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RELIGIOUS SECTS
bharat* is a very different personage, being the wife of DURYODHANA's charioteer, and the nurse of KARNA. Even the Bhagavat makes no particular mention of her amongst the Gopis of Brindávan, and we must look to the Brahma Vaivartta Purana, as the chief authority of a classical character, on which the pretensions of RÁDHÁ are founded; a circumstance which is of itself sufficient to indicate the comparatively modern date of the Purána.
According to this work **, the primeval being having divided himself into two parts, the right side became KRISHŃA, and the left Rádná, and from their union, the vital airs and mundane egg were generated. Rádhá being, in fact, the Ichchha Sakti, the will or wish of the deity, the manifestation of which was the universe.
Rádhá continued to reside with KRISHŃa in Goloka, where she gave origin to the Gopís, or her female companions, and received the homage of all the divinities. The Gopas, or male attendants of KŃSHŇA, as we have formerly remarked, were in like mamer produced from his person. The grossness of Hindu personification ascribes to the KŘISHĽA of the heavenly Goloka the defects of the terrestial cowherd, and the RÁDHÁ of that region is not more exempt from the causes or effects of jealousy than the nymph of Brindávan. Being on one occasion offended with KŘISHNA for his infidelity, she denied him access to her palace,
* [V, 4759. 60.]
** [II, 45. 46.]
