The Parijata of Love

I

"Sri Krishna respected Rukmini, but he loved Satya", said I.

"No", angrily retorted my friend, "Sri Krishna loved Satya, but he adored Rukmini."

Do you think it passing strange that an Indian love story of the long-long-ago enshrined in the immortal classic of the race–the Bhagavata–should have roused a warm discussion in the drab, prosaic, work-a-day world of ours? But the memory of Sri Krishna and his queenly consorts is ever fresh and fragrant even as the Parijata which he plucked from the garden of the gods and planted on earth, that it might fill the world with its perfume. Sri Krishna was indeed all things to all persons. And in the manner of their approach to him, was also the outflow of his beneficence and grace. In India, through the ages, men and women have poured forth the love of their hearts to Sri Krishna the wonder-child, the player on the flute, the charioteer, and the giver of the Geeta.

But there are two relationships of his that have fascinated me above all else. I love to think of him as the comrade of Arjuna and the lover of Satya. These, unlike the rest, did not look up to him as God incarnate, as one to be placed on a pedestal and worshipped with reverent awe. Arjuna among men and Satya among women, cherished for him the purest and the most ardent love. Theirs was an intensely human fellowship. Imagine Sri Krishna stepping into the Court of the Pandavas. After the formal greetings are over, and the pressing problems of the hour are discussed, what would Sri Krishna long to do? What except to take Arjuna aside, enfold him in a warm embrace and forget the cares of state in the joy of re-union with the hero-prince? If Arjuna knew and felt that Sri Krishna was an Avatar, it was not as one far away in the clouds, but as one nearest his heart–a loving and beloved comrade.

So too with Satya. She felt for Sri Krishna little of the reverence of Rukmini or the self-effacing adoration of Radha. To Satya, Sri Krishna was ever the charming prince, the fond lover who, if he was guilty of transgressions, was certainly to be punished by an expression of her just resentment. Was it right, was it chivalrous that on great occasions and on small, Sri Krishna should slight her and seek to humiliate her in the presence of Rukmini and his other queens? Was it her fault that she came into Sri Krishna's life later than Rukmini, or that her marriage was in the nature of a diplomatic alliance1 not a love match like that of Rukmini? Satya as depicted in the Bhagavata and in subsequent literature based on the epic, is not the mere conventional Hindu wife, devoted to her lord and always prepared to subordinate her will to his. She has, like Savitri and Draupadi, like Kaikeyi and Kunti, plenty of energy and initiative. She does not hesitate, on occasions, to stand up for her rights as woman and as wife. Alone of all the consorts of Sri Krishna, she follows him to the field of battle, fights by his side and vanquishes his foes. In beauty and in valour, in the graces and accomplishments of womanhood, she is indeed the leader of society in the city of Dwaraka. It is therefore round her that the allegory of the Parijata is woven.

II

It is a belief universal amongst Hindus that Sri Krishna was an Avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu, the Preserver–the second Entity in the Trinity, and that in glory and power his was a much fuller manifestation of the Lord than the other Avatars including Sri Ramachandra. But some scholars hold that the child Krishna of Brindavan, hero of the Bhagavata and friend of the Gopis, was an entirely different individual from Krishna, Prince of Dwaraka, leader of the confederate Kshatriya clans of the Andhakas, Vrishnis and Bhojas–the warrior and statesmen whose deeds are immortalised in the Mahabharata. Possibly they are right, and later tradition might have blended the two conceptions of Krishna into one. The Krishna of the Mahabharata must have lived his life on earth several centuries earlier than his namesake of the Bhagavata. When we speak of Krishna as a complete Avatar the reference is nearly always, albeit unconsciously, to the later Krishna of Brindavan. The earlier Krishna, if he was an Avatar, -as I believe he was–must have been what is termed an Avesa Avatar, that is to say, a highly evolved individual on whom, at a certain stage in his career, the Spirit of the Lord descended in all Its glory and dwelt for a period, that, through him, the worlds might be blessed.

This conception of an Avesa Avatar is quite in consonance with Hindu tradition. We have been told that during the encounter between Parasu-Rama and Sri-Rama after the breaking of the Bow of Siva and the winning of King Janaka's daughter, the Light of the Lord passed from Parasu-Rama and entered the body of Sri-Rama, the mighty bowman and Prince of Ayodhya. The great work that had to be achieved through Parasu-Rama was over, and young Sri-Rama, by reason of his valour and his attainments, was marked out as the ‘Man of the Age’ –as the proper tabernacle for the indwelling of the Lord's Spirit. Evidently, then, Sri-Rama was not bornan Avatar like the child Krishna of the Bhagavata, but he became one after his encounter with Parasu-Rama. The Christian Gospels tell us that when Jesus was thirty years old, he one day bathed in the waters of the Jordan, and as he came out of the river, the Spirit of the Lord descended on him in the shape of a dove. It was then that Jesus became ‘the Christ’ and commenced his blessed ministry.

If such is the nature of an Avesa Avatar, is it possible for us to mark the exact point in the career of the Krishna of the Mahabharata when he became an Avatar of Vishnu? Was it when he gave the great teaching of the Geeta to Arjuna on the fateful field of Kurukshetra, or was it much earlier, when he planted the Parijata tree on earth, for the love he bore Satya?

III

The story of the Parijata is one of the most picturesque in the Hindu Puranas. Narada the gifted singer and messenger of the Gods2 visited Sri Krishna at Dwaraka, while he was in the palace of Rukmini, and presented him with a Parijata flower–the flower that blossomed only in the Nandana vana, garden of Indra, god of gods. Sri Krishna was charmed with the beauty and fragrance of the Parijata and, as a token of his love, bestowed it on Rukmini. Narada complimented Rukmini on being the fortunate recipient of this divine gift, and true to his nature as one that ever fed on strife, spoke slightingly of Satya. This news was conveyed with lightning speed to Satya by one of her maids. And Satya, the beauteous and the accomplished, was filled with resentment that Krishna should have so openly showed his preference for Rukmini and–what in her view was a greater lapse from decorum–permitted Narada, without a word of protest, to speak the things that he did.3 And then, the story is told, Krishna humbled himself before Satya, confessed his many and egregious faults, and at last appeased her anger by promising to plant the entire Parijata tree–and not a mere flower–in her own garden. For this purpose, Satya and Krishna invade the city of Indra, vanquish the heavenly hosts and come triumphant to Dwaraka with the coveted Parijata tree.

A beautiful allegory–for what does the Parijata signify but the Parijata of Love, the heavenly gift which Sri Krishna, in his narrowness, bestowed on Rukmini alone? Krishna, before he became an Avatar, lavished his love on Rukmini and did not admit Satya into the innermost sanctuary of his heart. But she claimed his love, and won it too, through long years of devotion and the outpouring of a love that was wide as the heavens above, and deep as the ocean around. Thus she enabled him to attain his destiny as an Avatar. When Sri Krishna could love Satya as ardently as he did Rukmini, his love was that instant transmuted into the Love of the Lord–the Love that doth flood the Universe. That is what is meant when it is said that in company with Satya he planted the Parijata on earth, after snatching it from the gods.

And yet, the popular conception seems to be that Satya's love was somehow inferior to that of Rukmini or Radha and that Sri Krishna humiliated Satya for her own good, to enable her to attain that perfection of love which she lacked. In recent Telugu literature, and I believe in other Indian literatures too, poems and dramas have been written in pursuance of this idea. I have witnessed plays like the Parijatapaharana of Chilakamarti Lakshminarasimham, the Radha-Krishna of P. Lakshminarasimha Rao and the Thulabharam –‘the weighing of Sri Krishna in the scales’–by the late lamented Professor Subba Rao. Everywhere Satya is made to look very small; her love for Sri Krishna is represented as intensely selfish and grasping, as "of the earth, earthy." Playwright, actors, audience, all are satisfied that Satya deserved to be humiliated for her arrogance. Even talented actors like Mr. Sthanam Narasimha Rao in the role of Satya and B. Subba Rao as Sri Krishna in the Thulabharam, have not been able to do justice to the supremely noble nature of Satya. All this arises out of a false reading of the character of Satya and an utter incapacity to gauge the love of Satya for Krishna and of Krishna for Satya.

Satya's love was neither selfish nor grasping. In fact it was through her love that Sri Krishna became the Lover of all beings–worthy of his destiny as "Teacher of Gods and men."

1 Satrajit, father of Satya, unjustly suspected Sri Krishna of having stolen a valuable gem of his. To make amends for this wrong, he presented Sri Krishna "the gem, and with it, this gem among maidens" as the Telugu Bhagavata puts it.)

2. The late Andhraratna Gopalakrishnaiya humourously styled Narada as the "Postmaster-General of all the worlds ".

3.The passage from the Telugu Parijatapaharanam translated by the young Associate Editor is a brilliant portrayal of the resentment of Satya on the occasion.