The tension between Tulsi and Radha that is exemplified in these songs has
larger symbolic resonances. Krishna’s proper marital relationship to Tulsi, cul-
minating in their departure for Vaikunth, forms a symbolic counterpoint to the
relationship between Krishna and Radha, whose love-play in Vrindavan is widely
understood as always remaining outside the bounds of marriage. In Vrindavan,
Krishna is eternally at play, and his erotic sport is not bound by dharmiccon-
ventions (Kinsley 1979: esp. 56–121). Vaikunth, on the other hand, where
Krishna and Tulsi are widely believed to go when they leave the earthly realm at
the end of Ka ̄rtik to take up residence as husband and wife, is the domain of
Va i s.n.ava kingship and marriage, both of which are subject to the demands of
dharma. When Krishna marries Tulsi and becomes her proper husband, he
counts Vaikunth, not Vrindavan, as his home. This is the Krishna summoned to
Benares in the song with which this chapter begins.
In his work on performances of Krishna lı ̄la ̄in Braj, John S. Hawley invokes
symbolism of auspiciousness to contrast Vrindavan and Vaikunth (Hawley
1983: 305–6). Krishna’s play in Vrindavan, Hawley contends, is the realm of
dispersed auspiciousness, where auspiciousness flows in all directions and is
“made available to all who thirst.” Vaikunth, on the other hand, represents the
realm of stable auspiciousness, embodied in the goddess Lakshmi – for whom
Tulsi acts as a “double” in the context of Ka ̄rtik pu ̄ja ̄– and exemplified in the
marital relationship. Frédérique Marglin contrasts the playful realm of the
young Krishna of Vrindavan, which is characterized by sweetness, with the later,
princely realm of Krishna’s Dvaraka, which is characterized by sovereignty
(Marglin 1985: 195–216). According to Marglin, the eternally lush, forested
bowers of Vrindavan represents a transcendent type of auspiciousness that
never wanes; this is not true of Dvaraka, however, where auspiciousness is tem-
porally bound, and, in accordance with the demands of sovereignty, acquisition
of auspiciousness remains a chief concern. As the divine realm of Vais.n.ava sov-
ereignty, Vaikunth is the heavenly counterpart of Dvaraka.
In Benarsi women’s Ka ̄rtik celebrations, Vrindavan and Vaikunth, sweetness
and sovereignty, transcendent auspiciousness and temporally bound auspi-
ciousness all come together at the Ganges’s edge. The world of Ka ̄rtik pu ̄ja ̄
celebrates the youthful Krishna’s Vrindavan lı ̄la ̄and the tasting of dispersed
auspiciousness; but it also welcomes the sovereign glory of Vaikunth and the
stabilizing of auspiciousness that Krishna’s marriage to Tulsi suggests. While the
former realm embodies sacred ideals pertaining to religious devotion, however,
the latter realm reflects and is allied more closely with the concrete, worldly
concerns of Hindu women.
David Kinsley (1979) has described the nature of Krishna’s play in Vrinda-
van as embodying the bliss of the divine realm, a bliss that transcends worldly
concern. The call of Krishna’s flute to summon the gopı ̄s, Kinsley notes, “cares
nothing for this world and its moral and social laws.... It comes from another
world where this-wordly morality and conduct have no place” (99–100). Such
perceptions of the divine permeate the world of Ka ̄rtik pu ̄ja ̄, where participants
assume the role of the sakhı ̄s and, in their hearts, frolic with Krishna on the
the month of ka ̄rtik and women’s ritual devotions 339