meri bhavabaadhaa harau radha naagari soi

jaa tan ki jhaaim paraim syaama harit duti hoi.

Sri Radha, Krishna’s soulmate and paramour, is a unique phenomenon in the religious and spiritual history not just of India but of the world. In no other tradition is there a female character quite like her, a humble milkmaid elevated to the supreme status of the erotic and holy beloved of the Supreme Godhead. What makes her story unique is that she is not mentioned in the classical sources or scriptures. Even later, during the medieval period, while the name of Radha occurs in various places, her rise to prominence as an important goddess alongside Krishna is actually a comparatively recent phenomenon. According to Charlotte Vaudeville, ‘her emergence in the cultic and devotional sphere of Vaishnavism as Krishna Gopala’s beloved and Shakti is known to have taken place rather late, certainly not much earlier than the sixteenth century’(7).

In the Bhagavata Purana, the source of much of the later Krishna cult, there is no reference to Radha. The only clue to her identity is the single, unnamed girl with whom Krishna disappears in the Tenth Canto, which celebrates Krishna’s amours in the forest on the night of the full moon. While all the gopis cavort with Krishna in that scene, there is one he takes aside, much to the consternation, even dismay, of the others. Perhaps, that exceptional partner gave our medieval myth-makers the germ of the story of Radha which Jayadeva narrates in Gita Govinda. As Guy L. Beck notes:

Within the entire Sanskrit canon that is accepted by normative Vaishnava traditions, Radha is actually never mentioned by name. In the earlier canonical texts there is only the suggestion of Radha’s character, not her actual name, as one of Krishna’s favorites among a number of ‘unmarried’ (Harivamsa) or ‘already married’ (Bhagavata Purana) cowherd girls (gopis) who nonetheless seek his attentions during his childhood life in Braj. (Beck 72)

Thus it is to Jayadeva and his remarkable Gita Govinda that the real credit for creating Radha goes. As Valerie Ritter says:

The Gita Govinda, a highly popular and influential Sanskrit poem by Jayadeva, thought to have been composed in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries CE, was the first to focus extensively on Radha, in a manner evocative of the courtly nayaka and nayika (hero and heroine) of Sanskrit poetry. (Ritter 180)

But when Jayadeva makes her a full-fledged nayika or heroine of his most influential poem, Gita Govinda, it seems as if we have always ‘known’ or at least craved for Radha’s presence, nay, predominance in the love story of Krishna.

Once created by Jayadeva, Radha steadily rose in importance as Krishna’s chosen paramour, partner, spouse (as she was later in the Radhavallabha sect), and thus the supreme Vaishnava goddess. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534), who gave the Krishna cult its decisive form, at least in much of northern India, contributed a great deal to the character and theology of Radha:

Radha’s presence in poetry and her theological importance increased with the growth of the Caitanyite sect of Vaishnavism in Bengal, which saw the integration of poetic theory of the sringara rasa (the erotic sentiment) and its taxonomies of the nayaka–nayika with theology concerning the love of Radha and Krishna. (Beck 180)

But we cannot forget Jayadeva’s fundamental contribution to this apotheosis. According to Barbara Stoler Miller:

The compounding of Krishna with Radha into a dual divinity is central to Jayadeva’s conception of Krishna, not as an incarnation (avatar) of Vishnu, but as the source (avatarin, dasavidharupa, dasakrtikrt) of all the incarnate forms he himself assumes in order to save the world. (Quoted in Beck 73)

While the Gita Govinda institutionalised and legitimated Radha’s centrality in Vaishnavite Bhakti literature, her character, persona, and role was further embellished and moulded by eastern Indian poets like Chandidas and Vidyapati, who created the platform for the great devotional and political upsurge marked by the advent of Chaitanya. But others, notably Nimbarka closer to the Jayadeva, and Vallabha around the same time as Chaitanya, also played a crucial role. Later, most of the great Krishna-worshipping poets such as Surdas also exalted Radha till she became almost secularised and universalised in the Ritikal with poets like Bihari (1595–1664).

With the beginnings of modernity, Radha the goddess, underwent another drastic modification, now coming more often than not to represent illegitimate sexual desire. In the new puritanism fostered during the socalled Indian renaissance, Radha and her dalliance with Krishna, proved an embarrassment to the agenda of social reform that the proponents of Hindu modernity espoused. Yet, Radha persisted in folk songs and, later, in many popular art and craft traditions. The final twist in the Radha tale was added by twentieth century feminists who began to see in her a victim of the patriarchy or, even the special symbol and voice of a male poet, as in Ramakant Rath’s celebrated Sri Radha. Sometimes, Radha became a symbol of the degraded and exploited woman or she was even depicted as a fallen or abandoned woman, her tale a cautionary reminder of what happens to such women in our society.

All told, the story of Radha is extraordinary, not only in itself, but in the larger context of the history of Indian art, culture, religion and spirituality.

[Niyogi Books has given Fair Observer permission to publish this excerpt from Radha: From Gopi to Goddess, edited by Harsha V. Dehejia, Niyogi Books, 2024.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.