The Rāsa Līlā is described at length (in Sanskrit) in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa(Book 10, Chapters 29–33); ‘its present form was completed, at the latest, by the ninth century’ (Hein in Schweig 2005:xi). ‘The Rāsa Līlā takes place in the earthly Vraja during the bountiful autumn season, when evenings abound with soothing scents and gentle river breezes’ (Schweig 2005:2). The ‘earthly Vraja’ is a region in north India (not far from Delhi) through which the Yamunā river flows, and encompasses Vṛṇdāban, the forest-village in which Kṛṣṇa grew up, and Mathurā, the city in which Krishna was born (ibid.:2, footnote 3); it is ‘earthly’ in so far as it is a reflection of the heavenly Vraja over which Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Being, rules in his transcendent form. Schweig argues that the Rāsa Līlā is ‘the innermost focal point of the Bhāgavata ... [and] the most honored līlā among all the divine dramas of Kṛṣṇa’ (ibid.:111–12). From the briefest summary of the dance that follows, we can get a flavour, in English translation, of the event:
Then Govinda [Kṛṣṇa] commenced
the play of the Rāsa dance
with his devoted ones [the Gopīs];
Those jewel-like maidens,
joined together by love,
linked their arms with one another.
The ... Rāsa dance commenced
with a circular formation of Gopīs.
The supreme Lord of yoga, Krishna,
entered among them between each pair –
Each thought she alone was at his side
as he placed his arms around
the necks of those young women ...
The bracelets, ankle bells, and
bells decorating the waists
of those young women,
Each with her own beloved,
created a tumultuous sound
in the circle of the Rāsa dance.
There, glowing brilliantly among them,
was the Beloved Lord, son of Devakī –
In a setting of golden ornaments,
he appeared like a magnificent emerald ...
From their contact with his limbs,
their senses were filled with joy.
The young women of Vraja
could hardly keep their hair,
Skirts, and upper garments
that covered their breasts
From becoming disheveled, and
their garlands and ornaments
from scattering ...
Having multiplied himself
in as many forms as there
were cowherd women,
He, the Beloved Lord, knowing
all pleasure within himself,
delighted in loving them
in this divine play (līlā).
(BhP. 10.33.2–20;translation by Schweig 2005:66–70)
It is abundantly clear to anyone who reads the full description of the Rāsa Dance with attention to context that, notwithstanding its erotic undertones, it was not intended to evoke carnal associations. It is intended, rather, as a protracted metaphor of the blissful and passionate love that ought to exist, as life's goal, between the Supreme Being, named as Kṛṣṇa and described in intensely personal terms, and the ardent devotee. To this end, the Rāsa Līlā exudes its own ‘flavour’ or rasa (not to be confused with Rāsa), characterized as mādhurya or the ‘sweetness’ of the highest intimacy that can obtain between persons. In human terms, in Gauḍīya reckoning, this is the intimacy of heterosexual lovers. But mādhurya between Kṛṣṇa, who is God, and his devotee, does not represent a relationship of self-gratification or lust. This is indicated again and again throughout the description of the Rāsa dance by reference to Kṛṣṇa's transcendent status as the one God. He is the Supreme Self (paramātmā, 10.29.11), Brahman in nature (
So it is clear that we must understand the eros of the Rāsa Līlā as betokening a love whose essence – rasa – is expressed in a passionate yearning to unite with the beloved, in which every nerve is strained but in which concupiscence plays no part. Further, there is a mutuality to this love in respect of Lord and devotee wherein the deity, though entirely self-fulfilled (ātmārāma), graciously condescends to enter into this relationship of reciprocal self-giving, and delights in it.
This idea of ‘transcendent eroticism’, purified of all lust, which found a summit in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s description of the Rāsa Līlā, was a revolutionary one in the history of bhakti or loving devotion between deity and devotee. Even the ardent bhakti of the Bhagavad Gītā is hardly expounded in erotic terms. The Gītā’s bhakti is largely a bhakti of close friendship (sakhya-bhakti), in which both relational poles are male. The bhakti of the Rāsa Līlā, on the other hand, advocates the bitter-sweet longing of separated heterosexual lovers (viraha-bhakti), hearts and minds as one, yet with bodies yearning for the final consummation. As such, as Schweig points out (ibid.:124), this notion of līlā is subversive. Subversive of what, we may ask? Subversive of the pietistic, hitherto orthodox, forms of bhakti that had gained popularity in Hinduism.
‘In the older and central yoga [or discipline of self-integration and spiritual-union]’, writes Norvin Hein, ‘one of the very first demands, asked of any beginner, was to root out every vestige of erotic thought. With the meditators on Krishna, to the contrary, the queen of all the moods of meditation became the madhura, the romantic mood, that hopes for experience of the deity in an erotic relationship’ (in Schweig:xiv).
The devotee was urged to give all, yearningly and passionately, in the mode of a (female) lover giving herself body and soul to her beloved. There is a new dimension to līlā here that makes the ‘play’ of erotic love its chief mark; this love has a distinctive thrill of freshness to it that must be continuously cultivated and safe-guarded.6 For the Kṛṣṇa-devotee, love has progressed to its ultimate point, to be pursued in the earthly body, in time, and to be consummated in a spiritual or transcendent body in Kṛṣṇa's heavenly Vraja in an eternal present.
This form of bhakti also teaches that the Lord has a unique love for each individual, and that he refuses to subject himself to human conventions and expectations. The dominant image that lingers here is of a smile playing about the lips of the adorable Lord; unlike Christ, he is not ‘a man of sorrows’. Kṛṣṇa is invariably in command of the situation, his divine sovereignty barely masked. Thus, here too we may say that līlā is an anti-deterministic notion. As intimated earlier in this book, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, with its emphasis on a new bhakti, is a prominent text of Hinduism not only of the past; it retains a seminal influence in a number of Hindu denominations of today, Bhāgavatas or Kṛṣṇa-devotees of this kind being among the chief of these.7
The idea of līlā is connected to another important concept which we have encountered already – that of māyā. ‘Māyā’ has both philosophical and popular meanings. Philosophically, it refers to the appearance of something in two ways: (i) with respect to the world, as signifying that the world is only provisionally or dec
eptively real in so far as it is a masking projection of the divine power. Māyā is made much of in this sense in non-dualist traditions of Vedānta and Tantra. In these traditions, there is ultimately only one reality, e.g. Brahman which is essentially without inner distinctions of any kind;its nature, which we can describe as pure consciousness and bliss, is masked by the shadow reality of the world of differentiation of which we are a part. Ultimately, this world is to be ‘sublated’ or done away with, both conceptually and ontologically, as a shadow or reflection disappears when the direction of light changes, in the experience of enlightenment. In this context, the world or worldly experience is sometimes described as māyā. Our religious goal is to pierce the veil of māyā by a disciplined scriptural, ritual and ethical path (called a sādhana), and to reveal our essential spiritual identity with the Absolute. But (ii) māyā can also be used philosophically in a more realist sense to signify this world or worldly phenomena as displaying the deity's wondrous and bewildering power. While the world is not ultimately an illusion here, it can take on, nevertheless, a dazzling or deceptive quality that masks the divine action. This dazzling quality is māyā. Rāmānuja, who is a genuine theist, uses ‘māyā’ in this sense.
In its popular meanings, ‘māyā’ retains the connotations of dazzlement and deceptiveness with respect to the divine activity. In Chapter 10, when we spoke of the thunderstorm as displaying the Mother Goddess’ māyā, we used the word in this sense. In all of these meanings, ‘māyā’ can be seen to have semantic links with ‘līlā’. The Supreme Being's sovereignty can dazzle, bewitch and captivate mortals. In short, the concepts of līlā and māyā, which revolve on the ideas of freedom and sovereignty, seem actively to support the possibility of contingency and progress in the unfolding of human affairs.
We return now to the mythic account of the degenerative passage of time. This idea has been exploited, socially and politically, by Hindus in various ways. In the nineteenth century, especially among the Bengali intellectuals who helped shape the modern Indian mind, the view of a golden cultural age in ancient India preceding the gradual decline of Hindu civilization (a view first posed by Western Orientalists), played an important part in raising self-esteem and nationalist consciousness among the subjects of a colonial regime. ‘We were great once’, went the refrain, ‘subject to none in wisdom and civilized accomplishment. We can be great again’. This idea could have been consciously or subconsciously endorsed only by a turning to traditional conceptions of degenerative (and alternately reconstructive) time. But it also inspired various movements for socio-religious reform and revival. We have noted some of these attempts in earlier sections of this book, e.g. those of Ram Mohan Roy and Swami Dayananda.
Today, it is not uncommon for religious Hindus in various walks of life to explain something they deplore as a feature of life in the kali yuga or dark age of the cycle of time. ‘What can you expect in this kali age?’ they may say of some undesirable event or trend. But, at least religiously, there is also a consoling side to living in the kali yuga. The period has long been used to justify the simplification or reform of religious practices. In this way of thinking, the decline of human capacities in the kali age must inevitably result in concessionary forms of religious practice. We cannot attain the religious and moral standards of our betters in previous ages who were able to undertake more arduous meditative techniques, penances, austerities etc. So, runs the argument, in our age, attaining salvation has been made easier by various ‘concessions’ to our weaker human nature. This way of thinking is characteristic of bhakti religions. Practising bhakti through acts of emotional love is not only religiously effective but also congenial to our debased human nature; hence it is now the chief means to salvation. The Gītā appears to support this idea: ‘Those who take refuge in me’, declares Kṛṣṇa, ‘base-born though they may be – women, Vaiśyas, and even Śūdras – walk the highest way’ (9.32). In this respect, we can go on to consider the example of the religious teacher, Caitanya (given dates 1486–1533).
Caitanya8 was born into a Vaiṣṇava Brahmin family in the town of Nadia in Muslim-ruled Bengal. From early manhood, he became intoxicated with love for Kṛṣṇa and was known for leading processions of devotees through the streets of Nadia, ecstatically singing to Kṛṣṇa and chanting his name. This singing and chanting, called kīrtana, became an important devotional practice among his followers in the tradition of Gauḍīya (or Bengal) Vaisnavism – it was possibly a way of distinguishing his disciples from others at the time, both Muslims and Hindus, who may have had analogous practices – and continues to this day among his devotees around the world. The members of ISKCON or the Hare Krishna movement, who regard Caitanya as having shaped their faith both practically and theologically, consider kīrtana (in which women participate too) to be an essential component of their religious practice. This communal singing and chanting can last for hours, leading to heights of emotional transport.
In 1516, Caitanya, who had renounced worldly ties some years earlier, settled in the holy temple-town of Puri in the region of Orissa and worshipped Kṛṣṇa in the form of Jagannātha, the temple deity. Caitanya based his teachings on the bhakti of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, where the highest representation of the Godhead is the transcendent Kṛṣṇa, the Adorable Lord (Bhagavān). Kṛṣṇa here is not simply a descent of God Viṣṇu; rather, he is the ‘Supreme Personality of (the) Godhead’ as Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda, the founder of ISKCON, describes him.
Caitanya preached a form of devotionalism that derived its poignancy through identification with the intense feelings of separation from Kṛṣṇa of a favourite gopī or milkmaid, mentioned without name in the Rāsa Līlā, but later identified as the Radha of the Gītagovinda (see Chapter 10). This kind of devotion is called viraha-bhakti, namely, the bhakti of separation (viraha). Several followers of Caitanya developed a theology called acintya-bhedābheda, ‘inconceivable difference-cum-non-difference’, the idea being that selves exist in an unfathomable relationship of identity and difference – oneness and separation – with Kṛṣṇa and undergo rebirth in accordance with the law of karma until they realize that they exist to serve and love Kṛṣṇa alone. Once one's eyes have been opened by faith, loving service of the Lord is enacted by assuming the roles of his associates while he was on earth: his parents, friends, the gopīs (though the gopī-relationship of lover is the best). In the past, declare Caitanya and his modern guru-successors, arduous religious practices were required for liberation from the karmic cycle, but in this kali age whole-hearted devotion to Kṛṣṇa is enough to wash away past karma and attain salvation. In time, Caitanya was regarded by his followers as the embodiment of the divine pair, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, and he is an important figure in religious Hinduism to the present day.
The belief of living in the kali age has also given rise to the notion of kali-varjya, i.e. that which is to be avoided (varjya) in the kali age. Like the idea of concessionary religion, this notion also has much expediency value. Here is a topical example. There can be no doubt that in ancient India (at least, until about the beginning of the Common Era), meat-eating and the slaughter of cattle were tolerated, on occasion even endorsed by Vedic dharma. Killing a cow to feed honoured guests was expected; and killing a cow as part of the marriage rite, for example, was recommended. A number of the early Codes were precise about which meats could be eaten and the list included beef (e.g. dhenvanaḍuhor bhakṣyam: Āpastamba Dharma Sūtra, I.5.17.30). But for various reasons, culminating at least partly, in medieval times, in the desire of the Hindu orthodox to recoil collectively from the Muslim practice of eating beef especially on religiously festive occasions, the killing of cows was forbidden. A way had to be found for re-interpreting the permissions of the Law Codes, and for this the concept of kali-varjya was handy. So the later Purāṇas teach that although eating beef and/or the slaughter of cattle may have been permitted in the preceding ages for one reason or other, it is now kali-varjya, to be avoid
ed in the kali age – so much so, that it came to be abhorred as a practice that symbolized the degeneracy of the times. In view of the history of the matter, it is ironical that opposing the slaughter of cattle has become a hallmark of Hindu orthodoxy in some political and religious circles in India today. Numerous other examples can be given of using the concept of kali-varjya as an expedient.
There are a number of significant concepts in traditional Hinduism that subtly modulate if not counteract the conception of degenerative time. Take, for example, the idea of the four āśramas. There is a sense of progression to the spiritual life here. In theory, one may pass from the stage of the student in which one is formally initiated into religion to that of the householder and then on to the stages of the forest dweller and renouncer. But as intimated in Chapter 6, the progression here is not straightforward in any obvious sense. Stages may be bypassed. Studentship, which is a period of moderation and celibacy, may lead to what must be regulated enjoyment of sex and prosperity in the householder stage. This, in turn, can lead to the renunciation of sexual pleasure and wealth as a ‘forest dweller’, viz. one who withdraws from the world, and to the ultimate severing of worldly ties in saṃnyāsa, the fourth stage. Spiritual progress (ideally for men) is envisaged here, but a progress that consolidates the spiritual growth of previous stages, and that, rather than intensifying a particular line of development, e.g. a more and more socially exclusive practice of celibacy, encourages a rounded experience of life, inclusive of sex, in which the preceding stage is integrated into the succeeding one. In other words, the ideal of the renouncer, which is an integrated ideal, overarches but also permeates the phases leading up to it. The final goal of the discipline is represented in every stage leading towards it, and every such stage contributes towards the final goal. This notion of progression, which accommodates phased integration of each preceding stage, is characteristic of the Hindu family of religions.
Practically, too, it lives on in modern adaptations of the classical ashramic ideal. Among the urban upper and middle classes at any rate, there is a general feeling that one's passage through school and university should be a celibate one. Open cohabiting among university students, for example, would hardly be tolerated (though clandestine affairs are not uncommon). Where males are concerned, it is generally only after a job has been found that marriage is contemplated. No doubt this makes economic sense in the Indian context, but it also expresses a sense of priority and progression: there is a proper time in life for marriage and its attendant experiences. As old age sets in and children are married off, many religious Hindus would ideally like to project a personal image of withdrawing from the maelstrom of life, including sexual activity. There is a tendency to become more involved in such activities as attending religious addresses or regular prayer meetings, practising yoga, and engaging in private devotional practices. Some are formally initiated by a guru or family priest into a religious way of life or discipline that can be followed from the home.
Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices) Page 50