The Divine Couple- Did They ever Marry?

[Guest guest]

Can anyone tell me if Radha and Krishna ever marry? and has it been sourced anywhere?

 

A friend of mine said that they did on the bank of the Jamuna, as Nanda Mahaaraj gave baby Krishna to Radharani to hold. With Lord Brahma as the conducting priest, the marriage took place. Has anybody else heard this? and if so do you a detailed insight into the ceremony?

 

Does anyone know why the Divine couple had to be separated? i heard that the They were cursed to be separated for 100 years. (Source: Indian Krishna TV serial)

 

This is all i Know-but i would like to know more. Please help.

[raga]

Jagadananda has written an extensive series of articles addressing the question. You can read them at http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showcatpicks.php?thiscat=6 .

 

 

A friend of mine said that they did on the bank of the Jamuna, as Nanda Mahaaraj gave baby Krishna to Radharani to hold.

 

 

Given that Radha and Krishna are roughly of the same age, I believe something is mistaken in this account.

[Guest guest]

I think you may be mistaken, there is an age gap between Radha and Krishna of about 5-10 years, when krishna was around five, Radharani was already married!!!

[Guest guest]

thanks for the link, i will take a read of it.

[Avinash]

All of these are mentioned in Brahm-Vaivarta Purana.

[raga]

Where is this stated in the Brahma Vaivarta Purana? I don't think so. Quote the exact text please.

[shvu]

 

I haven't read the Brahma-vaivarta (BVP), but I have read elsehwere that the BVP goes into detail about the relationship between Krishna and Radha and also assigns divine status to Radha.

 

Cheers

 

 

[Avinash]

It is there in Brahm Vaivarta Purana. I will check where in BVP and post here. It is written that Braham was the priest.

[Streetstraw]

Yes, They never married. I mean no, They did marry. Yes, precisely not.

[Guest guest]

come again....you have me confused-straight up- did They or didn't They marry???

[Guest guest]

No! Not married! They are just being eternally engaged.

Are you getting it?

[theist]

One wonders if the attempt to have Them married is just a attempt to impose human morality values onto divinity.

[Avinash]

It is in Chapter 15 of KrsnaJanmaKhanda of BVP. I am not quoting the exact text because then I will have to type a lot. The marriage is described in detail.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the reference. i will check it out.

Hari Hari

[raga]

 

It is in Chapter 15 of KrsnaJanmaKhanda of BVP. I am not quoting the exact text because then I will have to type a lot. The marriage is described in detail.

 

 

Indeed the story appears there the way you related it. Very strange. Does anyone know the history of this Purana? To what extent has it been interpolated over the centuries?

[Guest guest]

yes you are got it! They are eternally engaged. Like the wholly trinity, no?

[Avinash]

I have observed that the stories in BVP are very different from those in other puranas.

[Jagat]

I believe that the section on the BVP in my article is not found on that link. I'll have to get back to editing the material I have. Basically, the BVP is almost certainly a late Bengali Purana written AFTER the Chaitanya movement, but not by someone directly involved with it. It contains various lilas and siddhantas that are not found anywhere else. Some things, like the name of Radha's husband, are found there.

 

The tradition that Radha is older than Krishna is found only in Bengal. It has its roots in the first verse of Gita Govinda. The same thing is found in Garga Samhita, which seems to have been written on the inspiration of the BVP.

 

I suggest R. C. Hazra's "Studies in the Upapuranas" for a good discussion of BVP. His dates are always way too early, but otherwise you get a good idea of content and other source materials.

 

--------

 

As far as the original question is concerned, you may read my article summarizing <a href=http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showarticle.php?id=72>

the Gopala Champu's last section</a>, where the marriage of Krishna and the gopis is described very elaborately.

 

 

[raga]

 

Basically, the BVP is almost certainly a late Bengali Purana written AFTER the Chaitanya movement, but not by someone directly involved with it.

 

 

Jiva quotes from BVP on numerous occasions. What'd you guess for its date?

[Avinash]

>>Basically, the BVP is almost certainly a late Bengali Purana written AFTER the Chaitanya movement, but not by someone directly involved with it. <<

 

Other puranas mention BVP. Does it mean that other puranas have been interpolated?

[Jagat]

There are problems with all these puranas. None of the verses Jiva quotes are in the extant edition. On the other hand, there are many things that seem useful to his philosophical argument if he had wished to use them.

<blockquote>Further elaborations of the gopi-Krishna story are found in certain later puranas or upapuranas. Chief amongst these are the Padma-purana (PadP), Brahma-vaivarta-purana (BVP) and Brahmanda-purana (BäP), though others such as the Devi-bhagavata and Maha-bhagavata-purana also contain relevant details.

 

The dating of these works is uncertain and a wide margin of error is possible. R. C. Hazra’s examination of linguistic characteristics and geographical data in these puranas and their consequent ascription to the Shakta stronghold of the Kamarupa area and Bengal seem reasonable. His work on the upapuranas is unfortunately blemished by ascribing excessive age to the majority of these works.

 

Of the above-mentioned works, the Brahma-vaivarta-puräëa (BVP) has excited the most scholastic interest for its emphasis on Radha as the personification of the divine energy or Shakti. She is the goddess and is given status equal or greater than that of Krishna.

 

The most reputable scholars seem to opt for dates for this work in the period immediately preceding the great bhakti movements of the sixteenth century. As with other puranas, the integrity of the text is somewhat in doubt, and the possibility that the hands of more than one author in one period was involved in its composition can be entertained. The work is cited several times by Jiva in his Sat-sandarbha, but he never refers to any portion of the work that relates to the matter of Radha’s relation to Krishna. Indeed, those portions of BVP that glorify Radha are not used by Jiva or any of his associates at all, despite their obvious usefulness for their doctrines.

 

Jiva and his predecessors were not above drawing useful quotations from unpromising contexts where they could be supportive of their own arguments, so disagreements with one portion of a work never stopped them from using another portion, if it suited their purpose. The Padma-purana is a case in point. Jiva has used a portion of this work as pivotal to his arguments about Krishna’s return to Vraja, but does not cite those portions that appear to favour the parakIyA version of the nitya-lila. If we accept Hazra’s contention about the provenance of the BVP from Bengal, then this absence is surprising and leads one to suspect that the work may be of an even later date.

 

Like the other upapuranas mentioned above, the extant BVP has a synchretic agenda: there is an attempt to assimilate the doctrines of the Shaktas and the Vaishnavas into a harmonious vision. BVP’s Vaishnava leanings are somewhat more pronounced than the overtly Shakta Devi-bhagavata or Maha-bhagavata-purana, both of whose raison d’être is clearly to outdo the Vaishava BhP. The connection of the DeviBhP to the BVP (which is almost certainly the later) is underscored by the great amount of material that is common to both.

 

The BVP also attempts to bring about a synthesis of the apparently conflicting doctrines parakiya and svakiya. This tends to suggest thatthe work was written after the issue had become contentious, in short, during or after the floruit of the second generation of Chaitanyaite Vaishnavas.

 

According to BVP, when Radha’s father, Vrishabhanu, saw that she was approaching puberty, he gave her in marriage to one Rayana. This Rayana is identified as an amsa of Krishna in Goloka and his maternal uncle. The Radha he marries, however, is a chAyA form; the real Radha absconds. The BVP further adds that Krishna’s birth came when Radha was fourteen years old and that she (the real Radha) was married to Krishna according to the religious principles by Brahma, who had performed penances for sixty thousand years to obtain this blessing.

 

This latter event is described in detail in the Krishna-janma-khanda (BVP iv.15.119-131). It has been pointed out by many scholars that this unusual story of the baby Krishna being entrusted by Nanda to the fourteen year old Radha at the onset of rain, Krishna’s subsequent transformation into an adolescent, the descent of Lord Brahma, Radha and Krishna's marriage and subsequent dalliances on the banks of the Yamuna, have some relation to the introductory verse of Gita-govinda. This has led some to speculate that Jayadeva borrowed from BVP, but it seems far more likely that the opposite was true. The age difference between Radha and Krishna is nowhere else repeated. The marriage by Brahma is also found in the Garga Samhita (Goloka-khanda, ch. 16), but this is a much later work.

 

The transcendental status of Radha is described extensively in BVP. She is created from the left side of Krishna’s body and is his own wife, adhering eternally to his chest, the tutelary deity of his life (BVP ii.48.47).

 

svayaM rAdhA kRSNa-patnI kRSNa-vakSaH-sthala-sthitA | prANAdhiSThAtR-devI ca tasyaiva paramAtmanaH ||

 

In the Maha-bhagavata-purana, where Krishna is an incarnation of Kali and Radha of Shiva, Ayana is said to have married Radha, but became impotent immediately after the wedding as a result of Shiva’s wish (51.34).

 

tAM rAdhAm upasaMyamyAyAna-gopo mahAmune |

klIbatvMà sahasA prApa zambhor icchAnusArataH || (Cited in Hazra, Studies in the Upapuranas, 272-3.)

</blockquote>(This is taken from my own notes.)

[raga]

 

The work is cited several times by Jiva in his Sat-sandarbha, but he never refers to any portion of the work that relates to the matter of Radha’s relation to Krishna. Indeed, those portions of BVP that glorify Radha are not used by Jiva or any of his associates at all, despite their obvious usefulness for their doctrines.

 

 

That's very interesting. In other words, it is even quite possible that those portions didn't even exist at his time?

 

Your notes on the dating of Padma Purana, Jagat?

[Jagat]

I must have written something about Padma Purana, but I can't find it.

 

Similar problems to those of BVP are found with many other works: Narada Pancharatra, Padma Purana, Gautamiya Tantra, etc. The extant editions are missing large numbers of verses that are quoted and contain others that for some reason or another appear suspicious.

 

For instance, the extant Padma Purana contains the bhukti-mukti-sprihA yAvat pizAcI hRdi vartate verse, which is famously Rupa Goswami's own composition.

 

What needs to be done is to establish the texts of these works as the Goswamis knew them. The electronic edition of the Padma Purana I have is interesting. I have been able to establish that certain sections of the PP were being used and others not. It certainly facilitates research, but as yet, I don't believe a critical edition of PadmaP has been prepared.

 

The HBV cites large portions of various puranas. I have noticed that sometimes SkandaPurana sections are found in PadmaP; I have also found verses ascribed by Rupa to PadmaP in NarPan. This means to me that certain portions were "free flowing." A mahatmya or sthala-purana might have been ascribed by some to one, by others to another Purana. The Gaudiyas do not seem to have been particularly interested in the Puranas other than the Bhagavatam after the Goswamis had made a selection of the choice verses.

 

The difference with the BVP is that it seems to have been changed wholesale.

 

[raga]

It is interesting to note that one hardly ever sees an exact reference to Padma Purana when a verse from it is quoted.

[Jagat]

I have an electronic edition of the Padma Purana, but it is not the Bengali edition that Bhaktivinoda Thakur published. I have been typing out the Haribhaktivilasa and other works that quote large sections of PP. It is rare to find everything that is quoted in exactly the same form. Occasionally Skanda Purana texts are found in the PP, so I imagine the opposite may be possible also.

 

There are many possible reasons for all this.