वीणां करे मधुमतीं मधुरस्वरां ता-
माधाय नागरशिरोमणि-भावलीलाम् ।
गायन्त्यहो दिनमपारमिवाश्रुवर्षै-
र्दुःखान्नयन्त्यहह सा हृदि मेऽस्तु राधा ॥ ४९ ॥
vīṇāṁ kare madhumatīṁ madhura-svarāṁ tām
ādhāya nāgara-śiromaṇi-bhāva-līlām |
gāyanty aho dinam apāram ivāśru-varṣair
duḥkhān nayanty ahaha sā hṛdi me’stu rādhā || 49 ||
“To extinguish the terrible fire of separation, Śrī Rādhā picks up her sweet-toned vīṇā and sings in a dulcet voice about the loving pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the crest-jewel of lovers. Alas, by doing so, she brings to herself endless days of sorrow filled with showers of tears.”
Virahiṇī Śrī Rādhā
Rasa-Varṣiṇī-Vyākhyā: In the absence of a mystical vision, Śrīpāda is offering the agony in his heart at Svāminī’s lotus feet. His entire consciousness is pervaded by Rādhārāṇī. He has no other pursuit. If one’s absorption in his svarūpa is deep, his feeling of separation from Śrī Rādhā will be strong. A sādhaka stricken by viraha will feel anguish. “O Śrī Rādhā! Please let me see you today. Time passes so slowly. I am alone; I lead a solitary life. Without you, with whom shall I be?” This kind of beautiful mood appears in the mind of one affected by Svāminī’s bhāva. In nīlācala-līlā, Śrīman Mahāprabhu personally taught the virahī-rāga-sādhakas of the world that when a sādhaka feels separation from his deity, his mind forgets the world and constantly focuses on the deity. Śrī Gaurāṅgadeva’s behavior in the Gambhīrā is the highest and brightest example of this. āpane kari āsvādane, śikhāila bhakta-gaṇe (Śrī-Caitanya-Caritāmṛtam 2.81). “He taught the bhaktas by tasting it himself.” How wonderful is the anguish in Śrīpāda’s heart! He prays, “Please end my suffering; I am your confidential maidservant. Please engage me in your nectarous service.” Will Svāminī herself not come to console the one for whom she is everything and who weeps in separation from her? By Svāminī’s mercy, a vision of līlā soon appeared before Śrīpāda’s eyes.
In the vision, he sees vāsaka-sajjikā(1) Śrī Rādhā in the bower-house. Knowing that her beloved Śyāmasundara would arrive soon, she was decorating the house and herself in many ways.
svavāsaka-vaśāt kānte sameṣyati nijaṁ vapuḥ |
sajjī-karoti gehaṁ ca yā sā vāsaka-sajjikā ||
“When the nāyikā (heroine) knows for sure that her lover will come, she nicely decorates both her body and the house. She is known as a vāsaka-sajjikā-nāyikā.” (Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi 5.76)
ceṣṭā cāsyāḥ smara-krīḍā-saṅkalpo vartma-vīkṣaṇam |
sakhī-vinoda-vārtā ca muhur dūtīkṣaṇādayaḥ ||
“The behaviors of a nāyikā include desiring to engage in love-play, watching her lover’s arrival path, having playful conversations with her sakhīs, repeatedly looking toward her messenger and so on.” (Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi 5.77) In this way, the specified time for her lover’s arrival passed as she waited. Seeing that he had still not come, Śrīmatī became anxious.
anāgasi priyatame cirayaty utsukā tu yā |
virahotkaṇṭhitā bhāva-vedibhiḥ sā samīritā ||
asyās tu ceṣṭā hṛt-tāpo vepathur hetu-tarkaṇam |
aratir bāṣpa-mokṣaś ca svāvasthā-kathanādayaḥ ||
“If the innocent nāyaka does not come for a long time, the nāyikā becomes anxious, overwhelmed by viraha. According to those who understand bhāva, her behavior includes feeling heartache, trembling, speculating about the cause of her lover’s delay, suffering anxiety, shedding tears, talking about her condition and so on.” (Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi 5.79-80)
In his kiṅkarī form, Śrīpāda sits beside his anxious svāminī and comforts her. Weeping, Śrīmatī describes her condition to the kiṅkarī:
bandhura lāgiyā śeja bichāyaluṁ gāṁthiluṁ phulera mālā |
tāmbūla sājāluṁ dīpa-ujāraluṁ mandira haila ālā ||
sai pāche e-saba haibe āna |
se hena nāgara guṇera sāgara kāche nā milala kāna ||
śāśuḍi-nanade bañcanā kariyā āiluṁ gahana bane |
baḍa sādha mane e rūpa-yaubane milaba bandhura sane ||
patha pāne cāhi kata nā rahiba kata prabodhiba mane |
rasa-śiromaṇi āsiba ekhani dīna caṇḍidāsa bhaṇe ||
“For my lover, I spread out a bed and strung a garland of flowers. I prepared tāmbūla and lit a lamp to brighten the cottage. O friend, I fear that all these will go to waste. Kṛṣṇa, who is an ocean of virtues, has not come near me. I arrived in this dense forest after deceiving my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. I have a great desire to meet with my beloved while I possess this beauty and youth. How long shall I gaze toward his path? How much more can I console my heart?” The humble Caṇḍidāsa says, “Rasa-Śiromaṇi Kṛṣṇa will arrive soon.”
Seeing that her lover had still not come, Śrīmatī picked up her sweet-toned vīṇā and began to sing of Kṛṣṇa’s bhāva-līlā to alleviate her intense agony of separation. Bhāva-līlā means the delightful and sweet pastimes of Rasarāja Śrī Kṛṣṇa with Bhāvamayī Śrī Rādhā. When Kṛṣṇa had met with Śrīmatī earlier, he relieved her pain of separation and gave her the highest joy. She was singing about all of those sweet pastimes while playing her vīṇā. The expression nāgara-śiromaṇi (crest-jewel of lovers) has been used for this reason. One who knows exceptionally well how to awaken viraha in the nāyikā and then make their sweet reunion most delightful, and how to awaken a taste of the thousandfold wonders of each other’s sweet love amidst a thousand anxieties, he is a nāgara-śiromaṇi. Or, bhāva-līlā means the songs about his sweet pastimes, sung with feeling. Here, bhāva means tanmayatā or deep absorption. Bhāva is the name given to the modification of a mind that has assumed the form of the object of contemplation and is untouched by any other knowable object. Meaning, Śrīmatī is singing about the nectarous pastimes of Nāgara-Śiromaṇi with a focused mind, devoid of any other inquiry. On difficult days, the only way the viraha-stricken vraja-sundarīs can sustain their lives is to sing about their beloved’s pastimes. In Bhramara-Gītā (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.47.17), we see this: tad alam asita-sakhyair dustyajyas tat-kathārthaḥ. “Enough of this friendship with a blacksnake! But it is difficult to give up the wealth of his stories.” In a huff, Śrī Rādhā is making a strong display of indignation. Having no desire to say the word śyāma, she instead uses the word asita, or blacksnake. Still, at that moment, she said to a bee, “Oh, everything can be forsaken; even your friend can be abandoned. But we are unable to give up the treasure of singing and hearing his pastimes. We stay alive during this terrible viraha with the help of his stories. If those stories are paused for even a moment, there will be no more life in this body.”
Śrī Rādhā’s vīṇā is madhumatī, meaning that, like honey, it causes restlessness in the mind. Moreover, Śrīmatī is engrossed in sweetly singing the songs of Rasarāja’s sweeter-than-sweet bhāva-līlā. In śrī-nīlācala-līlā, when Śrīman Mahāprabhu felt great viraha in śrī-rādhā-bhāva, he found supreme peace through the songs of this bhāva-līlā.
rāmānandera kṛṣṇa-kathā, svarūpera gāna |
biraha-bedanāya prabhura rākhaye parāṇa ||
dine prabhu nānā-saṅge haya anya-manā |
rātri-kāle bāḍe prabhura biraha-bedanā ||
“The kṛṣṇa-kathā of Rāmānanda and the singing of Svarūpa-Dāmodara sustained Mahāprabhu’s life when he suffered the agony of separation. During the day, his mind was distracted by the association of various devotees, but at night the pain increased.” (Śrī-Caitanya-Caritāmṛtam, Antya 6.6-7)
To alleviate her pain of separation, Śrīmatī began to sing sweetly about her bhāva-līlā, accompanied by the pleasant tones of her vīṇā. Though her heart was being showered with nectar, externally she began to feel a great increase in the pain of separation, due to her passions having been inflamed by Śyāmasundara today. bahir biṣa-jvālā haya, antara ānandamaya, kṛṣṇa-premāra adbhuta carita. “Outside, torment like that caused by poison; inside, complete joy. Such is the amazing nature of kṛṣṇa-prema.” (Śrī-Caitanya-Caritāmṛtam, Madhya 2.50) Śrīmatī had been bathed by a stream of her own tears, flowing like a river in the monsoon season, causing her kiṅkarī to cry too. As she sang the songs of bhāva-līlā, she was thinking, “Where is that ocean of virtues now? The world feels empty in want of a vision of my lover.” While in rādhā-bhāva, Śrīman Mahāprabhu also had a vision of this kind of viraha. He said,
yugāyitaṁ nimeṣeṇa cakṣuṣā prāvṛṣāyitam |
śūnyāyitaṁ jagat sarvaṁ govinda-viraheṇa me ||
“Because I miss Govinda, a moment feels like a yuga, my eyes are like the rainy season and the whole world seems empty.” (Śikṣāṣṭakam 7)
udvege dibasa nā yāya, kṣaṇa haila yuga-sama |
barṣāra megha-prāya aśru bariṣe nayana ||
gobinda-birahe śūnya haila tribhubana |
tuṣānale poḍe yena nā yāya jībana ||
“When I am in such anxiety, the day stands still. A moment feels like a yuga. Tears pour from my eyes like rain from a monsoon cloud. The three worlds seem empty in Govinda’s absence. May my life not burn in the fire of suffering.” (Śrī-Caitanya-Caritāmṛtam, Antya 20.40-41)
Śrīmatī is bringing days of misery with an endless shower of tears. The meaning of the phrase ‘is bringing days of misery’ is that, as the saying goes, a period of suffering is difficult to get through. But for the girls of Vraja, the period of feeling separation from Śrī Kṛṣṇa is so very long. There is no way to understand this through the experience of suffering viraha in the world. The reason is that for those who feel śrī-kṛṣṇa-viraha, even one moment seems like a yuga. In śrī-kṛṣṇa-viraha, the perception of a moment as an eon is a characteristic of mahābhāva. All of the anubhāvas(2) of mahābhāva appear in Śrī Rādhārāṇī in an extraordinary way. Even her sakhīs are unable to understand how much she suffers from viraha. In śrī-rādhā-bhāva, Śrīman Mahāprabhu said,
anyera ye duḥkha mane, anya tāhā nāhi jāne,
satya ei śāstrera bicāre |
anya-jana kāṁhā likhi, nāhi jāne prāṇa-sakhī,
yāte kahe dhairya dharibāre ||
“According to śāstra, one person cannot know the misery in the heart of another. Not to speak of others, even my dearest friends cannot understand, so they just tell me to be patient.” (Śrī-Caitanya-Caritāmṛtam, Madhya 2.23)
Even the sakhīs’ attempts to console Śrī Rādhā’s viraha-stricken heart were unsuccessful. Śrīpāda, in his kiṅkarī-form, was stunned to see how much she was suffering. She decided to go and search for Śyāmasundara to alleviate Śrī Rādhā’s pain. She mused, “If Śyāma is sitting in the rival Candrāvalī’s kuñja, and there is no opportunity to tell him of Śrī Rādhā’s condition, then what will be the solution? If he can understand Śrī Rādhā’s pain of separation by seeing my sorrowful face, without me having to speak, then he will come here quickly.” Therefore, she prays at the feet of Śrī Rādhā, “O Rādhā, who are afflicted by the pain of separation, please appear in my heart.” sā hṛdi me’stu rādhā. For this reason, she is praying for Śrī Rādhā to appear in her heart. The kiṅkarī does not want Śrī Rādhā to be sad. By nature, the body, mind and soul of a sakhī are one with the body, mind and soul of Śrī Rādhā. For example,
pataty asre sāsrā bhavati pulake jāta-pulakāḥ
smite bhāti smerā sumalimani jāte sumalināḥ |
anāsādya svālir mukuram abhivīkṣya svavadanaṁ
sukhaṁ vā duḥkhaṁ vā kim api kathanīyaṁ mṛga-dṛśaḥ ||
“When a tear falls from her eyes, her friend becomes tearful. When she has goosebumps, her friend has goosebumps. When she smiles, her friend smiles. When she feels sad, her friend feels sad. Even without meeting with this doe-eyed girl, her friend can describe whether she is happy or sad just by looking at her own face in a mirror.” (Alaṅkāra-Kaustubhaḥ 3.59) Śrī Kṛṣṇa said, “O doe-eyed girl! When your sakhīs are present before you, what need do you have for a mirror?” The emotional oneness of the kiṅkarīs with Śrī Rādhā is even more profound. Moreover, the kiṅkarī will go to Śyāmasundara carrying her virahiṇī-svāminī in her heart. Therefore, she prays, “May Śrī Rādhā reside in my heart.”
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1. A woman preparing to meet her lover
2. An anubhāva is an external manifestation or indication of a feeling.
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