Kanupriya in the Light of Sri Aurobindo

Introduction to Kanupriya

Dharmvir Bharti, in his introduction, presents his thought process while writing Kanupriya. The essential question raised in this work is how to create a compassionate world in contrast to the turbulent one in which we live. Tired of conflict and violence, we often turn away from it and go inwards and the peace it offers. At such times, we feel that outside turbulence is unimportant.  Its causes and aims are insignificant. What is significant is the transformative power of compassion and love that belong to our minds and hearts. In moments of deep meditative contemplation, the past, present and future all merge, making us forget our egoistic selves for a while.[1] If these moments are given a chance to grow, they can transform consciousness, and as Sri Aurobindo says, a divine life will then be created on earth, a concept that inspires us and uplifts our spirits.

Those engrossed in the outside world decry that what is within is futile, a mere escape.  Similarly, those delving within constantly remind us of the futility of our egotistic actions that only create unrest, violence and destruction. The question arises of finding a balance between the outer and inner worlds, a central theme in the text.  Unable to find it, people make a sharp distinction between the two. Some have tried to achieve the balance by first spending some time in the outside world and then retreating within, realising its hollowness. Others take the opposite route. They feel that living in the inner world does not achieve much. It can be termed escapism as society and its challenges are important and must be dealt with.  Thus, there is a constant oscillation between the two worlds, and we adjust to it.

In his work, Dharmvir Bharti uses Radha to explore these contemporary issues, particularly of conflict and violence. Radha, who embodies love through her life steeped in her love for Krishna, is a powerful symbol of the evolution of consciousness, the quest of the finite to merge with the infinite. Her journey progresses to a point where the avowed greatness of the outside world becomes meaningless for her. She measures all actions by the yardstick of her inner world. Dharmvir Bharti raises the same issues in a different genre in his play Andha Yuga.[2] He begins from a diametrically opposite point of view of the dire consequences of living in the ruthless outer world of ambition and strategy unmediated by compassion. It presents the last day of the Mahabharata war, when everything has been destroyed, and the blind old King Dhritrashtra sits with his blindfolded queen Gandhari, receiving the news of the death of one son after another. What emerges clearly is that human failings of lust, anger, ego, attachment, and jealousy have resulted in the Mahabharata war and the death and destruction caused by it.

Kanupriya approaches the issue from the opposite end of only living through the world of love. However, in the background of Radha’s world of love, the echoes of the coming war can always be heard. The concerns of the world are never far away. Radha’s love evolves from adolescent longings to physical and emotional ecstasy. These constitute the first two sections – Purvarag and Manjari Parinay. This is the first stage of the love of Radha and Krishna. In the second phase, their love permeates the entire creation, as Purush and Prakriti. Finally, we come to the time when Krishna leaves the world of love to get embroiled in the outside world as he becomes the strategist, the adviser and the creator of history, a new world order, through the Mahabharata War. However, the cruelty and destruction make him, in the end, turn once again to Radha as he searches for her love. The whole creation resounds with his realisation of the futility of war as a solution to any problem. Radha had been excluded from the world of kingship, and the ambition in which both the Kauravas and the Pandavas fight for the throne of Hastinapur to be obtained at any cost, even if in its quest, the entire family and the kingdom itself would be destroyed.

As Krishna searches for Radha’s love, she reminds him that a sustainable world cannot be created through violence. Without the truth of love and compassion, everyone can only become cruel and bloodthirsty. The question at the end is why Krishna excluded Radha when he sought to create history. She will wait for aeons, if necessary, till love can be woven into the fabric of future events, as that alone is the solution in the world.

Who is Radha

Meghnad Desai gives a brief account of the origins of Radha.[3] According to him, Radha is a paradox because nothing is more natural than her, yet nothing is more concocted. She did not have a divine status to begin with. No mention is made of her in Vyasa’s Mahabharat, Harivamsa, or even in Bhagwat, which dates back to the eighth century. She is just one of the gopis Krishna plays with. He has eight principal queens and 16,100 minor queens, but his name is not associated with any of these women. We do not talk of Krishna Rukmini or Krishna and Satyabhama. There is only Radha Krishna. Sometimes, even Krishna is forgotten, and there is only Radhey Radhey, a popular greeting. Radha and Krishna are seen together in the temples, and temples are dedicated to Radha alone.

Appearing a thousand years after the Mahabharata, she usurps the position of Krishna’s favourite consort. She is generally described as betrothed, if not a married woman. There is no secret about the passionate lovemaking the youthful Krishna and the older woman indulge in by the river banks in Gokul and Vrindavan. She disappears from the later story of Krishna, never to be mentioned again. He leaves her behind without any farewell. It is as if she does not matter to him. And yet, it is Radha Krishna, the celebrated pair.

K.M. Munshi,[4] the founder of Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan wrote a seven-volume historical novel about Krishna: Krishnavatar. He prefaces this chapter on Radha by saying that Radha is a popular creation. She appears first in Tamil and Prakrit sources. Nappinai in Silappadikaram, according to him, is much like Radha. In the Gatha Saptasati, written in the second century A.D., Radha is mentioned. From then onwards, Radha, according to Munshi, is frequently mentioned in the erotic poetry of Prakrit authors. In her translation, Miller confirms the name Nappinai, which comes from the south Indian recension of Harivamsa as Krishna’s wife. Of course, the climax comes in Jaydeva’s Gita Govind. It became a classic within a century, and Radha Krishna worship spread throughout India. Vidyapati and Chaitanya, coming later, also included Radha in their poems.

Mandakanta Bose[5] traces the Puranic origins of Radha, which developed into an allegory of the human-divine relationship. According to her, Radha is not mentioned in Vayu, Matsya, and Varah Puranas, but in the Devi Bhagwat, Brahma Vaivarta Purana, and Padma Purana, Radha is seen as complementary to Krishna. She is Krishna’s Shakti. Her elevation, says Mandakanta Bose, is complete when, at one point, she is identified as Lakshmi.

Because Radha’s love was once intense and illicit, it has been a magnet for poets and artists. Her pining for Krishna, points out Mandakanta Bose, appears in early writings by Hala, Bhatta Narayan, Vakpati, Anandavardhana, Abhinavgupta, Rajashekhar, Kshemendra and Hemchandra. But perhaps the most brilliant celebration of the Radha Krishna theme appears in the 12th-century poet Jaydeva’s Gita Govinda. In several parts, this long poem portrays the culmination of their love in the romantic idiom of love poetry. Still, it uses it allegorically as the human soul’s spiritual union with the ultimate being. Jaydeva identifies her with Shri and Laxmi, and Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu.

Radha’s deification has been problematic for some devotees who find it challenging to come to terms with an unsanctioned relationship between Radha and Krishna. The Vallabh Sampradaya, for instance, tries to justify her relationship with Krishna by portraying her as his wife. At the same time, Vaishnavas think of Krishna as the only male in the cosmos and its sole Creator.[6] That is why both male and female Vaishanavites see themselves as Radha to Krishna. Today, most devotees accept Radha and Krishna as transcendental lovers, not as a married couple. On the social plane, Vaishnavas understand Radha’s love as the ultimate type of selfless attachment because she sacrifices her reputation by rejecting social norms. On the metaphysical plane, Vaishnavas, particularly those of the Bengali tradition, take her love as a potent metaphor for the human yearning for the divine.

Meghnad Desai explores why it was necessary to invent to create Radha as Krishna’s consort. Perhaps although Krishna was mighty in battle and diplomacy, not to mention as the person who recites the Gita to Arjuna, he lacked something. Rama had Sita, Vishnu had Lakshmi, and Shiva had Parvati. But who did Krishna have? 16108 women could hardly be significant in his life. He needed one woman for whom he cared over all others, one who could pine for him and make him miserable if she neglected him. Jaydeva’s Radha is a nayika longing for Krishna. Even when she is sad, she is proud. She will not go to Krishna, where he may be playing with the many gopis. She sends her friend to fetch Krishna, who finally arrives to complete their union, although not without being scolded by Radha for his dalliance. Without Radha, Krishna is incomplete and hence not fully divine. Radha completes Krishna. Therefore, he needs Radha as much as Radha needs Krishna.

Radha was a short, radiant and intense presence in Krishna’s life, and it is that which determines her identity. Its shortness provides the intensity to the love of Radha and Krishna. She does not appear later in his life as he goes on to accomplish many things. As Desai says, she is the ephemeral but luminous – a dazzling, beautiful and erotic-- presence in his life. In her, he finds fulfilment as in no other. Since Radha is a creation of Krishna’s devotees, they have imagined all this because they want to associate Krishna with a unique woman. He cannot have her for himself because she is married. The devotee, too, cannot have God for herself. Krishna is willing to spend intense moments with Radha, knowing full well that these moments are precious and limited. So, the brief time together has to be enjoyed with great intensity. This is what the devotee will do, too, as he or she contemplates Radha and Krishna intensely for a short while. Their longing is akin to that of Radha and Krishna for each other. Radha and Krishna steal a few moments together and achieve a perfect union. This is also all the devotee can hope for.

Desai also analyses the significance of Radha’s emergence from the periphery of Hinduism rather than in its core mythology. It is probably because of the spread of bhakti, which is at the heart of it. The Bhakti movement originated in South India and went north. The multiple gods in the Rg. Veda later got truncated within Hinduism into a few gods – Shiva, Vishnu and Kali in their multiple manifestations. In bhakti yoga, the devotee must have a personal relationship with her god. Krishna filled the need for a personal God with whom the devotee could associate in human relationships. Radha, the embodiment of the bhakta, could chide Krishna and love, get angry with her God, and envelop him in her devotional feelings. Krishna is made human by Radha. Until the advent of bhakti, there was no Radha because Krishna did not need one. It is as a personal God during the rise and growth of the movement that Radha comes to the rescue of Krishna and completes him as a god whom people can associate with in a human relationship. Hence, people created Radha to make Krishna a more lovable God than he would have been without her. However, as Sri Aurobindo points out, “...to one who has had contact with the inner Brindavan and the Lila of the Gopis, made the surrender and undergone the spell of the joy and the beauty or even only turned to the sound of the flute, the rest hardly matters.”[7] It is to believe that “once at least the Divine has visibly touched the earth, made the complete manifestation possible, made it possible for the divine supernature to descend into this evolving but still very imperfect terrestrial nature.”[8]

Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga of Divine Love.

Kanupriya can be read in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga of divine love. According to Sri Aurobindo, nature is the manifestation of cosmic energy and the work of God.[9] All creation is a combination and harmony of the two inferior but fundamentally necessary elements of action and progress upon earth – matter and life energy. Matter is the foundation of all our energies and realisations. The life energy by which we exist in a material body and which forms the basis of our mental and spiritual activities. Nature, the creation of the divine, manifests and evolves in three steps of ascent. These are bodily life, mental existence, and a veiled spiritual being. All these are mutually interdependent. The spiritual being is an involution of the divine and the cause of their evolution towards him. Integral yoga aims to enter into and be possessed by the Divine. It is to love the sacred for its own sake and tune our natures so that we become instruments of the divine.

Material life must fulfil the vital aim of nature. It is to pass from birth to death with as much comfort and enjoyment as possible. The mental life concentrates on aesthetic, ethical and intellectual activities. It is idealistic and seeks for perfection. It dreams of perfect beauty, conduct and truth. But it does not know how to deal with the resistance of the matter. Hence, spiritual existence is not aloof from the transient. The spiritual mind dreams of perfect beauty, which is realised in eternal love, beauty and delight. The natural process of evolution is very slow and prolonged. Something transcendent is needed to act upon human beings and nature, attracting them toward itself.

In the yoga of devotion, which is the yoga of love, the transcendent must seek the individual and be sought by him. The individual, too, on its part, must equally seek the transcendent and be sought by it. If the bhakta seeks and yearns for Bhagwan, Bhagwan also seeks and yearns for the bhakta. As Krishna expounded in the Yoga, the object and the doer bear a similar relationship in all three yoga paths. This is the triple path of action, knowledge and bhakti. There can be no yoga of works without the Supreme Will, the master of all works and sacrifice. Similarly, there can be no knowledge without the human seeker. Hence, the contact of the individual consciousness with the divine is the essence of yoga. That is why the human Purusha in the particular body and the divine Purusha, which dwells in everybody yet transcends all forms or names, must be in direct contact.

The path of devotion aims to enjoy Supreme Love and Bliss. In the yoga of love, the Supreme Lord is seen as the divine lover and the enjoyer of the universe. The world is then understood as a play of the Lord’s Lila or play. It uses all normal relations of human life and applies them to the joy of the divine rather than transient worldly relations. Since the yoga of love uses all human relations, even enmity and opposition to God are considered an intense, impatient, and perverse form of love that is a possible means of realisation and salvation. The Yoga of Divine Love leads away from the worldly existence to the transcendent, offering a path of spiritual liberation.

The final aim of all three paths of yoga – divine love, perfect knowledge and the path of works-- is one. Divine love should lead to perfect knowledge of the Beloved by perfect intimacy, thus becoming a part of knowledge and divine service. Perfect knowledge should lead to perfect love and joy in the works dedicated to the Lord. In this triple path, we come to the absolute knowledge, love and service of the One in all beings and the entire cosmic manifestation. In the yoga of love, there is the delight of the conscious union with the Being in whom we live, act, and move, in whom we exist, and for whom alone we learn to act and be. “Love leads us from the suffering of division into the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that joy of the act of union, which is the soul’s greatest discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a long preparation.”[10] Therefore, approaching God with love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment.

Bhakti yoga is a more intimate form of yoga than karma and gyan yogas. It has always consisted of love and is attained only by the intensity of longing. However, our hearts and lives cannot live with abstractions alone. They can only find their satisfaction in concrete things, whether physically, mentally or spiritually. Their object is conscious possession and joy. Therefore, when the heart and life are turned towards the highest and the infinite, they do not arrive at an abstract existence or nonexistence but at an existence of the Sat Purusha or Ananda Purusha. Delight cannot be possessed without consciousness of it. That is why Sri Aurobindo says that the most intense religion of love is that of Krishna, the All Blissful and the All Beautiful. He has different forms of personality, which are all absolute truths, and he deals with us through all of them. He is not only seen as Krishna but also as Vishnu and Kali. Behind Vishnu, all forms of Shiva can be seen, and behind Shiva, all forms of Vishnu can be seen. All are integrated. He is the Ananta-guna, infinite quality and infinite divine personality. Yet, he sometimes seems to withdraw into a pure spiritual impersonality that man's mind finds indefinable. But out of this unknowable, the conscious being or the divine person who has manifested himself here says he is the Purushotham.

Since he withdraws into impersonality, we follow his impersonal being. Still, since he also meets us in our personality, we also meet him through the personal relations of the divine with the human. We admit both the play of Love and the delight of union. Through love, we see unity with him in all the delight of his being. Hence, however narrow the way of love may seem in its first movements, it is, in the end, more imperatively all-embracing than any other motive of yoga. To possess him absolutely and to be possessed by him utterly is necessarily the aim of this delight in his being. There can be no separation between the two.

Like integral yoga, Bhakti yoga seeks after the divine through love and delight, seizing joy in all the ways of his being. It will find its acme in a perfect union of love and enjoyment of all the ways of the soul’s intimacy with God. All joy, beauty, peace, and delight flow from the Ananda Brahman – all delight of the spirit, the intellect, the imagination, aesthetic sense, ethical aspiration and satisfaction, action, life, and the body. In the context of Radha and Krishna, Sri Aurobindo says, “This is the way the soul follows when, while occupied, perhaps with a normal human life. It has heard the flute of the Godhead behind the near screen of secret woodlands and no longer possesses itself, can have no satisfaction or rest till it has pursed and seized, and possessed the divine flute player. This is, in essence, the power of love itself in the heart and soul, turning from earthly objects to the spiritual source of all beauty and delight.[11] They live in this, seeking all the sentiment and passion, all the moods and experiences of love concentrated under a supreme object of desire and intensified a hundredfold beyond the highest acme of intensity possible to human love. There is the disturbance of the whole life, the illumination of an unseized vision, the unsatisfied yearning for a single object of the heart’s desire, the intense pain of the obstacles that stand in the way of possession, the perfect vision of all beauty and delight in a single form. And there are all the many moods of love, the joy of musing and absorption, the delight of the meeting and fulfilment and embrace, the pain of separation, the wrath of love, the tears of longing, the increased delight of reunion

Kanupriya is a series of dramatic monologues by Radha divided into five sections. These are Purvarag and Manjiri Parinay in the first section. In the second phase, their love permeates the entire creation, as Purush and Prakriti. This is followed by Srishti Sankalp, Itihas, and Samapan. The aesthetic of virah is an essential part of bhakti yoga, as the pain of separation equals the intensity of love. Radha’s love in Kanupriya evolves from adolescent longings to physical and emotional ecstasy. It then moves from faith in ecstasy to its limitations of ecstasy and the importance of awareness, from awareness to surrender, from surrender to completeness. The journey can be read as the “growth towards Krishna consciousness, the presence, the spiritual relation, the union in the soul.” But the completeness that Radha experiences is transient. It is not fulfilment as Radha has to wait for aeons before the union with Krishna can be complete; that is when love prevails over the world's concerns, as embodied in the Mahabharata war. That is why the whole process is cyclic in Kanupriya. It begins with waiting and ends with waiting. Till then, it is an act of simultaneously emptying and fulfilment till love and compassion in humanity prevail.

Dharmvir Bharti treats Radha's persona in a contemporary interpretation, although he uses the Vaishnava tradition of Radha worship. The interpretation of Radha brings mythology and symbols together to come alive in a thinking man’s concerns in the contemporary world.

The text is a series of Radha’s monologues divided into sections to reveal the inner turmoil when the finite aspires to merge into the infinite. The voyage is through a path of self-discovery. Radha, through virah, demonstrates a religiously devotional and uncompromising faith in love that increases the intensity of separation.[12] It is a drama of the inner world where little or nothing happens in the outside world, or what does happen is seen through the lens of the inner world. The mind focuses on Radha’s deep longings and pain of separation. Krishna represents the Sahaj, the effortless state where polarities and dualities dissolve to remain unified in the centre. Krishna existed in the past, but in his distress after the Mahabharata war, he is of the future. He is worshipped as divine despite upending all his contemporary moral values as he challenges the arrogance of kingship. His vision is not life-denying but a total acceptance of life. This totality is exemplified in the Krishna yet-to-be-born.

Virah is a natural form of religious discipline in bhakti yoga, legitimised by Radha’s love for Krishna. Both yoga and viyoga developed in response to the inevitable separation between the self and the divine. The virahini delights in the suffering imputing positive implications to it. Yoga attempts to surmount the separation between the ‘self’ and the ‘Self’ through contemplation, meditation and strict bodily discipline. Viyoga is a religion of the heart and yoga of the mind. In this, as pointed out by…., one can hear echoes of the binaries of feminine/masculine, body/mind, and emotional/rational.

The core element of Kanupriya is emotional intensity, a marked feature of viyoga bhakti. Viyoga or viraha bhakti provides the intensity to Radha’s love for Krishna. The five sections of the text represent different stages of self-awareness and self-discovery at the level of consciousness evolving the finite world towards the infinite.

Analysis of Kanupriya

Purva Rag

The idea of Purush and Prakriti is introduced in the first poem itself. The poem moves from the waiting of Radha and of creation. The cyclic process of creation and destruction has gone on for aeons. If Purush is shown as waiting in the image of the Ashoka tree, the creative energy is embedded within it. The internal and external landscapes are in harmony, in their waiting. Through different images, the five songs in the first section, Purvarag, exhibit longings that are not suffering but a celebration of presence in absence, a distinct state of viraha. Dharmvir Bharti makes skilful use of imagery to create resonance in the reader. The images of trees interwoven into the text are not just those associated with Gokul and Vrindavana. Their use intensifies the joy of love and the sorrow of parting as nature responds to both. The Ashoka is an auspicious tree related to love as Kamadeva includes its flowers in his arrow. Ironically, although it is said to remove shoka or sorrow, it seems to have been used to denote not just love but also the longing at parting, as Sita after her abduction by Ravana sat under the Ashoka tree. The bond between the tree and the earth symbolises the traditional concept of the Purush and the Prakriti united in the dynamic creation process. The creative power is limitless, and the Purush waits patiently for prakriti to make It dynamic and manifest.

In the second poem, a movement takes place from the earth to the transcendent element, the unhad naad, the music that can’t be heard but is always there. The music of Krishna’s love for Radha suddenly bursts forth in every cell of her being because he has always been a part of her innermost self. At first, even Radha does not understand it, but eventually, she cannot hide herself from herself. The music of love is always within her despite societal hurdles. Her body becomes a musical instrument on which the divine hands play at will. The divine, too, wants the finite to dissolve into it completely.

In the third song, when Krishna stands under the Kadamb tree, Radha initially thinks he is some forest deity. The Kadamb tree is auspicious and symbolises knowledge, spiritual growth and enlightenment. It is closely associated with Krishna and is thought to symbolise love, beauty and prosperity. Radha passes by it every day and salutes Krishna. Her salutation gradually transforms into an eternal bond of love. Why does Krishna seem indifferent at first? Perhaps because he does not want her mere salutations but her complete surrender.

In the fourth poem, Radha’s emotional and psychological state moves further. She sees Krishna in every element of nature. The waves of Jamuna are the body of Krishna, and his flute is a call of the divine. It is as if the waves rising from the river's depths hold her body in their embrace and fill her every cell. She sits by the river for hours, gazing at her reflection, sensing and feeling the divine overpowering her. In the last poem in this section, the worldly concerns are introduced. Radha neglects her household work and sits grieving under the Kadamba, remorseful of why she abandoned Krishna in the Raas of the previous night.

Although Krishna seems to dance with multiple gopies, the raas has been interpreted as the divine touching each soul. In the Raas, each Gopi thinks that Krishna is hers and dances exclusively with her, an image of the divine being in each of us. At this point, Radha is responding through the emotions of earthly love and not of the bhakta when she leaves the raas in anger. She now regrets this because she understands that anyone who was touched by Krishna the previous evening, even for a moment, was made complete by him. But her ego still intervenes; she does not want to go to Krishna even when he calls. However, despite herself, she cannot resist. When she meets him, she feels whole, but the paradox of Krishna’s love is that while he accepts her completely, he returns her to her world. A full union is still not possible.

Rag Manjari

In the second section, Radha’s love intensifies her self-awareness. This is depicted in three long dramatic monologues where the symbolism of the mango tree plays a significant role. The mango tree, under which Radha and Krishna meet, is a potent symbol in their relationship. It is considered very auspicious and is used in all religious ceremonies, suggesting that Radha’s earthly love is transforming into devotion. However, Radha experiences moments of self-doubt, and worldly ties cannot be ignored. Even when Krishna’s flute calls, Radha is unable to come. The cows return home, and the fishermen bring in their boats for the day. Krishna also removes the flute from his lips but continues to wait for her under the mango tree. She does not come, and finally, he returns, sadly plucking a blossom from the mango tree. But unknowingly, his fingers crush the blossom, and its flowers fall on the pathway. The pathway is likened to the parting of the hair in which married women put the vermillion. Thus, the symbol of the soul’s marriage to the divine is introduced in human terms. The parting in Radha’s hair is a powerful symbol. Radha knows the divine is inexorably pulling her towards him in an unbreakable bond of wedlock when all else will be forgotten. But she is still unable to come. It is the struggle of the soul before it reaches the divine. Radha has a glimmer of understanding of what is happening but can still not break worldly bonds.

The poem now turns towards beautiful imagery of lovemaking. Krishna places her feet in his lap and puts the mahawar on them. (Quote) Not having gone to Krishna, Radha, sitting alone, kisses her own feet, which he has coloured. The evening has darkened. Krishna has left, but now Radha sits under the mango tree, waiting for him. Who is to tell Krishna that despite all her struggle, Radha eventually had to come? How can she explain to him that the moments of union are not understood by her because there is an unknown fear and doubt that intrude even in moments of bliss? But she is convinced that whatever her inner struggles may be, she will come and await his embrace. The poem takes a psychological step forward, and the individual begins to comprehend the meaning of devotion and surrender, where there is no room for doubt.

It is not only the bhakta that reaches out to the Lord, but the Lord, too, sends invitations. Krishna sends beautiful flowers to Radha, reminding her that he still awaits her in the forest. He has often told her that her physical beauty is only a means of bringing her to him, and then, as her devotion deepens, it will become meaningless. In moments of the ecstasy of complete union, physical attributes are no longer relevant. Physical awareness disappears in the intensity of divine awareness and union. At such moments, there is complete surrender; there is no longer any body, only the fragrance, a mystic experience in which no dualism remains—the divine works by emptying the whole being and transforming it by filling it with his fullness. But she wonders how she will reach the divine if her ignorance about her love does not end. Then she realises that the divine has infinite ways of beckoning the human. Repeatedly, the finite stumbles and infinite waits with patience.

The symbolism associated with the mango tree is potent. Its first blossom, its first virginal leaves, and the branch touching Krishna’s shoulder are all Radha. The other powerful symbol is the parting in Radha’s hair. It represents the path of Radha’s bhakti without even understanding the workings of the divine. She understands that Krishna had filled the parting of her hair with herself, a very evocative way of saying that he placed her on the path of self-knowledge and awareness. Is that why the divine loves the human, not for his sake, but for the sake of the human? Krishna was filling her parting with the inner meaning of life, binding her ‘self’ with the ‘Self.’ This inner life of the individual must be protected and kept pure as a new bride. Krishna is trying to tell her that he does not want her to surrender in ignorance but in self-knowledge. Radha did not understand this when she went from pillar to post, seeking Krishna, calling out to him and proclaiming her love for him. As she asks, is it even easy to understand this? So, how can she be blamed for it? The devotee's love for the divine is a paradox; he demands complete surrender from the devotee, yet he remains untouched and aloof. It is a Tapasya, a discipline, a yoga.

Radha talks of how the world does not understand her love for Krishna. Her friends and her teachers both find it objectionable. When Krishna breaks the white and red karondas and gives them to Radha to make a garland, the white indicates purity and red passionate love. The image is appropriate for Radha’s love, which is both pure and passionate. Radha cannot admit to anyone except Krishna himself that he is her only friend and lover. Amidst the almost paradisiacal nature of their love intrudes the image of the forest fire, which is also the fire in the being of Radha of suffering and purification. She is rescued from it lovingly by Krishna. The struggle to reach the divine is fire, but the divine is always available for protection.(quote). Whenever Krishna calls with his flute, she comes running to him, knowing from her innermost being that he is her goal, her object of worship and the flow and meaning of her life and being. She sees herself as a woman who loves Krishna in all the roles a woman loves a man: mother, beloved and wife. In her motherly love, she protects him during heavy rainfall, forgetting that he is the Krishna capable of saving the entire Vrindavan from floods. Krishna, too, plays his part in the Lila as he becomes a child and hides in her bosom.

The poem moves to a different level, though intermittently returning to earth. Radha explicitly becomes Krishna’s creative power. When he challenged Indra, provoking a fierce thunderstorm, and the Kalia Nag sought to poison the waters of Jamuna, light flashed from every part of Radha’s body. (pg.36)

Radha realised she permeated the entire universe like Krishna. When Radha and Krishna are in their human forms, they are limited like other humans, but essentially, she is an intimate part of him. If he is in all his manifestations of nature, so is she. From the infinite time, Purush and the Prakriti have been intertwined in the creation and destruction of the universe. The still potential of the Purush cannot become dynamic in creation without Prakriti. The questions of the people around her asking her what Krishna is to her are meaningless. She and Krishna have met in various forms and incarnations through endless aeons. Echoes can be heard from the first poem in the relationship between the Ashoka tree and the earth, which is waiting to blossom.

Srishti Sankalp

In the third section, which has three poems, Radha unambiguously becomes the cocreator of the universe with Krishna, Prakriti to his Purush. The vastness and dynamic force of their love reach the peak of its intensity, magnified by the imagery from Nature -- the sun and the moon, the stars, the great oceans, the dancing leaves, and the blossoming flowers in the sunlight. What is the meaning of creation, Radha asks? If it is only Krishna’s desire and resolve, then what is the meaning of this desire? It is Radha who is an inalienable part of him. In the totality of creation, there is only Radha for Krishna, as there is only Krishna for Radha. The whole process of creation and destruction is their lovemaking, followed by rest. Then, the Purush again re-awakens the Prakriti to start another round of creation and destruction.

The imagery continues in the second poem, yet a moment of fear and doubt assails Radha

The images of destruction increase the foreboding. She cannot explain it; it is not personal. It is an inexplicable sense of foreboding, but through it, the poem anticipates the war of annihilation that is to come and that will take Krishna away from her.

Radha’s fear is primordial and without logic. She can feel that her bonds with Krishna are weakening. Even fearful of herself, she desperately seeks and attempts to hold him. She wants protection from all the fierce omens around her, boding impending annihilation. The imagery of war is used: the bow, arrow, and armour. Radha pleads with Krishna to somehow prevent the impending destruction. Radha reminds him that only Radha will be with him when no one else is there, and only love will heal the wounds.

Itihas

The seven poems in the fourth section deal with the history being written. Radha is alone. Images of nature, mirroring her state of mind, are used to underline her loneliness. Krishna left her without taking any leave of her, as swiftly as an arrow propelled by mantras. Now, she is alone with her memories. Doubt and agony overwhelm her. She wonders if she was only a bridge for Krishna, which he used to travel as he transformed from a lover to a warrior, a strategist, expounding the laws of unflinching duty on the battlefield in the pursuit of which there is no meaning to death and destruction. Images of all the auspicious trees used to symbolise their past love are brought together to show its dissipation. The device enhances the sense of Radha’s sorrow and despair.

Sitting under the same mango tree where they met, Radha wonders whether her words of love mean anything. Were the moments of fulfilment genuine when she forgot all about the world, she wonders. Whether it was a mere dream or a reality, all she now knows is that coming to the mango tree under which Krishna played his flute to call her still gives her great peace. Forgetful of everything in her sorrow, her fingers unknowingly write Krishna’s name in the dust in front of her, the name she used during the moments of intimacy which only they knew. Her divided mental state is indicated in that one part of her writes his name, and the other wipes it away unhesitatingly. Her memories give her solace. She remembers Krishna when he was a baby, and she protected him from the rain, carrying him in her lap, but now he has become so great that her love lies shattered. There is nothing left in the parting of the hair. Did Krishna’s words to her have any meaning? It was pointless for her to return with her water pitcher by the path from where Krishna stood under the Kadamba. His massive armies now travel on it on their way to the war, trampling everything that comes their way. The mango tree branch on which Krishna leaned, playing his flute to call her, will soon be cut down to make way for the warriors. The Ashoka, too, will be destroyed if the villagers do not welcome the Army. Krishna’s present is vastly different from Radha’s world of love. Should she be proud that he leads such a vast army?

In the following poem, Radha’s world of love is pitted against the battle for material gains fought based on logic, the right of succession to the throne of Hastinapur. The question is whether all of Radha’s feelings, emotions, longings, and surrender were mere imagination. The Truth is that the war being fought in the name of vice and virtue, dharma and adharma, justice and injustice. Radha does not know how to decide because she only knows what Krishna taught her: love. Now that he was creating history and his whole being was enveloped in it, she did not understand anything. The same Jamuna, where she stood and gazed at its water, now bears countless boats possibly going to the war, and many broken chariots and torn flags come floating on it. Are victorious armies defeated armies, shrieks of war, lamentation, and inhuman cruelties meaningful? She cannot understand this fulfilment as she sees the vultures circling the skies. If the words of her surrender to Krishna were merely useless, attractive words, then is war meaningful?

In the last poem of this section, she cries out how meaningless words like karma, duty, decisions, and responsibilities are. They are now heard in every lane. She has heard them but does not understand them and can only recall Krishna’s lips, as they must have been when he uttered them for the first time. She does not understand the conflict that has led to this war and on whose side she is. She only knows she would have loved hearing what Krishna had to say to Arjuna before the war began, not for their meaning but because she loved to listen to his voice. Words like dharma and responsibility and decision are useless for her. If she could have heard Krishna expound them, she would have only looked at him with unblinking eyes full of love, and her body would have quivered with her longing for him. Addressing the absent Krishna, she says he may now have uncountable words, but all his words have only one meaning: Radha. Then how will he explain to her the meaning of this history?

In the final poem, Krishna and Radha are equated with Vishnu and Lakshmi as Vishnu lies in the ocean on the bed of sheshnagas. Radha imagines that the whole sea and its life are turbulent. But Krishna/Vishnu is silent. Sometimes, he is neutral, detached from it, and sometimes in the thick of it. And then, in the end, she sees him tired and bewildered on the shore, sitting with his head resting on her shoulders. Krishna’s wayward fingers unconsciously write something on the sands, not to talk of some achievement, but to cool themselves. In her dream, the sea foam is full of poison, the sun is lifeless, the fish are dead, and the waves are uncontrollable. She imagines Krishna standing like Vyas, with his hands raised above his head, saying something no one listens to. In the end, he returns, tired and defeated, to lean on her chest and sleep deeply. She has become his refuge. He is being lulled into sleep by the waves, but even in his sleep, words of his restless mind escape his lips, murmuring justice and injustice, truth, delusion, wisdom, ignorance, but how can they be evaluated? Radha consoles him. These are all dreams seen in the waking state. They only deceive.

As Krishna perspires, his lips tremble, and he suddenly wakes up, startled because he realises he cannot determine the rightness of these values. His decisions and consequent actions resemble a game of dice. Who sat at his feet, that is, Arjuna was dharma, and who sat towards his head Duryodhana, was adharma. On hearing this, the waves rise, and destruction begins again. This, Krishna realises, cannot be said with any certainty. Disheartened and sad, Krishna sits on the shore and looks vacantly, saying what if Duryodhan had been at his feet and Arjun towards his head? Krishna acknowledges that in this vast ocean of creation, he is as ignorant as a child. Even if he is god, he can only wait upon the world “patiently acting through its natural processes including unpredictable, uncontrollable random events to bring about the emergence of the new while consistently urging the whole towards the fullness of life.”

Krishna recounts a dream of seeing the ocean waves trying vainly to leave their mark on the sands and the breezes erasing them. Wounded history passes limping. On the shore is a coconut grove where Krishna sits silently and detached under an old peepul tree. For the first time, his immortal youth seems worn out. Looking around despairingly, he shrugs off and discards the unsuccessful history that he had tried to create. At this moment, steeped in pain, he abandons everything and seeks Radha.

Samapan

Radha asks Krishna whether he has called her. She has left everything and come to him. She realised their earlier union was incomplete because she had been unable to surrender and unite with him entirely, so she had left the raas goaded by egoistic emotions. She had to come again, and she has come. She will wait for Krishna on the pathways of life, birth after birth, and try to ensure that she will not be left behind the next time he attempts to write history. She asks him why, when he accepted her entirely in love, he abandoned her during the moments when he was creating history. How could he find any meaning in this history without Radha? Without her, it would be nothing but meaningless words soaked in blood. He needs Radha because no sustainable creation is possible without love and compassion. When he intertwined flame-coloured flowers in her hair, she asked him why he did not put the same flowers in the history he was creating. She assures him that even in the most difficult moments, she will wait for him, even if it is forever because everyone can only become cruel and bloodthirsty without the truth of love. Love must be woven into the fabric of the future as that alone can make a sustainable world. This, as Sri Aurobindo would say, requires a transformation of consciousness.

Transformation of Consciousness

But how will this happen? Matthijs Cornelissen summarises Sri Aurobindo’s ontology of the evolution of consciousness.[13] According to Sri Aurobindo, the origin and essential nature of the world is an absolute consciousness that creates many individual centres of consciousness within itself, forming a division of time and space. These centres then place themselves in a hierarchy of archetypal planes with ever-diminishing levels of consciousness until they reach a state of complete oblivion, which we call matter. Material consciousness's centres coalesce into increasingly complex units in which consciousness gradually reemerges, manifesting as plants, animals and eventually human beings. Human beings have enough mental consciousness to be able to play with ideas. Some human beings experience, in Sri Aurobindo terms, contact with the higher levels of consciousness. These are mystical experiences. The most evolved mystics can separate their essential core from their individual physical and mental ego and merge it with the original Absolute Consciousness. But even this is not the final stage of the evolution of consciousness. The next step is the manifestation of a nondual, supramental consciousness to manifest here on the earth and transform human life in the same way as the mind transformed animal life in the ongoing evolution of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo, working in the Vedic tradition, believes that when individuals and groups can attune their consciousness to the harmony of higher consciousness, one’s feelings, thoughts, will, and actions can flow to an intuitive harmony, achieving the best possible for the individual and for the whole of which the individual is a part. Sri Aurobindo’s goal is not individual liberation or perfection but the uplifting and transformation of life or the planet through the suprementalisation process, which is the power of consciousness to change the mind, life, and body. As the Mother explains, “Nothing but a radical change of consciousness can deliver the world from its present obscurity. Indeed, this transformation of the consciousness, this manifestation of a higher and truer consciousness, is not only possible but certain; it is the very aim of our existence, the purpose of life upon earth. First, consciousness must be transformed, and then life, then forms; in this order, the new creation will unfold. All of Nature’s activity is a progressive return towards the Supreme Reality, which is both the universe's origin and goal: its totality in its smallest element. We must become concretely what we are essentially; we must live integrally with the truth, beauty, power and perfection hidden in the depths of our being, and then all life will become the expression of the sublime, eternal, divine Joy.”[14] This is a long process; hence, Radha would have to wait patiently until such a transformation of consciousness can occur.

References

[1][1] Dharmvir Bharti, Kanupriya, Delhi: Vani Prakashan,2022
[2] Dharmvir Bharti, Andha Yuga, New Delhi, 2023
[3] Meghnad Desai, “Radha and the Completion of Krishna,” Finding Radha: The Quest for Love, Malashri Lal and Namita Gokhale ed., Penguin Random House India,2018, pp.12-16.
[4] Cited by Meghnad Desai, op.cit. Barbara Stoler Miller, The Gitagovindaof Jayadeva: Love Song of the Dark Lord, Delhi: Motilal Barasidass,2016, pp.26-27.
[5] Mandakanta Bose, “Sita and Radha: From Human to Divine,” Finding Radha, op.cit. pp. 176-181.
[6] Shubha Vilas, “Understanding Radha’s Symbolic Love,” Finding Radha, pp.86-91.
[7] Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga—1, Collected Works Sri Aurobindo,28: 483-484
[8] Ibid.
[9] These concepts have been culled out of Sri Aurobindo: The Yoga of Divine Love: The Synthesis of Yogq, Alicia Editions 2021,
[10] The Yoga of Divine Love, op.cit. p.64.
[11] The Yoga of Divine Love, op.cit. p.99.
[12] Dr. Sonia Singh Kushwah and Dr. A. S. Kushwan, “Kanupriya A Saga of Inhibitive Binary of Finite and Infinite,” Creation and Criticism, Vol. 01, Issue 2, July 2016, http://creationandcriticism.com
See also,
(1) Dr. Urmila Kharpuse, “Dharmvir Bharti ki Kanupriya: Radha-Krishna Prem ki Tanmayta,,” Veethika, Vol. 2, No.1 , Jan.-March,, 2016, https;//qtanalytics.in/article/view/116/15.
(2)Dr. Rahul Uthwal,”Dharmvir Bharti Ke Kavya Mein Ragatmak Prem ki Vaicharik Vyakhya,” Vishesh Sahityakar series, Dharmvir Bhartiya, Ahmedabad: Atul Prakashan,2018, pp. 49-54. https://search.app/cVuAxqtgikX62J/1%/
(3) Dr. Vidya Shashishekhar Shinde, “Dharmvir Bharti ji ki Kanupriya ka Vartaman Paridrishya,” RESEARCH REVIEW; International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 2021:6(3):pp. 177-180. https://doi.pOrg/10.31305/rrjim.2021.vpl.6.i03.026
[13] Matthijs Cornilissen, “Sri Aurobindo’s Evolutionary Ontology of Consciousness,” Chapter 2, Joshi Kireet, and Cornilessen Matthijs, Consciousness, Indian Psychology and Yoga, New Delhi:Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2004.
[14] The Mother, “On Education: The Great Secret,” Incarnate Word Portal