God's all-pervasive love, Krishna must therefore love not only Radha but
every cowgirl. Equally, in the circular dance, by inducing every cowgirl
to think that she and she alone was his partner, Krishna was proving how
God is available to all. Finally it was realized that even those portions
of the story which, at first sight, seemed cruel and callous were also
susceptible of religious interpretation. When Radha has been loved in the
forest and then is suddenly deserted, the reason is her pride--pride that
because Krishna has loved her, she can assert herself by asking to be
carried. Such assertiveness is incompatible with the kind of humble
adoration necessary for communion with God. To prove this, therefore,
Radha's pride must be destroyed and Krishna resorts to this seemingly
brusque desertion. Action, in fact, which by human standards would be
reprehensible is once again a means for imparting spiritual wisdom. In a
similar way, Krishna's departure for Mathura and final abandonment of the
cowgirls was accorded a religious interpretation. At one level, his
departure symbolized 'the dark night of the soul,' the experience which
comes to every devotee when, despite the most ardent longing, the vision
fades. At another level, it illustrated how life must be lived when God or
Vishnu was no longer on earth. If Krishna's love-making was intended to
symbolize the ultimate rapture, his physical absence corresponded to
conditions as they normally existed. In instructing the cowgirls to
meditate upon him in their minds, Krishna was only attuning them to life
as it must necessarily appear after he has left the human stage.

It was these conceptions which governed the cult of Krishna from the
twelfth century onwards and, as we shall shortly see, informed the poems
which were now to celebrate his love for Radha.

[Footnote 46: Note 15.]