Vasanta Rasa

In hon­our of Vasanti Panchami, and in remem­brance of Sripad Vaishnav Maharaj, we are con­tinu­ing our series on the Temple of Love and Affection by present­ing a verse Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj dis­cussed with Sripad Vaishnav Maharaj three years ago on this day.

Temple of Love and Affection Verse Twenty-Three

viśveṣām anur­añ­jan­ena janay­ann ānan­dam indīvara–
śreṇī-śyāmala-komalair upanay­ann aṅgair anaṅgotsavam
svachch­handaṁ vraja-sundarībhir abhitaḥ praty-aṅgam āliṅgitaḥ
śṛṅgāraḥ sakhi mūr­timān iva madhau mug­dho hariḥ krīḍati
(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita: Adi-lila, 4.224; Sri Gīta-govinda: 1.11)

“O friends, the enchant­ing embod­i­ment of amor­ous love, Sri Hari, unhes­it­at­ingly embraced in full by the beau­ties of Vraja on both sides, plays dur­ing the sea­son of spring, delight­ing the entire uni­verse by cre­at­ing a fest­ival of Cupid with His soft arms and legs which resemble blue lotus flowers.”

Alternate Translation

“O friends, the enchant­ing embod­i­ment of amor­ous love, Sri Hari, plays dur­ing the sea­son of spring, delight­ing the beau­ties of Vraja who unhes­it­at­ingly embrace Him in full on both sides by arous­ing the ecstasy of amor­ous desire within their hearts with His soft arms and legs which resemble blue lotus flowers.”

Srila Govinda Maharaj delivered a unfor­get­table lec­ture on this day in 2009; a small por­tion of his talk is excerp­ted below.

Today is a very aus­pi­cious day. In the time of Srila Guru Maharaj we would always dis­cuss the qual­it­ies and Pastimes of all the devotees who are hon­oured on this day. And today is spe­cially Vasanta Panchami; Krishna per­forms His Vasanta rasa dance today.

Last night Srutasrava Prabhu and I were dis­cuss­ing one shloka about this. This shloka was com­posed by Jayadev Goswami and is found in his Gita-govinda; it is a very fam­ous shloka. Mahaprabhu Sri Chaitanyadev would taste this shloka and the other poems and pray­ers within Gita-govinda.

viśveṣām anuraṣjanena janay­ann ānan­dam indīvara–
śreṇī-śyāmala-komalair upanay­ann aṅgair anaṅgotsavam
svachch­handaṁ vraja-sundarībhir abhitaḥ praty-aṅgam āliṅgitaḥ
śṛṅgāraḥ sakhi mūr­timān iva madhau mug­dho hariḥ krīḍati
(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita: Adi-lila, 4.224; Sri Gīta-govinda: 1.11)

This shloka describes that Krishna is per­form­ing rasa-lila and attract­ing every­one, draw­ing every­one near to Him. He is tak­ing them, embra­cing them, dan­cing, and singing. So much ecstasy is over­flow­ing all around Him and the whole world is becom­ing happy. The shloka described Krishna as the con­cen­trated, con­densed form of all ecstasy, all ananda, all rasa, spe­cially sringara-rasa. That means madhura-rasa. Sringara-rasa sakhi murt­ti­man means that Krishna is the fully con­cen­trated, con­densed divine form of madhura-rasa. When Krishna sees Himself in the mir­ror His heart melts and He embraces the mir­ror. Krishna is so beau­ti­ful that even He is mug­dha, aston­ished and melted, to see Himself.

Today is Vasant Panchami and that Sri Krishna per­formed rasa-lila today. We are not read­ing that chapter in Srimad Bhagavatam though because we are afraid. Vedavyas described everything beau­ti­fully but we live within this mundane world. Our senses are always con­trolled by Maya and we can­not feel things prop­erly. We feel the oppos­ite of tran­scend­ental feel­ings and that des­troys our devo­tional mood. Therefore we are try­ing to become qual­i­fied first, we are not read­ing the rasa-lila. But some­times we are hear­ing some­thing from a qual­i­fied, expert Vaishnav.