Gopalacampu 1.23

(25) / Now begins the twenty-fifth chapter,

[entitled] “The Arrest of Separation and the Attainment of Śrī Kṛṣṇa.”

[1] Then Madhukaṇṭha said: “Let that song be heard, as follows:

“‘O moon of Vraja, look upon our condition! / O moon of Vraja, look upon our condition! //

Vraja is exceedingly glorious because of your birth; / even Indirā takes refuge in its dust. / Yet, alas, you have abandoned us here, / and how can we ever turn to anyone else, O Lord? //

Since with your eyes you constantly steal / that goddess of beauty from the host of petals / of the lotus which belongs to the highest class, is naturally supreme, / and born in autumn, //

how indeed can we, having attained purity, / be capable of staying outside of it? / Indeed, we were bound by you through your begging, / and even bound of your own accord through a boon. //

Having thus become your handmaidens, / why do you kill us with that very glance? / For here, slaughter is perceived only by a weapon, / not by an eye; yet that opinion is inferior! //

Since the whole of Gokula along with the forest / was protected by you from manifold dangers, / we think that was merely self-preservation; / yet has even that [protection] been destroyed because of affection for you? //

O protector of the wretched, O son of the queen of Vraja! / An appropriate understanding is perishable; / thus, like yourself, freedom from contamination / appears bitter through the suffering of others. //

You are not prone to anger like anyone else, / because you appear as the protector of the universe, O Lord! / Therefore here, implored by the lotus-born [Brahmā], / you who are self-born appeared in the supreme lineage of the Sātvatas. //

Therefore, that hand of yours, the master, / which terrifies the fear of well-known saṃsāra— / place that auspicious grasp of the hand upon our heads; / do not consider this earnest request in any other way! //

O hero, in removing the fear of those dwelling in Vraja, / you pacify the anger of women with your mere smile; / therefore, do not mete out punishment otherwise here; / manifest the great splendor of your countenance! //

Although your foot is the abode of fortune, / destroying affliction, a great banner of merit, / nevertheless it pursued the herds of cows, / and danced upon the head of the venomous serpent. //

Since whatever condition befell it / became of itself a place of peace, / alas, why do you not place it slightly upon our breast / which is burning with separation from you, and protect [us]? //

By your sweet play captivating to the ear, / your clear speech clearly understood, / and your words long habituated to the fragrance of your mouth, / alas, we have become thirsty! //

The nectar of your words is the life of the distressed, / praised by poets, the destroyer of sins; / those who distribute it—those wicked ones / have immediately made us understand abandonment! //

Your laughter, your rolling eyes, / charming in sentiment through the manner of your wandering, / and the sound of your flute which laments everything, / release our life-breaths from the forest! //

When you walk to pasture the cows, / our minds shatter over the cause of that: / the tenderness of your two feet / that became afflicted with stones, grass, and shoots has turned to our [own distress]! //

Alas, our hearts burn violently! / Remember your own people who consider themselves wretched! / O lover, let your lotus foot / be placed deeply in the heart of such women as these! //

Alas, when you go to the forest by day, / to those who cannot repeatedly behold / your radiant face with curly locks, / that moment constantly seems to bear the character of an eon! //

What also can be said of this in Vraja, / where even Nimi is cursed? / How indeed can we, being those cowherd maidens, / not become angry over that? // / Entangled in the widespread net of your song, / transgressing our own kin, and tormented, / we have come into your hand in the region of the great forest; / what deceitful man would abandon women at night? //

Your smile, O beloved, your loving glance, / your gentle laughter and other lovely marks, / and your broad chest, the abode of fortune, are seen; / and our own foolishness is beheld by us! //

At the end of the day, with the darkness of your curls on one side, / and the evening twilight of the scattered cow-dust on the other, / repeatedly showing your face regarded as the lord of the night, / you bestow love! //

Where the flute, desiring nothing else / because of the increase of its own passion, becomes a witness— / bestow that liquid of your lower lip, the destroyer of grief, / O hero, which is the food that gives life! //

That which you imagined as lust / was indeed a fiction born of the power of cleverness; / how could we, whose thoughts are constantly filled with affection, / ever fall into lust? //

Your manifestation destroys the distress / of the residents of the cowherd settlement whose lives shine; / bestow it once upon us who yearn for you, / since here it destroys the pain of affectionate hearts.’” //

[2] Having sung this aloud, they said this as well: “Your lotus feet, so soft …” [Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.31.19], and so forth.

[3] And on this, there is this prose explanation: Your pair of feet is softer than a pair of lotuses; when out of affection we desire to place them upon our breasts, we hesitate, judging that our breasts are exceedingly hard, and we long to place them there only very gently. Alas, then, when you, hard-hearted, wander through the rough forest, does it not pain them on account of sharp gravel and stones? Indeed it certainly pains them, for in us who dwell upon thoughts of that, and whose very lives depend on you alone, that [pain] immediately passes into our minds. Therefore, that wandering of yours is our very heartache, and caressing them is its pacification. Thus, 'Bestow their caressing' is the intended meaning.

[4] Such being the case—

The singing of those women then turned into lamentation, / and that into loud weeping; that was no wonder in their case. / If someone's excessively bold thirst is able to see Kṛṣṇa by force, / in another too, alas, all those various states are seen a hundredfold here. ||

[5] Then, as those fair-toothed maidens were weeping and wiping away smooth streams of tears at the corners of their eyes, the slayer of Mura, perceiving it little by little as darkness joined them from their closeness [of distress], unseen even by hundreds of eyes because their eyes were blurred with tears, suddenly surrounded by effulgence sat in the midst of them all, and concealed his fame by being covered with his garment.

[6] One maiden there, though her eager eyes caught a slight perception of his arrival, thought, 'Like before, this is placed before me by an unprecedented flash of imagination,' and merely repeated softly with gentle murmur, 'Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa!'

[7] And hearing that name with their ears, the women of exquisite complexion, observing him near themselves to ascertain it, swiftly attained fulfillment,

[8] like rivers whose flow had shrunk exceedingly due to the long heat of summer [attaining fullness] from the dense union with massive rain-clouds. For in both cases, the state of life having almost departed had arrived at its limit.

[9] And the sight of him was as follows: / Revealing that it was a playful jest, he appeared among them, separated [no more]; / smiling, withdrawing immediately, reflective, clad in yellow garments, / touching the two ends of his garland with both hands to display true modesty, / adorned with a garland, the conqueror of Cupid's pride, the refuge of extreme beauties, the lord of Śrī. ||

And then: / As the beloved seemed to assume neutrality on every side out of shame for having abandoned them, / he was surrounded all around with exceeding haste by those beloved maidens. / If the ocean maintains a shrinking brought on by the ebb tide, / the rivers straightway assume a swift course toward it. ||

[10] Among them who were approaching with competitive eagerness, one was first described by venerable Parāśara, thus:

"One maiden, seeing Govinda / arriving, overjoyed, / cried, 'Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa!' / and uttered nothing else." || This was the one named Bhadrā.

[11] Now the one described by the venerable son of Bādarāyaṇa is described:

One placed the hand of Murāri / into her cupped palms, / as one would place an excellent lotus / within a cup of fresh leaves. || This was Candrāvalī.

Likewise: / One, under a pretext, placed his lotus-foot / on her breasts; / having attained the fulfillment of her desire, / she was as if performing the worship of Śiva. || This was Padmā. / Likewise: / A slender maiden received in her cupped hands / the chewed betel from his mouth; / when she acted as if she were / the vessel of his passion. || This was Śaivyā.

Likewise: / One placed his arm, smeared with sandalpaste, / upon her shoulder; / she who demonstrated her own competence / both through her body and through her affection. || This was Śyāmalā, on the left side. / Likewise: / But she whose winking was banished made the pair of king-bees of her two eyes / drink deeply the lotus of his face; / she realized the full poetic metaphor, / for they conquered whatever glory tasting aesthetic rasa had. || That was Lalitā.

Likewise: / In his presence, one woman, her mind attached to bashfulness as if by the power of a mere glance, / stood motionless like a painting, with closed eyes and marvelous bristling of hairs. / Regarding her whose beloved was enclosed within her heart, my wonder is: / in the very midst of separation, here too she attained union and enjoyment—so she is contemplated. || / This was Viśākhā.

Likewise: / Love gives birth to anger, though in vain; the eye is the weapon here, / and that [eye], even while motionless in its place, appears to pierce afar; / and that piercing causes pain to Śrī Hari even without a wound: / who could describe her whose conduct is something so extraordinary? || / This was Śrī Rādhā; these were in front.

Likewise: / The beauty of the faces of all [the others] blossomed / with delight at the arrival of the dark cloud Kṛṣṇa; / having attained an auspicious festival, / they were instantly perfected and made new again. || These were on all sides.

The multitude of young maidens shone forth, / imparting incomparable splendor to Kṛṣṇa's form, the vessel of limitless beauty. / But that this poetic work has ended without a simile / is not my fault here, for the truth is indeed just like that. ||

[12] Thus, by the play residing in their faces and eyes, which bestowed the supreme intoxication of passion upon one another, the moon-and-cakora-bird relationship between them and him blossomed like a creeper.

[13] And so, within a few moments, having attained a host of festive celebrations, taking them along respectfully, the lord of Vṛndāvana, playing without shame, resorted to another charming sandy sandbank on the shore, which was the nest of waters resembling the play of fluttering waves of the Yamunā that were pathways for breezes born among water-lilies.

[14] Indeed, he accepted that very [riverbank] which had been begged for with firmly resolved intent by the most blessed daughter of the sun-god herself through her hundreds of thousands of hands in the form of excellent waves; which was embraced by a fragrance-bearing wind having the charming scent of the filaments of lotuses; which possessed soft sands as white as bright clouds; which dispelled the mass of darkness even from afar because it was smeared with the nectar from the multitude of rays of the autumn moon; and which was made sweet by noisy bees intoxicated by the joy of the fragrance of swarms of water- and land-born flowers.

[15] And when that most agreeable riverine bank was accepted, he whose eyes danced with a smile, whose eyes by his very name were white lotus petals, the dispeller of anguish, seated in a svastikāsana spread out upon the cloths of the fresh breasts marked with choice saffron laid down by their own hands by all his youthful female companions, attained the status of an arena for the arts of music in the style of hymns of praise. Thus:

Above him, the moon is an umbrella; along the ground, the riverbank strewn with diamond-dust
is an opulent throne; all around, hundreds of flowering groves are like archways;
his body is radiant amidst the rows of goddesses of fortune born of the cowherd families of Vraja, of splendid golden hue;
he is the coveted abode of love and beauty, lustrous like an emerald—I remember that lord of life! ||

[16] And then, being offered by the handmaidens of Vṛndāvana—the goddesses of the forest headed by Vṛndā—garlands preserved with supreme care, divine perfumes, campaka flowers, camphor, sandalwood, sweet honey, and betel nut conducive to intoxicating pleasure, the beloved, together with his beloveds, shone in honored greatness, their playful exchanges of banter increasing for half a moment.

[17] And shining thus, he entered into conversation with those deer-eyed maidens of Vraja whose proud anger was concealed.

[18] And then, while they were stealing away the parching of the heart that had arisen from intentions filled with wrath fueled by the fault of his pointless desertion, and while they were manifesting something resembling satisfaction, as he was carrying on a conversation full of diverse amusements pregnant with conciliation,

One woman gently massaged his hand, another his foot, likewise another his thigh,
and another his waist;
secretly angry within, but outwardly of pure intent,
one addressed him with a smile spreading through her eyebrows and eyes: ||

[19] And some describe it thus:

With glances of the eyes, movements of the brows, concealed gentle smiles,
charming chatter, internal ironies, and outward straightness of manner,
those women of clever minds, out of the art of love, addressed to that dear Kṛṣṇa
who was submissive to their will a statement mixed with a riddle: ||

[20] "O Indra among the cities of the clever! Unfold a bud of a riddle. For example:

Some love those who love them; some do not; others love no one at all;
some love both; and others do not love either of the helpless." ||

[21] But Śrī Kṛṣṇa, understanding that in his heart, declared:

"They are, in order: the selfish, destroyers of benefits received, the righteous, composers of moral maxims,
the utterly bewildered, the fully self-satisfied, the liberated, and the compassionate." ||

[22] And hearing that, with eyebrows moving to and fro, they communicated this to one another by the dancing of their creeper-like brows:

"By clever tricks he draws us here, yet points to the abode of duty while abandoning us;
what remains for him, then, is only to be merciless,
since he does not see our intense grief!" ||

[23] Here, by "clever tricks" is meant his not knowing genuine benefit; by "points to the abode of duty" is meant unrighteousness; by both of these is meant being devoid of both [categories]; furthermore, by "clever tricks" is meant being utterly bewildered; by "draws us" with those [tricks] is meant being fully self-satisfied and liberated. In that context, because he did not have his own deed in view, being a destroyer of benefits received is negated. And in abandonment, due to the absence of seeing our grief, mercilessness alone remains: thus the pun applies.

[24] But he, understanding it thus, spoke again to show his innocence:

"I am not like them; rather, you should think of me as greedy for the abundance
of your love, and alas, even by causing separation from its object, I desire it!
What can you say against me here? From the appearance of being deceitful,
it is this vice of mine that repeatedly torments me and causes me pain. ||

Abandoning everything, you constantly desire only me;
but those who are desirable to me are hundreds of thousands, according to the distinctions of love.
Therefore, I am not able to offer even the semblance of a small fraction of repayment;
thus, be pleased only by your own excellent qualities!" ||

[25] Thus, having comprehended this blameless speech of Kṛṣṇa:

Not only on account of his charm did this group of beloveds perceive his handsome form here;
with deep longing, they also perceived it on account of Kṛṣṇa's wisdom. ||

[26] There, this was the playful utterance from the sky of the celestial women:

"O Mādhava, why do you derive joy from the virtue of the cowherd maidens,
who speak with crooked eyes following their liking, and crookedly following their praise? ||

Let that singular elephant of proud anger belonging to the fair-browed maidens of Vraja be victorious,
for though subdued by Hari, its prowess is still feared!" ||

[27] Now the conclusion:

"O Rādhā, this friend of yours, illuminated by an intellect steeped in cleverness,
considered you alone to be fully capable there, even when you remained silent." ||

Thus ends the twenty-fifth chapter, named "The Attaining of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the Checking of Frustration in Love," in the venerable Gopālacampū. ||25