54. worship
This god, with skin the color of blue-gray storm clouds, had spent his childhood
and adolescence in Vrindaban, on the pastoral shores of the Yamuna River. There
he faced and defeated demons, played pranks on the women of the countryside, and,
when he was older, enjoyed all the moods of love with the beautiful Radha. One of
his most famous pranks was to tease a group of cowherd women who had left their
clothes on the bank of the Yamuna when they bathed. While they were in the water,
Krishna stole their clothes and hung them in the branches of a kadamba tree on the
riverbank. The young women pleaded with Krishna to give them back their clothes,
but he refused to do so until they came out of the river and faced him in their naked-
ness. Once they had dropped their veils before the divine presence, it is said, Krishna
promised them that for the first time they could join him in the great circle dance of
union.
In time Krishna had to leave the scenes of his happy youth and assume his right-
ful place in the royal house of Mathura. He left behind Radha and her friends, who
were inconsolable. One day as the women were sitting on the banks of the Yamuna,
at the spot where Krishna had come ashore for his nocturnal trysts with Radha,
Krishna’s trusted friend Uddhava arrived from Mathura to comfort them. He told
them that Krishna, the fundamental essence of everything in the world, could in no
way be separated from them, so why should they grieve?
In reply, the women spoke eloquently of their love for Krishna, of their delight
in caring for him, serving him, and embracing him. So great was their feeling that
Uddhava was convinced that devotion like theirs was a more direct path to realiza-
tion of Krishna than all the knowledge and ritual practice he had assiduously culti-
vated. Overcome, he was about to prostrate himself before them and touch Radha’s
feet in devotion. Just then, a bhramara landed on the ground near Radha’s feet. But
Radha pulled back, saying, “Go away! You are just like the fraud and cheat who has
left us—you are dark, like him, and draped in yellow. You are fickle, like him, and
flirt with one flower after another. Your moustaches, like his clothes, are yellow with
the pollen of garlands pressed to the breasts of the women at the court of Mathura.
Go away!” Some say that the bhramara was the embodiment of Uddhava’s new-
found devotion, others that it was Krishna himself, who could not bear the separa-
tion from his beloved Radha.
The places where these events occurred are known to the followers of Krishna.
The kadamba tree, the landings where Radha and Krishna met for their nightly
trysts, and the riverbank where Uddhava came to comfort Radha and the cowherd
women are all within a few hundred feet of each other. In 1515 c.e., when the area
around what is today Vrindaban was still an uninhabited forest, the Bengali saint