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Thee." Moved by their piteous appeal, Krishna gave his company to
the Gopis. Proud of that company, the Gopis deemed themselves
superior to all other women on the earth. To put down this loss of
mental balance, caused by good fortune and this pride, Krishna sud-
denly disappeared from amongst them. The Gopis became disconso-
late. Their hearts had been too much taken up by the gestures and
movements of Krishna. So they imitated his deeds and even called
themselves Krishna. They all sang loudly together and madly
searched for Krishna from forest to forest. They asked the trees if
they had seen their lover. They enquired of the creepers, the earth
and the deer. Fatigued at last, they again took to reproducing the
deeds of Krishna. Some played the part of Putana or some other
Asura, some played the part of Krishna in connection with some of
his manifold deeds. They again made enquiries from the plants.
They then found out the footsteps of Krishna marked by the divine
symbols (flag, the lotus, the thunder-bolt and the goad). Tracing
those steps a little further, they found they were mixed up with the
footprints of a girl. The Gopis exclaimed:
"Surely this girl had made Arddhand (devout prayer for the
Lord). Govinda left us that he might take her to a secret retreat.
Sacred are the dust particles of Govinda's feet; even Brahma, Siva and
Lakshmi hold them on their head for the extinction of sins. Look
here we no longer see the foot marks of that girl. It seems Krishna
carried her here on his back and his footprints are therefore deeply
marked. Here He placed her down to pluck flowers and touched
the earth with his toes only, for the steps are not fully marked.
Surely he placed the girl on his lap here and adorned her hair with
flowers." And what of that girl? She deemed herself very fortu-
nate that Krishna should shew particular attention to her. With this
sense of superiority she spoke to Krishna. " I can not walk. Take
me to where I like on thy back." Krishna said, " Get up on my
back." But when she would do so, Krishna had already disappeared.
The girl was loudly lamenting, when the other Gopis joined her.
They heard her story and became very much surprised. (It is necessary
to draw the special attention of the readers to the girl, who had made
Arddhand of Hari. She is the Radhika of Narada Pancharatra and of
later day Vaishnavism. Radhika means literally one who makes
Radhana or Aradhana. But I shall not touch upon her in a study of
the Bhagavata Purana. The study of this Purana is incomplete
without a study of Chaitanya's teachings. And if I succeed in taking
up those teachings, I shall consider the lofty ideal of Radhika).
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