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15. GITA
Modern Godmen in India: A Sociological Appraisal By Uday Mehta, Akshayakumar Ramanlal Desai
It is widely known among the scholars that Radha does not figure in the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavat Gita, Hari Vamsa, Vishnu Purana or even the Bhagavad Purana - the movement's main scripture; Radha, for whom Krishna is presumed to have such intense love, does not figure in Hindu religious literature till about the 10th century A.D.
Alternative Krishnas: Regional And Vernacular Variations On A Hindu Deity Guy L Beck
While there is a brief mention of Radha in the Padma Purana, and even a long discussion of her in the Brahmnavaivarta Purana, the antiquiry and authenticity of these texts is highly contested. The Brahmavaivarta Purana, a "Tantric" Purana probably dating from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries CE, "attempted a thoroughgoing synthesis of Krishaite and Sakta ideas, fitting Radha into the outlines of Hindu feminine theology sa as to accommodate important devotional-theological movements in North India during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries".
On the other hand, "this same synthetic impetus led to an emphasis on Radha's maternal role that was largely peculiar to the Brahmavaivarta and was not acknowledged for the most part by the later Radha cults. To be sure, various notions of Radha in the Brahmavaivrata came to be widely accepted. Such as the identification of Radha and Krishna with prakriti and purusa. And such sects as the Radhavallabhis, who worship Radha above Krishna, may be especially indebted to the Brahmavaivrata" However this text does not really describe Radha as a soverign deity......
The religious writings of Bengali vaishnava were deeply imbued in Tantric thought and practice, wherein Radha becomes theologized Aadysakthi (hladini sakthi), the cosmic energy, the primeval mother of the world, a metamorphoses of the great goddess Durga, whom Krishna once known as his sister, Subhadra, Yagamaya.
In the pious veneration of Radha .....these new groups preferred to distance themselves from Sakta and Tantric traditions that were receiving social disapproval for unsavory and unorthodox practices......wake of twelfth century Sanskrit text, Gitagovinda by Jayadeva in Bengal......... RadhaKrishna became popular .......
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