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Skandha 10, adhyayas 32-33 · Saptah day 6
Krishna reappears declaring himself unable to repay the gopis' love, dances with each of them at once, and Shuka answers Parikshit's doubt.
As the last note of the Gopi Gita faded across the moonlit sands of the Yamuna and the cowherd women of Vraja wept in hopeless longing, Krishna suddenly appeared right in their midst (`10.32.1-2`). Wearing his golden-yellow silk garment and a garland of forest flowers, with a tender smile on his lotus face that could charm the god of love himself (`sakshan manmatha-manmathah`), the son of Vasudeva stood before them. At the sight of their beloved returning, the gopis sprang to their feet all at once, exactly as the limbs and senses of a body surge back to life when the vital breath returns (`10.32.3`).
Wordlessly, each gopi expressed her love in her own way (`10.32.4-9`). One joyfully took Krishna's lotus-blossom hand between her joined palms; another placed his sandal-cooled arm across her shoulder; a third caught in her folded hands the betel nut he had chewed; one whose feet were burning with the pain of separation pressed his cool lotus feet against her heart. Another gopi stood biting her lip and glaring at him sideways with knitted brows, angry that he had abandoned them (`10.32.6`), while another drank in his face with unblinking eyes, never satisfied (`10.32.7`), just as saintly sages contemplate the Lord's feet without ever having enough. A gopi took him into her heart through the pathway of her eyes, embraced him within, and stood with every hair on her body standing on end, her tears of joy flowing like a yogi's (`10.32.8`).
Seeing all the fever of their grief vanish at his sight—just as the worlds reach complete peace upon attaining the Supreme Person (`10.32.10`)—Krishna walked with the circle of gopis down to the edge of the Yamuna (`10.32.11`). There, where bees hummed around blooming mandara and kunda flowers and the dark shadow of the night had been driven back by the autumn moon, the gopis spread their own upper garments (`uttariya`), dusted with the fragrant kumkuma from their breasts, upon the soft sand to make a seat for him (`10.32.13`). Sitting on that cloth—he whose true seat is the meditative heart of the highest yogis (`yogeshvara-hridi-krite`, `10.32.14`)—Krishna placed their hands in his lap and listened to their gentle, tearful questions (`10.32.15`).
The gopis asked him (`10.32.16`) to explain how lovers behave: some people love only those who love them back; others love unconditionally even those who do not return their affection; and still others love neither those who love them nor those who do not. Looking at their faces, Krishna answered candidly (`10.32.17-21`). Those who love only in exchange for love act out of self-interest (`svarthe`), without true friendship or dharma (`10.32.17`). Those who love even the unloving act out of pure compassion, like parents toward their children (`10.32.18`). And those who appear indifferent fall into four kinds: the self-realized (`atma-rama`), those already completely fulfilled (`apta-kama`), the ungrateful, and the hostile (`10.32.19`). "As for Me, O friends," Krishna explained (`10.32.20-21`), "I sometimes do not visibly return the love of those who worship Me so that their minds may stay fixed on Me all the more intensely, just as a poor man who finds a treasure and then loses it cannot think of anything else (`yatha nirdhano labdhva dhanam`)."
Then Krishna spoke verse `10.32.22`, declaring himself forever in their debt: > *na paraye 'ham niravadya-samyujam / sva-sadhu-krityam vibudhayushapi vah*
"Even across a lifetime as long as the celestial gods enjoy, I am completely unable to repay the spotless bond of love you have shown Me (`na paraye 'ham`), for you have broken the unbreakable chains of household life (`sudurjara-geha-shrinkhala`) to worship Me; may your own noble deed itself be my repayment (`sadhu-kritena vo 'stu`)!"
Hearing those loving words, the gopis were completely freed of the ache of separation (`10.33.1`). Right there on the cool banks of the Yamuna, Krishna began the **Maharasa**—the great circle dance of divine love (`10.33.2-25`). Expanding himself by his yogic power into as many forms as there were cowherd women, the Lord of the yogis stood between every two gopis in the ring (`antaram gopikayo`), placing his arms around their necks (`10.33.3`). So completely was he present beside each one that every gopi in that vast circle believed Krishna was standing with her alone (`manyamana tathatmanam`).
Above the Yamuna, the sky filled with hundreds of celestial chariots as the gods and their wives crowded the heavens with longing to witness the dance (`10.33.4`). Celestial kettle-drums sounded, showers of flowers fell, and the Gandharva chiefs sang Krishna's spotless glories with their queens (`10.33.5`). Inside the ring of the Rasa dance, a festival of ankle-bells, waist-girdles, and bracelets rang out as Krishna shone among the golden-complexioned gopis like a dark blue sapphire strung at the center of a necklace of gold (`10.33.6`). Their feet stepped in rhythm, their hands gestured, their eyebrows smiled, their braids and waistbands swayed, and beads of perspiration glistened on their cheeks as they sang aloud like rainclouds flashing with lightning (`10.33.7-8`).
One gopi, singing with Krishna, raised her voice in clear, ascending notes (`10.33.9`), and Krishna praised her, crying, "Well sung, well sung!" Another grew weary from the dance and laid her arm upon the shoulder of the mace-wielder sitting beside her (`10.33.11`); another kissed the fragrant arm he placed on her shoulder (`10.33.12`); another pressed her cheek against his and received the betel nut from his mouth (`10.33.13`). Seeing this festival of delight, the moon and its retinue of stars stood still in astonishment (`10.33.18`). Multiplying himself into as many bodies as there were women, the self-delighted Lord (`atmaramo 'py ariramat`, `10.33.19`) wiped their tired faces with his own cooling hand (`10.33.20`) and entered the waters of the Yamuna with them like a king elephant entering a river with his herd (`10.33.22-23`), while Brahma multiplied the single night into a night of Brahma (`brahma-ratra`) so that the dawn did not break until the gopis relented and returned quietly to their homes (`10.33.38`). And why had their husbands in Vraja never noticed their absence? Because by Krishna's Yogamaya (`10.33.37`), each man had seen his wife lying right beside him all night long.
At this point in the narrative (`10.33.26-28`), King Parikshit—the righteous emperor sitting by the Ganga with only days left to live—interrupts his teacher Shukadeva Goswami with a direct, unsparing ethical question. "O brahmana," Parikshit asks (`10.33.26-27`), "the Supreme Lord descended specifically to establish dharma and uproot adharma! He is the creator, teacher, and guardian of moral boundaries (`dharma-setunam`). How, then, could he perform an act so contrary to ordinary dharma—touching the wives of others at night (`para-darabhimarsanam`)? Tell me, O faithful observer of vows (`dhrita-vrata`), what motive could the self-fulfilled Yadu chief have had for doing something so blameworthy?"
Rather than brushing the doubt aside, Shukadeva answers directly (`10.33.29-39`). First (`10.33.29-30`), he notes that great controllers of the cosmos (`isvaranam`) are sometimes seen crossing ordinary boundaries of conduct, just as an all-consuming fire devours every substance—pure or impure—without ever becoming contaminated (`yatha sarva-bhujo vahnir`). Yet one who is not such a lord (`anisvarah`) must never imitate that conduct even mentally (`manasapi na`), for if a mortal out of foolishness tries to copy Lord Shiva drinking the ocean-born poison, he will simply perish (`10.33.30`). Only the spoken instructions of such masters are to be followed by human beings, selecting whatever matches their teachings (`10.33.31`).
Second, Shuka looks more deeply at Krishna's nature (`10.33.32-35`). For those who are already free of ego (`nirahankarinam`), no selfish advantage comes from following rules and no harm from leaving them behind; how much less do merit and sin bind the Supreme Lord of all living and non-living beings (`10.33.32`)? He walks inside the gopis, inside their husbands, and inside every embodied creature as the indwelling Witness Who presides over their very bodies (`10.33.35`). Only to bestow grace on his devotees does he assume a human-like form and enact pastimes such as these so that those who hear of them may become wholly absorbed in him (`anugrahaya bhaktanam manusham deham asthitah`, `10.33.36`).
Finally, Shuka seals the entire five-chapter Rasa-pancadhyayi with a bold benediction (`10.33.39`): whoever listens with faith to this pastime of Vishnu with the women of Vraja, and whoever recounts it, rapidly attains supreme devotion to the Lord and—being sobered—casts off lust (`kamam`), the chronic disease of the heart (`hrid-rogam`), before long.
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