In Search of Radha

Introduction:

Very recently, a 'National Seminar on Indian Literatures and Culture' was held at a leading University in Kerala. It was "designed to direct critical focus on the varied cultural heritage of India and ... its varied manifestations in regional literatures and indigenous art forms". With generous encouragement from an Academic Elder, artist Sri N K Vinod and I submitted a paper.
Background: For several weeks, Vinod, who has considerable experience with the Keralan Mural Painting tradition, had been working on a commission from a Well-wisher of mine to "visualize an unusual classical theme thru the medium of a female figure". As textual source for the painting, we chose, from Jayadeva's 'Gitagovinda', a couplet that had never received a visual interpretation (to our knowledge). Since the painting was close to completion, we planned to present it at the Seminar with an accompanying writeup detailing its context and conception - hoping that the work would attract some serious "critical focus".

However, things didn't quite work out. Our submission was rejected. As we informally gathered, the writeup was judged to be lacking in content by some Experts and of inappropriate content by some other Experts.

Whatever, the finished painting should be up for viewing very soon. Indeed, it will take up the whole of the next post here. For the time being though, here is our writeup - complete and unabridged:
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‘Radha Evide?’– a Kerala Mural Realization of a Gitagovinda Couplet

Vishnu is a Vedic god - in a famous hymn, the Rigveda (1500-1200 BC) lyrically praises His mighty strides that span the Cosmos. But the worship of Krishna, Vishnu’s most glorious incarnation, does not go back beyond the middle of the first millennium BC. From Krishna’s emergence, allegedly as a pastoral god (*) to his being identified as Narayana, the supreme Godhead and an incarnation of Vishnu took several centuries; this process seems to have reached its consummation with the compilation of the Bhagavad Gita and the Sahasra Nama around the time of Christ and their incorporation into the vast body of the epic Mahabharata. The earliest surviving artistic expressions of Krishna-devotion are probably two illustrations of Krishna and Balarama found in what is now Afghanistan and the Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh (both 2nd century BCE).


What we have just sketched is the early phase of Krishna’s evolution as a much loved deity. There may well be disagreements on details thereof but one can confidently state that no pre-Christian or early 1st millennium document – visual or literary – on Krishna has any mention of Radha, his consort/lover.

The earliest popular forms of Bhakti, personal and self-denying love and devotion to a chosen God, probably emerged in South India in the 1st millennium (the earlier Gita does advocate Bhakti as the most efficient means to attain salvation but in a more rarefied, elite form). One of the earliest exponents of such 'folk Bhakti' addressed to Vishnu and Krishna was the noblewoman Andal (8th century; she thus predates every popular North Indian Vaishnava Krishna Bhakti exponent such as Meerabai or Surdas ). Andal's ‘Tiruppavai’, detailing the love of Krishna and the milkmaids of ‘Ayarpadi’ is to this day a much-loved Tamil classic. It is but a remarkable fact this work features no Gopi named ‘Radha’. Indeed, the great Sanskrit Purana Bhagavata, now held to be the standard comprehensive source of information on Krishna and his adventures, and believed to have been put together in the late 1st millennium in South India, does not name Radha at all although it contains several passages extolling the Gopis’ – they are always referred to collectively - love for Krishna. So, one can only guess that Radha emerged, perhaps as a folk goddess, sometime after 500 CE, perhaps In East rather than South India. It is not clear which is the earliest text – Sanskrit or otherwise - mentioning her but scholars have mentioned 'Radhavipralambha', a now-lost Sanskrit play composed before 800 CE on the love-lorn Radha's travails.

Ramanujacharya (12th century), great master of the Vishishtadvaita school of Vedanta as well as Vaishnavism, was born and did his best work in modern day Tamil Nadu. He is also believed to have visited and spent time at Puri in Orissa and this pilgrimage is held by some to mark the spread of Krishna devotion to East India. But whatever the specific impact Ramanuja had -and whatever the origins of Radha - we can confidently state that Krishna Bhakti rapidly took root in East India and from that setting emerged Jayadeva (13th century), whose inspired masterpiece ‘Gitagovinda’ foregrounded the then not- too-widely-known Radha and established the worship of Radha as an essential part of the devotion to Krishna..

Gitagovinda is a compact masterpiece - printed, it barely fills 40 pages. Its wonderful musicality and mystical, ecstatic eroticism rapidly won a wide audience and sainthood for its author (even D D Kosambi refers to the work as "the most musical, mystical and beautiful of Sanskrit dramas, though totally unsuited to the stage"). It inspired poets from various parts of India who wrote pioneering works in their own languages extolling Radha and her love for Krishna. The amorous acts and adventures of this divine couple eventually became a favorite theme for painters from most parts of northern and eastern India. Over the centuries, from the Mughal atelier to the Rajput miniature traditions of Kangra, Kishangarh, Guler etc. to the Orissa school and folk art traditions from a wide swathe of the country, countless masterpieces emerged.




Like other parts of India, Kerala too took to Krishna Bhakti with enthusiasm; Cherusseri (14th century) showed the way with Krishnagatha, a joyous retelling in Malayalam verse of the Krishna legend as narrated in the Bhagavata. Ezhuthachhan (16th century) took things ahead with several passages in his poetic retelling of the Mahabharata, where he extols Krishna’s glory as supreme manifestation of Godhead – the most striking such passage being when even as Karna and Arjuna head for their final showdown, Shalya, Karna’s charioteer suddenly launches into a deeply felt paean to Krishna who participates in the duel as charioteer to Arjuna and unforgiving opponent to Karna. Many more exponents of Krishna-Bhakti followed in Ezhuthachhan’s footsteps – Melpathur, Poonthanam and so forth. Their primary source of literary inspiration seems to have been not Gitagovinda but Bhagavata. However, Gitagovinda was just as well-known in these parts and embraced enthusiastically albeit in a rather different manner:

For Gitagovinda is not just a poem; it is a lengthy Ragamalika-kind of song comprising many songs which are in turn composed of 'songlets' - indeed a veritable ‘Song of songs’. The text gives clear indications on the Raga in which each section is to be sung. These guidelines were not adhered to on an all–India basis and over the centuries, an immense variety of musical renditions of the masterwork emerged all over the country; and here, Kerala was a glorious exemplar. An entire genre of music – ‘Sopana Sangitam’ – developed here just to tune and render stanzas from Gitagovinda at temples, the vocals being accompanied by the uniquely musical drum ‘Idakka’. We may remark here that this drum too must have had a very interesting trajectory of development - carvings and sculptures at far away Hampi and Halebeedu in Karnataka ( done around 1500) and even the Darasuram temple in Tamil Nadu (12th century) clearly showing it being played.

Despite the great admiration Gitagovinda deservedly won here, the visual artists of Kerala have been strangely indifferent to themes in it - and to Radha in particular. This despite Krishna having been a favorite among masters of the Kerala Mural tradition – a tradition that goes back nearly 500 years. They illustrated his many exploits, heroic and erotic, very extensively – among the many frankly erotic Kerala murals are the ‘Stealing of Gopis' clothes’ done most famously at the Ettumanur temple Gopuram and the even more salacious ‘Madanagopala’ at the Mattanchery palace. But the basis of all that was Bhagavata and not Gitagovinda. Indeed, from among the hundreds of classical murals still extant on the walls of temples and palaces all over Kerala, there seems to be just one Radha-Krishna specimen (Kottakkal temple) and one at the Padmanabhapuram palace showing Krishna among many milkmaids where Radha is apparently identifiable by her white and ‘tamasic’ complexion.

In modern times, some Radha-Krishna murals have indeed been executed (for example, on the walls of the Guruvayur temple) but this has been under the influence of what can only be called popular trends of pan-Indian art and is not part of classical tradition. And our artists’ traditional indifference to Radha is actually quite consistent with the ‘literary neglect’ of her by Ezhuthachan, Melpathur or Poonthanam, none of whom penned any significant lines about her (indeed, they don’t so much as name her).

It is against such a backdrop that we have tried to conceive and actualize a representation of Radha within the canons of Kerala Mural tradition. As fundamental literary reference, we chose the following couplet from the 6th chapter of Gitagovinda: a mutual friend describes to the ‘helpless with love’ Krishna, the state of Radha, as she sits in her retreat of wines, crazed with love:

“Muhuravalokita mandana lila Madhuripurahamiti bhavanasila”

- (Staring at her ornament’s natural grace, Radha fancies: “I am Krishna, Madhu’s foe”)

Having adorned herself with all the ornaments Krishna is known to favour – a crown embellished with peacock feathers, a garland of forest blossoms, earrings shaped like ‘Makaras’, the ‘gopi’ vermillion mark on the forehead - and poised to play the flute as her beloved does so enchantingly, Radha confidently admires in a mirror how thorough a job she has done, of not merely mimicking or impersonating Krishna but actually becoming Krishna.

As we mentioned above, Rajput minaturists of Kangra, Guler etc. have really scoured the Gitagovinda for themes to illustrate – they show Radha and Krishna engaged in amorous games, their secret trysts in various picturesque settings (forest glades, river banks, moonlit palace terraces,..) or even in physical intimacy – special mention may be made of several works showing Radha and Krishna in each other’s garments and a particularly remarkable Kangra painting showing them blissfully asleep in each other’s arms.




We know of one specimen where a somewhat dull-faced Radha, dressed up as Krishna, is seen among other Gopis but that does not quite capture Radha’s total identification with her lord – the essence of the above couplet.

'Radha’s toilette'(**) is another favorite theme for Rajput miniaturists but there she is usually shown distracted and attended to by other Gopis, not admiring herself in the mirror, alone (we note in passing, there is a not very well known and perhaps apocryphal story of Daruka, Krishna’s charioteer, once spotting the lord spending a lot of time in front of a mirror to dress up in anticipation of a meeting with Duryodhana but that is another story!).

Many commentators have emphasized that despite its joyous and unfettered celebration of physical beauty and carnal love, Gitagovinda's real aim is to convey the supreme realization of a Truth far beyond mere the material – that Radha and Krishna are but one transcendental being. Indeed, our own visualization focusses on Radha’s deep yearning to be one with her cosmic Beloved and we have chosen to work out a visual representation of a remarkable couplet from a foundational text – a theme, as noted above, without real precedent in any school of painting – classical or folk..
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(*) There is a reference to "Krishna, the son of Devaki" in Upanishadic literature (around BC 700) but it seems to indicate a student or curious layperson, not a deity or even an eminent teacher. Panini (around 400 BC) is said to mention Krishna as an 'un-Aryan god'.

(*) Just a Suspicion: maybe this phrase 'Radha's Toilette' was what bit the 'Experts' found inappropriate