Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c8.s3.13

c8.s3.13

The ordinary classification of the Nāyikā of classical Poetics is accepted, but some complication is introduced by conceiving the heroine as the Beloved of Kṛṣṇa (Hari-vallabhā) from the devotional point of view. The Nāyikā may be Svīyā (one's own) or Parakiyā (another's) according as the hero is husband (Pati) or lover (Upa-pati). Mention is made of Kṛṣṇa's sixteen thousand wives in Vraja and one hundred and eight in Dvārakā, although we are assured that the actual number is infinite! We are told (pp. 41f) that the Gopīs of Vraja were in fact married according to Gāndharva rites (self-choice), and as such they should be taken as Svīyā heroines, but they are generally considered (prāyena viśrutā) in Kṛṣṇa's Prakaṭa-līla (Manifest Sport) as Parakiyā, because of the secrecy of their love (*pracchanna-kāmatā*) and the unmanifest character of the marriage (*avyaktatvād vivāhasya*).¹ There was, however, no jealousy on the part of the Gopas towards Kṛṣṇa for sporting with their wives, because through the Māyā of Kṛṣṇa each had an apparent wife with him (cf. *Śrīmad-bhāgavata*, x. 33. 37); and the immaculateness of the Vrajadevīs is declared by the assumption that they never had any real union with their husbands.² Each of these two kinds³ of the heroine, the Svīyā and the Parakīyā, is classified again, in accordance with the scheme of classical Poetics, into the adolescent and artless (Mugdhā), the youthful (Madhyā), and the mature and audacious (Pragalbhā). Of these, the Madhyā and the Pragalbhā, according to their capacity for Māna, may be Dhīrā (self-possessed), Adhīrā (not self-possessed) and Dhīrādhīrā (the partially self-possessed), They are further arranged, according to the eightfold diversity of their condition or situation in relation to the hero, into (i) the Abhisārikā, who goes out and meets the hero in assignation, (ii) the Vāsaka-sajjā, who adorns herself in expectation of the hero, (iii) the Utkaṇṭhitā, who is disappointed by his non-arrival through misadventure or involuntary absence, (iv) the Vipralabdhā, who is deceived of her expectation by unfaithfulness, (v) the Khaṇḍitā, who is outraged by the discovery of marks of unfaithfulness in the hero, (vi) the Kalahāntaritā, who is separated by quarrel, (vii) the Proṣita-bhartṛkā, who pines for the absence of the hero gone abroad, and (viii) the Svādhīna-bhartṛkā, who has the hero under absolute control. They may again, according to the rank each holds in the affection of the hero, be Uttamā (best), Madhyamā (middling) and Kaniṣṭhā (lowest).