Probably a Christian or a Muslim may even shudder to think of such a thing. Romance with God?! Maybe it sounds blasphemous. But not in India among Hindus. There, it is perfectly alright to have a ‘love affair with God’. Well, only if you are a female. As a female devotee, it is perfectly all right to look upon God as your male companion, your beloved, your lover.
By the way, Indian God can have myriad different forms. Unlike most other religions, the God in India can even be feminine. But a male devotee is forbidden from having the same romantic relation with his female deity. The reason is that female God is always looked upon as a motherly figure.
Probably the reason is also that in a male dominated world, a woman can voluntarily take on a subordinate role to her male counterpart, while a male devotee cannot accept a ‘lover and loved relation’ with a female deity, since the deity is always supreme. Of course, one can have a mother and child relation with the female God as Saints like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa did.
The topic of my new series of talks starting today is the female saints of India, who had a romantic relation with God. They imagined themselves to be consorts to God or even eternally married to Him. These saints produced some of the most enchanting and heartwarming devotional literature. They composed romantic poetry, sometimes even erotic! They sang them, and danced with total abandon to the societal norms. Afterall, they had only their beloved to care about!
I have chosen this new theme both because emotions are one of finest aspects of human beings, and also something that makes us different from mere automatons. Otherwise, we would have become the dullest things in an emerging world of ChatGPT 😉 And, what could be a more intense emotion than love?
So, let us take up our first story.
This is about the story of a young girl from Southern India. Maybe she lived over thousand years from now. This is how the story goes.
There was this saintly man by name Vishnuchitta who was a great devotee of God in the form of Vishnu. Literally, the word Vishnu means someone who encompasses everything – everything that ever existed, everything that exists now, and also that would ever come into existence. Who else that can be, except God?
As a devout person, Vishnuchitta used to gather flowers each morning from the garden, string them together into nice garlands, and hand them over to the priests in a nearby Vishnu temple. That was his routine. And he did that with utmost dedication.
Vishnuchitta had no children. Probably, God wanted to be generous with this devotee of his. So, one morning, while gathering the flowers, Vishnuchitta found a small female child left abandoned under a small tree in the garden. Vishnuchitta was quite delighted and he took that child as God’s gift to him. He named her Goda – a child who emerged from earth. From where else such a child lying alone in a garden appear all of a sudden!
Vishnuchitta brought up this female child as if she were his own. As I said, Vishnuchitta was a devout person. So, he often narrated stories of Krishna to this child as she grew up. Krishna is a human avatar of God Vishnu. The story goes that this Krishna was born almost 5000 years ago as a prince in a place called Mathura in Northern India. But, for various reasons, he was brought up among cowherds, by his foster mother Yashoda in a nearby village.
The childhood stories of this Krishna, his pastimes among cowherd boys and girls of his age, are among the most fascinating stories narrated even to this day in various parts of India. So, Vishnuchitta also amused his daughter Goda with these stories, who listened to them with rapt attention.
As Goda grew up, she became more and more enamored by these fascinating stories of Krishna, his mischievous ways, the miracles that he performed as a child, and so on. Gradually, Goda started imagining herself to be among those cowherd girls, who had lot of fun with Krishna.
Most of these cowherd girls were quite young, hardly 4 or 5. But they were very impressed by the charming Krishna. And as the story of Krishna goes in one of the well-known Indian epic Bhagavata, each of these damsels gradually developed infatuation towards young Krishna. All of them secretly craved to be wives of Krishna someday!
There is an interesting incident narrated in the Bhagavata, describing this childish love of these young cowherd girls for Krishna. It so happened that one day these girls decided to go to the river early in the morning, take a bath in the biting cold waters, and worship Goddess Katyayani on the river bank. Their only prayer to the Goddess was to get Krishna as their husband! They were quite young and innocent. They never realized who Krishna really was.
As per the story, Krishna reached that spot along with his male companions and climbed a nearby tree. While climbing the tree, Krishna also took all the garments of these girls which they had left behind on the banks, before getting into the waters. The girls were quite embarrassed and begged Krishna to give them back their garment since they could not come out nude. But Krishna forced them to come out totally nude and prostrate before him.
This incident is interpreted in many ways by different people. Some add an erotic and mischievous touch to this act of Krishna, while some others give highly philosophic and symbolic meaning. I myself have explained this incident in a philosophic way in my book “Wonderful stories of Krishna”. Giving any other kind of meaning did not make any sense to me since Krishna as well as those girls were mere kids below the age of 5 or 6.
In our current story of Goda, Goda too used to imagine herself in the place of those cowherd girls. She too was intensely in love with Krishna. So, she would gather her female friends and invite them to take a holy bath in the river with the sole aim of having Krishna as their beloved. The cold weather of Maargali month did not deter her from taking a dip in the chilly waters.
She goes from house to house calling out the names of her friends who are yet to wake up. She reminds them of their plan to go to the river for an early morning ritual bath. She gently chides those lazy ones who are still rolling over their beds struggling to open their eyes. She tempts them by describing Krishna, the one who is the most charming and the most powerful, and waiting for them near the river. She tells them that Krishna is none other than God himself. So, it only makes sense to surrender at his feet as part of their planned ritual. Goda sings
“Margazhi thingal madhi niraindha nannalal
Nirada podhuvir, podhu mino neridaiyeer
Seermalgum aayppadi ch chelva chirumeergal
Koorvel kodunthozhilan nandagopan kumaran
Erarndha kannni yasodhai ilan singam
Karmeni chengann kadir madiyam pol mugathan
Narayanane namakke parai tharuvan
Paror pugazha p padinthelor empavai.”
This beautiful Tamil verse of Goda is rendered melodiously by one of the popular singers of India, namely Padmini Dinesh. What you just heard is a clip from this soulful elaboration, in south Indian classical style.
Let us continue our story in the next episode.
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