Shri Radha and Krishna

Shri Radha, the highest embodiment of devotion and Krishna's own power of bliss, without whom his worship is considered incomplete.

Shri Radha is revered as the dearest beloved of Shri Krishna and the highest embodiment of devotion. In Vaishnava teaching she is understood as Krishna's hladini shakti, his own power of divine bliss. Krishna is the one who gives delight, and Radha is that delight itself; this is why the two are always worshipped together as Radha-Krishna and never apart.

According to tradition, Radha was the daughter of Vrishabhanu and Kirtida and grew up in Barsana, near Nandagaon in Vraja. Her love for Krishna is entirely selfless: she wants nothing for herself and lives only for his happiness. For this reason the people of Vraja greet one another with "Radhe Radhe", and many saints teach that Krishna is most easily reached through Radha's grace.

It is good to know how the scriptures speak of her. The Shrimad Bhagavatam does not name Radha explicitly. In its account of the rasa-lila in the tenth canto, however, it describes one special gopi whom Krishna took with him when he vanished from the others, and the gopis said that she must truly have worshipped (aradhita) the Lord, a word in which many commentators hear the name Radha. Radha is named and glorified in later works such as Jayadeva's Gita Govinda and the Brahmavaivarta Purana, in the devotional poetry of saints such as Surdas, and in the living traditions of Vrindavan.

Radha's love is the ideal of pure bhakti: love that asks for nothing in return. Her appearance day, Radhashtami, is celebrated on the eighth day of the bright fortnight of Bhadrapada, about fifteen days after Janmashtami.

Relation

Eternal beloved and divine power of bliss

Source

Shrimad Bhagavatam, Canto 10 (rasa-lila); Jayadeva, Gita Govinda; Brahmavaivarta Purana