Question: My 8-year-old daughter asked me the following 2 questions: Why did Krishna not marry Srimati Radharani, when Her deity is always next to Krishna and we worship Krishna and Radha? I could not give her a good answer. I think what confuses her is that Krishna loved Srimati Radharani, but married someone else.
I was telling her that in our culture, a man couldn’t have more than one wife. She promptly asked me – Why did Sri Krishna marry so many women? I understand that Srimati Radharani is the internal potency of Sri Krishna. I am not very clear about the real relationship between Krishna and Rukmini. What is Rukmini’s position? Is she just a great devotee of Krishna or more than that? I want my daughter to learn moral values from our scriptures, but she gets very confused with life led by our demigods and God. Please provide me an answer, which my daughter (with material mind) can understand.
Answer by Romapada Swami:
My reply will be mixed with points for your personal understanding, as well as with simple statements to help your precocious daughter feel satisfied. Both are intended to address your concern for your daughter’s ethical training.
The relationship between Radha and Krishna in Their Vrindavan-lila is of a very special type known as “parakiya rasa” or unwedded love. Even from our mundane experience we know that such a relationship can be of greater intensity than within marriage. Yet these ‘affairs’ are grossly perverted reflections of the love found in the spiritual world; worldly paramourship is morally reprehensible, but the spiritual counterpart is of the highest level of spiritual joy as well as purity. In Vrindavana, yoga-maya (the Lord’s personal internal potency) orchestrates events just to enhance this ‘parakiya-bhava’, which serve to increase the intensity of the loving pastimes between Radha and Krishna. For example, there is a very sweet pastime described by our acaryas wherein Radha and Krishna were actually to be betrothed, but Paurnamasi (who is Yogamaya herself) foils the plan on the pretext of so-called inauspicious planetary influences, just so that the parakiya relationship is preserved.
In short, the lila of Radha and Krishna is that of an unwed couple, lover and beloved, but the spiritual reality is that they are eternally with one another as the Lord and His internal potency, or His ‘consort’. Their unmarried love enhances the sweetness of their exchanges, and is altogether wholesome and pure.
Rukmini devi is an expansion of Radharani. She also belongs to the internal potency of Krishna, just like Radha, only the lila is that they marry.
Your concern for upholding moral values is justified because the facts of Radha and Krishna’s loving relationship can be (and has been) misused by unscrupulous people to manipulate religious principles. But Radha-Krishna relationship should not be confused with that of a mundane relationship.
The material world is 180 degrees the opposite of the spiritual world. Give the example to your daughter of examining a tree reflected in a lake. When looking upon the lake’s surface where a tree is growing on the far bank of the lake, what do you see? You see a reflection! And what is the upper portion of the tree which you see in the reflection? Since the reflected image is upside down, you will see the roots growing up, and the branches growing down!
In the ‘spiritual tree of life’, everything is actually meant for the satisfaction of the Supreme Lord, but when misused for our sense gratification, it becomes reflected, upside-down and perverted. Thus we see even lust, greed, anger —all abominable qualities!—have their untainted spiritual counterpart in ‘the spiritual tree, in the spiritual realm, the realm of Krishna’s passtimes.
Radharani, as you have mentioned, is Krishna’s own internal pleasure potency. Thus there is no question of immorality in their relationship. Krishna, being self-satisfied, does not depend on an external source for happiness, but manifests His own potency when He wants to enjoy; this manifestation is Radharani. We worship Radha with Krishna, because She is the dearest devotee of Krishna, and by pleasing Her we can also become dear to Him.
You mentioned that your daughter questioned about Krishna having multiple wives. In the Vedic system, a ksatriya could have more than one wife, and we find many examples of this. (When Krishna accepted wives, he did so in His lila as a king, or ksatriya.) Even so, we cannot find anyone marrying 16,108 wives! And to satisfy all of His queens, He manifested Himself in an expanded form of Krishna to reside with each queen, simultaneously! This is but one demonstration of the unique opulence and unlimited potency of Krishna. “Why only 16,000 wives?”, Srila Prabhupada would sometimes remark about Krishna’s marriages. Everything and everyone ultimately are His property and He is ultimate enjoyer.
The safest way so as not to be misled into ethical misunderstandings about these things is to follow in the footsteps of great personalities, and not to imitate the Divine Couple. Krishna taught Bhagavad-gita and lived as an ideal king and we should abide by those instructions. But just as we cannot imitate Krishna’s lifting Govardhana or dancing on Kaliya’s hoods, similarly we cannot imitate His rasa-lila or marrying so many wives.
