Gopāṣṭamī
By Swāmī Śrī Bhaktivedānta Tripurāri, excerpted from Circle of Friends. Artwork by Radhe Gendron.
Nanda Mahārāja called for a festival, and word quickly spread to all corners of Vraja, heralded as it was with kettledrums and callers. Resident sages, brāhmaṇas, singers, dancers, and other artisans all assembled, as did men, women, and children from all sections of society. On Nanda Rāja’s order, bards composed and recited the history of all that led to this event. Singers sang songs of their own composition in praise of herds, herdsmen, and Hari, as dancers danced in time, depicting herding and satisfied cows through their steps. Somehow the festival that followed lasted forever, while not delaying Kṛṣṇa and his cowherd friends from departing at the auspicious moment.
Elder gopīs blessed Yaśodā’s son with a long life as they sprinkled grains and dūrvā grass on Hari’s head and kissed his lotus face. Highly qualified sages wearing tulasī buds strung together in garlands bore waterpots containing water from all of the sacred rivers of Bhārata and sang hymns from the Sāma Veda.1 Thus they looked as brilliant as the sun, their hair woven together in matted locks turned golden from its rays. The sages’ concern was to shed light on Gopāla—Gopāla tāpanī—who was the only object of their inner life and whose dark complexion, shrouded in mystery, resembled the nourishing prospect of the dark rain cloud. Seeing the object of their meditation before them, they wept rivers of tears, only to lose sight of him, resorting then again to their minds’ eyes.
And the brāhmaṇas chanted, “Victory to Nanda and his nandana! Victory to Gokula and its beloved Gokulānanda!” In response, Nanda and Yaśodā rose and then bowed to the brāhmaṇas, placing the dust from the brāhmaṇas’ feet on Kṛṣṇa’s head. Then the elder and younger gopas along with their family members offered respects to the king of Gokula and chanted, “May your Kṛṣṇa live long!” After this, drums resounded and wind instruments were played by experts, pleasing everyone.
When the music stopped, the jyotiṣa announced, “O King, the lagna for the journey has arrived.” Then Rāma blew his horn, the sound of which reverberated throughout the universe. Following Rāma’s lead, the young gopas responded with a symphony of their own. They blew horns and played various drums and other types of percussion instruments, such as small cup-shaped hand cymbals (mañjīra). Some played single-stringed mouth harps (murchunga), while others made musical sounds by cupping their hands to their mouths to create wind instruments. Others played various flutes, such as the very short six-holed veṇu, the very long four-holed muralī with an open end, and the mid-sized nine-holed vaṁśī, all of which were made from either bamboo or stone. Still others played stringed instruments such as the tambura and vīṇā, and all of this in an array of melodic structures with musical motifs—rāgas—capable of coloring the mind and influencing the emotions of the audience with the gopas’ own rati. Enthused by the tumult, the gopas danced to their music-making along with Bala and Kṛṣṇa.
The sakhās were decorated in stunning fashion with a variety of peacock feathers, necklaces, swinging jeweled earrings, and beautiful jeweled ankle bracelets bearing small tinkling bells. Beautiful also were the locks of hair falling on their foreheads, their topknots towering upward like trees bound at the base with flower wreaths, and their long streams of hair cascading over their well-structured bones—the riverbed of their backs. Their forms were breathtakingly beautiful and dressed in a manner capable of captivating the universal mind. If that weren’t enough, their dancing, music, and merrymaking were accompanied by the unparalleled singing of the gopīs sitting wide-eyed nearby. Repeatedly the gopīs ululated, bringing attention to the scene that none could escape, nor would anyone want to. Even the birds flying overhead were stunned, and their frozen formation appeared like flowers growing from the ground of the sky, the world turned upside down. The gods gave charity and the sun forgot to move ahead, as all moving and nonmoving beings traded positions. O residents of Vraja, how the sight of these mysterious boys must delight! A soothing ointment for the eyes, to see them. When will that day be mine?
Thus, Gopa-rāja Nanda and Yaśodārāṇī blessed Kṛṣṇa to begin herding cows. Śrī Jīva Goswāmī comments, If each and every speaker’s mouth became ten thousand mouths and their lives lasted a thousand years, they could at best describe but one day of Kṛṣṇa’s herding.2
- In Tattva Sandarbha 21, Jīva Goswāmī cites the Garuḍa Purāṇa’s statement that the Bhāgavatam is the Sāma Veda of the Purāṇas. He references Madhva’s Bhāgavata-tātparya 1.1.1. [↩]
- Gopāla-campū 1.12.32 (v4). [↩]
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