The Caurāsī Pad of Srī Hit Harivans : Introduction, Translation, Notes, and Edited Hindi Text

Contents Preface Introduction The Translation The Braj Bhasa Text of the Caurasi Pad About the author Asian Studies at Hawaii brilliance emerged from those humble byways, those lanes and alleys weaving behind the imposing display of the dominant culture. In their own way these literary monuments rise to the glory of the Hindu religious faith that produced them and rivai the splendid architectural expressions of the Muslim rulers. Entering Mathura brings one within the sacred precincts-and near Vrndavan-where Radha and Krsna were united for the salvation of mankind in the moonlit forest along the banks of the Jamuna. F. S. Growse, a British civil administrator who recorded a history of the district, notes the words of another writer, Tod: Though the groves of Brinda in which Krishna disported with the Gopis no longer resound to the echoes of his flute; though the waters of the Jamuna are daily polluted with the blood of the sacred kine; still it is the holy land of the pilgrim, the sacred Jordan of his fancy, on whose banks he may sit and weep, as did the banished Israelite of old, for the glories of Mathura, his Jerusalem. 2 The reader may well envision such a sacred land, peopled with divine beings and their associates, symbolic of the relationship between God and man, as he tries to perceive the Hinduism of the Braj land in the Middle Ages, and in particular of the sect devoted to Radha, the Radhavallabha Sampraday. The exposition of the ideals of this sect through a work of literature is the main concern of this monograph.