Gita·govínda: Love Songs of Radha and Krishna

The “Gita·govínda” of Jaya·deva is a lyrical account of the illicit springtime love affair of Krishna and Radha, a god and goddess manifesting on earth as a cowherd and milkmaid for the sake of relishing the sweet miseries and rapturous delights of erotic love. The narrative framing their bucolic songs was composed under royal patronage in northeastern India in the twelfth century. It was meant to be performed for connoisseurs of poetry and the erotic arts, for those refined aesthetes and sophisticated voluptuaries who, while being sensually engaged in the world, were, at the same time, devoted to Krishna as Lord of the Universe.

The “Gita·govínda” of Jaya·deva is a lyrical account of the illicit springtime love affair of Krishna and Radha, a god and goddess manifesting on earth as a cowherd and milkmaid for the sake of relishing the sweet miseries and rapturous delights of erotic love. The narrative framing their bucolic songs was composed under royal patronage in northeastern India in the twelfth century. It was meant to be performed for connoisseurs of poetry and the erotic arts, for those refined aesthetes and sophisticated voluptuaries who, while being sensually engaged in the world, were, at the same time, devoted to Krishna as Lord of the Universe.

Radha gazes at Krishna:

Long had he longed to make love to her,
    his one true love, his only miss;
Love had made himself at home in him,
     and his face beamed bounteous bliss;
Just as the moon churns up
     the waves of a turbulent ocean,
So Radha’s face stirred up in him
     tides of amorous emotion.
The splendid earrings grazing his lotus face
     rivaled the sun for light
And he yearned all the more love when he saw her
     lips aglow, her smile bright.

And Krishna commands Radha:

Let obliging words stream from your sweet mouth,
     your face a moon, its nectar overflowing;
As if it were our separation, I’ll draw back the drape
     that prevents your breasts from showing.
Smother love’s fervid flames,
     press your breasts against my chest;
Your bristling bosom is hard to hold,
     brimming with desire to be caressed.
As if l, love crazed were dead,
     flesh charred by separation’s strife,
With your lips’ elixirs, wild, wild woman,
     bring me, your slave, back to life.

256 pp.  |  ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-4078-1  |  ISBN-10: 0-8147-4078-2  |  Co-published by New York University Press and JJC Foundation

Canto 6: Coveted Krishna: The God Who Rules Vishnu’s Heaven (pp. 90–95)
(16 pp, 0.49mb)

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