Krishna and Radha

The romance between Krishna and Radha is explained as follows: Radha, it was held, was the soul while Krishna was the god. Radha's sexual passion for Krishna symbolised the soul's intense longing and her willingness to commit adultery expressed the utter priority which must be accorded to love for her god. If ultimate union was symbolised by romantic love, then clearly nothing could approach such love in ultimate significance. In deserting their husbands and homes and wilfully committing adultery, Radha and the cowgirls were therefore illustrating a profound religious truth. Not only was their adultery proof of Krishna's charm, it was vital to the whole story. By worldly standards, they were committing the gravest of offences but they were doing it for Krishna who was deity himself. They were therefore setting the god above home and duty, they were leaving everything for love of the god and in surrendering their honour, were providing the most potent symbol of what devotion meant.

Krishna's flute was his call which caused the souls of men, the cowgirls, to forsake their worldly attachments and rush to love him. In removing the clothes of the cowgirls and requiring them to come before him naked, he was demonstrating the innocent purity with which the soul should wait on G-d. In himself neglecting Radha and toying with the cowgirls, he was proving, on one level, the power of worldly pleasure to seduce the soul but on another level, the power of the deity to love every soul irrespective of its character and status. From this point of view, the cowgirls were as much the soul of men as Radha herself and to demonstrate the deity's all-pervasive love, Krishna must therefore love not only Radha but every cowgirl. Equally, in the circular dance, by inducing every cowgirl to think that she and she alone was his partner, Krishna was proving how he is available to all.

Finally, it was realised that even those portions of the story which, at first sight, seemed cruel and callous were also susceptible of religious interpretation. When Radha has been loved in the forest and then is suddenly deserted, the reason is her pride - pride that because Krishna has loved her, she can assert herself by asking to be carried. Such assertiveness is incompatible with the kind of humble adoration necessary for communion with Krishna. To prove this, therefore, Radha's pride must be destroyed and Krishna resorts to this seemingly brusque desertion. Action, which by human standards would be reprehensible is once again a means for imparting spiritual wisdom.

In a similar way, Krishna's departure for Mathura and final abandonment of the cowgirls was accorded a religious interpretation. At one level, his departure symbolised ?the dark night of the soul, the experience which comes to every devotee when, despite the most ardent longing, the vision fades. At another level, it illustrated how life must be lived when Krishna or Vishnu was no longer on earth. If Krishna's love-making was intended to symbolise the ultimate rapture, his physical absence corresponded to conditions as they normally existed. In instructing the cowgirls to meditate upon him in their minds, Krishna was only attuning them to life as it must necessarily appear after he has left the human stage.

Abigail Sarah Bagraim, Email info@abigailsarah.co.za

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