Symbolic Images of Divine Love
By Graham M. Schweig, excerpted from the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 34, Article 5.
The view afforded by the artistic rendering of these greatest symbols of divine love send powerful theological messages to the viewer. The viewers of St. John’s crucifixion and the Rāsa Maṇḍala experience a viewpoint that is aerial. Such an aerial view dramatically draws the viewer closer to the arena of salvation. With the former, the viewer is being lifted up into the realm of light in which God dwells. With the latter, the viewer is being lifted up to view the full circle and splendorous sight of the Rāsa dance, as an invitation to enter it, to participate in it, and ultimately to be drawn into it. The frontal view of most crucifixion depictions and the conventional frontal view of the divine couple are both confronting and beckoning at the same time. Both call the viewer into engagement with the event of redemption, salvation, and elevation.
The contrasts between the two great images and their surrounding, altar-like narratives are dramatic and telling. In the Christian context, it is God that makes the sacrifice, while in the Vaishnava context, the soul makes the sacrifice. In the former, God sends his only son, and when he does, he is tortured, suffers, and dies a most agonizing death. In the latter, God as Krishna does not sacrifice, but the Gopīs do. They leave home and effectively die to the world, sacrificing all social norms, and they even relinquish their physical bodies to be with Krishna, undergoing a kind of death. Both expressions of sacrifice are ultimate, total, and necessitate death as a means to a salvific end. Both speak to the ways in which the power of divine love is boundless and ultimately cannot be contained by anything in this world.
The greater narrative of the Christian symbol begins in the divine realm with God sending his only begotten son to this world, and then returns to the divine realm via the resurrection. Again, it is God doing all the work here. In contrast, it is the soul that begins in this world (as a Gopī does in her home), undergoes a transformative death that gives the soul a spiritual body to be with Krishna in the Rāsa, and then the soul returns to this world (as the Gopīs do at the end of the Rāsa event). In the Vaishnava instance, all the work is being done by the soul. The former displays the power of God’s love through his grace, and the latter displays the power of the soul’s love through her devotional passion. The former displays God’s power of love to become weak and meek like a human, and the latter displays the soul’s power of love to become elevated to the divine to participate in the inner life of God. It is God who initiates the gift of grace to humans through Jesus. It is also God who, out of a divine yearning, calls all souls to his heart through the sounding of the divine flute. In the former, souls are absolved of their sins and suffering by God’s sacrifice, whereas in the latter, souls are absolved of any suffering and even worldly happiness by their own sacrifice and intense passion in their love for the divine.
Both traditions infuse in the hearts of their worshippers an intense longing for the divine but in very different ways. In the suffering that Jesus undergoes, worshippers suffer with Jesus. Some Christians may even feel or experience his wounds or desire to do so. There is a profound sense of the suffering in Jesus’ sacrifice that is powerful enough to save souls from sin. This longing and grieving for Jesus is a powerful, divinely uniting force for the Christian, and the crucifixion in compelling ways stimulates this relationship.
In my analyses of the Rāsa Līlā, I have shown that there are nine phases or characteristics of divine love: (1) awakening (2) anticipation (3) meeting (4) conflict (5) separation (6) devastating loss (7) reunion (8) rejoicing, and (9) returning. The formation of the Rāsa Maṇḍala occurs during the eighth phase, rejoicing in the triumph of love. I believe that these phases can be observed as occurring in the Jesus narrative as well. The crucifixion, for example, would be occurring at the sixth phase, which is devastating loss and grief in the experience of God’s absence and an intense longing to be with God and to be saved by God. But the existence of the sixth phase, as with any other phase, depends on the existence and experience of the other phases. And thus, within the devastating loss expressed in the crucifixion, is the rejoicing in the triumph of love through the resurrection. In love, one cannot have one phase without the others, at least to some minute degree. Within the rejoicing in the triumph of love expressed in the Rāsa Maṇḍala is the devastating loss when being separated from Krishna or the inability to find Krishna, as is narrated in the story line of the Rāsa Līlā.
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