The Radha-Krishna amour is a love legend of all times. It’s indeed hard to miss the many legends and paintings illustrating Krishna’s love affairs, of which the Radha-Krishna affair is the most memorable. Krishna’s relationship with Radha, his favorite among the ‘gopis’ (cow-herding maidens), has served as a model for male and female love in a variety of art forms, and since the sixteenth century appears prominently as a motif in North Indian paintings. The allegorical love of Radha has found expression in some great Bengali poetical works of Govinda Das, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and Jayadeva the author ofGeet Govinda.

Krishna’s youthful dalliances with the ‘gopis’ are interpreted as symbolic of the loving interplay between God and the human soul. Radha’s utterly rapturous love for Krishna and their relationship is often interpreted as the quest for union with the divine. This kind of love is of the highest form of devotion in Vaishnavism, and is symbolically represented as the bond between the wife and husband or beloved and lover.

Radha, daughter of Vrishabhanu, was the mistress of Krishna during that period of his life when he lived among the cowherds of Vrindavan. Since childhood they were close to each other – they played, they danced, they fought, they grew up together and wanted to be together forever, but the world pulled them apart. He departed to safeguard the virtues of truth, and she waited for him. He vanquished his enemies, became the king, and came to be worshipped as a lord of the universe. She waited for him. He married Rukmini and Satyabhama, raised a family, fought the great war of Ayodhya, and she still waited. So great was Radha’s love for Krishna that even today her name is uttered whenever Krishna is refered to, and Krishna worship is though to be incomplete without the deification of Radha.

“Radhe Krishna Radhe Krishna Krishna Krishna Radhe Radhe…..Radhe Shyam Radhe Shyam Shyam Shyam Radhe Radhe…….”

Radha is the incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi, who is the wife of Vishnu. She is sometimes called “Radharani.” From childhood, she was very devoted to Krishna, who was also her foster brother. Though Radha and Krishna never married, her intense love for Krishna represents both the love a wife has for her husband and the love a devotee has for the divine. Since Radha and Krishna were children when they fell in love, their love for each other was very pure and spiritual, the ideal love. When Krishna left his childhood home behind in order to fulfill his destiny of killing Kamsa as well as having many other adventures, it is said that the continued affection Radha held for him helped give him strength.

Together, Radha and Krishna form a divine coupling to which married couples should aspire. Husbands should see their wives as Radha, the beloved, while women should look upon their husbands as Krishna. By pursuing the love of the divine, married couples can look beyond each other’s imperfections and find happiness serving each other, which prepares them in turn for serving the divine.

Though Krishna is the ultimate divine being, Radha is the Supreme Goddess. This is because while Krishna has power over all things, Radha, through his love for her, has control over him. This gives Radha a position of immense power. Without each other, however, they are meaningless: Krishna would not be Krishna without his beloved Radha, and Radha would be empty and lost without Krishna.

Roop Agadhey Radhey, Radhey Meri Radhey…