As she grew older, the story widened and deepened with her years. But as
she came to girlhood, her anxious mother, Sita Bai, ventured with
trembling to doubt if it were well to draw her heart yet closer to the
radiant manhood of the young God; for now the story is to be mystically
interpreted and read by the light of the wisdom of the old and learned.
“Was there not Mira Bai, who went mad for the love of him and could not
leave his image or his temple, and dreamed of his sweetness night and
day until she wasted to a shadow and died? And, my lord, is not his
great temple as Jagannath, Lord of the World, but ten miles from us at
the great town of Chaki; and is it not filled with bands of
_devidasis_—the dancing girls? Would you have your daughter as one of
them—sacred but—vile?”
She caught the word back on her lips and looked about her in terror.
Then added passionately:—
“O my lord, is it well to kindle such a passion in her heart, and she
little more than a child?”
“Better be possessed by that love than by the follies and wickednesses
that haunt the hearts of women to their ruin and ours. Woman, I know
what I do. Be silent!” was all his answer.
So she was silent, and daily the story went onward and filled the soul
of the girl. For now, as Krishna grew to manhood, beauty came upon him,
irresistible, heart-compelling, the world’s Desire, and on the banks of
Jumna was sung the Song of Songs—the Lover, dark and glorious, to whom
the souls of all the women of Brindaban, whether wife or maid, cling
passionately, forgetful of self and of all but him. And the deepest
symbol of the adoration of Krishna is the passion of man for woman and
woman for man.
“Walk warily here, my child, if you would understand,” said the Pandit;
“for we move among pitfalls made by the mind of man fettered to his
senses—the mind of man, that coin bearing the double superscription of
spirit and flesh. Yet the story is plain for him who has ears to hear!”
And Radha, speechless, with dark eyes filled with adoring love,
listened—listened, with no heart for aught else.
“Tell me more, more!” she said.
And he, seeing the Divine Passion, the trembling of her lips, the
uttering of her heart, told on, imparting the desire of the God.
And when, as at this time, a marriage was spoken of for her with the son
of the rich Brahman Narayan, she shrank from it with such shuddering
horror that for very pity her father put it by for a while. But her
mother watched in great fear.
And every evening, when the light was calm and golden and her father
laid his books aside, she would sit before him, putting all else aside
that she might drink in the sweet nectar of his words.
And now he told of the Herd-maidens bathing in the clear ripple of the
river where the trees hang in green shadow over the deep pools.
Their garments lie on the bank, forgotten in the joy of youth and life,
as they sing the praises of the Beloved, until at length one remembers
and looks, and lo! some thief has stolen the vesture, and they stand
ashamed in the crystal lymph, their long locks gathered about them.
Who has so bereft them? For no man or woman should bathe uncovered; and
they have sinned—they know it!
And then a voice calls from the world of leaves above their heads, and
there sits the Desired, shining like a star caught in the topmost
boughs, and before him are rolled the stolen garments, and when, all
shamefaced, they entreat for their restoration, the Voice exhorts
them:—
“And if it is for My sake you have bathed and purified yourselves, then
come forth fearless, and receive your vesture from my hands.”
And he laid in her hand the picture of the Gopis fearing and adoring as
they leave the lustral water, some shrinking in humility, to receive
their vesture from the Beautiful, who sits smiling far above them.
“And this, my daughter, is a very great mystery!” he said gravely. “And
its meaning is this: ‘Thy _Thou_ is still with thee; if thou wilt attain
unto me, quit thyself, and come.’”