Vol. 22 No. 1 (2013)

Jayadeva’s Gīta Govinda is Sanskrit literature at its most exciting, with dynamic characters and a central theme that are not only mysterious and alluring but colorful and passionate. For Vaishnavas, the love of Rādhā and Krishna, the Divine Couple at the heart of this 12th-century poem, is relished as a spiritual fact of life, a higher echelon of reality, even if their otherworldly relationship is often difficult to understand. Their transcendent love takes us beyond the bounds of ordinary metaphor or myth and places us in a supernal realm, full of blissful delight and sensual exchange. Usually, erotic and spiritual themes seem world’s apart, but in this text—arguably more than in any other—they become one, intersecting in ways that resemble the combined forms (yugala-mūrti) of Rādhā and Krishna themselves.