The Legend of Radha

ऊँ श्री राधे

Today the whole world is mesmerised with the legend of Radha and Krishna. Their eternal, divine and most pure kind of love made many a scholars wonder. Radha and Krishna were the personification of God's love when the Godhead chose to incarnate in male and female forms. Radha remained in Vrindavan while Krishna left for Mathura to achieve the purpose of that life.

It is said that Krishna never returned in physical form to see Radha or to know about her. There are other hypothetical versions in which it is said that Radha met him once again after Mahabharata war was over. According to Hindu mythology, Radha and Krishna weren't separate but two manifestations of the same Godhead in male and female forms, they were one despite being away from each other. They enjoyed each other's company on a divine plain irrespective of the physical circumstances, hence, they need not be together in this physical world. Moreover, the motive of their birth on this earth was different.

After reading all the above versions, I found myself stuck on the mystery of Radha. When I was going through literature by different people on the world wide web,  I found people questioning the existence of Radha all together. Another belief says that Krishna himself was Radha and during the Rasleela, he himself divided into Krishna and Radha and then while dancing appeared many other similar forms of Krishna, who then joined each gopika over there for duet group dance which spell-bound the dark night and gave a small demonstration of how God manifests himself in and around us and the only way to realise this is through pure love. Also, it gave an impression of the miniature model of different unending universes dancing on his music and the one who loves only can hear and dance to it.


After further reading about different opinions a few things were clear to me:
1. I am not the only one who is trying to find the answers
2. Radha remains a mystery which people tend to accept or discard but can't ignore
3. Radha is a manifestation of the supreme Godhead (according to Hindus and many others followers of Krishna all over the world)

If Radha didn't exist earlier and was only a part of stories made up to make Krishna's childhood pastimes more interesting then how do we still find her next to Krishna even in idols thousands of years old (kept in National Museum). There are places like Nandanvan in Vrindavan where Radha and Krishna along with other Gopikas used to meet at night. According to the belief,  Rasleela was first performed here only, and there are sources of water nearby known as Lalita Kund and Radha Kund, it is said that Krishna made well-like structures for them. In Nandanvan, there is a room where it is believed that Krishna and Radha still spend their nights together as a married couple and all the things which priests keep there in the evening, seems used up in the morning when they open up the gates of Nandanvan again. No one stays in Nandanvan after sunset and those who stealthily managed to stay inside, either became disoriented or died on the spot, some saints even took samadhis there. Hence, mystery of Nandanvan is attached to the legend of Radha. People take "Radhe, Radhe" as the mahamantra (supreme chant) and even greet each other with the name of Radha and not Krishna. It is said that Krishna's love for Radha is such that whoever takes her name, Krishna is drawn towards that soul effortlessly. From this self-discussion, I conclude that Radha did exist as her parents and geographical settings are also mentioned in scriptures apart from her name. Radha has been described as the most beautiful Gopika capable of loving selflessly and letting go off her love for the greater purpose of life.

Now, the most important question which still remains a mystery is that why didn't Krishna take Radha with him or why didn't he come back to marry her, taking her to be his queen?

According to scriptures, Radha makes Krishna complete and Krishna wouldn't be able to fight evil, get his people and friends to justice and attain his universal form while being in human body and preach "Bhagwad Geeta", feeling complete. He had to give up on all his binding factors to perform as he made powerful enemies in his life later. The advent of Mahabharata was a difficult time for Pandavas too as they lost all the people they loved in the war, however, they won. They even lost all of their sons as Kauravas cheated them. Krishna wanted to keep his love safe and away from the conflicting situations and never talked about Radha, never letting anyone else know about her. Radha herself offered to stay back at Vrindavan and not to convert Krishna's purpose to just attaining her (a milkmaid) for the queen of His princely state, she agreed that they are one and their love is above ordinary and there are other God loving people to fight for. The world needed Krishna more than Radha, hence, Radha and Krishna departed and never met each other again.

After accepting this explanation, I still find myself wondering - what happened to Radha after Krishna? I shall try to talk about this story further in the next blog...

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