took the form of a bee. (S935) Krishna once offered the gopīs khīr (milk pudding), the sweetness of the rasa of his love. He cultivated in them an appetite for his love, then, true to his reputation, he took the form of a bee. He drank of their nectar and flew off. Now that they are devoted to him, he has gone and will not

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even give them buttermilk—a poor but adequate substitute. Milk pudding is concentrated sweetened milk with all its desirable qualities intact. Buttermilk is what remains after the richest and tastiest parts of the milk have been removed. It is still a milk product, and thus rasa, but without the fullness of milk. A taste of the richness of Krishna’s love arouses passion for him—as with the devotees and the gopīs. They relish the sweetness of union but instead taste the bitterness of separation—a passion also to be cultivated and relished. Rāga—dhanāśrī Hari thoroughly ate his meal. Delicacies of the 6-flavors, savory buttermilk; asking and asking, Hari took some. Yaśodā served, laughing and radiant; Krishna soaked with the rasa of his boyhood play. Paramānand says, she circled the food around Krishna’s head and gave it to Subal. (K835; P3/86; S328) Krishna enjoys even the salty taste of buttermilk, a more difficult taste to cultivate. The savory, salty buttermilk also suggests a form of beauty, as well as Krishna’s sassiness. We salt food to bring out the taste, not to create an entirely new taste, and likewise the poetry enhances the already existing emotions. Saltiness—lāvan.ya, charm, one of the six tastes—is a type of female beauty and the rasa that enhances beauty as salt enhances a dish.10 Lāvan.ya is frequently used in Brajbhās.ā poetry as an adjective describing beauty (usually female beauty) and indicates a dark complexion. The gopīs in the Bhramargīt poems are lāvan.ya, salty and sassy. They have been lamenting Krishna’s prolonged absence from Braj. When Krishna hears of their misery, he sends a message and his greeting to the gopīs with his friend Uddhava. When Uddhava speaks, a bee flies by, and the gopīs heap insults upon the bee as if it were the fickle Krishna himself. They accuse Krishna of philandering and taking nectar from many flowers. The bee personifies the fickle Krishna, who flies from flower to flower tasting the nectar of each but who cannot settle on just one. Krishna takes what he wants from each gopī, then he finally leaves for Mathura and never returns.

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Rāga—sārang He created our hearts, he won’t make them like that again. Even if mended with our best efforts, once broken, our hearts will break with just one tug. Once spoilt milk goes sour, how can its true taste be shown? This love is based on deceit, just like a calf is given a little milk to taste. If a drop from the svāti constellation should fall into a snake’s mouth, then the snake tastes it as poison. A soft plant near a thorny bush is torn, each and every moment they touch. Uddhava! We love Hari just as a fish needs water. Paramānand, in a city of Digambaras, what business is there for washermen? (S1129) Love and beauty are subjective in Braj culture. In this Bhramargīt poem, the gopīs are angry with Krishna for leaving them, and their anger shapes their reactions to Krishna’s activities: the mental framework determines interpretation. Similarly each devotee’s approach determines the worldly or nonworldly mode of understanding. Krishna always remains the same, but each devotee’s attitudinal approach flavors the devotee’s taste of him. The subjectivity of the raindrop’s recipient determines its taste. Similarly the identity and passions of the recipient determine the nature and reception of the rasa, and the poetry operates upon devotees according to how they hear the poems, just as the snake’s wicked nature changes the raindrop from nectar to poison by virtue of his evil. For example, the svāti constellation offers different gems or tastes depending on the recipient; the drop does not have an objective identity in and of itself. The cātak bird tastes this raindrop as a pearl, but the snake experiences it as venom. In the gopīs’ lament to Uddhava in the Bhramargīt, they complain that Krishna’s love is like milk gone bad. He has broken their hearts by leaving them for good, and they accuse him of cultivating their love in bad faith. The deceitful intent of the beloved—as in this case—ruins the taste, yet this milk-love is the sole sustenance of the gopīs. Krishna’s love is no more optional for the gopīs than is water for fish. But the water must not be

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stagnant nor the milk sour. The image of spoiled milk reveals a triumvirate of relationships: milk is rasa is love. Love is substantiated in the form of milk, which is also rasa—liquid love as in the milk of the calf. The more literal and precise translation of the fifth and sixth lines is something like “[His] love, intended to deceive, was like the small amount [of milk from the] cow fed [to the calf simply to get the milk flowing so it can be milked].” The gopīs claim that Krishna offered his love on the premise of deceit; he gave them a small amount to get the love flowing but never intended to continue giving them this love.11 The last line of the poem refers to the Digambara sect of the Jains. The Digambaras are “skyclad,” having renounced even clothing. Dhobis (or washermen) have no chance of survival in such an environment any more than the calf can survive without milk. Neither the cows nor the gopīs can exist without the nourishment of Krishna’s love. Any separation from Krishna causes immense pain to the residents of Braj as well as the devotees, yet devotees learn to cultivate the nuances of separation to enhance their passion for Krishna. They appreciate Krishna’s pranks and love games and relish those poems in which Paramānand offers darśan of these poignant episodes. Devotees trust that Krishna acts only for their benefit, and Krishna’s līlā exists to enhance his relationship with his devotees. When devotees hear and see poems illustrating Krishna’s mischievous nature or those times of separation, they incorporate these scenarios into their individual stores of knowledge and become even more attuned to the nuances of the līlā. Krishna plays some of his most sophisticated games of love at night when he slips out of his house after Yaśodā puts him to bed.

CHAPTER FIVE

Night Playing the Game of Love

When devotees gather for the evening darśan of Krishna, they see different aspects of him, and this mix of Krishna’s babyhood sweetness with the turbulence of his adolescent love games brings the listener into a complex emotional realm. At this time, some of the poems might focus on Yaśodā tenderly putting Krishna to bed, and appropriately the lights are dim and the singing soft and sweet. Devotees experience the tenderness of a parent putting a child to sleep for the night. What Yaśodā does not know—and the devotee does—is that her sweet child is about to emerge from his house and adopt his role as the cunning master of love games. Devotees hearing the poems that depict Krishna’s love games witness Krishna’s masterful manipulations of the emotions at night under the cover of darkness. Hearing these poems at night when they are likely to have the greatest resonance with devotees’ own emotional lives offers yet another level of synchronization with Krishna’s cosmic realm. Śayan Māna: Divine Jealousy When Rādhā and Krishna slip out of their houses at night, they enjoy their love games for the entire night and dally until morning. During this time, Krishna plays some of his more sophisticated games, such as māna and khan.d.itā, which reveal particularly nuanced expressions of love. In these games, Krishna arouses the divine jealousy that enhances the gopīs’ and the devotees’ love for him. 121

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As Paramānand subtly manipulates his expressions of love through the motif of māna, he plays with the figure of speech, to see is to know. Paramānand shifts between the viewpoints of Rādhā, Rādhā’s friend the sakhī, and the devotee, asking who really knows—or sees—the truth of the līlā. This poem depicts a typical māna scenario: the prideful Rādhā refusing to go to Krishna.

The Sakhī’s Counsel to Rādhā about Her Sulking and Pride Rāga—sārang Let’s go, I want you to meet Madanagopāl. My Mohan sits in a wonderful place and sweetly plays his flute. Mohan sent this wise sakhī to instruct you, Braj girl. I am falling at your feet to appease your māna; don’t dwell on other matters. Forget the shame of the elders, mother, father and brothers; you should adore Lāl. Appease Paramānand’s lord well, offer your heart and mind to the one with the forest garland. (S706) “Let’s go,” the sakhī, Rādhā’s friend, begs, pleading with Rādhā to go to Krishna. Paramānand’s choice of epithets demonstrates the absurdity of the situation. How can Rādhā resist Mohan, the intoxicating one, or Madanagopāl, whose name indicates exhilaration and passion? Yet Krishna remains alone in “this fine place,” which can only be the forest arbor he has lovingly designed for Rādhā and himself. He plays his enchanting flute, Muralī, whose call—under any other circumstance—is irresistible. Rādhā should be entrapped or intoxicated by his siren call, yet she sits apart, unenchanted. The defining metaphor in this poem is love as war, and the sakhī is the necessary liaison between the enemy parties. Desperate, Krishna had sent one of the sakhīs to plead with Rādhā and set her straight. He knows that the sakhīs are wise and can remedy this situation. Briefly, the sakhī gives her counsel: give up the māna, be quiet, and go to him. Do not worry about society’s expectations, she says. So what if your actions will bring dishonor and shame to your family: surrender your heart and mind to Krishna.

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In these māna scenarios, lovers Rādhā and Krishna have quarreled, and the sakhī mediates between them. Strategic episodes of separation, such as māna and khan.d.itā (a woman whose lover has been unfaithful) are tactics in the battle of love that heighten the lover’s passion. Krishna manipulates the gopīs’ passion through these amorous battles and incites jealousy and anger by manipulating their passions and playing one gopī off another. These love games heighten erotic tensions and increase the gopīs’ devotion to Krishna, who conducts these emotional manipulations out of love but not to a point that would destroy love. With deftness and skill, Krishna produces the proper passion. He is not clumsy but cognizant of the nuances of these passions. One less adept might destroy the passion— just as blowing too hard on a small fire extinguishes it. As the rasarāja (king of the rasa), he is not only the abode of the rasa, but also the supreme exemplar of the cultivation of rasa. The sophisticated rasika cultivates a variety of emotional attitudes to achieve the nuanced passions of love. Māna, best translated as “pique” or “anger in love,” is an advanced love game and exemplifies the subtleties of the līlā as a play within a play or garbhañka, a game within a game, whose goal is to enhance passion. Māna only occurs within the state of erotic love and describes anger at the lover and not at anyone else. This māna is not true anger that would occasion a final parting but consists of feelings expressed while in love; if the pair are not in love, then it is not māna. In these poems, sung during the night, māna has three aspects: Rādhā in the state of māna; māna prayatna, the sakhī persuading Rādhā to break the māna; and māna-milāpa, the resolution of the māna. All aspects are uddīpan (aesthetically background stimuli) and enhance the mood of love and the ultimate reunion.1 Rāga—nāyakī I’ll stay angry indeed, I’ll stay angry. When Śyāmasundar comes to the house, then I’ll speak angry words to him. If he tries to make up, I won’t do it; I’ll suffer the arrows of Kāmadeva. If Paramānand’s lord throws himself at my feet, I’ll still be stubborn. (S766)

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As the sakhī has come to plead with her, Rādhā sulks, self-absorbed in her own pride and anger, and states she does not intend to break māna and is prepared to ignore even the most magnanimous gesture of humility—Krishna throwing himself at her feet. Although the import of this scenario seems lost on Rādhā, it demonstrates the depths of Krishna’s love for Rādhā and for his devotees. Rādhā is so angry that no reconciliation appears possible despite the sakhī’s negotiation skills. The māna dramas elevate the erotic tension between the lovers by producing a series of minor separations ostensibly caused by Rādhā’s pique toward Krishna. Krishna and Rādhā have their pride, and neither will give in to resolve māna. The sakhī mediates between the pair, using whatever tactics are necessary to reunite them. Māna functions as a little separation, a temporary viraha, using the dynamic of separation and union within the context of love. Union needs its antithesis, separation, in order for love to flourish; fears of separation and loneliness give an edge to union. The māna of separation resembles a regulated risk or danger that heightens erotic tensions. Regulated risk is a technique to make love grow—not to break it—just as a daredevil seeks the thrill of cheating death and the fear of death, not death itself. Finally the couple reunites only after exhausting the range of passions from jealousy to loss to joy. Reunion is important in this context, because like other poems, the māna poems require resolution: Rādhā and Krishna never remain apart at the end of the night. Reconciliation poems always follow the māna poems and fall into two categories. Māna milāpa poems show paud.he (reconciliation) between the two lovers, and māna chut. āve (abandonment of the māna) poems portray Rādhā and Krishna sleeping in the arbor after their tryst. Like most lovers, Rādhā and Krishna occasionally fight. They argue— perhaps Rādhā is jealous of Krishna’s attention to another gopī—and separate, each going in a different direction to sulk and wait for the other to resolve the māna. While not all of the poems are addressed to Rādhā specifically, Rādhā is that aspect of Swāminī, the feminine, with whom the māna episodes are associated. Rādhā’s tāmasa (obstinate nature) manifests itself in her tumultuous relationship with Krishna. She is stubborn and unyielding regarding any obstacles in her love for Krishna but also is proud and stubborn in her anger when she suspects Krishna of philandering. Rādhā usually is angry with Krishna for his real or imagined trysts with another gopī. If Krishna is not with her, then where else would he be? With another gopī, she reasons. Rādhā’s fear is well grounded. As we have

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seen in the khan.d.itā poems, Krishna misses their scheduled evening appointment and comes to Rādhā in the morning, covered with the telltale marks of lovemaking. Rādhā, reasonably, is furious and jealous. She resents Krishna’s relations with the other gopīs and punishes him by withholding her affections. Her righteous pride, which has caused māna, masks her intense suffering. The sakhī’s primary role in the māna poems is her role as the dūtī (messenger).2 She has a crucial role—to unite the warring pair and save their love. She travels back and forth between Rādhā and Krishna and devises various tactics to break Rādhā’s māna. The māna poems demonstrate the sakhī’s great skill as a strategian of love as she pleads, cajoles, and even insults Rādhā. She points out Rādhā’s immense pride and asks why this pride should obstruct the flow of love. She warns Rādhā about the future loss of her beauty and desirability. Will Krishna still want her as her beauty fades with age? The sakhī tantalizes her with descriptions of Krishna’s beauty and the resplendent arbor. She appeals to Rādhā’s pride by reminding her of her great beauty and Krishna’s overwhelming passion for her. The sakhī’s speech is not always true or, at best, is an exaggeration. She uses any means possible to force Rādhā to change her ways. These poems reveal the dual perspectives of Rādhā and the sakhī. The sakhī presents herself as a sophisticated woman, wise in the ways of love, and portrays Rādhā, and occasionally Krishna, as maddened with pride and ignorant of the ways of love. Although the devotee might realize that the sakhī’s perspective is ultimately erroneous—Rādhā knows exactly what she is doing—the devotee engaged in the līlā identifies with the sakhī. The sakhī’s pleading for resolution further underscores Rādhā’s apparent ignorance of the realities of love, and here Paramānand explores the forms of knowledge itself. He manipulates the trope of separation through the figure of speech seeing is believing, but what the sakhī, Rādhā, and the devotees see is not always to be believed. The sakhī appears to miss what both Rādhā and Krishna understand: anger is an expression of love, and love in separation is a state to be enjoyed. Although the sakhī presents herself as a teacher, she actually has far more to learn than Rādhā. Rādhā and Krishna are the more appropriate pundits of love, with the sakhī as the erstwhile pupil who does not even realize the depths of her ignorance. The sakhī’s role in this game is to appear ignorant and misguided regarding love and to exaggerate the dangers of Rādhā’s māna. The sakhī instructs Rādhā on how to act toward Krishna and tells Rādhā of Krishna’s impassioned state. The sakhī believes herself wiser than

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Rādhā and thinks that she must persuade Rādhā to break māna at any cost. Though the sakhī treats Rādhā like an ignorant girl, Rādhā knows exactly what she is doing. Despite the sakhī’s admonitions, Rādhā’s dharma includes māna. The sakhī is an unwitting teaching aid in Paramānand’s illustration of Krishna’s games. Whatever fears and anxieties the sakhī might entertain regarding the union, the devotees relish them, vicariously living the games. By highlighting the sakhī’s occasionally wrongheaded messages and desperate instructions to Rādhā, the poems reflect the reality of Krishna’s līlā—that Krishna will never leave Rādhā— through the contrast between the truth and the sakhī’s arguments. The episodes of māna work as a dramatic instrument precisely because the devotees know that Krishna will never abandon Rādhā, and the comic element prevents the drama from entering the real or the truly revolutionary. Māna has rules. The lovers’ anger is not ultimate in a relationship-threatening sense but is a move in the dance of love. Krishna and Rādhā’s jealousy and pouting are calculated moves, a well-choreographed give and take. Even though Rādhā, Krishna, the sakhī, and the devotees all know that māna will never break Rādhā’s and Krishna’s love and that Krishna will never leave Rādhā (at least in māna), the sakhī’s instruction and pleas to Rādhā play an important role in devotion. The sakhīs are part of the līlā, and the līlā includes the sakhī’s pleas to Rādhā. Of course, everyone knows the ending of the story. In the Bhāgavata Purān.a, Rādhā and Krishna never separate as a result of māna. The plot of the drama is not the point; instead, the devotees engage in the immediacy of the līlā and live the story as it unfolds. Devotees cannot not remain outside as dispassionate observers, confident that māna will resolve in the end. Belief in the possibility of Rādhā and Krishna’s parting gives the drama its emotional power. As the sakhī fears that Rādhā’s pride might drive Krishna away, the devotee, too, shares that fear—as well as the delirious joy of their eventual reunion. If the separation provoked no real anxiety, no emotional engagement could exist, and the devotee could not relish the intense passion that the play evokes. The devotee, too, feels jealousy resulting from Krishna’s inattention. The devotees can experience māna in their own anger at Krishna for not appearing in the world. Like Rādhā, the devotees know that if Krishna is not present, then he must be with someone else—thus provoking jealousy. But how does a devotee show or control anger toward Krishna? Through māna. Use of māna is an advanced technique and not for the novice; it requires considerable skill in the cultivation of the appropriate passions.

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Māna reflects the intimacy of Rādhā and Krishna, who have transcended the introductory stages of love. Krishna himself initiates Rādhā’s jealousy to create māna because he enjoys it. From the aesthetic point of view, māna is a crucial aspect of Rādhā and Krishna’s love: love in separation is just as important as love in union. Rādhā and the devotees, of course, do not have this equanimity as they participate fully within the drama and experience all the passions. When Rādhā acts out her māna, it is not something wrong, an erroneous state the sakhī must fix, but a dignified and essential aspect of their love. The devotees should not conceive of māna as a harsh state to be endured but should enjoy the range and depth of the bhāva it facilitates. The pain of separation is enjoyable in and of itself, as well as an enhancement of later union. Though the sakhī tries to convince Rādhā otherwise, the wise devotee knows that she—the devotee and Rādhā—should emulate and relish māna. Rāga—sārang Why do you dam up the rasa of love? He is young Giridhar, the darling Lāl; you are Rādhā, a young girl. Listen, if you know these words are right, join him. You, the wheat-colored one, and the darling Syām, black like a new rain cloud, are as if gold and emerald. Again and again, I remind you of what happened before: your loosened hair across his feet. Why do you cast down and shatter this rasa of the lord of Paramānand? (S713) The rasa-is-liquid metonym runs through the poem. The sakhī asks Rādhā why she impedes the flow of love and reminds Rādhā of her previous trysts, when she rested her flowing hair at his feet. Krishna is referred to as the “rasa-nāyaka,” the hero of rasa, the one who contains all pleasure and enjoyment. Though not explicitly stated, the devotees understand that the sakhī is calling Rādhā a fool. The knowledgeable devotee can supply the background and the between-the-lines dialogue without which the lyrics can be cryptic. Rādhā and Krishna are both in the prime of youth, so why should Rādhā stop their natural affinity for one another? Their youth, the setting, everything supports their union, yet Rādhā needlessly dams up the rivers of their affection. The rasa should run like a

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river, submerging anything in its path. Instead, Rādhā blocks its course and deprives Krishna of her love. The sakhī claims that Rādhā has disrupted her dharmic destiny, which is likened to the natural flow of a river. By blocking the flow, she thwarts the natural order. Their love—as well as Rādhā’s māna—has been preordained, and Rādhā should not obstruct it. Māna as destiny exposes yet another of the sakhī’s tactical maneuvers: while it is Rādhā’s destiny to enact māna, the sakhī’s destiny is to argue for its resolution. Rāga—sārang Your love is not like Gopālalāl’s. Listen gopī, you’re insane with pride, you are false to your own nature. Only the sophisticated courtly women know about this rasa. Why are you using a touch-stone? His character is pure gold. How much can I explain? Oh wise one, Nanda’s son is divine. Meet with Paramānand’s lord as if you serve Śrī’s lord. (S723) The sakhī claims that Rādhā’s pride blinds her to the truth of Krishna’s love. This pride, the sakhī believes, can result in nothing good and is a major obstacle to their love. Pride potentially extends māna to its breaking point, so Rādhā must abandon her pride, which, according to the sakhī, has no place in the scheme of their love. She states that although Krishna’s love is far greater than Rādhā’s, Rādhā doubts his love. His love is pure gold, yet Rādhā wants to test it, as one tests the purity of gold with a touchstone. This touchstone measures the purity of the gold, and Krishna is considered as kancana bāraha, the most pure form of gold. Rādhā in her maddened state cannot perceive the reality of the situation and needs the sakhī’s guidance. Paramānand’s metaphor of love as intoxication allows him to manipulate the tropes of madness or insanity produced by love. The sakhī suggests that Rādhā is blind to the truth, yet it is the sakhī who errs in her advice to Rādhā. The sakhī counsels Rādhā to bend her pride and approach the lord humbly. In this poem, sevā indicates the quality of pleasing more than servanthood. Rādhā is advised to please Krishna as one would Nārāyan., the master of Śrī, or one’s husband. Rādhā’s pride is not totally misplaced. In the Braj tradition, Rādhā is an intimate and equal to Krishna who appeases and honors her. Rādhā’s relationship with Krishna appears in sharp contrast to Laks.mī’s more submissive relationship with Vis.n.u.

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The people of Braj know well Rādhā’s strength as an intercessor, but Laks.mī has a reputation for being fickle—not an asset in a liaison. While Rādhā’s pride is valued, Laks.mī’s pride gets her into trouble in Braj. Laks.mī had also heard Krishna’s call for the rāsa līlā dance and wanted to join. With her courtly pride of Vaikun.t.h, she was rude to the humble gopīs of Vrindavan (not realizing the reversal of status in Braj) when she asked the whereabouts of the arbor. Laks.mī never did find the location and had to remain on the opposite shore of the Yamuna River—separated from the unique devotion of Braj. Paramānand uses the term mahī kī mātī, which indicates the state in which one is deluded with notions of grandeur. Rādhā’s pride derives from the attitude that Krishna would not choose to be with other women when he could be with her. The sakhī claims that Rādhā acts like a fool and does not know the pure nature of the lord. In the eyes of her friend, Rādhā is inflated with pride, which stifles the expression of her love. Naively, Rādhā has erected a facade of pride, which conceals her more simple and loving nature. The sakhī believing herself wise, sophisticated, and aware of the lord’s true nature, takes it upon herself to instruct Rādhā. She calls Rādhā “the wise one” sarcastically, but her sarcasm reveals the paradoxical truth: Rādhā truly is wise. Paramānand sings of the sakhī’s alarm at Rādhā’s stubborn pride and her fears of nonreconciliation. The metaphor of love as war guides the sakhī’s tactics; she argues that Rādhā’s pride is a weapon, a potent force that blinds Rādhā to the truth. Yet the devotee with sophistication and subtlety ultimately understands Paramānand’s use of the sakhī’s and Rādhā’s viewpoints to manipulate passion. He left, if you want him again, listen to my counsel. Gopī woman, don’t think of him just as the protector of the cows. He is Paramānandadās’ lord, don’t abuse him with your pride. (S698) The sakhī blames Rādhā’s pride for the lovers’ separation. Krishna left Rādhā, angry at her inflated ego. The sakhī counsels Rādhā about getting Krishna back. Rāga—sārang I’ve tried to make you appease the māna, but I’m defeated. All is gone, ruined by your pride; Madanamurārī is dejected.

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Put on your blue sari, oh friend, take off your anklets. So when you go on this dark moonless night, no one will know. You just think about this and look inside yourself, why have you arranged your part in such a way? Just arrange it so that Nandakumār will find it even more becoming. Listen Rādhā, why make obstacles? You are a clever, though naive, woman. Meet Paramānand’s lord who is all blissful with the rasa of love, don’t spill what you have already gained. (S728) Rādhā’s pride nearly defeats the sakhī, who berates Rādhā for letting her pride create an obstacle to love. The sakhī tells Rādhā not to spill the rasa—love in the guise of liquid—she herself has collected. Rādhā has attained the great fortune of having Krishna for a lover but is, according to the sakhī, now missing out on the joys of union with him. Ironically, the sakhī uses “Madanamurārī,” an epithet which suggests Krishna as a Cupid or the intoxicating one (Madan) and the foe of Mura (Murārī). This term evokes the incongruity of anyone being able to resist the lure of Krishna as Madanamurārī. The sakhī continues her instruction as she advises Rādhā on how to approach Krishna and how to meet him without being seen or heard. The first four lines are straightforward and can be taken at face value, but the following lines are more sarcastic and hint at Rādhā’s acting as something she is not. The sakhī tells Rādhā to look within herself and ask why she arranges her part in such a way. The sakhī’s question points to two issues. First, why Rādhā would arrange her hair in such a way if she is angry at Krishna, and, second, if Rādhā is an inexperienced maiden, why would she act like a more experienced woman? Regarding Rādhā’s part, the sakhī is probably alluding to Rādhā’s arranging her hair so it partially conceals her face. This style is both immensely alluring and a physical representation of māna in that Rādhā is concealing herself from Krishna. The sakhī realizes that Rādhā is playing games and facetiously calls her a clever, naive woman—a contradiction in terms. Rādhā is actually a quite sophisticated woman who acts like a naive girl to increase her allure for Krishna. Ironically, Rādhā is wise because she does not overextend māna. She quickly resolves it and ends the eclipse. She knows how to control and manipulate māna—hiding, yet still keeping Krishna interested, then ulti-

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mately resolving it before it goes too far. Her apparent ignorance and inexperience enhance her attractiveness. The sakhī wrongly admonishes Rādhā as a mugdhā for her pride. Rādhā is frequently depicted as a mugdhā, a young girl who is not fully aware of her beauty and attractiveness to men. She hovers on the threshold between childhood and youth and is seen as an innocent. The vāyaha mugdhā is the heroine on the edge of childhood and adolescence. Aesthetically, she should be unaware of her beauty because her ignorance enhances her beauty. Mentioned first in the Nāt.yaśāstra and elaborated on in later texts, the nāyikā-mugdha is the first and most attractive stage because the girl is still afraid of love and does not recognize her own beauty.3 This girl does not know what others see. Rādhā is definitely neither a mugdhā nor a kumārikā, a young virgin. Rādhā knows exactly what she is doing and manipulates māna to her advantage. Rāga—bilāval The moon faced one is full of anger. Annoyed, the Braj girl pulls back her cloth, shooting arrow-like glances as if Kāmadeva. Then an idea came to the girl, she took a jewel and put it in her hand. She was not hidden for long, after a bit she became more clever. When the one with the essence of the golden campa flower came to the earth, the rising sun was frightened. The one who takes shelter in Paramānand’s lord achieves great joy and is released from suffering. (S756) Rādhā, still full of anger and pride, continues to sulk and hide herself from Krishna. Her great, bright beauty shames the sun, yet, because of her anger, she deprives Krishna of this beauty. She pulls her cloth over her face, hiding it partially, just as the moon is partially hidden during an eclipse. Her eclipsed face is a simple substitution for both Rādhā’s māna and her beauty, similar to her arranging her hair in such a way as to obscure her face just like the eclipsed moon as seen in the previous poem (S728). Though she deprives Krishna of her face, she shoots amorous, sidelong glances at him from behind her veil. She cannot be too angry with him if she covertly flirts with him. Rādhā is equivalent to Kāmadeva, and

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we hear this poem through the metaphor of love as war. Rādhā’s beauty is her arsenal, and her eyes and complexion are two weapons in it. The image of eyes shooting glances out like arrows, for example, Kāmadeva’s flower arrows, is common in Indian poetics. In this case, the eyes are weapons in the lover’s arsenal arousing love and lust in the beloved. Because the woman’s eyes and beauty caused the attraction, she is considered the aggressor when a man’s lust is aroused. She is not a passive recipient of the lust but wields power through her sensuality. In classical Persian poetry as well, the beloved or love object is believed to actively cause the attraction.4 Her beauty is such that it threatens the rising sun. Rādhā is referred to as “one with the complexion of campagrasa,” one with the golden complexion of the campa flower. The campa is a tree with golden blossoms likened to Rādhā’s golden or wheat-colored complexion. Its flowers are used to worship Pradyumna, an incarnation of Kāmadeva in the month of Jet.h.5 Setting the Stage: A Romantic Evening and the Beauty of the Lovers In persuading Rādhā to abandon her māna, the sakhī describes the scenario—the romantic evening, the beauty of the lovers, and their mutual love—perfect except for Rādhā’s sulking. This stage setting shapes the mood of both Rādhā and the devotees who hear these poems. As uddīpan (background stimulus), these poems enhance passion through time, place, and circumstance. The lushness of the scene indicates the plenitude resulting from Krishna’s love. Rāga—sārang Hey, come and see Mohan’s face. Right now is our chance to meet Śyāmasundar where he is playing. Fate has created this dense bower of blooming trees. He took fresh leaves and spread them out with his hand; he has decorated it well. The messenger spoke, and she was overjoyed. Then she ran and clasped his feet. When the lord of Paramānand appears, sing out your bliss and good fortune. (S699)

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Rāga—sārang Let’s go, my friend! Śyām is calling, he sings your name again and again. See him seated, the splendor of Vrindavan. The trees bloom in each and every spot. The cuckoo’s call arouses the heart’s bliss; the birds and bees have lost their senses. Birds create a panoply of sounds, all the creepers and red flowers are abloom. Intoxicated with passion, the youths are exuberant; this is a splendid occasion. The first union with Paramānand’s lord pleased her heart. (S749) Krishna awaits Rādhā in an enchanting forest, and Paramānand shapes this tableau through the metaphor of love as intoxication. This description enhances the erotic and impassioned mood with which the sakhī hopes to ease Rādhā from her state of māna to a mood of appeasement. The natural settings presented here are well-known elements of a romantic tryst in Brajbhās.ā poetry, and these blooming plants represent the overwhelming passion and exuberance indicated by intoxication. The plants, trees, and creepers all have mythological associations so that each plant suggests devotion to Krishna. S699 refers to drum, blooming trees in the romantic arbor. Although drum can be used generically for trees, here it connotes the pārijāta (Tree of Sorrow or Night Jasmine, sometimes known as kalpavr.ks.a, the Wishing Tree) which arose after the churning of the ocean of milk. This tree with its perfumed blossoms was established in Indra’s pleasure garden, but Krishna’s lesser wife, Satyabhāma, wanted it for her own garden in Dwarka. Krishna eventually prevailed and established the tree in Satyabhama’s garden.6 This night blooming tree beautifies the arbor with its scent and its flowers, which drop in the early morning and create a shower of flower petals. In S749, the sakhī refers to the flowering forest and the sweet voice of the black cuckoo, a haunting cry lofting through Vrindavan. The scene evokes such joy that the birds and the bees have lost their consciousness, aware only of the bliss of this beautiful tableau. Similar to a present-day description of a candlelit dinner or moonlit night, this elaboration of the woodland pageant heightens Rādhā’s mood of love, so she will abandon her state of māna and meet with Krishna. The Kāma Sutra likened palāśa, the red flower of the d.hāka tree, Butea frondosa, to the nail marks

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inscribed upon the beloved’s body by the lover, so the mention of this flower offers the image of the lovers after the resolution of māna.7 To further heighten the mood, these poems anticipate the resolution of māna and the resulting union. The last line of S699 assumes a narrative leap to māna-milāpa when Rādhā experiences union with Krishna. Now Rādhā and Krishna are together, and Rādhā sings to express the bliss of the situation. This last line might also be translated grammatically in the future tense: when Krishna gives his darśan, you will sing auspicious songs. This last line of S749 has either skipped ahead into the resolution of māna and portrays the union of the lovers or recalls the first meeting of the lovers and appeals to Rādhā’s nostalgia and desire to reexperience the good times. The latter reading seems to make more sense, especially in terms of Paramānand’s proficiency in creating for devotees sounds that become sights so devotees can experience darśan. As further background, the sakhī describes the beauty of the pair of lovers and their great love for each other, both to further enhance the mood of love and to convince Rādhā to join Krishna. In the following poem, the sakhī praises Rādhā’s beauty as a means of enticing, if not bribing, her to meet with Krishna. She claims Brahmā himself fashioned Rādhā’s body and that Krishna came to Braj only to play with her, thus pandering to Rādhā’s pride and vanity. As the liaison, the sakhī notes that Rādhā has unleashed the deadliest weapon in her arsenal, her beauty. Rāga—sārang Why are you going out at night? Hey Rādhā, seeing your face, the moon is shamed. When you and your friends go in the forest in the evening, the swans and she-deer run from the woods in embarrassment. The king of the animals looks at his own waist, to what extent are you going to make enemies of them all with your beauty? Your body fashioned by Brahmā with his great hand, give it to the handsome Gopāl. Only because of you, the lord of Paramānand has created this incarnation for the pleasure of play. (S726) Rādhā’s beauty is so great that the animals of the forest must run in shame with regard to their own beauty. Swans with their lovely gait and

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she-deer with their eyes cannot compare to Rādhā’s charm; even the lion, the king of the animals, looks with chagrin at his own slender waist after seeing Rādhā’s. Rādhā causes these animals to feel that she is their enemy because her beauty so vastly outshines theirs. The sakhī tells Rādhā that the creator designed Rādhā’s beauty himself and that she should rightly offer this beauty to Krishna who himself is the creator. Not to be outdone, Krishna enchants Rādhā with his own beauty. Rāga—sārang It is meritorious to praise Nandalāl. Watch the supreme radiance of his face, the beauty of which renders dull Kāmadeva’s luster. His glance is excellent, his speech is excellent, his singing is excellent, his movements and intellect are excellent. The one with the lotus eyes is splendid in every way, in this way his laugh steals his beloved’s heart. Which limb should I describe? The cooling properties of his body are like the autumn moon. Meet him Rādhā, the ocean of the rasa of love, the lord of Paramānand’s heart. (S701) The sakhī tells Rādhā that all aspects of Krishna are wonderful. His beauty is also a powerful weapon in this battle of love. The sum of his qualities—his mind, his voice, and his nature—will defeat Rādhā’s heart and break her pride. Her māna cannot stand up to Krishna’s charms and perfection. His face, lit like the moon, obscures Kāmadeva’s light. Like the autumn moon, his body soothes the gopīs’ misery. Each limb is more beautiful than the next, so how can the sakhī begin to describe this unimaginable beauty? Krishna’s beauty is immense, and he is the “ocean of the rasa of love.” Rādhā must go to him. How could she not? The sakhī appeals to Rādhā with descriptions of Krishna’s immense beauty and hopes that Krishna’s beauty will become a weapon to defeat Rādhā’s māna. Yet again the sakhī errs in her assumptions. Rādhā fully realizes Krishna’s charms but uses māna as a tool to enhance their love, and the oblivious sakhī believes that her persuasions will mend the separation of the lovers. The sakhī engages the tactic of memory and reminds Rādhā of their mutual love—how Rādhā and Krishna plotted their rendezvous and

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flouted social conventions. Rādhā and Krishna communicate through signals because their relationship defies all community mores and must remain secret. Krishna, being wise, understands Rādhā’s signal: love is war, and the pair are compatriots in this war of love. Rāga—sārang Hey Rādhā, you signaled with your eyes. You beckoned Mohan Mādhav from Nanda’s house. He came from Braj to the forest; his heart was very clever. Śyāmaghan entered the bower hut, and you embraced, heart to heart. The deer-eyed one and the lotus-eyed one were entwined together, they drank the nectar of each other’s lower lips. Paramānand says, I speak of that day we consider fruitful; we live for that. (S695) The sakhī chooses her epithets well. Krishna is often named as the one with eyes like lotuses, and Rādhā’s eyes are like those of a deer. Both epithets are signs of Rādhā and Krishna’s great beauty and are symbolic substitutes for arrows of love. In Braj poetry, beauty is a potent force that overwhelms its victim, as an arrow finds its mark. Mohan Mādhav indicates Krishna as the one who intoxicates with sweetness. Śyāmaghan suggests Krishna’s color of a dark gray rain cloud about to burst. This is a śles.a, a pun wherein the word has multiple meanings. Krishna’s name Śyāmaghan describes a real aspect of his being—literally the monsoon rain, but the relief of the upcoming union is the symbolic meaning. The sakhī hints at this relief to try to entice Rādhā out of her māna. Rādhā’s love for Krishna overshadows the shame her illicit meetings with Krishna will bring upon herself and her family. Rāga—sārang She recognizes his amorous glance. Rādhā the wise city-woman meets him on the path and smiles behind her veil. The son of Nanda stands at the door and gives a secret sign. The messenger says angrily, quickly let’s go, get up, why delay? To have obtained this passion is your great fortune, she is immersed in his eyes.

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Paramānand’s lord is the enchanter of hearts, meeting him is good. (S696) Again, the sakhī reminds Rādhā of the love and secrets Rādhā and Krishna have shared. Because of societal constraints Krishna cannot directly avow his love for Rādhā but instead can only give her a glance or a “secret sign.” The two have been risking shame and ostracism for their love and have overcome great obstacles to their love with their signals and secrets. Why should Rādhā’s pride and māna ruin all they have worked for? The sakhī believes that Rādhā’s delay will ruin the meeting they so carefully planned with their secret signals and messages. The sakhī offers two additional arguments as part of her strategy to force Rādhā to capitulate. The first is that Rādhā has obtained such great fortune to have the opportunity to meet with Krishna. How can she waste it? The sakhī further argues that Rādhā’s delaying tactic might backfire on her. Neither Krishna, the night, nor Rādhā’s youth and beauty will remain forever; time passes, and these things are fleeting. Rādhā is a fool to delay the meeting on account of her foolish pride.

The Sakhī’s Warning Rāga—sārang In the first month of winter you practiced a vow, you endured the cold water of the Yamuna. you asked for the son of the gopa Nanda as your husband, you were fortunate to receive it. (S710) The sakhī admonishes Rādhā for wasting her good fortune: to have Krishna as a lover is an amazing boon. The sakhī reminds Rādhā of her sacrifice to achieve this boon: she bathed in the Yamuna River in the winter in the month of Mārgas.īrs. to obtain Krishna. S703 simply mentions Rādhā’s performance to receive the boon, “What great deeds did you do for this fruit, oh woman?” The idea that love is a perishable thing underlies this poem; love can disappear.

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If Rādhā throws this boon away, the sakhī warns, she will be flouting her destiny because of her pride. Vara means both groom/husband and boon. A married woman is saubhāgyavatī, “one who is auspicious;” saubhāgya means good fortune, thus a married woman has good fortune. Rāga—asāvarī Listen to my words, beautiful Rādhā. You have obtained an unfathomable ocean of rasa. That rasa described in the Vedas as “not that, not that,” you taste as the nectar of his lower lip. The meditation that is practiced by Śiva and Brahmā will not bring him, yet you make him pick flowers for you in the bower. You, daughter of the gopa Vrs.abhān, embrace darling Mohan with love. I can’t speak of your fortune, Paramānand says, I can only sing of one drop of this rasa. (S742) Rādhā has achieved a treasure that even the sages through their meditation cannot attain. Paramānand’s metonymic equivalence of rasa as ocean is ironic: the traditional meditative goal of absorption into the unqualified ocean of Brahman is superseded by the rasa which can only be obtained through the figure of Krishna. Neti, neti, a description of Ātman/Brahman given in Br.hadāranyaka Upanis.ad 4.2.2, states that ultimately Brahman is indescribable and unknowable. Neti, neti, “not this, not this,” indicates that no qualities can be posited about Brahman as any qualities are limiting and incomplete. The ocean of Brahman into which the Ātman disappears is the ocean of rasa, which constitutes Krishna. Rādhā receives the boon of the “ocean of rasa” and experiences this rasa as the “nectar of his lower lip,” yet she gets it through the kisses of Krishna. While this rasa is unattainable by the great sages with their intense austerities, Rādhā’s love and devotion merit her this remarkable boon. She has achieved a union with Krishna that wisdom and yoga cannot produce without devotion. The union with Brahman is absolute, and no duality remains. However, the rasa from Krishna’s lower lip leads to the union of lovers wherein a necessary duality remains. Paramānand states that this great ocean of rasa is so immense, he can only sing of one drop.

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Rāga—kānharau Hey, māninī, don’t do so much māna. Your youth is like water in a cupped palm. When Gopāl asks, then give it to him. Oh beautiful one, night and day, your beauty does not wax and wane like the quarters of the moon. He is the fruit of your good deeds and previous merit, why not let his eyes drink their fill of your beauty? I swear by his lotus feet, let your soul live for these moments. Meet with the lord of Paramānand and fulfill the fruit of your own birth. (S733) Paramānand’s liquid-is-rasa metonym illustrates the perishable nature of beauty and youth, such as the image of water seeping out through a pair of cupped hands. Let Krishna’s eyes drink their fill, the sakhī begs, evoking the concept that Krishna will taste Rādhā’s diminishing beauty through vision. Similarly, through each lunar cycle, the moon waxes and wanes; the moon’s beauty ebbs and returns through time. Though each month the moon’s beauty ebbs to its lowest point, we remain certain that it will soon return in its full glory and again wax beautiful. Yet humans have no such assurance regarding our own youth and beauty; we tend to believe that once human beauty fades, it is gone forever. The sakhī reminds Rādhā that she earned this boon of Krishna, the “fruit of good deeds and previous merit.” She has no right to squander her good fortune and to violate her destiny, the “fruit of her own birth.” The sakhī further cautions Rādhā against any delay and warns Rādhā that once her beauty is gone, Krishna will no longer want her. At this time—at the peak of her beauty—Krishna desires Rādhā’s beauty and love, so Rādhā must give herself to Krishna while he still wants her. In this poem, she warns Rādhā that time is passing and, along with it, the night and her youthful beauty. Rāga—kedarau Get up, why don’t you look at Mohan’s face? Why waste even a moment in vain without looking at the beauty of Giridharan? Your youth is like water in your hands, without the Braj lord

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it will become useless and deteriorate. Look at his lotus face in person with your very own eyes, and flourish. My advice: give up māna, darling! Why do what is displeasing? Paramānandadās’ lord abandoned Vaikun.t.h and came to play in Braj. (S738) The sakhī stresses that Rādhā’s beauty is transient and will fade just as water leaks from cupped hands. She claims that Rādhā’s beauty will be in vain if she does not give herself to the Braj lord. This argument reiterates the point that Rādhā was created to be with Krishna. Her destiny is Krishna, and her beauty is useless unless Krishna partakes of it. Krishna abandoned the celestial splendors of Vaikun.t.h to play with the gopīs in Braj, and, if Rādhā creates obstacles to this love, she will be wasting Krishna’s sacrifice as well as her own ephemeral beauty. Any moment not spent with Krishna, drinking in his beauty, is a moment wasted and a violation of her dharma—which is to rendezvous with Krishna. Paramānand juxtaposes images of the loss of rasa with its free flow to highlight what is at stake. Rādhā’s beauty and youth—and the liquid rasa—are as if quickly leaking out of cupped hands, yet merely seeing Krishna’s lotus face gains the cooling effects of the rasa. Rādhā is on the threshold of abandoning her māna. She is ready to join Krishna, and the sakhī offers suggestions for flirting with him. The sakhī not only urges Rādhā to run to Krishna but also instructs her on how to act when she gets there, how to entice Krishna and enhance the mood of love. Rāga—kānharau Oh, the bliss of Hari’s games. You have managed to bring Madanagopāl near, play whatever games please him. Take beautiful Śyāmasundar’s arm and put it around your neck. You are totally immersed in love, but take care, lest you waste this occasion. Nanda’s son is the dark tamāl tree, you are the golden creeper. After that embrace, the servant Paramānand’s feet push away liberation. (S740) Now that the sakhī senses Rādhā’s capitulation she coaches Rādhā in the fine arts of flirting. She tells Rādhā what to do when she meets

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Krishna. If she loves Krishna then she should play with him. Yet, when she is totally abandoned to this love, she also must be delicate and intuitive, or she will destroy their union. So the sakhī offers Rādhā her last advice: how to act once they have met and her māna is appeased, and, at the same time, the sakhī warns Rādhā not to waste this love, Paramānand’s necessarily redundant use of the rasa-as-liquid metonym helps the devotee hear the poem through this metonym, and thus the devotee sees the sakhī’s warning through the image of love leaking away. The poem foreshadows the union of the pair by invoking the image of the intertwined tree and creeper. Brajbhās.ā poetry often compares the golden creeper and the dark tamāl tree to Rādhā and Krishna. The creeper twines about the tree in an eternal embrace, a visual analog of the embrace of the couple. This embrace of the couple, also a popular feature of the rāsa līlās of Vrindavan, is called “ek prān., do deh”: the couple has two bodies (do deh) but only a single breath (ek prān.) shared between them and so are eternally united. Still, before they can meet and embrace in this union—the goal of Rādhā, the sakhīs, and the devotees—Rādhā must end her māna. Paramānand stresses the importance of the union by stating that his feet push away liberation. (The image of his feet kicking away the goal of the sages makes it a particularly potent image.) Any relationship with Krishna is a more complete goal than that of jñāna-mukti, meditative liberation. The necessary duality of devotion takes precedence over the monistic absorption of mukti. Paramānand rejects nirgun., the unqualified liberation of the sages in favor of devotional liberation in Krishna’s play. Rāga—sārang Lāl is coming. Hey, let’s go my friend! If you continue your obstinacy, you’ll ruin this thing; be merciful, the dancer has danced enough. Hearing this advice, she went to her beloved, laughing like a running stream. The pair met and lay together on the blissful bed, Paramānand surrenders to them. (S764) The sakhī says enough is enough. Rādhā has kept Krishna waiting too long, and she must end her māna. In this poem, which presents māna chut.āve, the resolution of the māna, Rādhā accepts the sakhī’s advice.

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Laughing in victory, Rādhā goes to Krishna, and the lovers continue their lovemaking abed in the bower, the ultimate resolution of the māna. The Sakhī’s Message to Krishna Prior to Rādhā’s capitulation, the sakhī brought a message to Krishna about this prolonged game. Rāga—āsāvarī Such is the situation Madhav, you should appease her. If this pleases your heart, then you should go there. Don’t worry if she doesn’t come, your desire for her has made her proud. This woman’s mind is swollen with greatness in māna; because of this, she is steadfast in her stubbornness. The messenger said these words to him: face to face, she will accept whatever you say. Paramānand’s lord, the sophisticate of love, knows about these matters. (S752) Rādhā is so full of māna that she refuses to go to Krishna. Her pride results from his attraction to her, and, according to the sakhī, she is in danger of destroying this attraction with her pride. The sakhī tells Krishna that Rādhā will not break her māna, so Krishna must consider a strategic appeasement: this opponent is utterly intractable. Rādhā is extraordinarily stubborn due to the great māna in her heart. Paramānand, however, knows that Krishna understands everything. In the following poem, the sakhī tries to lure Gopāl to follow her to Rādhā. Despite the flattery of the sakhī, Rādhā is immobile. The sakhī believes that Rādhā wants the “road of appeasement,” but she is unable to follow it. Like all the women of the Ahīrs (the cowherd caste of which Rādhā and Krishna are members), Rādhā is strong, not easily broken, and her tough exterior keeps her rooted in her māna. Only Krishna can break māna; it is beyond Rādhā’s ability. She has reached the limits of the technique of māna. According to the sakhī, Rādhā has started something she cannot end. The sakhī must also speak to Krishna in her mission as the “strategist–love counselor” between the sparring lovers. She begs him to appease

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Rādhā’s māna, to give in and be the first one to make up. Someone must go first, and waiting for the other to break first can be a long and dangerous affair. The sakhī rightly claims that Rādhā is full of pride and that Krishna must accept her foolish pride as a part of her nature. He must swallow his pride and go to her, because Rādhā is too foolish and prideful to fully understand the game she is playing. Rāga—sārang The mugdhā wants the road of appeasement. Let’s go, Gopāl! Be merciful here in the forest amidst the splendid wealth of cows. Even after my speech she has not come: I’ve pleaded with her many times. Only you know the secret; you, Krishna the connoisseur of rasa, know all these things. She sits, a mass of pride; she keeps silent and does not speak. The nature of this Ahīr daughter is tough, she won’t budge from here. Laughing, the Braj lord speaks to the messenger, I don’t accept your words. Paramānand’s lord, the crown jewel of the rasikas, the lord remains seated. (S753b) The sakhī uses Rādhā’s pride as a tactic in getting Krishna to appease her māna. She appeals to Krishna’s desire to see Rādhā and pleads for tolerance of Rādhā’s prideful nature. First, his desire to see her will overwhelm his proud determination to not be the first to make up. Second, the sakhī flatters him, suggesting that Rādhā is incapable of making this move and that he must be the big man and do it. The reference to Rādhā as a mugdhā labels her as a naive young girl who is still unskilled in the arts of love and who does not know what she is doing. The sakhī implies that Krishna must take responsibility for the situation. If he does not end the māna, then no one will. Rādhā is prevented from doing so by her tāmasa (obstinate nature). Nonetheless, Krishna, who is the pinnacle of the rasikas, holding all rasas within himself, remains unmoved by the misguided sakhī’s pleas. He laughs and prolongs the war because he, as the connoisseur of rasa, sees the māna as a game and knows that Rādhā’s anger is an expression of her great love for him.

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Rāga—sārang Dejected, she remains seated. The enchanted one can’t tell anyone about her pain inside. Her face is lifeless, and her lower lip withered. Tears flow from her eyes. At night she curses the moon; her rows of curls are burnt. Rādhā, your separation and loneliness: you endure the sun’s heat. Quickly meet with Paramānand’s lord, the messenger says. (S753a) The sakhī appeals to Krishna’s pity, hoping that painting a bleak portrait of Rādhā’s condition will melt Krishna’s heart, which is hardened against her ploys. She dramatizes Rādhā’s condition with the epithet Mohinī, which means the enchanting woman but can also indicate the one who is enchanted. Rādhā is so besotted by Krishna that she cannot function. Because of her outpouring of tears and the blazing heat of the sun, Rādhā has withered like an old flower in the late summer. The metonym of love as liquid rasa is related to the concept of love as perishable: without protection it will evaporate. The implications of the lack of rasa are clear: for Rādhā, without the rasa of love, her beauty fades, and she is desiccated. The rasa gives the lovers their vitality and youthful essence, and without the influx of rasa, Rādhā cannot survive—physically or mentally. Just as a water-deprived plant grows old and dry, people wither without rasa and the emotion of love. The rasas provide humans with the “sap” and other essential liquids that are necessary for physical survival. Similarly, the rasas give humans the nurturing necessary for emotional wellbeing. The moon—usually a friend with its cooling rays—now attacks Rādhā with its searing rays. As Krishna, the moon normally extinguishes the fiery agony of separation, but with his prolonged absence in this māna game, nothing dispels the heat, and the moon and sun combine forces of heat as Krishna conceals himself and his cooling beneficence. Only Krishna’s presence eases the pain of separation, restores the cooling function of the moon, and offers the nourishing rasa, which will saturate and replenish Rādhā. Again Krishna must take the responsibility because Rādhā is in too weakened a state to save herself. She curses the moon, which casts down fire, and dreams of the moon’s cooling nectar. Although the devotees know that ultimately Krishna and Rādhā will reunite, love

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games such as māna enhance each devotee’s passion by offering the experience of separation. The Resolution of Māna Ultimately, māna is resolved, and Rādhā capitulates. The pair is headed for a meeting and a resolution of their differences. Although Rādhā has been persuaded to abandon māna, she clearly retains remnants of her pride, and these remnants are extremely pleasing to Krishna. The remaining bit of pique showcases Rādhā’s beauty and makes her even more attractive. Krishna’s obsession grows as he keeps a respectful distance from her and clears any obstacles in her path. Paramānand invokes the metaphor of love as intoxication and substitutes the elephant in rut for Rādhā. Rāga—kedaro Having placated her, Syām came to Syāmā. Wherever the lovely one went, stopping here and there, he followed her. She acquired much beauty from that māna, and so many marks have remained. He is like a mahout still wary after the elephant in rut has been calmed. Sometimes forward, sometimes back, their eyes meet. When there was a small piece of straw on the path, he ran there to remove it. Mohan became exceedingly fearful; he makes some ornaments for her. Paramānand says, those who know sing of this delightful play of Giridhar. (K1498; P3/349; S761) Intoxication here leads not only to the lessening of inhibition, but also to danger. Like the rut-driven elephant, Rādhā is irrational with love of Krishna, and Krishna, like the mahout (elephant driver), cannot let her out of his sight, although he hesitates to come near. An elephant in this state is wild, dangerous, and unpredictable, scaring even the mahout, who is the only one competent to handle such an elephant.

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Krishna’s Māna Krishna is shy and slightly afraid of Rādhā and her māna, although he, too, enjoys the cycle of the argument and its resolution. Again we see a vision of Rādhā’s power and her equality with Krishna—though a mere cowherd girl, she is proud and defiant, nobody’s fool. She does not sit submissively at Krishna’s feet but instead has Krishna running here and there to clear her path. Ultimately, she controls him through her sexuality and beauty, making him powerless to resist her. Rādhā knows the power of her sexuality, essentially the only power available to her. Mohan—who himself is captivating and charming—is captivated and entranced by her charms. Paramānand’s metaphor of love as intoxication exists in tension with the metaphor of love as entrapment or captivation. Mohan—the one who intoxicates—is both powerful and powerless. Rādhā’s beauty has captivated Mohan. Rāga—sārang Take this message from Rādhikā. You sit far away in the shady bower, don’t play such a game. That moon-faced maiden has come and wandered through the whole forest and now wants to go. Seeing her, Hari remains silent, shooting the harsh arrows of Kāmadeva. Hari, go quickly! How can you delay? She is standing under the kadamb tree. Love for your beautiful form grows within Paramānand’s lord. (S755) Krishna’s silence and refusal to surrender indicate his participation in māna. Instead of going to Rādhā, he continues to shoot arrows of love at her. Krishna is not actually accused of being in māna, but he does not help the situation either. The sakhī and the devotees know that Krishna is madly in love with Rādhā. The sakhī wisely admonishes Krishna to abandon māna and reunite with Rādhā. Krishna is occasionally accused of creating māna, though of a different sort than that of Rādhā. When Krishna has left for Mathura, and the women slander him out of their inconsolable grief, his absence is referred to as māna.

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Rāga—malār First he was kind and dried our eyes. Now once having played in that very place, we are maddened to the point of death. So how can we—anguished by this separation—survive, longing for his sight? How can we accept his māna, (we who have tasted) the nectar of his lower lip? He has hidden his heart from us, when face to face, he said sweet words. The lotus hand of Paramānand’s lord held Govardhan. (S949) The gopīs consider Krishna’s actions to be māna, but the contexts of the two are different. The gopīs can only hope this separation is a form of māna, which would presuppose a swift resolution. Instead, this poem occurs in the context of the final parting, when the gopīs lament Krishna’s ultimate departure from Braj. He promised to go for only a week, but the week dragged on and on until the onset of the rainy season, yet he still did not return. That the rainy season is a time of the joyous reunion of lovers only makes it more painful for the gopīs, who miss Krishna terribly. The birahinīs—Braj women who are desperate for the sight of Krishna—burn in the flames of separation. Now the rivers and streams are swollen, making travel impossible and totally eliminating any hope of Krishna’s immanent return. Krishna’s departure from Braj, though, had little to do with the gopīs and everything to do with his dharma, the reason he descended in the first place. Krishna’s short sojourn in Braj was over; it was time to slay the demon Kamsa and resume the regal duties that were his destiny. His physical separation from the gopīs became permanent, due to necessity, not pique. The Sakhī in Māna Poems The māna poems illustrate Paramānand’s skillful manipulation of different perspectives: the first suggests that Rādhā is a fool and needs the wise sakhī’s speech; and the second presents the sakhī as the foil for Rādhā’s wisdom, an apparently wrongheaded advisor to Rādhā. We see the sakhī’s

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desperate tactics to force Rādhā to appease her māna: she cajoles, begs, and badgers Rādhā, but little of what she tells Rādhā is ultimately true. The līlā will continue, and Rādhā and Krishna will be together. But the sakhī and the devotees live fully within the drama of the līlā and fear that the two might never reconcile due to Rādhā’s pride and māna. The sakhī’s tactics utilize all aspects of the līlā and the dharma of māna, and her cajoling and badgering are necessary aspects to maintain the fear of separation. The separation and union produced by māna represent the playful dynamic in which Krishna, as Purus.ottam, reveals and conceals his bliss in the world, which reflects his theological game in which immanence is alternately revealed and concealed. Māna reveals the tensions between separation and union, revelation and concealment, and the dynamics in the relationship between Rādhā and Krishna parallel the relationship between Purus.ottam and the world. While Purus.ottam playfully reveals and conceals himself in the world, so Rādhā and Krishna separate and meet again. In addition, the sakhī functions for Paramānand as an instructional foil. Her exaggerations and strategies—what she must say and fully believe in the context of māna—point out the discrepancies between what she says and the truth. Through the sakhī’s apparent ignorance and selfaggrandizement, devotees can better perceive the truth of the līlā—that Krishna will never leave Rādhā and that Rādhā’s youth and beauty will never fade despite the sakhī’s arguments. Of course, according to the līlā, Krishna leaves for Mathura, and Rādhā and the gopīs pine and waste away, but the eternal līlā will always be accessible to them and to accomplished devotees. The sakhī’s statements point out in stark relief these truths to the devotee. Though the sakhī presents herself as a wise instructor, at times she herself appears in need of instruction. Paramānand uses the apparently misinformed sakhī’s self-presentation as an instructor to guide the devotee and to show the truth—that Rādhā is skilled in the games of love and knows exactly what she is doing. The sakhī desperately presents her strategies to Rādhā as she—and the devotees—know that māna must be resolved. It cannot continue but is only uddīpan, a background stimulus, to heighten the emotional tension. The devotees receive this teaching, which brings them closer to the alaukik world of Krishna’s līlā. Māna as battle strategy uses sophisticated techniques to enhance the passion. Frequently, as part of her argument, the sakhī invokes the beauty of the night. The physical aspects of Braj — particularly those evident at night—further stimulate the gopīs’ and devo-

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tees’ love for Krishna. In the māna poems, battle metaphors provide a framework within which to interpret Krishna’s actions. The sounds and images invoked in the poems have metaphoric resonance that extend the devotees’ understandings to a deeper and more complex level. Here again, the devotees’ memories—both individual and collective—provide depth to the lyrics describing the love play of Krishna and the gopīs. At the end of the night, after Krishna and Rādhā resolve their māna, the couple is once again united in the bower. The sakhī’s job is complete, and Rādhā’s friends serve the couple in the arbor. Soon dawn will arrive, and the events of Krishna’s daily līlā will start again. Daily, Krishna repeats his līlā, and devotees follow these cycles through poetry and darśan at the appropriate times. The daily cycles occur within the larger context of the annual cycles, and Paramānand’s poetry guides devotees through Krishna’s games as the poetry reflects the seasons and festivals of the annual cycle. The māna poems reveal Krishna’s manipulation of separation to enhance Rādhā’s passion for him. Yet nothing could prepare the gopīs for the anguish of separation from Krishna on Śarad Pūrn.imā when they wept and recalled their dance with Krishna under the autumn full moon.

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CHAPTER SIX

Autumn to Spring Gopīs, Birds, and the Moon

As we have seen in the previous chapters, devotees hear the poems sung in daily cycles. Devotees see Krishna’s games at the appropriate time of day, and this synchronicity helps them homologize their lives with that of Krishna. This daily cycle is set within a larger seasonal or festival cycle, and these poems illustrate Krishna’s games as they reflect the seasons. Paramānand’s description of the seasons and festivals parallels devotees’ experience of them, for example, during the romantic autumn full moon, devotees see the same moon as described in the poetry. Or during the boisterous springtime festival of Holī, devotees also celebrate the onset of spring and exchange color as do Rādhā and Krishna. As devotees live Krishna’s experiences as portrayed in the poetry, dialectically their understanding of the poetry grows as their own experience of the phenomena provides context. When the gopī gazes up at the full moon, she is reminded of Krishna’s beautiful moon face. Yet, seeing the moon without her beloved Krishna saddens her, and her eyes fill with tears. As she reflects on her past adventures with Krishna, the full moon invokes a web of related memories and symbols. She recalls her dance under the moon’s cool rays and the cakor bird which eats only the moon’s rays.

Śarad: The Autumn Full Moon Rāga—kedārau Watching the full moon reminds me of the deer-eyed Madhav’s face. 151

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Again and again, recalling the rāsa dance; I lower my head, and my eyes fill. How long will the Braj lord remain in Mathura? How long does it take to kill the sinner Kamsa? A cooling breeze arises on the banks of the Yamuna. Kāma has captivated our hearts in the darkness On what day will Hari come again? He’ll laugh and embrace us with his lotus hands. Separation from Paramānand’s lord dulls our faces and chars our hearts. (S1004) The full moon is the center of a symbolic web that includes nectar, the ocean, and birds, and Paramānand’s manipulation of these symbolic substitutions illustrates the need for Krishna’s grace as pus.t.ī (nourishment) for the devotees’ survival. The nectar-producing moon is an ocean of rasa and is the sole source of nourishment for the cakor and cātak birds whose desire for the moon Krishna reflects that of the gopīs. The rasa-as-love metonym dominates this symbolic nexus, and devotees see the necessity of Krishna’s love through a range of symbolic substitutions. The full moon is significant not only for its symbolic function but also for its regulatory function of the calendar. Most holidays and festivals are determined according to the lunar calendar. The Indian subcontinent has developed numerous calendrical systems, both solar and lunar, and there are even regional differences among these. Braj and Uttar Pradesh follow the Purn.īmānt calendar, in which the lunar month goes from full moon to full moon, but the month is named for the new moon, which will occur a fortnight later.1 For the Braj devotional calendar, the lunar calendar is most significant, although certain days which are determined by the solar calendar, are celebrated. For example, Makar Samkrānti, the advent of the sign Capricorn, is always on January 14. The Indian lunar calendar is adjusted to the solar calendar, which is eleven days longer, so technically this calendar is a luni-solar calendar. An intercalary month, adhik mās, is inserted every few years to readjust this schedule. The lunar calendar starts with the month Caitra (spanning the Gregorian months of March to April). Each lunar month is divided into two parts: the light half, śukla paks.a, when the moon is waxing, and the dark half, kr..sn.a paks.a, when the moon is waning. The tithi, or days of the moon, are numbered by the state of the moon in each half. For example,

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ekādaśi kr..sn.a paks.a is the eleventh day of the dark half; on Ekādaśi, many devotees fast or abstain from foods made with grain. Both the full moon day, pūrn.imā, the fifteenth day, and new moon day, amāvasyā, the fifteenth day, of each month are significant for the ritual calendar as well. Most of these days each month are associated with a festival or ritual observance. Dīvālī, for example, falls upon the amāvasyā of the month Āśvin, the darkest night of the year. On this night, Hindus invite Laks.mī, Vis.n.u’s consort and the goddess of prosperity, into their homes and businesses to gain prosperity in the coming year. Devotees light rows of oil lamps to guide her way and keep these lamps lit throughout the night. India’s year contains six seasons, each of which spans approximately two months. INDIA’S SIX SEASONS Season

Purn.īmānt Months

Gregorian Months

Grīs.ma the hot season Vars. the rainy season Śarad autumn Hemant late autumn Śiśir end of winter Vasant spring

Vaisakh and Jet.h Asād. and Śrāvan Bhadrapad and Aśvin Kārtik and Mārgaśīrs. Paus. and Māgh Phālgun and Caitra

May–June July–August September–October November–December January–February March–April

Anthologies contain poetry for almost every day of the year. The majority of these poems illustrate Krishna’s life in Braj, although some poems depict festival days related to Vis.n.u’s other descents or days related to sectarian traditions, such as Vallabh’s birthday. This calendrical system predates Braj devotion, and this cycle of poetry reflects attempts to integrate Krishna devotion into what must have been preexisting festivals and practices. Braj was and still is a rural agricultural community, and festivals such as Holī that are interpreted in terms of Krishna have older agricultural roots. Certainly prior to the sixteenth century, many rituals and practices reflected this agricultural lifestyle and later were incorporated and adapted to devotional cycles. The full moons of autumn, Śarad, and the end of winter, Phālgun, are two such occasions. These dates are significant for the agricultural cycles, and remnants of these emphases can be seen in practice. On the night of Holī, which celebrates, among other things, the end of winter and the

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onset of new life, piles of straw and dung are burned. The autumn full moon celebrates the bounty of harvest and that the goals of sustenance have been reached. It is interesting that in the Krishna tradition, the night of Śarad Pūrn.imā is considered the ultimate fulfillment of the gopīs. On Śarad Pūrn.imā, Krishna dances the rāsa līlā with the gopīs, and immediately after the dance, they play in the water (jal-līlā). Aesthetically, the gopīs are known as the sadya-snānā, heroines (nāyika) immediately after the bath. This sadya-snānā and the vayaha nāyikā (girl at puberty) are two popular heroines among poets. Krishna is surrounded by these adoring young women as the group splashes each other and engages in exuberant horseplay in the river. Rāga—t.od.ī Gopāl plays in the water of the Yamuna. Gods, humans and demons watch in amazed stillness, any shyness of mind and body forgotten. Deer-musk, sandal-scented breeze, a clay pot of saffron; fragrant aloe-wood and aromatic camphor: so many fragrant items are sprinkled about. The son of Nanda is immersed in the heaven of the young breasts; they splash each other with youthful hands. Oh, the beauty of the autumn season; the pearl rain drop of the Svāti constellation falls. Paramānand, the golden splendor of the gopī; the luster of the blue gem that is Govind’s body. (S785) Rāga—sārang Meeting the hero of the Yādavs thrills me. On the night of Śarad, the full moon risen, we play on the banks of the Yamuna. Hari sprinkles us; we sprinkle Hari; we jump in with a spray of blue. Laughing, he drags her by the arm to the deep water; an embrace with a melee of arms and garlands. When they emerge, he stands in the water, watching the clinging wet saris. Surrender to the body of Śyām, Paramānand’s lord, the urbane lover. (P2, 344; S786)2

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As Krishna, the hero of the Yādavs (Krishna’s tribe of origin), and the gopīs splash about in the Yamuna, everyone is immersed in his rasa. Rasa is embodied in those liquids and fragrances that overwhelm any witnesses to this scene. Fragrant woods, such as the aloe tree (Aquilaia agallocha)—not to be confused with the green fleshy leafed Aloe family native to Africa— and cinnamommom camphora—the source of camphor and a large evergreen with fragrant wood—perfume the air. Water, saffron, and musk drench the fortunate gopīs, while those unable to participate remain paralyzed in wonder. The rasa-is-liquid metonym shapes reception of this poem, and the motif of immersion in rasa is highlighted. The gopīs have no self-control under Krishna’s spell and are doused with his rasa whether they want it or not. After this immersion, they can hide nothing from him; the wet, revealing saris illustrate their absolute nakedness in all matters before Krishna. Immersion in rasa suggests drowning in passion and Krishna; when the gopīs dive in the water, they release a spray of blue, Krishna’s color. The experience is total; water envelops every part of their bodies. Similarly, Krishna pervades all aspects of the devotees’ thoughts. Nothing is—or should be—hidden or apart from Krishna; all else is forgotten and cast away. Without buffers or boundaries, immersion in Krishna’s rasa is the ultimate intimacy. The rāsa līlā dance is the gopīs’ ultimate achievement and is paralleled by the fulfillment of the cātak (a pied cuckoo, Cuculus melanoleucas, or papīhā, Clamator jacobinus). Tradition holds that these birds wait an entire year and subsist only on the raindrops that fall when the svāti constellation (the fifteenth of twenty-seven constellations, naks.atra) appears in autumn. This bird’s sweet voice—Pi kahān? (Where is my beloved?)— resounds throughout the forest, echoing the gopīs’ desire for Krishna. The birds will die without the raindrops, and the suffering gopīs claim to “have the thirst of the cātak” (S989). The gopī is like the cātak “always watching the body of the sky” (S1002) and, like the bird, wonders, “When will the dark clouds come?” As the dark gray cloud, Krishna is the cintāman.i, the jewel that removes all anxieties. These images—birds, the dark cloud, and jewels—are symbolic substitutions for Krishna’s presence, and Paramānand’s juxtaposition of these images with the Śarad Pūrn.imā moon highlights their expression of the gopīs’ fulfillment and sustenance. Each substitution reveals variant aspects of love as sustenance and entails the related substitution of Krishna as the moon that itself invokes love as immersion.

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The ocean as rasa represents a mysterious and fathomless entity, the abode of the unknown and the fearsome. Human attempts to conquer the sea are futile, and this image suggests the loss of control that results from love of Krishna. The only recourse is total submission to Krishna as Paramānand’s signature line in the latter poem advocates. The human ego is small compared to Krishna’s will and strength, but the devotees who abandon the ego and take refuge in Krishna will be safe in this ocean. Complete submission to Krishna brings safety and freedom, and immersion is necessary for participation in Braj play and for intimacy with Krishna. Submitting to Krishna’s ocean parallels abandoning the illusion of the ego’s power and subsequently submitting the ego to the dictates of dharma (duty). When Rādhā withholds her love from Krishna during her māna, the sakhī asks why she made barriers to the flow/rasa of love (S714). She claims that in staying away from Krishna she is breaking her dharmic destiny of surrender to Krishna. The poems play with the norms of dharma, reinterpreting these norms in terms of the Braj play. While notions of dharma normally advocate adherence to social norms, Braj tradition ranks devotion to Krishna ahead of social convention. Immersion in Krishna’s rasa supersedes the petty dictates of the laukik world. Rasa, the ocean in which the devotee wants to drown, is not the impersonal Brahman of the Upanis.ads in which the individual loses all individual distinction but is the divine nectar of Krishna’s lower lip. The devotee does not obtain this nectar through meditation or austerities but through Krishna’s loving kiss. Like the moon, Krishna—and sometimes Rādhā—controls the tides and waves of the ocean of love, which stream through the devotees. When Krishna draws tears from the gopīs, he is like the moon regulating the sea. He is the moon, governing the human body, which is over 75 percent water and has a salinity similar to that of the ocean. Waves of love surge through the gopīs, overwhelming them just as people are swept away by a particularly strong wave in rough surf. Rāga—sārang An ocean of bliss swells in Hari’s body. He gazes upon Śrīrādhā, the full moon, the tide swells in Śrī Vrindāvan. The Yamuna holds some of this bliss here, the gopīs hold some there, some of it spreads throughout the three-worlds.

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Neither those on the paths of action or knowledge can touch this ocean, it remains trapped within the hearts of the rasikas. Gently and slowly, the wise one is immersed, every moment of his play is for the sake of his devotees. Paramānand takes a little of the grace of Nanda’s son which is seen by those who know. (K872; P3/228; S551)3 Rādhā as the moon controls the passion that runs through Krishna. In Hari exists an ocean of grace and passion for Rādhā, but the moon/Rādhā manipulates the waves of passion that course through him. Again, Krishna allows himself the role of the lover so that he, too, might partake of his own bliss. This bliss, however, is limited to those who are eligible, the connoisseurs of rasa; those on the paths of karma (action or ritual) and jñāna (wisdom or asceticism) cannot achieve this ocean. Paramānand’s lyric vision accords those rasikas his special sight so that they can see Krishna’s līlā in the world. Ironically, this rasa is trapped in the hearts of the rasikas, a contrast to the predominant image of rasa as free-flowing. As we have seen earlier, this point parallels an aspect of Vallabh’s concept of ‘nirodha,’ or restraint. No limit to the rasa exists, and, for rasikas, there is no place where it does not flow. It streams through the streets of Braj, and even the one thousand heads of the serpent Śes.a cannot reach its end. No one can conceptualize this ocean but only apprehend it directly through experience of immersion. Rāga—gaurī This ocean of beauty has no limits. Oh friend, it swells and fills Nanda’s house; it flows, coursing through the streets of Braj. Oh look friend, today we went to Gokul to sell the curd. What can we say? Listen wise woman, one thousand mouths can neither speak of this nor stem the flow. Everyone speaks of this fathomless ocean which the womb of Mother Yaśodā has produced. The lord of Paramānand, the blue jewel of Indra, the Braj women keep him in their hearts. (S550)

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Rāga—sārang Look ma, an ocean of beauty! The powers of intellect or reason can’t plumb these depths. My heart has drowned in this clever one. His body so dark it is a fathomless ocean, his yellow waist cloth a wave. As he looks about and moves, his beauty is overwhelming; a whirlpool cascades over his entire body. Fish-shaped eyes, crocodile earrings, arms strong like auspicious serpents. The juncture of the strands of his pearl garlands are like the confluence of two streams into the Gangā. Peacock crest, ornaments of jewels: glancing upon him gives joy. Seemingly the ocean has produced the moon, Śri and nectar together. Seeing his beauty all the gopīs remain, thinking and pondering. Though he remains in the memory of the sakhīs, love has wasted away our bodies. Manmohan, Paramānand’s lord: do what we say. (S564) S564 portrays Krishna as an ocean of beauty immersing the gopī. To have darśan of Krishna is to be immersed or drenched in this ocean of rasa. His yellow clothing appears as waves, and streams and whirlpools— all powerful forces against which resistance is futile—cascade over his body. The experience is one of being pulled along and sucked in; water envelops the “victim” until nothing else exists but water and its pull. Even those who resist cannot last long, and none can return to the shore from which they came. Krishna’s powerful beauty draws in and submerges the devotee until there is nothing else but Krishna, the fathomless ocean. Paramānand extends the rasa-as-liquid metonym, so the qualities of water shape how devotees hear of Krishna’s love and beauty. To see Krishna is to drown in his beauty. Further, Paramānand invokes the sense of touch to describe the totality of absorption into Krishna and his world. The aesthetic device of this poem is sānga rūpaka, a technique in which all parts of Krishna’s body, not only one part, are compared to something, in this case, the ocean. The peacock crest, jewels, and glance are compared with, respectively, the moon, Laks.mī, and nectar, which were three of the fourteen items that emerged from the whirlpool pro-

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duced by the churning of the ocean. Under the deity Vis.n.u’s directive, the gods and demons churned the ocean of milk to recover the amr.ta (nectar) and other items that had been lost. They used the snake Vārun.ī as the rope and Mount Mandara as the churning stick. Fish-shaped eyes and crocodile earrings are formulaic descriptions of beauty and are typically applied to Krishna. Bhanvara translates as “whirlpool,” “swirl,” and “black bee,” all tropes that describe Krishna’s qualities. The whirlpool alludes to the depths of his body and beauty, as whirlpools only form in very deep water, and suggests the power of Krishna’s rasa to draw in the devotee. What devotee could resist the allure of Krishna’s beauty? The flow of rasa shatters all boundaries just as a whirlpool or tornado draws in everything in its path and mixes everything up. This “upside-downness” is among the characteristics many Braj residents recognize as the many reversals that devotion to Krishna entails. Rāga—sārang Oh mother, his beauty! Now is the time to look. On top of Mount Govardhan, a line of peacocks. Lāl stands covered in yellow clothes, a thundering cloud rains. A peacock crest, crocodile earrings and a garland of berries. Tell us what words can’t describe: his beauty grows infinitely. Paramānand says not even seeing him with four hundred thousand eyes could sate me. (S560) Despite Krishna’s ever-increasing bounty, sight or sound of him never quenches the devotees’ thirst. Sight personified is an endless hunger or thirst that craves darśan of Krishna’s infinitely increasing beauty. Paramānand expresses the idea of unrequited desire through the sense of taste and hunger, a motif that becomes clearer in the following poem. The gopī’s thirst for Krishna’s face: only the “ocean of his beauty” can extinguish the fires of separation. Krishna’s absence has burned the eyes of the gopīs, and darśan offers the only relief. Vision of Krishna soothes parched eyes. Even darśan assumes a liquid motif here: Krishna’s beauty is an ocean that thirsty eyes might “sip.” Darśan of Krishna’s ocean—like the cooling rays of the moon—relieves their charred eyes. Rāga—vibhava Let us hail this land where we might meet the son of Nanda. Let the inferno of separation be extinguished upon seeing the splendor

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of his lotus face. Let my eyes drink a drop of the ocean of his beautiful form. Let us live, again and again sipping his fiery salty beauty, remaining with him on any pretext. Let us touch his tender hands and his sweet limbs, from his toe-nails to his head. Let our speech, deeds and hearts bloom with this unique passion. Let us obtain the joy of this play, the merriment and sensuousness of the rāsa dance upon the earth. Let us be immersed in the ocean of rasa amidst a flock of devotees. Let the lord of my life fulfill that one desire of my heart. Let the illustrious ocean of compassion crush the three types of torment. Each moment my eyelids are closed seems an eon and passes as a great burden. Paramānand says, he is the wish-fulfilling tree, the destroyer of misery for the downtrodden. (S488) Darśan of Krishna is not just a pleasant addition to life but an absolute essential. This ocean keeps the gopīs alive. They reminisce about those wondrous days when they played with Krishna in Braj, and he nourished them with his nectar. Krishna skillfully used his rasa to encourage their love, and this nectar rasa nourished them. The metonym of Krishna’s love as nectar is embedded in a related complex of images: the moon, birds, and nectar. The image of nectar as sustenance relates to Krishna as the moon. The cakor (a partridge, Perdix rufus or Tetrao rufus) stares endlessly at the moon, infatuated with the moon’s beauty, and survives solely on the nectar of moonbeams. Like birds and bees, though, devotees not merely are sustained through the nectar of love but are intoxicated. When Krishna leaves Braj, the gopīs endure the removal of Krishna’s sustaining love. This nectar of love is the liquid that has sustained the gopīs—through sight. Krishna cruelly encouraged their love, and his departure inflicts untold agony.

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Rāga—sārang Hey sakhī! Tell me, when will Gopāl come again? My eyes have been thirsty for so many days. Drinking his nectar keeps them alive. He assumed the guise of a dancer in Braj and played songs on his flute. A peacock crest, garland of gun¯ja seeds, he danced the rāsa with relish and abandon. When he climbed the mountain, he waved his yellow cloth and called the white cow. The lord of Paramānandadās enchants the hearts of the young women of Braj. (S1032) Rāga—vihagarau Separation haunts the women of Braj. Without Gopāl, they stand as if robbed, their defeated bodies so weak. In the morning Yaśodā gazes upon the path, morning and evening she watches. All those who cry out, saying “Kānha, Kānha,” their eyes flow like drains. This Mathura is like a line of collyrium, whoever crosses it comes out black. Paramānand says, being without the lord is like the stars without the moon. (P3/379; S1142) The lack of Krishna’s rasa—whatever the form—causes thirst, which ultimately threatens the very existence of the birahinis (those who are experiencing separation). Paramānand illustrates the metaphor of love as sustenance and nourishment through Krishna’s final departure, which has devastated all of Braj, particularly the gopīs. His mother stares blankly at the path from dawn to dusk, praying for his return. The gopīs vilify “this Mathura [as] like a line of collyrium, whoever crosses it comes out black.” Collyrium, or kājal, is black paste applied to the eyes. This line has not only made Krishna black, but the gopīs’ tears have stained their faces with black as well. The line has darkened everyone’s lives.

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They see a particularly beautiful image of Krishna: he stands upon a hill, bedecked in a crest of peacock feathers and adorned with a garland of red berries, but without Krishna’s presence, they can no longer summon the energy to care for themselves. They have only the strength to call out his name. Their bodies—desiccated from constant weeping—reflect an internal state of extreme suffering. That Krishna’s rasa has drained out of their eyes is evoked here by panāre (the drain that draws water off the roof ), which suggests the loss of copious amounts of water. Rāga—sārang Why should we want our youth? Now seeing this body saddens me; it was meant for Krishna. I am ashamed of my body, I can’t speak, my hair and speech are rotten. My eyes can’t see the path in the dark; I am slow with the thirst of love. Fate has thrust us in the third stage, our condition has weakened. Paramānand says, the gopīs are in the state of separation, their minds are perpetually tormented. (S903) The gopīs’ condition decays without their lord. Body and youth, meant only for Krishna, are wasted now. Krishna’s departure has hurtled them through the three stages of life—childhood, youth, and old age— from nubile youth to decrepit old age. Their inconsolable sadness has taken its toll, and their bodies have weakened almost to the point of not functioning. The gopī is now embarrassed by her own body. To highlight the contrast, Rādhā had once been accused of shaming the animals in the forest with her beauty, but now her condition has deteriorated. In this scheme, love is nourishment, and the gopīs partook of this drink through their eyes. Now, with the rasa of Krishna’s love gone, the moon’s burning rays further parch the gopīs. They are virtually blind, and their minds are tormented. How can they know anything without sight? The trope of blindness represents their inability to see—and thus to know—Krishna’s līlā. Rāga—kānharau Without the beloved Govind, who will soothe

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our burning eyes? The autumn night moon now sears like the sun. Each and every heart bears the torment. Nanda’s wife suffers. Hair bristles with love; more and more tears flow. I remember the sage Garga’s words: I should fall at his feet. Paramānand says, how could he forget his play? (S999) In Krishna’s absence, the moon abandons its cooling function and adopts the harsh qualities of the sun: “the moon becomes very hot” (S913). Paramānand creates an interesting shift; the moon is usually depicted as a soothing balm and the producer of nectar. Devotees have redundantly heard Paramānand’s symbolic substitution of the moon for Krishna, and this moon and its entailments has offered a relief and sustenance to the gopīs, bringing to mind the moon’s cooling rays and immersion into the ocean of rasa. Paramānand’s illustration of the burning moon can only seem a betrayal as the gopī is now engulfed only in fiery misery, and salty tears sear her parched face. Paramānand’s systematic inculcation of specific substitutions allows him to intensify the devotees’ perception of the tableau by departing from the expected rhetoric. As the moon’s rays beat down upon the gopī, she cannot fathom how Krishna could have abandoned them to this fate. Rāga—sārang It is meritorious to praise Nandalāl. Watch the supreme radiance of his face, its splendor renders dull Kāmadeva’s luster. His glance is excellent, his speech is excellent, his singing is excellent, his movements and intellect are excellent. The one with the lotus eyes is splendid in every way, in this way his laugh steals his beloved’s heart. Which limb should I describe? The cooling properties of his body are like the Śarad moon. Meet him Rādhā, the ocean of the rasa of love, the lord of Paramānand’s heart. (S701) Rāga—gaurī Auspicious are the feet of Rādhā’s groom.

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Auspicious and cooling, so very tender, the color of the lotus. The beautiful half moons of his toe-nails are uniquely resplendent, holding a multitude of splendor. His anklets resound, the most playful one revels in the arbor. The rasika Lāl who delights the heart bridges the ocean of separation. Paramānand says, every moment Śyām offers refuge to the powerless. (S581) The entire being of Krishna—even his toenails—resonates with the idea of cooling liquidity. Krishna as the lotus suggests its cooling properties, even more so as a blue lotus since blue, Krishna’s color, is associated with coolness. Krishna’s beautiful toenails, like a half moon, are “uniquely resplendent, holding a multitude of splendor” (S581). Not only does Krishna’s body reflect the moon, but he also inscribes it upon Rādhā in their love play. The moon evokes not only their last meeting but also the physical marks of their lovemaking upon their bodies. Whether as the moon or an ocean, Krishna’s presence soothes the devotees and protects them from the agonies of separation. When this moon disappears during eclipse, nothing remains to protect the gopīs. Rāga—sārang Why am I always speaking of Braj? Without Kamalanayan now the misery starts to burn as if the sun’s myriad rays sear our hearts. Without Syāmasundar, the moon of Gokul has been grabbed just like an eclipse. Who can vanquish the pain of separation? Such is my lot. Paramānand says, without the lord, my eyes flow with tears. (S1028) In the form of the nectar of darśan Krishna’s rasa eases the burning pain, yet the moon of Gokul has gone. Paramānand juxtaposes images of cooling and burning to make both more resonant. Krishna’s epithet “Kamalanayan” (lotus eyes) suggests the cool water upon which the lotus grows, and “Śyāmasundar” in this poem indicates the importance of cooling liquid. “Śyāmasundar” (the beautiful dark one) refers to the beauty of Krishna’s coloring, the color of a rain cloud, which signals the onset of the much anticipated monsoon.

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Rāga—sārang The beauty of his face is like a second moon. Why shouldn’t the heart of the lover of darling Madanagopāl have peace? He churned the ocean and drank with his eyes, then the sages practiced austerities. In the beginning of the age, he wrung out the water of love, Brahmā gave a tilak of fame. Up till then he remained hidden from all; birds, snakes and gods couldn’t find him. This complete perfection is manifest to Paramānand, the world sings his praises. (S580) The gopī asks why her heart should not experience relief. The lord himself created nectar to provide succor from excessive thirst for Krishna. Rasa as nectar relieves the pained eyes of the gopīs. “Seeing his beauty soothes their eyes like a rain of nectar” (S843). This nectar, which Krishna wrung out in his churning, is at once the ambrosia of the gods and the product of flowers. Krishna himself partook of this nectar through his eyes and as the bee flitting from flower to flower. Rādhā wants to wring out the nicoy (essence) of Krishna but does not want to offer anything in return. The following hilag poem illustrates Krishna’s essence as liquid. It is sung from the first day of the dark half of Jet.h until the first day of the bright half of Ās.ad and is in the khan.d.itā section in the Pus.t.imārg Kīrtan Samgrah. Rāga—suha Seeing his lotus face never satisfies me. How can a married woman experience this joy? She stays at home all night, asleep. As the cakor gazes upon the moon, she continues looking towards his moon-face. Rādhā doesn’t want to appease him even a little, she wants to wring out her beloved’s essence. I have given everything to him. We are one soul with two bodies. Paramānand says, only a rare few know the secret of this wondrous devotion. (K408; P2/353; S577)

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Nicoy is like wringing out a cloth to get the water, squeezing out the essence. The gopī comments that Rādhā won’t give even a bit of akora (something given to appease or placate) but wants to “wring out” Krishna. When a cow is to be milked, the calf must be tied nearby to induce the milking mood in the cow. If the calf dies, the cow is fed grain or hay to distract it from its loss, then while eating, it can be milked. For the rasa— here as the cow’s milk—to flow, the cow must be in the proper mood. In Rādhā’s situation, her akora is her youth and beauty; she should attract and appease Krishna with this offering. The devotees, too, cannot only take and give nothing in return. The devotees’ love and moods contribute to the development of rasa. Although he also is the source of the moods, Krishna responds to the devotees’ moods, not through necessity but through his beneficence. The devotees must work to cultivate the appropriate mood to deepen their intimacy with Krishna—just as any relationship cannot be one-sided. The gopīs, however, accuse Krishna of encouraging their love and leaving them with nothing but pain. This gopī wonders “how a married woman can experience this joy,” an indication of her parakīyā status, a woman who is someone else’s wife. In the Gaud.īya tradition, Rādhā is considered parakīyā, and love with the parakīyā woman is considered the most erotic and passionate love. While love within marriage is burdened with duty and obligation, love outside of marriage is guided by itself alone. The Vallabh Sampradāy usually considers Rādhā or Swāminī to be svakīyā to Krishna. The svakīyā woman must serve her husband; duty and obligation overwhelm the erotic aspect of the marriage. The parakīyā woman is present solely due to her own desire. While the married woman remains at home asleep, the parakīyā woman gazes at the moon like a cakor. The cakor, infatuated with the moon’s beauty, stares at the moon from sunset to sunrise, never taking its eyes away, and ultimately its neck breaks from the strain. Rāga—gaurī Oh Rādhā! Nandakisor cries out. The darling one whose body curves in three places, Syāmasundar dances in the forest like a peacock. Moment after moment you delay, oh beautiful one. Why are you breaking his heart?

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The font of bliss, moon of Vrindāvan, you should gaze like the cakor. What can I say about the greatness of your fortune? You should pay attention to nothing else. Oh woman, go to Paramānand’s lord! Embrace him with the gift of your breasts. (S747) In this māna episode, Rādhā delays while Krishna dances and waits in the forest. The gopī remonstrates with Rādhā for her heartlessness in the face of Krishna’s obvious love. She cannot imagine how Rādhā could be so nonchalant about her great fortune. Krishna’s love is the desire of every gopī. The gopīs’ desire for sight of Krishna’s face parallels the mythical cakors’ desire for the moon. In response to Krishna’s great beauty, the sakhī urges Rādhā to go to Krishna like the cakor and stare at Krishna’s moonface. This admonition suggests that Rādhā should sacrifice her life for a glimpse of Krishna. Ironically, Rādhā apparently disdains what all the gopīs strive to achieve: Krishna’s love. Paramānand explores the multiple connotations of the term rasa through the trope of vision. As a liquid, rasa hydrates the body and soothes the burning eyes as water cools a burn. Yet the rasa also appears in its more traditional dramatic form as indicating the passion that Krishna arouses in the devotee or gopī. Paramānand translates the joy of seeing Krishna into the sensory experience of touch, as in drowning, and taste, as in hunger and thirst, and relates the necessity of this rasa to the gopīs and devotees in terms of vision. The moon represents cooling liquid, whether the ocean or milk or water, and in these guises reflects the gopīs’ and devotees’ deep desire and need for Krishna’s sustenance. It is appropriate that the gopīs’ fulfillment came with the cool autumn full moon. On that night, all aspects of the symbolic complex are engaged: the cātak receives the raindrop, the moon is cooling, and the gopīs not only see but also dance with Krishna. The great joy of fulfillment that the gopīs felt on Śarad Pūrn.imā suggests its opposite: the anguish of separation. Neither Krishna nor the moon can be controlled; both can turn and sear the devotee with their power. The greatest desire of the gopīs was fulfilled during the rāsa dance under the full moon of the autumn season. How did they obtain this boon? Through a cold bath in the Yamuna.

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Hemant: Vows of the Cold Winter Rāga—sārang Oh Mohan, I’m defeated, you’ve won. Hey, you smooth-talking dancer! Give back our clothes! Our bodies shiver in the cold. Rasika Gopālalāl, how can you be so cruel towards such blameless women? We know that Paramānand’s lord teases in this way. (P3/34; S588) Rāga—rāmakalī The lovely Braj girls went to the banks of the Yamuna and sang Hari’s praises. Desire in their eyes, arm in arm. Earrings shimmered in their ears. Braids draped elegant shoulders. Red sashes upon their waists. Baskets of flowers in their hands. Pearls and jewels garland their chests. On the advent of the winter month, they entered the water and immersed themselves. With so much love for the son of Nanda, they perform their vows with longing. Then Nandanandana stole their clothes and climbed into the branches of the kadamb tree. Oh Krishna, they sought from the gods Paramānand’s lord as their husband. (K363; P3/34; S260) In the early in the morning of Hemant, the middle of winter, the kumārikās (younger girls) bathe in the cold Yamuna water. These poems are sung in man˙galā śr.n˙gār from the bright half of Kārtik to the full moon of Māgh. The girls observe the kātyāyānī vow (a maiden’s vow) in order to gain Krishna as a husband. Their immersion in the Yamuna symbolizes the idea of receiving the Ādhidaivika (or divine) body from the river. Yet, while the gopīs shivered in the cold river, Krishna stole their clothing and climbed into the kadamb tree on the bank. From his perch, he taunted the trembling gopīs and dared them to emerge naked from the water. Any devotee who has bathed in the Yamuna in winter knows that there is little warmth in the air. Their shivering and hair standing on edge are not only

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responses to cold but, in another context, would be understood as sāttvikabhāvas. The gopīs claim that the smooth-talking Krishna has defeated them. Paramānand confabulates a false win-loss dichotomy to explain the gopīs’ achievement, suggesting that love is war, yet this war has no losers. The gopīs complain that they have been defeated but know instead that they have won Krishna. They lose their modesty and distance from Krishna but gain intimacy. Their nakedness functions as allegory: there should be nothing between a devotee and Krishna. Other poems have revealed Krishna’s role as one who breaks any boundaries that constrain his rasa. For example, the gopīs complained bitterly when Krishna shattered their pots of milk, yet Paramānand’s poetic technique suggests a more subtle reading: that Krishna teases them and removes any borders—whether pots or clothes—so that they can bathe in his rasa. Their suffering pays off. The rāsa līlā dance is a direct result of their vow. It is interesting that, in most cases, girls’ vows to gain a husband are well-established social conventions, for marriage and childbearing are the dharma of women. Similarly, girls and women will performs vrats (vows, such as fasting) to ensure the health of their husbands, fathers, and brothers. Yet, on the night of Śarad moon, this vow culminates in the clearest example of what appears to be the gopīs’ scandalous behavior. Disregarding any social repercussions, Rādhā and the other gopīs abandon all pretense to answer Krishna’s call. When Krishna calls them to the arbor, they show up in disarray because they had immediately dropped whatever they had been doing. No worldly task matters as much as Krishna. These gopīs are fiercely devoted to Krishna and willingly risk their social standing. They happily trade their lokalāj (honor of their families) to meet with Krishna. Rāga—sārang He took the flute in his hand and laid it upon his lower lip. Look at the play of the greatest lord, the thief of the hearts and minds of the Braj women. When they heard the sound of the flute, they abandoned their homes; Madan abundantly multiplied his body. Those who had forgotten their love for their husbands and sons went off crying, hey Hari, hey Hari. They laughed and bloomed like the lotus bud at sunrise. Paramānand’s love is for the one with lotus feet; meeting with

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Krishna is a good thing. (S777) Paramānand’s poems implicitly praise the gopīs’ actions even though they violate social norms. However, even Krishna himself criticizes the gopīs. After he has summoned them with his flute, he insults them for abandoning their families and acting in such a shameful manner even though he himself called them. But these women are seen as ideal devotees, so how does this behavior reconcile with traditional standards? How do we resolve the issue of the gopīs’ apparently licentious behavior with their status as ideal devotees? Their activities—full of what appear to be faults, if not sins—are rendered virtuous when understood as alaukik. Devotees understand the poems as alaukik and feel prem, not kām, for Krishna. The way in which their behavior is understood parallels the perspectival distinction between laukik and alaukik. The informed devotee understands the symbols and the context of the poetry and the gopīs’ actions. Such a devotee knows the necessity of Krishna’s love but does not take the gopīs’ behavior as a model for laukik activity, that is, behavior that is not related to Krishna. Instead, the gopīs’ intense devotion to Krishna is a model for each devotee’s own strength of attachment to him. So devotees willingly endure the chills of the cold Yamuna River in hope of union with Krishna.

Vasant: Spring and Holī As the winter chill ceases and the spring approaches, devotees look forward to Vasant, a time of revelry and renewal. Rāga—basant Listen, darling beloved reveler, let’s go play some games. Sandalwood and vermilion, perfumed yellow dye and red powder, everyone throws rasa. And they take red powder and yellow color, their play resplendent in every bower. You throw on us, we throw on you: we’ll wear each other’s color. The heart of hearts knows this inner joy; he smiles,

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darling and handsome. Paramānand knows the connoisseur of rasa; he divides and throws the rasa. (L3/10; S1198) During the springtime rites of Holī, colored dyes and powders are playfully tossed about, and everyone sports an array of color. On the night of the full moon of Phālgun, the Holī bonfires burn, and Holī is played on the following day, the first day of the dark half of Caitra. As Bihārī, Krishna indicates his sporting and playful nature. During the time of Holī, a festival celebrating departure of winter, rasa is embodied in colored water and powders that are sprinkled, tossed, or dumped with abandon. The variety of colors—metonymic for rasa—represent the various expressions of Krishna’s love, much as various foods indicate Krishna’s accommodation of his devotees. So Krishna and the gopīs liberally douse each other with colors that are displayed on their bodies and clothes as emblematic of their love. Braj residents say that playing Holī is an expression of love—even though it might not always feel that way. Playing with color is a means for friends and family to express the love that Rādhā and Krishna feel for each other. Devotees who are knowledgeable about rasa and love, the rasika, realize that the rasa must be distributed to all and that joyful abandon is the most appropriate way to distribute Krishna’s bliss. Holī is a time when all things are upside down, and social realities are reversed, much like midsummer’s night. Normal social categories and hierarchies are abandoned or reversed at this time. Yet, for Braj, this upheaval is the norm: Braj residents claim that “everything is upside down in Braj,” and they appreciate a bent or crooked aesthetic where things are not what they seem but slightly askew. The spicy and illicit activities of Rādhā and Krishna and their friends are cause for celebration. Krishna’s abandonment of the regal luxuries of Vaikun.t. h for the pastoral games of Braj exemplifies this inversion of priorities. In Braj, the rural and the simple reign supreme over the regal and high born. Prototypes of ideal devotees arise from the cow-herding community of Braj, particularly the gopīs, whose characteristics normally are viewed as tāmasa gun.a, the least desirable. Braj residents view the aesthetic of crookedness as interesting and spicy, in contrast to the more staid Rāma and Sītā, who uphold the values that Krishna violates. Sītā and Rāma are lauded as staunch supporters of

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dharmic virtue; they always demonstrate the highest ideals of behavior. Even Rāma never let his love for Sītā interfere with his duties as king: when he rescued Sītā, instead of accepting her claims of fidelity, he sacrificed her in response to his subjects’ skepticism. Love was clearly subordinated to duty. Rādhā and Krishna, on the other hand, laugh at convention and let nothing get in their way. Flouting social norms subverts established norms of behavior, and their passionate love takes precedence over the austerities of the sages and the dharmic virtue of Sītā and Rāma. Rādhā and Krishna’s exuberant play breaks those borders of convention and restriction and allows all devotees access to Krishna’s unlimited rasa. Like Holī, all of Krishna’s activities are play and are done for the benefit of his devotees. Nothing is done of obligation. The laukik world is one of restrictions and limits, while in the alaukik realm these boundaries are dissolved. In the mundane world, events occur due to necessity and duty, while in the supramundane world, bliss and the effulgence of Krishna’s nature determine events. Like the rāsa, events in the alaukik realm are given a different interpretation than would be the case if they occurred in the laukik. Apparently licentious behavior is sanctioned when grounded in bhāva for Krishna. Bhāva for Krishna has the power to transform attitudes, events, and perspectives and is critical to understanding not only the gopīs’ actions but also the nature of the world itself. Bhāva transforms laukik into the alaukik and elevates those passions rooted in the sensual world to the ethereal. After the fervor of Holī, the summer’s heat slowly rises upon the Gangetic plain. Water becomes scarce, and shade and cooling agents are at a premium. Those devotees responsible for a svarūp of Krishna take great pains to ensure the deity’s comfort, and the rituals and poetry of the summer months reflect these efforts. These rituals are not merely symbolic but assume that Krishna—like his devotees—suffers from the summer weather.

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Summer—Seeing Reality The Synaesthetic Transformation

For devotees who hear the poetry that describes the summer heat, these poems both shape and reflect their own experience of this heat. These poems specifically illustrate the special role of the body as a means of comprehending the poems. The poems are not fully grasped through the intellect but through the embodied experience in which the poems—and the sensual context—engage all the senses with the result that the comprehension of Krishna’s world is ultimately a synaesthetic experience.

Grīs.ma: The Hot Season The exhausted lovers Rādhā and Krishna are enthroned in the phūlman.d.alī (the palace of flowers), and revel in each other’s company while their crushed garlands attest to their love play. Passion bubbles through their sweet words, and they argue about who is more beautiful. Laughing, they gaze at their reflection in the mirror and ask the sakhī Lalitā to judge the contest of beauty. Krishna’s reflection in the mirror parallels the idea that the entire world is but a reflection of Krishna. This poem is sung in Grīs.ma, the summer season, when the heat has risen to an almost unbearable level. Not only are the flowers beautiful to the eye, but their moisture and light fragrance offer some respite from the heat.

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Rāga—sārang They talk, bubbling with the passion of rasa. The radiant pair are enthroned in the palace of flowers; fragrance wafts through the air, and the river flows nearby. Their faces side by side, they laugh and look in the mirror. Love has exhausted them. Their garlands are crushed. Paramānand’s lord, helpless with love, asks Lalitā: which of us is more beautiful, she or I? (P3/265; S1220) Many temples construct tableaus with elaborate flower palaces, filling them with fragrance. The goal is to direct each devotee’s attention to Krishna’s alaukik realm. The sounds, smells, and sights are received by the body, the locus of this religious experience in that the body is both the site of sensory apprehension of the līlā and the vehicle for serving Krishna. Krishna’s līlā once occurred in the physical plane, so devotees use the material world and its evoked emotional responses to see through to Krishna’s alaukik līlā. Paramānand sings of birds, flowers, and trees in his poetry, flora and fauna that, for the most part, still exist in the contemporary Braj landscape, so devotees can physically see, touch, smell, and hear these phenomena. Devotees associate aspects of the material world with Krishna through memory, and the sensual responses—rendered alaukik— arouse passion for Krishna. Also, and equally important, Krishna— according to the story—loves the smells and sights of Braj, so offering Krishna flowers and his favorite foods pleases him. When devotees crowd the temple for darśan of the svarūp, they do not see a lifeless piece of stone or wood. Rather, through hearing Paramānand’s poetic language, devotees see Krishna engaged in Braj play. Rāga—sārang She drew a crescent-shaped mark of sandal and spread it all over his body. An aromatic breeze perfumes the air. In the way of lovers, their bodies languid, they embrace and delight each other during the summer afternoon. Rose scented water flows through the khas grass, screening on all four sides. It cools the house, their arbor palace. No words can describe this beauty. This sight delights the eyes. For his service, Paramānandadās swings the fan. (K932)

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In the summer month of Jet.h, nothing matters so much as alleviating the overwhelming heat, and contemporary devotees practice the hot season līlā, which includes afternoon sandalwood applications. Water poured through woven screens of khas grass creates a fragrant and cooling breeze, a process similar to contemporary air coolers in which water circulated through straw or grass effectively cools the air in dry heat. Khas grass itself is a sacred substance and is a part of many rituals. Different fragrances and pastes—such as henna for winter; kadamb for the rainy season; and khas and gulāb (rose) for summer—appear not only in the poetry but also in the temple itself for the svarūp’s comfort, and Braj residents use the same techniques for Krishna’s comfort as for their own. Rāga—sārang The sight of him coated with sandalwood stole my heart. Donning a forest garland woven of campā blossoms and creepers, like the golden-bodied Rādhā. A red kumkum mark on his forehead. An earring hangs from his ear. His tender hands hold the finest lotus. Yellow garb adorns his waist. The gods and sages stare and throw cascades of flowers; seeing this, Madan turned his face in shame. Paramānand asks, how can I speak of such joy, the ocean of bliss swells like the tide. (S1241) Krishna’s beauty shames even Madan, another name for Kāmadeva, the warrior of love. Like Kāmadeva, Krishna captures the gopī’s mind with his sandalwood-covered body. The sandalwood fragrance that wafts northward from the Malay hills is said to soothe the hearts of lovers.1 Paramānand illustrates the power of Krishna’s beauty through his invocation of the “ocean of bliss,” which, in turn, evokes a semantic world that guides devotees to Paramānand’s symbolic substitutions, such as Krishna for the moon. The dialectical nature of the practice is evident here. The systematic repetition of Paramānand’s varying literary techniques has transformed each devotee’s conceptual framework that, in turn, structures how the poems are heard. Such a devotee hears the trope of the potent force of Krishna’s beauty in the poetry and, with this framework in mind, hears Paramānand’s trope of Krishna’s thievery. Similarly, the gopī is no more able to stem the tide of Krishna’s love than she is to prevent—even if she so desired—Krishna’s theft of her heart. Paramānand explores the trope of the power of love through two semantic realms—the thief of love

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and the love as ocean, each of which suggests different, but related, entailments that articulate the gopī’s and devotees’ surrender when confronted with Krishna’s overwhelming love. Because sandalwood evokes the tactile sense of coolness, a balm against the hot, menacing sun, the sight of Krishna’s sandalwood-clad body captivates the gopī. The cooling nature of the sandalwood functions as a symbolic substitution for the cooling of Krishna’s body. Further, the name Krishna, like the epithet Śyām, equates him to a full rain cloud, also a symbol for cooling. Each of these substitutions expresses varying aspects of Paramānand’s metonymic equivalence of rasa is liquid. Devotees take seriously the idea that Krishna is present in the world and understand that he must be treated as a revered guest in their homes, which requires actions such as adorning Krishna in the appropriate paste. Possibly the earliest sectarian complaint in the sixteenth century is the Vallabh Sampradāy claim that Madhavendra Puri, affiliated with the Bengali pujārīs (temple servants), applied sandalwood paste during the winter season to the image of Krishna known as Śrīnāthjī. The sandalwood, a cooling summer paste, chilled Śrīnāthjī. Śrīnāthjī then sent Madhavendra Puri south for sandalwood paste (allegedly to get rid of him), and he never returned. The story suggests Puri’s inattention to Śrīnāthjī’s real needs. Another Vallabh Sampradāy sectarian complaint accuses other non-Sampradāy devotees of being more concerned with inflexible ritual than with the comfort of Śrīnāthjī, such as offering heavy clothes during summer.2 Even today devotees consistently state that they must respond to existing physical conditions and adapt sevā to these conditions. Vallabh distinguished between mūrti (image) and svarūp (self-manifestation), and mandir (temple) and havelī (home).3 Once consecrated, the svarūp is a “living god” and must be treated accordingly; the material image and the deity are one and inseparable. A svarūp and a mūrti are accorded similar sevā, but the crucial distinction is that the deity is constantly present in the svarūp, and the devotee must treat the svarūp as if it were a person with real physical needs. In contrast, the deity can enter and leave the mūrti at will or in response to an invitation by a devotee. For the devotee and others with a laukik (worldly) attitude, the image appears lifeless and inanimate, whereas, for the devotee with an alaukik (nonworldly) attitude, the image is vibrant and alive, and the devotee feels an intense emotion toward the deity.4 The devotees treat the svarūp just as they would treat Krishna if he were a guest in their homes, which arises

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from Vallabh’s emphasis on the havelī (home). Devotees say, “The guest is Bhagavān (lord),” when a guest enters the home. Instead of installing the image in a temple, which was customary, Vallabh located the image in a home. Unlike a temple which is public space, the home is considered the “private dwelling of the self-manifestation” and, to respect Krishna’s privacy, devotees may only enter during specific periods.5 The elements of sevā, such as offering choice foods, flowers, and fresh clothes, reflect not only the guest-host structure of sevā but also emphasize the embodied nature of devotion. Whatever its material construction, the svarūp is not a symbol or representation of Krishna. The devotee who correctly perceives the alaukik sees the svarūp as Krishna, while a person with worldly sight might only perceive a piece of decorated stone or metal. Many—particularly Westerners—assume that the svarūp does not embody the divine presence itself, but instead symbolizes the divine or is a representation that reminds the devotee of or points to the transcendent divine. However, there is nothing symbolic about the svarūp: the divine freely manifests in material form. The svarūp has the same needs as any being on the earth; it must be fed, bathed, and nurtured. Due to these all too human needs, the responsibility of caring for a svarūp is enormous—much like having a child— and is not something to take on lightly. The devotee must continually attend to the svarūp’s needs, remaining sensitive to the time of day, season of the year, and other circumstances. Devotees consider Krishna’s dependence a sign of his love for his devotees, because Krishna allows himself to rely on his devotees and thus fulfills their need to care for him. Vallabh’s treatises, the Siddhāntamuktāvalī and the Siddhāntarahasya of the S.od.aśagrantha, highlight the importance of the physical manifestation of the sacred and use the analogy of dirty water mixing with the pure Gangā to exemplify this process. Once dirty water mingles with the Gangā, it is purified, and the two cannot be separated. Similarly, the worldly qualities of the devotee become nonworldly once that person attains an alaukik perspective. This concept is important because it offers a theological justification for Paramānand’s poetic mandate: to see beyond the sensual world to the alaukik realm. Vallabh determined three levels of manifestation analogous to Purus.ottam (supreme being), aks.ar Brahman (nonqualified deity), and jagat (creation): ādhidaivika, ādhyātmika, and adhibhautika. The first two are nonworldly, and the third is worldly. Using the Gangā as an example,

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he makes the following parallels: the goddess as Purus.ottam; the (pilgrimage/bathing spot) tīrtha as aks.ar Brahman; and the actual river as the jagat. Rāga—bilāval Śrīyamunā pleases Gopāl. Whoever sees the Yamuna destroys the sins of countless births. Whoever bathes in the Yamuna will never again come to distress. Whoever drinks the water of the Yamuna is not subject to the judgment of Dharmarāj. All the stories of the Padma Purān.a sing the glories of the boar who raised the earth. Paramānand obtains prāsad from this tīrtha manifest in the world. (S1380) Within the Hindu tradition, rivers are considered to be aspects of the goddess, and this analogy illustrates the triple manifestation of divinity within the river. Vallabh claimed that anyone who ignores the physical river and worships only the goddess and/or the tīrtha has missed the point of the triple-aspect emanation. The tīrtha is a bathing spot on a river or any pilgrimage destination, and, as such, it suggests the confluence of creation and divinity. Tīrtha is derived from the Sanskrit verb √tr. (to cross over), which also is the verbal root of avatār, (the one who has crossed down or descended). Devotees who understand Krishna and his emanations worship all three aspects. The physical manifestation of the sacred is prominent and accorded equal treatment with aks.ar Brahman, the more abstract, nonmanifest divine.6 The ādhidaivika is, of the three forms, the fullest and the most praiseworthy as it incorporates all three aspects. Devotees cannot see only the physical Gangā and ignore the others as that, too, would be a worldly perspective. Paramānand builds many of his poems on the metaphoric edifice of love as nourishment or sustenance and illustrates scenarios and concepts with language that transforms the devotees in that the devotees perceive the līlā through these symbolic realms. “Taking care” of the image reflects devotees’ relationships with Krishna: Krishna nourishes each devotee with his rasa and love, while each devotee in turn nurtures Krishna. When the rainy season finally arrives and breaks the heat, the svarūp’s needs change, and the ritual service reflects this change.

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Vars.: The Rainy Season After enduring the slow buildup of heat during the summer season, devotees all over north India eagerly await the cooling rains of the monsoon. When the rains come, the temperature drops significantly, and color returns to the landscape. Rāga—malār Why have you delayed? Oh Lotus-eyes, joy of my life, why didn’t you come right away? The frogs, peacocks and cuckoos all speak, waking Kāmadeva. The month of Śrāvan has come. Our hearts and bodies have no respite from the anguish of separation. Day after day passes; the promised week grows. Now we count the days until the rainy season. When a drop falls, our misery seems like penance. Hari made his speech, then departed; oh listen, the sakhīs’ minds can’t be diverted. The lord of Paramānand, the gem of gems of the rasika, will meet and embrace the one who pleases Madhuban. (S984) The rainy season is the most painful time for lovers to be separated, and the trope of separation underlies all rainy season poems. During the four months of the rainy season when rivers and streams flood, travel is virtually impossible, so, during this season of romance, lovers are together in one place. If they are apart, there is little hope of reunion. This time should be one of great joy and liveliness: people cheer when the rains first arrive and break the heat. Birds, animals, and humans rendered lifeless by the oppressive heat regain energy, and the brown, parched landscape bursts into a symphony of color. The gopīs lament Krishna’s continued absence during the rainy season—the time of their anticipated reunion. They have counted the days since his departure, but he still has not returned despite the rains. The cuckoos cry out, voicing the gopīs’ desperation. For the connoisseurs of passion, separation from the crown jewel of the rasikas (śiroman.i) (S1166) is exceedingly painful at this time.

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In the month of Śrāvan., Kāmadeva has awakened from his slumber and is armed with the weapons of love. Kāmadeva’s presence is visually manifest by the flowers of his arsenal, yet it seems that the gopīs have lost both the battle of love and the object of their love. Those gopīs who have been struck by Kāma’s amorous arrows have no lover upon whom to lavish their devotion. Paramānand plays with the apparent inconsistencies physically manifest by the rainy season. The sleeping deity of love wakes, and the gopīs lose the battle of love, that is, their hearts have gone to Krishna, but he is no longer present. Yet in this trope of separation, the gopīs’ anguish reveals that they have actually won. Paramānand reveals the truth to the devotees through the language of winning and losing a war: winning Krishna’s love itself is a victory, and to feel the pain of separation from Krishna shows that his absence is only an illusion. Thus the losers win, and those who feel separation are really united with Krishna. Rāga—Sorat.hī Oh my friend, Gopāl has not come. Without him, my life and mind, there is bliss; without him, there is no joy. Darling Mohan has taken so much time, the “piu” of the rainy season has come. The cuckoo looks in every direction, counting the stars passing by. Paramānand says, like the birds in the month of Śrāvan., they watch the road, their minds full of hope. They look for the feet of Hari, their eyes dying of thirst. (S1006) The koil, a sweet-voiced black cuckoo, invokes the image of the cātak to illustrate the gopīs’ intense need and desire for Krishna. The cuckoo looks at the passing stars, waiting for those that herald the arrival of Śrāvan., the month of rain. As the bird awaits the raindrop of Śrāvan., similarly the gopīs hope for his arrival on the road, their eyes aching for a glimpse of the nectar of his face. The cuckoo extends the interplay of imagery that metonymically equates rasa and nectar with subsistence and nourishment, or pus.t.i. The raindrop sustains the bird just as Yaśodā nurtures her children with food.

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Rāga—malār Large drops of rain splash in the courtyard where the two boys eat breakfast. Again and again, mother Yaśodā calls out: Lāl, bring all the boys in the house! Every day you play, and your clothes get drenched. Listen to my words: You should accept my blessings. Whatever pleases Paramānand’s lord, let him take some cooked food and milk-sweets. (P2/379; S1260) According to the Pus.t.imārg Kīrtan Samgrah, this poem, sung from the third day of the bright half of Aśād. until the tenth day of the bright half of Śrāvan., is a kaleū (rainy day breakfast) poem. The rainy season provides Yaśodā a chance to mother her young son, and the rain and nurturance themes sustain two related symbolic realms: rasa as rain and rasa as food. Paramānand metonymically equates rasa with rain—a symbolic substitution for Krishna—which eases the fires of separation. While Krishna and his friends cavort in the rain, Yaśodā frets over Krishna’s well-being. After the intense heat of the hot season, people often feel cold during the monsoon rains. Yaśodā complains that their clothes get drenched in the rain. Yet, to be drenched with Krishna’s rasa is each devotee’s goal, and the drenched clothes embody a symbolic attiring in Krishna’s love. Paramānand metonymically equates Krishna’s rasa with food and depicts love as nourishment or sustenance through the food. Yaśodā admonishes Krishna to accept her blessing and eat her food, and devotees cannot help but realize that Krishna’s love sustains them. Yaśodā calls the boys inside to offer them some cooked foods and ghaiyā, the milk sweet that exists only in Braj, whose residents note that it is not served or sold anywhere else. According to Braj tradition, Krishna later claimed he never had any ghaiyā after leaving Braj, so this sweet represents the delights that are available only in Braj and foreshadows Krishna’s eventual absence when the sweetness of the gopīs’ love will no longer be available. That this particular sweet is available only in Braj highlights the notion of Braj as a unique locus of Krishna’s rasa. Sages, for example, strive for rebirth in Braj to be near Krishna, and this sweet rasa, we have seen, is available only through Krishna’s lower lip, that is, through taste and lovemaking, not meditative austerities.

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During the rainy season, Rādhā and Krishna play on swings on the banks of the Yamuna. Cooled by a fragrant breeze and accompanied by music, they enjoy the sultry air, and this verdant landscape reflects an interior joy. Rāga—malār Oh Mother, the moon of Gokul sways in his swing. A slow fragrant breeze wafts from the swing built on the banks of the Yamuna. The drum beats a rhythm, and Krishna’s flute sings out softly. Peacock cry, and the cuckoo calls out. The dark gray cloud roars. These Sravan days are auspicious. Rādhā’s heart blossoms with delight. All the Braj women swing the pair. Exhilarated, their hearts swell with love. Their parents Sri Vr.s.abhān and Kīriti, Yaśodā and Nandababa look on. Seeing this beauty, Paramānand offers his blessings and devotes him self to them. (S1273) The lushness of the rainy season reflects the fulfillment and richness of this rainy season union. The aromatic breeze laden with moisture and the heavy rain cloud are symbolic substitutes for the rasa-impregnated scene. The characters and the scene are saturated with rasa, and Rādhā’s heart has bloomed like the trees in the forest. Paramānand sings that these halcyon days of Śrāvan. are auspicious, and they are because everyone— Krishna’s gopīs, his parents, and friends—is fulfilled by his presence. Paramānand’s metonymic identification of rasa and liquid dominates the poem. The rain and nectar are produced by the moon of Gokul, a symbolic substitution for Krishna. This water-saturated scene contrasts with the desiccation of the gopīs when the moon—and liquid—is absent. Of all Krishna’s actions, none—even when he slays demons—are of necessity. Everything he does is for his and his devotees’ delight. For devotees, līlā describes Krishna’s activities in Braj as well as his creation of the world. In his Subodhinī, Vallabh defines līlā as “ever expanding bliss, devoid of boredom and fatigue,” as well as “action everywhere but no passion (kām).” The latter suggests that kām, the worldly desires, do not occur in Krishna’s play, and only prem, purified love, exists in the alaukik

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realm. Contrary qualities and attributes exist in the līlā, such as the obstinacy of the young girls who love Krishna, but these contrary qualities are nonetheless alaukik. Again, Krishna performs his activities through his beneficence and effluence, not from necessity. Krishna’s eternal play is real and occurs in the alaukik realm that is in the here and now. When Paramānand sees Krishna’s līlā, and devotees hear Paramānand’s poetry and then see the līlā, they see it as it occurs. Similarly, Krishna’s Braj activities are not perceived as allegorical. To the casual observer, Krishna’s līlā is not manifest. Only those with special vision—accorded through repetition of Paramānand’s poetic cycles— enjoy the alaukik eyes to see through the sensual world to Krishna’s realm. Through cyclic repetition, the poetry operates upon each devotee, so the devotee sees Krishna’s līlā with ever-increasing clarity and depth. Paramānand’s poetry—through the synaesthetic transformation of sound into sight—helps bring the devotee into alaukik, this nonworldly—and very real—realm. In this capacity, Paramānand’s poems function as vehicles in sādhana, a practice through which each devotee can access—through sight— Krishna’s play. Hearing the poems, whether in the temple or at home, as part of sevā or individually, shifts the devotee’s perspective to the alaukik and transforms the devotee’s perceptual and cognitive framework. In performance, the poetry becomes ritualized and offers a process for each devotee to perceive and enter a supramundane reality. The senses—rooted in the mundane—become etherealized as devotees comprehend the transcendent reality of the alaukik. These senses— and the sensual—become alaukik through their participation in ritual practice. Devotees respond emotionally and sensually to Krishna’s līlā and the material world, yet bhāva for Krishna renders such responses alaukik. Paramānand’s poetry provides a locus for this synaesthetic transformation. The cyclic repetition of the poetry helps devotees perceive Krishna’s alaukik līlā within the material world so that the devotees “see” divinity. Poems describing the hot and rainy seasons demonstrate the importance of the material world in serving Krishna. Not only must the devotee care for the svarūp’s material needs, but the world around us—and our sensual response to it—elicits bhāva for Krishna for those devotees who constantly relate all thoughts and passions to Krishna. This bhāva then transforms, or renders alaukik, the senses as they are directed to Krishna, and devotees see through these etheralized senses. And here we have the ultimate form of synaesthesia, that the laukik is itself alaukik when properly viewed.

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Back to the Beginning One purpose of this book is to create a path through Paramānand’s daily and seasonal poetic cycle in order to replicate the manner in which devotees experience the poetry. The cycles of sevā replicate Krishna’s līlā, and these poems testify to Paramānand’s actual vision of Krishna’s līlā. Paramānand’s deliberate and systematic language alters the way in which devotees hear the poetry and thus alters the devotees themselves. Through this repetition, adept listeners become even more sensitized to the nuances and details of the poetry and become rasikas themselves, connoisseurs of rasa, through their relationship to Krishna, the king of rasa. Throughout their lives, devotees hear Paramānand’s poetry repeated day after day and year after year and incorporate each rehearing into their personal memories, which then inform future reception of the poetry. As with all cycles, but especially the cycles in Paramānand’s poesy, eventually the cycles find an end, the point at which the cycle started. The cycle laid out in this book began with the miserable gopī, pining for the loss of her Braj lord on the night of the autumn moon, the most romantic night of the year. Rāga—kedārau Watching the full moon reminds me of the deer-eyed Madhva’s face. Again and again, as I remember the rāsa dance, I hang my head, and my eyes fill with tears. Why did the Braj lord go to Mathura? Why must he slay the sinner Kamsa? A cooling breeze has arisen on the banks of the Yamuna; in the darkness, Kāma steals our hearts. On that day when Hari returns, we’ll rejoice when he embraces us in his lotus arms. Separation from the lord of Paramānand ravages our faces and sears our hearts. (S1004) Paramānand sings of the gopī’s mādhurya approach to Krishna, an approach likely to be adopted by a devotee hearing this poem. Such a devotee cultivates erotic feelings toward Krishna, using as a model the real-world emotions aroused by a lover. These emotions, when directed toward Krishna, are rendered alaukik. In this case, the devotee—by

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adopting the persona of this gopī—relishes the anguish of separation, an anguish that intensifies the love between lover and beloved. In this poem, Paramānand plays with the concept of ‘memory’—the gopī’s and the devotee’s—to heighten the passion. The gopī’s vivid memories of the rāsa līlā dance under the full moon remind her of her past pleasure and drive home the harsh realization that Krishna is no longer available to her. The literary tropes of separation and mādhurya bhāva figure prominently in this poem and underscore the importance of aesthetic categories. Aesthetic terms and concepts adapted to Krishna bhakti by Braj theologians such as Rūpa Goswami and Vallabh provide structured roles that direct the devotees’ emotional responses to Krishna. As devotees become more sophisticated in these roles, their emotional responses to the poetry become more nuanced, and they are able to play Krishna’s more advanced love games, such as māna. Cultivated devotees relish these games that Krishna plays for the benefit of his devotees. Paramānand’s subtle literary techniques affect the ways the listener hears the poetry, and, with each repetition, these subtle machinations operate on each devotee with greater precision. Devotees who hear this poetry cannot help but become more sensitive to Paramānand’s literary techniques, such as the tropes of separation or thievery, and can decode the range of entailments associated with each symbolic realm, whether food, rasa, or the moon. Yaśodā’s admonitions to Krishna to develop his tastes reflect the devotee’s goal: to relish the emotions and “tastes” aroused in the poetry. These emotional responses are latent in human beings, so they must be cultivated with some effort on the devotee’s part. As each devotee cultivates his or her responses, the poem’s details evoke an ever-wider range of meaning. The full moon triggers memories not only of the rāsa līlā dances but also of Krishna’s face, which is likened to the moon and the cakor bird, which lives on the moon’s rays. The moon, which produces nectar, like milk as a metonym for Krishna’s love, evokes the sense of taste—experienced through sight, as the eyes drink the rasa of Krishna’s love. The devotee knows Krishna as the moon who directs the ocean’s tides, evoking the concept of the ‘ocean of rasa’ in which the devotee hopes to drown and the metaphor of love as immersion. The sophisticated listener hears through an infinite range of interconnected symbolic extensions that paint Krishna’s līlā through sound. Paramānand’s rhetorical strategies are the microscopic techniques that subtly alter the devotee to create the macroscopic synaesthetic vision in which the senses are conflated.

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And, according to Braj tradition, Krishna makes this easy for his devotees. With his grace, Krishna invites his devotees to participate in his games. While devotees are free to accept this invitation, none play with Krishna without his invitation—and devotion itself is a sign of having received Krishna’s grace. Krishna manifests himself to his devotees in forms they can best understand. For Braj devotees, he appears as the lovable youth Krishna, a form suitable for the rural population of sixteenthcentury as well as contemporary Braj. He did not appear as a remote king or a Sanskrit pundit, spouting esoteric verses about the nature of reality. In fact, Krishna explicitly ridicules these characters and offers “the nectar of his lower lip” to his beloved Rādhā, not to those who would meditate their way to salvation. When devotees speak of Krishna’s play in Braj, they laugh because Krishna’s games and antics are funny. He plays pranks on Brahmans and his neighbors and teases the girls. God has a sense of humor. It is important to remember the nature of Krishna’s līlā: it is play and never done of necessity, but only for the benefit of his devotees. As play, Krishna’s activities are joyful and spontaneous, and devotees who join Krishna in his līlā not only render their lives alaukik but also playful. Krishna’s playful behavior has destroyed any boundaries that might inhibit intimacy. Those lives transformed by bhāva become a form of sacred play: while devotees participate in Krishna’s world, Krishna is present in the devotees’ once mundane world. This mingling or collapse of the laukik and alaukik is an extension of the reflexivity and reciprocity of the experience of darśan. This process not only enlivens for the devotee all aspects of Krishna but also enlivens with Krishna all facets of the devotees’ lives. In this dialectical process, the natural world triggers memories of Krishna’s līlā, and knowledge of the līlā helps devotees (re)interpret the world in terms of Krishna’s play. Paramānand draws poetic images from the actual flora and fauna of Braj, where, after all, Krishna once played his games. The full moon and a river might elicit remembrance of the scene of the gopī upon the banks of the Yamuna. So every bird, tree, and plant enhances the devotees’ connections to Krishna’s alaukik realm by continually evoking bhāva for him. These sensual responses to the material world become alaukik and ethereal due to their connection to Krishna. Krishna revealed himself to Paramānand in the svarūp of Śrīnāthjī. That Paramānand composed his poems while seeing Krishna’s līlā suggests that Braj devotion develops a unique nexus among poetry, divinity, and the material world. Paramānand’s poetry presents a mythic framework

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that directs and shapes the devotees’ passions. The markers in the poems suggest emotional responses that sophisticated devotees use to interpret their own experiences, thus creating a dialectical relationship between the poetry and prior experience. As the devotees’ own passions and experiences become increasingly more aligned with Krishna’s play, the poetry becomes even more resonant. While internally each devotee’s thoughts and emotions are synchronous with Krishna, homologizing their lives with Krishna’s sevā cycle brings each devotees’ external life in tune with the līlā. Devotees who repeatedly hear the poems have an immense repertoire of associations and references to Krishna’s līlā, and this depth enhances their darśan of Krishna’s līlā. This process in which Paramānand paints words through sound is highly individualized, so each devotee sees and relates to Krishna according to his or her own disposition. The poetry enables each devotee to apprehend Krishna through sight, which, in the Hindu tradition, is one of the primary modes of communicating with the divine. The dominant figure of speech underlying the poetry and language itself is the metaphor of seeing the message—or Krishna— through words. This notion underlies the entire poetic process, which implicitly claims by its existence that words can illustrate Krishna’s līlā. The entire poetic process itself is a figure of speech, a mode used to describe the process that we understand as the transformation of words into vision. This synaesthetic form of knowledge grants devotees an embodied knowledge of Krishna; that is, devotees comprehend and experience Krishna’s līlā with all their senses, and this knowledge is embedded in their bodies as well as in their minds. As a parallel example, when an athlete learns a new skill, at first the movements seem awkward, and the athlete must keep in the conscious mind the various elements entailed in performing the new skill. However, with repetition and practice, somatic memory takes over. The movements seem natural, and intuition replaces conscious thought. Similarly, devotees come to know Krishna’s līlā and incorporate the līlā intuitively, as a mental muscle memory, so to speak. This memory extends beyond the mind to the body: Paramānand’s metaphors and figures of speech—so entrenched as to appear natural— involve the body to offer the devotee both the physical and the mental experience of Krishna’s world. Paramānand’s powerful language is repeated endlessly in the ritual cycle, repetition that allows for increasingly deeper knowledge of the līlā.

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Just as the poetry is far more than mere words, the devotees’ comprehension of the līlā extends beyond superficial—and even conscious—awareness. Paramānand’s experience and darśan of Krishna’s līlā—as well as his poetic skill—allow him to manipulate language, to employ metaphors that resonate both within the Braj cultural framework and within each devotee’s own experience through the metaphor of sight as understanding. Analyzing the poetic process in terms of the metaphor of sight not only reveals the progressive components of the poetry but also highlights both synaesthesia—confusion of the senses—and an underlying notion of knowledge itself: to see is to know. As Paramānand’s poems—the poems that sing the cycles of Krishna’s daily and seasonal activities—are sung, the sounds, the words, and the experience are transformed for each devotee into sight. The devotee sees through the ephemeral world to Krishna’s world, and therein lies the significance of Paramānand’s poetry.

Notes

Introduction 1. Eck, Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, 6–7.

1. Paramānand’s Poetic World 1. Eck, Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, 6–7; “Banaras: Cosmos and Paradise in the Hindu Imagination,” 41–56. 2. Barz, The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhācārya, 9–15. Frequently terms such as laukik and alaukik are understood in terms of, respectively, “profane” and “sacred,” yet, to do so obscures central issues about the terms sacred and profane. I use ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ guardedly because they are heavily invested with Christian (as well as Jewish and Islamic) concepts of the relationships between spirit and material, sacred and profane—which are usually perceived as discrete categories. 3. Hawley, “Author and Authority in Bhakti Poetry,” 273, 285. 4. The date of the Bhāgavata Purān.a has not been settled, but most scholars claim it is a south Indian text written in the tenth century. Rukmani, Bhāgavata Purān.a, 14, 322; Rocher, The Purān.as; Hardy, Viraha Bhakti, 538–541. 5. See J.A.B. van Buitenin, “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purān.a,” 23–40, and Hardy, Viraha Bhakti, 481–547. 6. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 150. 7. Ibid.

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8. Hawley, “Author and Authority in Bhakti Poetry,” 273, 285. 9. S. K. Chatterjee, Indian Calendrical System, 60. In addition to the eight as.t.ayām, the day is divided into pahars (watches or guards, each of about three hours) that are precisely calculated according to muhūrtas, which are auspicious “moments” of forty-eight minutes. Muhūrtas also refers to specific periods of the day, such as the Brahmā muhūrta at sunrise, a particularly auspicious time of day. The prātah (early morning) period is the first three muhūrtas after sunrise, approximately two hours and twenty-four minutes. 10. Sullivan, “Sound and Senses,” 6. 11. Entwistle, “Synaesthesia,” 89, 98. 12. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 5. 13. Miller, The Love Song of the Dark Lord, 25; Siegal, Sacred and Profane Dimensions of Love, 98–102. 14. Bryant, Poems to the Child-God, 45–46.

2. The End of the Night 1. Personal communication with Tony K. Stewart, October 2000. 2. Redington, Love Games of Krishna, 31. 3. Eck, “Banaras: Cosmos and Paradise in the Hindu Imagination,” 41–56. Smith, “The Samnyāsanirn.aya,” 147. 4. Bryant, Poems to the Child-God, 125. 5. These collections are not standardized, and the categorization of the poems frequently differs between collections. Some poems appear under different headings in different collections, and a single poem might appear in as many as three subject headings in one anthology. Poems might be assigned different composers or rāgas in different collections. For example, a poem might be attributed to Paramānand in one collection and to Sūrdās (another As.t. achāp poet) in another. Generally, though, these poems are known well to devotees and are clearly associated with one poet. 6. Shukla, Kavivara Paramānand Dās, 55–90. 7. Hawley, “Author and Authority in Bhakti Poetry,” 273. 8. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 144–49. 9. Ibid., 141. 10. Māyāvādin refers to advocates of Śan¯kara’s Advaita-Vedānta (nondualist) thought. Pus.t.imārg tradition distinguishes Vallabh’s definition of māyā, an illu-

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sory separation, from that of Śan¯kara by positing Krishna’s presence in all aspects of existence. Parekh, Śrī Vallabhācārya, 130. 11. The poem is sung on the first day of Māgh (January–February), kr..sn.a. Kr..sn.a paks.a (the dark half ) indicates the half of the month in which the moon is waning. 12. Foucault, “What Is an Author?” 154. 13. Rinehart, “The Portable Bullhe Shah: Biography, Authorship and Categorization in the Study of Punjabi Sufi Poetry,” 23. 14. Ong, “Text as Interpretation,” 152, 154. 15. Miller, “Kālīdāsa’s World and His Plays.” 16. Gupta, Plant Myths and Tradition in India, 51. 17. Miller, “Kālīdāsa’s World and His Plays,” 38–39. 18. Ibid., 26–28. 19. The dating of the Nāt.yaśastra is uncertain, but it is usually dated no later than the sixth century but with some elements dating back to the second century BCE. 20. Adele Fiske, “Notes on Rasa in Vedic and Buddhist Texts,” 215–28. 21. Wulff, “Religion in a New Mode,” 682–83. 22. Ibid., 683. 23. Timm, “Celebration of Emotion,” 67. 24. Gerow, Indian Poetics, 267. 25. De, Vais.n.ava Faith and Movement, 183–86.

3. Krishna’s Morning Games 1. The following summary of relevant aspects of Vallabh’s theology relies upon Barz, The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhācārya, Parekh, Śrī Vallabhācārya, and Shah, Śrīmad Vallabhācārya: His Philosophy and Religion. 2. Kinsley, The Divine Player, 1. 3. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 161. 4. Bryant, Poems to the Child God, 23–24. 5. Hawley, Krishna, the Butter Thief, 262–64. 6. Bhāgavata Purān.a 10.10.1–43. 7. Hawley, Krishna, the Butter Thief, 261–87.

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8. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 86. 9. Shah, Śrīmad Vallabhācārya, 165. Parekh, Śrī Vallabhācārya, 136. 10. Parekh, Śrī Vallabhācārya, 136.

4. Afternoon 1. Redington, Love Games of Krishna, 34–40. 2. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 18. 3. Ibid., 69–70. 4. Ibid., 153. 5. Ibid., 150. 6. G. H. Bhatt, Śrī Vallabhācārya and His Doctrines, 23. 7. Personal communication, Shrivatsa Goswami (September 25, 1992). 8. Redington, Love Games of Krishna, 44–47. 9. Lynch, “Social Construction,” 19. 10. Ingalls, “Words for Beauty,” 99. 11. Both(i) which translates as “unmeasured amount or rough estimate” is not easily defined and not to be found in Braj dictionaries. I am grateful to Alan Entwistle for his suggestion of Lamas’ Rajasthani dictionary.

5. Night 1. De, Vaishnava Faith and Movement, 210–12; Masson and Patwarden, Aesthetic Rapture, 49. 2. De,Vaishnava Faith and Movement, 208–10. 3. Ingalls, “Words for Beauty,” 47, 95. 4. Kakar and Ross, “Kings and Cuckolds: Passion as Power,” 106–32. 5. Gupta Shakti M., Plant Myths and Traditions in India, 4, 82. 6. Ibid., 64–65. 7. Ibid., 5.

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6. Autumn to Spring 1. Chatterjee, Indian Calendrical System, 40. 2. In the Pus.t.imārg Kīrtan Samgrah (PKS), this poem is assigned rāga t.od.ī and is classified under the snāna yātra (bathing) poems, which are assigned to be sung on the full moon of Jet.ha. 3. The PKS assigns this poem to Rājabhog in the hot season, so it would not be sung during Śarad Pūrn.imā.

7. Summer—Seeing Reality 1. Upadhyaya, “Botanical Folklore,” 11. 2. Bennett, “Image Worship,” 119–20. 3. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 50. Also see Parekh, Śrī Vallabhācārya, 142, and Bennett, Path of Grace, 201. 4. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 48. David Haberman, Journey, 170. 5. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 47. Haberman, “Shrines of the Mind: A Meditative Shrine Worshipped in Mañjarī Sādhanā,” 29. 6. Barz, Bhakti Sect, 14; Haberman, Journey, 169.

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Works Cited

Barz, Richard. The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhācārya. Haryana: Thomson (India), 1976. Bennett, Peter. “Image Worship and Pus.t.i Mārga.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 1,4 (Summer 1993): 109–134. ———. The Path of Grace: Social Organization and Temple Worship in a Vaishnava Sect. Delhi: Hindustan, 1993. Bhatt, G. H. Śrī Vallabhācārya and His Doctrines. Baroda: Śrī Vallabh, 1984. Bryant, Kenneth. Poems to the Child-God: Structures and Strategies in the Poetry of Sūrdās. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Chatterjee, S. K. Indian Calendrical System. Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1998. De, S. K. Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources. 2nd ed. Calcutta: Mukhopadhyaya, 1961. Eck, Diana. “Banares: Cosmos and Paradise in the Hindu Imagination.” In The Word and the World, ed. Veena Das. New Delhi: Sage, 1986, 41–56. ———. Darśan, Seeing the Divine Image in India. Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books, 1981. Entwistle. “Synaesthesia in Poetry and Ritual of the Pus.t.imārga.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 1, 3 (Spring 1993): 84–103. Fiske, Adele. “Notes on Rasa in Vedic and Buddhist Texts.” Mahfil 8, 3–4 (1971): 215–228. Foucault, Michel. “What Is an Author?” In Textual Strategies: Perspectives in PostStructuralist Criticism, ed. Josue V. Harari. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1979, 141: 161.

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Gerow, Edwin. Indian Poetics. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1977. Gupta, Shakti M. Plant Myths and Traditions in India. Delhi: Manoharlal, 1991. Haberman, David. Journey through the Twelve Forests. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. ———. “Shrines of the Mind: A Meditative Shrine Worshipped in Man¯jarī Sādhana.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 1, 3 (Spring 1993): 18–35. Hardy, Friedhelm. Viraha-bhakti: The Early History of Kr..sn.a Devotion in South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983. Hawley, John S. “Author and Authority in the Bhakti Poetry of North India.” Journal of Asian Studies 47, 2 (May 1988): 269–290. ———. Krishna, the Butter Thief. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Sūr Dās Poet, Singer, Saint. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984. Ingalls, Daniel H. H. “Words for Beauty in Classical Sanskrit Poetry.” In Indological Studies in Honor of W. Norman Brown. American Oriental Series vol. 47, ed. Ernest Bender. New Haven, Conn: American Oriental Society, 1962, 87–107. Kakar, Sudhir, and John M. Ross. “Kings and Cuckolds: Passion as Power.” In Tales of Love, Sex and Danger. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992, 106–132. Kinsley, David. The Divine Player: A Study of Krishna Līlā. Delhi: Benarsidass, 1979. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Lynch, Owen. “The Social Construction of Emotion in India.” In Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotions in India, ed. Owen Lynch. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990, 3–36. Masson, J. L. and Patwarden, M. V. Aesthetic Rapture: The Rasādhyāya of the Nāt.yaśāstra. 2 vols. Poona: Deccan College, 1970. Miller, Barbara Stoler. “Kālīdāsa’s World and His Plays.” In Theater of Memory, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller. New York: Columbia University Press (1984): 3–41. ———. The Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. Ong, Walter J. “Text as Interpretation: Mark and After.” In Oral Tradition in Literature: Interpretation of Context, ed. John Miles Foley. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986, 147–169. Paramānandasāgar. Edited by Sribrajbhushan Sharma. Kankaroli: Vidyavibhag.

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Parekh, Bhai Manilal C. Shri Vallabhācarya: Life, Teachings and Movement. Rajkot: Harmony House, 1943. Redington, S. J. Vallabhācārya on the Love Games of Kr..sn.a. Delhi: Benarsidass, 1983. Rinehart, Robin. “The Portable Bullhe Shah: Biography, Authorship and Categorization in the Study of Punjabi Sufi Poetry.” Numen 46 (1999): 23. Rocher, Ludo. The Purān.as. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986. Rukmani, T. S. A Critical Study of the Bhāgavata Purān.a. Varanasi: Chowkambha Sanskrit Series Office, 1970. Shah, J. G. Śrīmad Vallabhācārya: His Philosophy and Religion. Nadiad: Pustakalaya, 1969. Shukla, Govardhan Nath. Kavivara Paramānand aur Vallabh Sampradāy. Aligarh: Mandir. Siegal, Lee. Sacred and Profane Dimensions of Love in Indian Traditions as Exemplified in the Gitogovinda of Jayadeva. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978. Sullivan, Lawrence E. “Sound and Senses: Towards a Hermeneutics of Performance.” History of Religion 26, 1 (August 1986): 1–33. Tagare, Ganesh (trans. and annotat.). Bhāgavata Purān.a. Delhi: Banarsidass, 1989. Timm, Jeffrey. “Celebration of Emotion: Vallabh’s Ontology of Affective Experience.” Philosophy East and West 41, 1 (January 1991): 59–75. Upadhyaya, K. D. “Botanical Folklore.” In Tree Symbol Worship in India, ed. Sankar Sen Gupta. Calcutta: Indian Publications, 1965, 1–18. Van Buitenin, J. A. B. “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purān.a in Krishna.” In Krishna: Myths, Rites and Attitudes, ed. Milton Singer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966, 23–40.

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Index

Ad.el, 38 ādhyātmika, 177–178 adhibhautika, 177–178 Ādhidaivika (divine body), 37, 168, 177–178 Ahīrs (cowherd caste), 142, 143 akora (something given to appease or placate), 166 aks.ar (nonqualified deity), 67, 177–178 ālambana, 60 alaukik (supramundane world), 1, 10, 12, 14–16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28, 30–31, 44, 47, 67, 71–72, 77, 82, 83–86, 93, 94, 103, 107, 111, 115, 170, 172, 174, 176–177, 182–186 amr.ta (nectar), 159, 160 ānand (bliss), 88–89 annual cycles autumn, 151–167 calendrical systems for, 152–153 lunar, 7, 23–24, 139, 151–167 six seasons of India, 153 spring, 151, 153–154, 170–172 summer, 173–188 winter, 168–170 anugraha (favor/support), 85 aparādhī nāyaka (criminal hero), 47 Arjun, 64, 80 Ās.ad, 165

āśraya (shelter), 102, 103 As.t.achāp poets, 5, 10–11, 21, 36–37, 40, 50 As.t.ayām (periods of daily ritual cycle), 25–27 At.aki (entranced), 98–99 author-function (Foucault), 41 autumn, 151–167 āvanī, 105, 108 avatārs (incarnations), 11, 38, 54, 80, 178 āvirbhāva (manifestation), 88–89, 105 Balarām (brother of Krishna), 11, 25–26, 34, 51, 58, 72–73 bāl-līlā (boyhood play), 38, 73 Bhagavad-Gītā, 64 Bhagavān, 53 Bhāgavata Purān.a, 11, 20, 31, 34–35, 38, 40, 51, 114, 126 bhajan (devotional singing), 103 bhakti (Krishna devotion), 11, 28, 31, 185 Bhaktirasāmr.tasindhu, 59 bhan.itā (signature line), 19–22, 37, 40–41, 56 Bhanvara (whirlpool, swirl, black bee), 159 Bharatamuni, 59 bhāva (foundational emotional experience), 18, 35, 43, 44, 66, 69–70, 101, 115–116, 127, 172, 183, 186

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bhāva (continued) cows as exemplars of, 112–115 gopīs as exemplars of, 113–115 linkage with rasa (essence), 59, 60, 72, 78, 84–87, 127 mixed bhāvas, 72–81 bhāvanā (constant recollection), 35 bhāvātmaka (devotees), 22 bhavātmaka (full of feeling), 93 bhog (meal), 26, 115–120 Bhramargīt (Song of the Bee), 108–109, 114, 118, 119–120 Birahinīs (those who are experiencing separation), 147, 161, 171 blindness, 14–15 blue (color of Krishna), 45–47, 155, 164 Brahmā, 64–65, 138 Brahma-Sūtras, 20, 67 Brajbhās.ā, 19–20, 133 Braj region Brajbhās.ā as vernacular of, 19–20, 133 calendrical systems for, 152–153 as center of Krishna devotion, 11 described, 11 early languages and literature of, 1–3 Krishna leaves, 11, 34, 58, 92, 103, 104, 118, 119–120, 160 life of Krishna in, 11–12, 18–19, 25–28 Br.hadāranyaka Upanis.ad, 138 Bryant, Kenneth, 1 Caitanya, 4 cakor bird, 152, 160, 165–167, 185 campagrasa (one with the golden complexion of the campa flower), 132 candramā (moon-face), 109–110 Candrāvalī, 83, 84 capal (wavering or fickle), 73 cātak bird, 152, 155, 180 Caturbhujdās, 37 Caurāsī Vais.n.ava kī Vārtā, 38 Chandrabhāgā, 21–22, 37, 38 chāp (name or seal of popular poets), 21, 37 Chitaswāmī, 37 Cintāman.i (wish-fulfilling stone), 99, 155

colors, 45–47, 49, 58, 60, 109, 155, 158, 164, 170–171, 175, 179 context-free autonomous discourse (Ong), 42 daily cycles, 2, 6, 10, 12, 25–28. See also sevā (ritual service) dān līlā, 76 darśan (seeing activities of Krishna), 3, 4–6, 10, 13–14, 16, 21, 22, 27, 31–32, 37–38, 55–57, 100, 106–108, 120, 121, 134, 149, 158–160, 164, 174, 185–188 dāsya (servitude), 101 dharma (duty), 140, 148, 156, 169 Dharmarāj, 178 dhrupad style, 5 Digambaras, 120 dāsyā bhāva (servitude stance), 34–35, 66, 103–104 dūtī (messenger), 125–126 Dwarka, 11, 109 economy of love (Hawley), 82 Eighty-Four Hymns of Hita Harivamśa (Snell), 1 Ekādaśī, 38 Entwistle, Alan, 28 flowers, 45–46, 102–104, 109–110, 173, 180 flutes, 5, 54–55, 61, 92, 104, 111, 122, 169, 170 Foucault, Michel, 41 fragrances/scents, 45–46, 58–59, 155, 170, 174–177, 182 Gangā water, 93, 158, 177–178 garbhañka (game within a game), 123 Garga, 163 Gaud.īya Vais.n.avism, 4, 59 Gesamkunstwerk, 28 ghaiyā (milk sweet), 181 Ghanasyām, 110 Giridhar, 81, 127

Index Giridharan, 114, 139 Gītagovinda, 29, 59 Gokul, 74, 112, 114, 164 Gokulnāth, 38 golden creeper, 43, 95–96, 140–141 Gopāl (name for Krishna), 51, 52, 64, 78, 93, 102, 103, 110, 116, 128, 134, 139, 154, 161, 178, 180 gopas (cowherding boys) relationship with Krishna, 18, 19, 21 gopīs (cowherding girls). See also Rādhā autumn full moon and, 151–167 as exemplars of bhāva, 113–115 lunchtime with Krishna, 91–100 prankster activities of Krishna, 63–89 relationships with Krishna, 14–19, 21–24, 26–27, 33–35, 42–61, 68–72, 124–125 Goswami, Gopal Bhatt, 4 Goswami, Rūpa, 59, 73, 185 Goswami, Shrivatsa, 4 Govardhan, 147, 159 Govind, 75, 162–163 Govindaswāmī, 20, 37 Graha, 23–24 Grīs.ma, 153, 173–178 guñja berries, 45, 161 gvāl (cowherding), 26, 63–89 Haladhar (Balarām; brother of Krishna), 58 Hari (name for Krishna), 58, 79, 83, 87, 98, 119, 140, 152, 157, 169, 180, 184 Havelī (home), 176–177 Hawley, John S., 1, 82 Hemant, 153, 168–170 hilag poems, 97–99, 165–166 Hiran.yakaśipu, 101 Holī (spring festival), 151, 153–154, 170–172 horripilation, 47 ideal listener, 3–4, 44, 61, 66 Indra, 133

201

jagat (creation), 67, 177–178 jal-līlā (play in the water), 154 Jayadeva, 59 jhān¯kī (tableau), 27 jñāna-mukti (meditative liberation), 141 jñāna (wisdom or asceticism), 157 kājal (black paste applied to the eyes), 161 kalanka (blemish or flaw), 109 kaleū (rainy day breakfast), 181 kalpanā (imagination), 35 kalpavr.ks.a (Wishing Tree), 133 Kāmadeva, 29, 30, 99, 123, 131–132, 135, 175–176, 180 kāmadhenu (wish-fulfilling cow), 114 Kamalanayan, 23–25, 164 kamal (lotus), 53 Kāma Sūtra, 29, 133–134 kām (love), 30, 71, 107, 170, 182 Kamsa, 11, 33, 34, 102, 103, 152 Kānha (name for Krishna), 51, 81, 96, 106, 110–111 Kannauj Brahmans, 38 Kapūr, 38 karma (action or ritual), 157 Kārtik, 168 kātyāyānī vow (maiden’s vow), 168 Keśav, 72 Kesi, 102 Khan.d.itā nāyikā (broken-hearted heroine), 47, 124–125 Khan.d.itā (temporary infidelity), 88 Khan.d.ita (woman whose lover has been unfaithful), 47, 71, 123 khas grass, 174–175 khīr (milk pudding), 117–118 Kīriti, 182 koil (black cuckoo), 180 Krishna alaukik (supramundane world) of, 1, 10, 12, 14–16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28, 30–31, 44, 47, 67, 71–72, 77, 82, 83–86, 93, 94, 103, 107, 111, 115, 170, 172, 174, 176–177, 182–186

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Krishna (continued) beauty of, 45, 109, 135, 158, 162, 165, 175–176 bhakti (Krishna devotion), 11, 28, 31, 185 as boatman helping devotees across ocean, 67–68 as Brahman, 65–68 as connoisseur of love, 45–48 crooked nature of, 111–112 darśan (seeing activities of ), 3, 4–6, 10, 13–14, 16, 21, 22, 27, 31–32, 37–38, 55–57, 100, 106–108, 120, 121, 134, 149, 158–160, 164, 174, 185–188 dress and accoutrements, 27, 45–46, 49, 58–61, 104, 109 family of, 9, 11, 18, 22, 25–27, 50, 51–58, 60–61 four-armed depiction, 101 gopīs (cowherding girls) and, 14–19, 21–24, 26–27, 33–35, 42–61, 68–72, 124–125 hierarchy of emotional stances toward, 18, 34–35, 66, 71 as incarnation of Vis.n.u, 11 leaves Braj, 11, 34, 58, 92, 103, 104, 118, 119–120, 160 life in Braj, 11–12, 18–19 līlā (activities), 2, 6, 13, 15, 18–22, 26–28, 31, 35–38, 41–44, 47–50, 52–58, 67–68, 70–71, 74, 105, 106–108, 117, 120, 148, 174, 175, 178, 182–188 Madanamurāri as name for, 17 moon and, 7, 23–24, 39, 49, 52, 53, 57, 109–110, 144–145, 156–157, 163–164, 167, 175–176, 182, 185 morning activities, 25, 51–58 nighttime activities, 42–51 Paramānand’s poetry as threshhold into, 2–3 popularity of, 5, 11–12 Rādhā as lover of, 16–18, 27, 44–46, 50, 53, 68, 82–84, 91–92, 94, 96, 121–149, 156–157, 165–166,

171–172, 173, 182–183 as rain cloud, 110 sakhī counsel to, 142–145, 161 sensual images of, 3, 9, 45–48, 58–59, 183 separation metaphor, 17, 38, 43, 87–89, 91, 92, 100–106, 107, 117, 119–120, 124–127, 144, 161–162, 179–185 sevā (ritual service), 2, 3, 4–7, 11, 24, 25–28 shattering of worldly conventions, 81–89 stories of life on earth, 11–12 Kr.s.n.adās, 37 Ks.atriya, Kapūr, 38 Kuber, 79, 80 kumārikā (young virgin), 131, 168 Kumbhanadās, 37 kumud (lotus), 109–110 Laks.mī, 128–129, 153, 158 Lalitā (friend of Rādhā), 45, 173–174 Lāl (name for Krishna), 52, 79, 83, 106, 127 laukik (mundane world), 1, 12, 14–16, 20, 22–23, 30–31, 67, 77, 82–86, 93, 103, 104, 107, 111, 156, 170, 172, 176–177, 186 lāvan.ya (saltiness), 118 līlā (activities of Krishna), 2, 6, 13, 15, 18–22, 26–28, 31, 35–38, 41–44, 47–50, 52–58, 67–68, 70–71, 74, 105, 106–108, 117, 120, 148, 174, 175, 178, 182–188 lokalāj (honor of their families), 169 lotus flower, 53, 102–104, 109–110 lunar cycles, 7, 23–24, 139 autumn full moon, 151–167 calendrical systems and, 152–153 Madan, 130, 175 Madanagopāl (name for Krishna), 29, 98, 113, 122, 140 Madanamurārī (name for Krishna), 16, 17, 129–130

Index Madhavendra Puri, 176 Mādhavī, 43, 142 Madhva (name for Krishna), 33, 34, 43, 86, 94, 102, 103, 108, 151, 184 Māgh, 168 Mahābhārata, 20 Mahādev, 64–65 mahātmya (magnificence of the lord), 103 Makar Samkrānti, 152 Malik, Vidur, 2, 5–6 māna chut.āve (abandonment of the māna), 123, 124, 141–142 māna-milāpa (resolution of the māna), 123, 124, 134, 145 māna (pique in love), 16, 17, 68, 71, 88, 121–149, 167, 185 abandonment of, 123, 124, 141–142 jealousy in, 121–132 of Krishna, 146–147 resolution of, 123, 124, 145 rules of, 126 sakhī counsel to Krishna, 142–145, 161 sakhī counsel to Rādhā, 122–132, 137–142, 156 sakhī role summarized, 125–126, 147–149 setting stage for, 132–137 māna prayatna (state of māna), 123 Mandara, 159 mandir (temple), 176 man˙galā (early morning), 25, 51–58 man˙galā śr.n˙gār, 168 Man.igrīv, 80, 81 Manmohan (name for Krishna), 92, 158 maryādāmārg (path of convention), 85–86 Mathura, 11, 33, 58, 92, 103, 104, 118, 161, 184 māyā (illusory), 40 Māyāvādins, 39, 40 mādhurya bhāva (erotic stance), 35, 54, 66, 71, 73, 86, 106–108, 184, 185 metaphors of Paramānand apparent destruction of love, 47–48 blindness, 14–15 conceptual structure of images and, 28–30

203

Krishna as sun, 52–53 love as free-flowing bounty, 83–86 love as intoxication, 21–22, 94–98, 133–134, 145, 146 love as limited commodity, 83–86 love as liquid rasa, 17, 52–53, 57, 110, 111–112, 127–128, 138–141, 144, 152, 155–160, 163–164, 167, 176 love as perishable, 47–48 love as purifying agent, 93 love as snare, 97–99 love as sustenance, 14–15, 17, 29–30, 55–57, 74–76, 81–89, 92, 96, 98–99, 102–104, 110, 115–118, 162, 165, 178, 180, 181 love as treasure, 45–47, 128–129 love as war, 13, 17, 29–30, 56, 68–71, 76–77, 86–87, 99, 122–123, 131–132, 169 milk as metonymic for love, 55–57, 74–76, 81–89, 113–115, 117–120, 166 nature of, 3, 13 separation from Krishna, 17, 38, 43, 87–89, 91, 92, 100–106, 107, 117, 119–120, 124–127, 144, 161–162, 179–185 transformation process and, 28–32 Miller, Barbara Stoler, 42 Mohan Mādhav, 136 Mohan (name for Krishna), 21, 68, 109, 122, 132, 138, 139, 146, 168, 180 Mohini (enchanting woman, one who is enchanted), 144 monsoon imagery, 110 moon. See also lunar cycles autumn full moon, 151–167 Krishna and, 7, 23–24, 39, 49, 52, 53, 57, 109–110, 144–145, 156–157, 163–164, 167, 175–176, 182, 185 of Vrindavan, 39, 40 mugdhā (young girl who is not fully aware of her beauty), 131, 143 mukha mor.i (turning one’s face in shame), 49 Murā, 17, 80, 130

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Muralī (flute), 54–55, 61, 122 mūrti (image), 176 Nalakūbar (son of Kuber), 80, 81 Nandadās, 37, 108–109, 114 Nanda (foster father of Krishna), 11, 18, 21, 26, 29, 57, 60–61, 66, 68, 74, 78, 81, 83, 100, 102, 108, 113, 116, 154, 157, 159, 163, 168, 182 Nandakumār, 130 Nandalāl, 163 Nandanandana, 94 Nandarānī, 57 Nārada, 80, 109 Narasim˙ha (man-lion), 100, 101 Nārāyan., 100–101 Nathdvara, 4 Nāt.yaśāstra, 59, 131 nāyikā (heroine), 98 nicoy (essence), 165–166 nirgun., 67, 141 nirodha (abode of all contradictions), 93, 100, 157 nitya (constant) cycle, 12 nityalīlā, 36 Ong, Walter J., 42 padas (short lyrics), 19, 36 Padma Purān.a, 178 palaśa (red flower of dhaka tree), 133–134 panāre (drain that draws water off the roof ), 162 Parabrahman, 103 Parakīyā status, 166 Paramānand background and context of, 4, 5, 10–11, 35–42 bhan.itā (signature line), 19–22, 37, 40–41, 56 death of, 36–37 described, 1 influence on modern Braj devotees, 2–3 linguistic tools and aesthetic structures of, 13–16, 28–32 linkage with Vallabh Sampradāy, 39–42

metaphors of. See metaphors of Paramānand narrative stance, 22, 46 nonsectarian sources on, 37–38 poetry of. See Paramānand’s poetry sectarian lines and, 4 visions of Krishna’s activities, 19, 21, 31–32, 35–36, 37–38, 55–56 Paramānandasāgar (compilation of Paramānand’s poetry), 19, 36–37 Paramānand’s poetry. See also Paramānand about, 16–19 aural/oral form of, 3 bhan.itā (signature line), 19–22, 37, 40–41, 56 body of, 10–12 critical perspective on, 1–3 daily and annual cycles in, 2, 6, 10, 12, 25–28 dialectical relationship between text and Krishna devotees’ daily lives, 13, 33–35 ideal listener, 3–4, 44, 61, 66 literary techniques in, 3, 63–64, 111–112. See also metaphors of Paramānand multiple uses of, 6–7 pada (poem/lyric) form, 19, 36 physical landscape of, 2 poetic environment of, 19–25 popularity of, 5 research context for, 3–6 as situated poetry, 6–7 sound as sight in, 13 as threshhold into Krishna’s world, 2–3, 9–16 pārijāta tree, 13, 21–22 pastes, 161, 175–176 paud.he (reconciliation), 124 Persian poetry, 132 Phālgun, 171 phūl-man.d.alī (palace of flowers), 173 Poems to the Childhood God (Bryant), 1 Pradyumna, 132 Pran.ām, 108–109 prasād (consecrated offerings), 6, 85, 115

Index

205

prem (purified love), 30, 107, 170, 182–183 progressive hierarchy of emotional stances, 18, 34–35, 66, 71 pujārīs (temple servants), 176 Purān.as, 52 Purus.ottam (supreme being), 66–67, 88–89, 103, 105, 148, 177–178 Pus.t.imārg, 36, 107 Pus.t.imārg Kīrtan Samgrah, 36, 165, 181 Pus.t.i (state of grace), 39, 84, 85–86, 115, 152, 180

types of, 59–60 rāsa līlā dance, 41, 54, 55, 97, 107, 129, 141, 154, 155, 185 rasa nāyaka (hero of the rasa), 127 rasarāja (king of the rasa), 84, 93, 123 rasika (connoisseur of art), 29, 44, 123, 143, 157, 179, 184 rasikarāja (connoisseur of emotion), 46–48, 94 Rawat, C. B., 2 Rinehart, Robin, 41 Rohin.ī, 26, 72–73

Rādhā beauty of, 46, 131, 134–135, 139–140, 162 counsel from sakhī, 122–132, 137–142, 156 as Krishna’s lover, 16–18, 27, 44–46, 50, 53, 68, 82–84, 91–92, 94, 96, 121–149, 156–157, 165–166, 171–172, 173, 182–183 pride of, 128, 129, 131, 137, 142 Rādhāraman. temple evening service, 2, 45–46, 121–149 location of singers in, 5 nature of service in, 5–6 in research context, 4–6 rāgas of Paramānand, nature and uses of, 5–7 Rāhū, 23–24 rājabhog (midday meal), 26, 91–108 Rajasthan, 11 Rāma, 5, 43, 66, 72, 171–172 Ramāyan.a, 43 rasa (essence/passion), 18, 21, 45, 49, 64, 72, 83–84, 94, 95, 96, 113, 114, 115–117, 171, 184 linkage with bhāva, 59, 60, 72, 78, 84–87, 127 as liquid, 17, 52–53, 57, 110, 111–112, 127–128, 138–141, 144, 152, 155–160, 163–164, 167, 176 power of, 111–112 reorganization of traditional, 59–60 tasting of, 116–118

sādhanā (secret practice), 107, 183 sagun. (qualified deity), 67 sakhā (male friend), 37 sakhī (female friend), 27 Chandrabhāga, 21–22, 37, 38 counsel to Krishna, 142–145, 161 counsel to Rādhā, 122–132, 137–142, 156 Lalitā (friend of Rādhā), 45, 173–174 role in māna poems, 125–126, 137–149 sakhya bhāva (friendship stance), 34–35, 54, 66 sam˙sāra (transience), 40 sam˙yoga (union), 105, 107 sandalwood, 174–176 sandhyāratī (dinner), 26, 115–20 sānga rūpaka, 158–159 Sankārsan, 106 śānta (peace/repose), 35 Śarad Pūrn.imā, 154, 167 sāttvikabhāvas (crooked glances), 47, 95, 113, 168–169 Satyabhāma, 133 Saubhāgyavatī (one who is auspicious), 138 śayan (bedtime), 26–27, 33–35, 121–149 jealousy and, 121–132 sakhī counsel to Krishna, 142–145, 161 sakhī counsel to Rādhā, 122–132, 137–142 sakhī role in māna poems, 125–126, 137–149 scents/fragrances, 45–46, 58–59, 155, 170, 174–177, 182

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separation metaphor, 17, 38, 43, 87–89, 91, 92, 100–106, 107, 117, 119–120, 124–127, 144, 161–162, 179–185 Śes.a (cosmic serpent), 64, 157 sevā (ritual service), 2, 3, 4–7, 11, 24, 107–108, 176, 187 bhog (meal), 26, 115–120 daily periods in, list, 25–27 gvāl (cowherding), 26, 63–89 integration of the senses (synaesthesia) in, 27–32, 45–48, 58–59, 184, 187–188 man˙galā (early morning), 25, 51–58 rājabhog (midday meal), 26, 91–108 sandhyāratī (dinner), 26, 115–120 śayan (bedtime). See śayan (bedtime) śr.n˙gār, 25–26, 58–61 utthāpan (after the nap), 26, 108–115 Siddhāntamuktāvalī, 177 Siddhāntarahasya, 93, 177 Śiśir, 153 Sītā, 171–172 sitars, 5 Śiva, 5, 64, 95, 138 Smaran. (evocation from memory), 23, 28 Snell, Rupert, 1 S.od.aśagrantha, 93, 177 solar calendar, 152 Sonajuhī, 38 spring, 151, 153–154, 170–172 Śrāddha ritual, 65 Śrī, 43, 95 Śrī Vr.s.abhān, 182 Śrī Navanītapriyajī (Krishna as child who loves butter), 24, 38, 56-7, 82 Śrīnāthjī (form of Krishna), i, 38, 176 Śrīrādhā, 156 Śrīvr.s.abhān, 44–45 Śrīyamuna, 178 śr.n˙gār (adornment), 25–26, 58–61 Stewart, Tony K., 35 Subodhinī (Vallabh), 115, 182 Śuka, 78 Sullivan, Lawrence, 27–28 summer, 173–188

sun as metaphor for Krishna, 52–53 solar calendar, 152 Sūrdās/Sūr Dās, 1, 37 Svakīyā, 166 Svarūp (self-manifestation), 15, 38, 65, 174, 175–178, 186–187 Swāminī (feminine), 73, 124 Śyāmaghan (name for Krishna), 136 Śyāmasundar (name for Krishna), 23–24, 123, 132, 140 Śyām (name for Krishna), 46–47, 57, 64–65, 75, 78, 81, 108, 113, 114, 127, 133, 154, 176 Śyāmamurārī (name for Krishna), 79, 80 synaesthesia, 27–32, 45–48, 58–59, 84–85, 184, 187–188 tabla (drums), 5 tamāl tree, 43, 95–96, 140–141 tāmasa gun.a (least desirable), 171 tāmasa (stubbornness), 115, 124 tambura (drone instrument), 5 Th.ākur, 65 tilak, 165 tirobhāva (concealment), 88-9, 105 Tīrtha, 178 Tok, 37 Tribhangi, 112 Tulsīdās, 66 Uddīpan (background stimulus), 60, 123, 132, 148 Ugrasena, 103 Ujjvalanīlaman.i, 59 Upanis.ads, 67, 40, 156 utsava (festival) cycle, 12 Uttar Pradesh, 11, 152 utthāpan (after the nap), 26, 108–115 Vaikun.t.h, 60–61, 66, 95, 129, 140, 171 Vais.n.avism, 11, 18 Vallabh Sampradāy, 4, 5, 10–11, 15, 20, 25, 35–42, 66–67, 73–74, 85, 93, 104, 107, 115–117, 153, 166, 176–178, 182, 185

Index vara (groom/husband or boon), 138 Vars., 153, 179–183 Vārtās, 11, 20, 37–38, 39, 73, 105 Vārunī, 159 Vasant, 153, 170–172 vātsalya bhāva (parental love stance), 35, 66, 71, 73, 107 Vedas, 20, 38, 52, 64, 75, 76, 138 vibhāvas (categories of stimulants), 60 Vinayapatrikā, 66 viniti (petitioning), 102, 103 viraha (separation from Krishna), 17, 38, 43, 87–89, 91, 92, 100–106, 107, 117, 119–120, 124–127, 144, 161–162, 179–185 Vis.n.u, 11, 43, 95, 101, 128–129, 153, 159 Vis.n.u (Śrī), 43 Vit.t.halnāth, 25, 37, 40, 107 vrats (vows), 7, 169 Vrindavan moon of, 39, 40, 167 pilgrimage road circling, 2

207

temples of, 4 Vr.s.abhān, 96 Vyāsa (divine sage), 20 winter, 168–170 Yādavs (Krishna’s tribe of origin), 154, 155 Yamuna River, 68, 81, 110, 129, 137, 152, 154–155, 167–169, 178, 182, 186 Yaśodā (foster mother of Krishna), 9, 11, 18, 22, 35, 114–116, 157, 161, 180, 181, 182, 185 in daily periods of sevā, 25–27, 50, 51–58, 60–61, 107, 121 flavors of food, 116–118 gopī’s complaints to, 68–89 maternal authority over Krishna, 63–66, 70, 79–81 yellow (color of Krishna), 45–46, 49, 58, 60, 109, 158, 170, 175 yoga, 138 yogīs (ascetics), 67

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RELIGIOUS STUDIES / ASIAN STUDIES

D

SINGING KRISHNA Sound Becomes Sight in Paramānand’s Poetry A. Whitney Sanford Singing Krishnaa introduces Paramānand, one of north India’s greatest medieval poet-saints, whose poetry has been sung from the sixteenth century to the present in ritual service to the Hindu deity Krishna. A. Whitney Sanford examines how hearing Paramānand’s poetry in ritual context serves as a threshold for devotees between this world and Krishna’s divine world. To “see Krishna” is a primary goal of the devotee, and Paramānand deftly constructs a vision through words. Sanford employs the dual strategies of interpreting Paramānand’s poems—which sing the cycles of Krishna’s activities—and illustrating the importance of their ritual contexts. This approach offers insight into the nature of the devotional experience that is not accessible by simply studying the poetry or rituals in isolation. Sanford shows that the significance of Paramānand’s poetry lies not only in its beauty and historical importance but finally in its capacity to permit the devotee to see through the ephemeral world into Krishna’s world. “The beautiful lyrics of Paramānand’s poetry are a welcome addition to the growing body of Indic poetry in translation. Sanford’s excellent book guides us through the poetry and takes us right to its sources.” — Constantina Rhodes Bailly, author of Shaiva Devotional Songs of Kashmir: A Translation and Study of Utpaladeva’s Shivastotravali A. Whitney Sanford is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Florida. State University of New York Press www.sunypress.edu