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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
with her cosmic lover Krishna is eulogized: Jayadeva's 12th century epic poem Gitagovinda portrays Radha's passionate triumph over Sri Krishna who is simultaneously the subject and the object of worship. Krishna remembers Radha with the same kind of sensuality that she does for him; he suffers the pangs of separation from Radha just the same way that she suffers for him; he is just as vulnerable to her irresistible power of loving devotion as she is to his. Krishna, the embodiment of divine love, becomes the object pinning for Radha's love. Throughout the Gitagovinda, Radha is depicted as the heroine who enjoys dominance in the divine relationship; her lover is in her power." "Their parallel emotional states and fantasies express the emotional dependence that binds them into a dual divinity whose nature compromises Krishna's manly dominance" (Miller 1982:25).
Forgive me now!
I won't do this to you again! Give me vision, beautiful Radha!
12
I burn with passion of love.
Damn me! My wanton ways
Made her leave me in anger (3:9) (Miller 1977:83)
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
Offer your lips' nectar to revive a dying slave, Radha!
His obsessed mind and listless body burn in love's desolation.
Narayana is faithful to you now. Love me, Radhika! (12:6) (Miller 1977:123).
Jayadeva imagines Krishna to be vulnerable to pure devotion as exemplified in his Gitagovinda; Vaishnava literature often illustrates that Krishna is just as lured by the love of his devotees as they are towards him and reciprocates in passionate ways.
In the devotional songs of the bhakti saints, namely, Vidyapati of Mithila, Candidas of Bengal, Surdasa and others, Radha is exalted as the epitome of divine love. The 16 century theologian Rupa Goswami characterizes Radha as the supreme model of devotion to Krishna as she is in a perpetual state of yearning for God. Radha therefore, as the quintessence of devotion becomes the paradigm of a devotee's love for God. Male members of the Sakhi Bhava sect of Vaishnavism, more prevalent in Vraja, Bengal, and Rajasthan, dress themselves as women in imitation of gopis as a regular part of their devotional sadhana or penance to Sri Krishna. "It is an extreme attempt to identify with the true inner and essential nature (siddha swarupa) which is usually conceived of as a female gopi. It is a typical effort on the part of some practitioners to transform the identity from its location in the ordinary body to the ultimately real body as revealed by the guru, and thereby inhabit the mystical world of Vraja. As Stanislavsky has taught us, outer physical acts lead to inner world of a character" (Haberman 1988: 137-38). Radha is one with Krishna in the sphere of the divine and at the same time, at par with the milkmaids (gopis) of Vraja in the earthly sphere. In the enactment of and identification with Radha as both divine and human, Krishna in his
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