Do
you think the amorous tales of Radha and Krishna are true love
stories? VOTE
The
Radha-Krishna amour is a love legend of all times. It's indeed hard to miss
the many legends and paintings illustrating Krishna's love affairs, of which
the Radha-Krishna affair is the most memorable. Krishna's relationship with
Radha, his favorite among the 'gopis' (cow-herding maidens), has served as a
model for male and female love in a variety of art forms, and since the sixteenth
century appears prominently as a motif in North Indian paintings. The allegorical
love of Radha has found expression in some great Bengali poetical works of Govinda
Das, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and Jayadeva
the author of Geet Govinda.
Krishna's youthful
dalliances with the 'gopis' are interpreted as symbolic of the loving interplay
between God and the human soul. Radha's utterly rapturous love for Krishna and
their relationship is often interpreted as the quest for union with the divine.
This kind of love is of the highest form of devotion in Vaishnavism,
and is symbolically represented as the bond between the wife and husband or
beloved and lover.
Radha, daughter
of Vrishabhanu, was Krishna's lover during that period of his life when he lived
among the cowherds of Vrindavan. Since childhood they were close to each other
- they played, they danced, they fought, they grew up together and wanted to
be together forever, but the world pulled them apart. He departed to safeguard
the virtues of truth, and she waited for him. He vanquished his enemies, became
the king, and came to be worshipped as a lord of the universe. She waited for
him. He married Rukmini and Satyabhama, raised a family, fought the great war
of Ayodhya, and she still waited. So great was Radha's love for Krishna that
even today her name is uttered whenever Krishna is refered to, and Krishna worship
is though to be incomplete without the deification of Radha.
One day the two
most talked about lovers come together for a final single meeting. Suradasa
in his Radha-Krishna lyrics relates the various amorous delights of the union
of Radha and Krishna in this ceremonious 'Gandharva' form of their wedding in
front of five hundred and sixty million people of Vraj and all the gods and
goddesses of heaven. The sage Vyasa refers to this as the 'Rasa'. Age after
age, this evergreen love theme has engrossed poets, painters, musicians and
all Krishna devotees alike.
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