A Trip through Raslila in Vrindavan

Raslila, a unique composite which brings together the ritual enactment of a central Krishna myth in dance, with the semi-operatic performance of any one of a vast number of peripheral stories of the Krishna cycle.

The first four in the list above are general North Indian types of performance. They exist in Braj, but Braj is not their special home. The Ramlila is performed by amateur actors in every community in North India. Jhanki and the art of the kathak and the Bhaktamal Natak Mandali are brought to Braj by actors residing in other northern centers.

The raslila stands in a category by itself because it alone is a strict monopoly of actors who reside in Braj. This distinction between dramas of external and indigenous origin is recognized in the division of this book into two parts. It should be remembered, however, that this distinction pertains only to geographical origin, not to geographical outreach. All five dramas are part of the life of all North India. The external types are all seen in Braj, and Braj’s own raslila is performed throughout the wider region by troupes from Mathura District.

Most of the residents of Mathura District who are professional actors are members of rasmandalls, or troupes for the performance of the raslila.

Ras is the name of a particular one of these deeds, which was done by Vishnu in his Krishna incarnation. On a certain autumn night when the moon was full, Krishna favored the gopls by dancing with them a circular dance, which the Vishnu Purana calls the rasa. The Bhagavata Purana brings the two terms together, calling this original romantic event the rasalila?

This ras dance, which Krishna performed with the gopis, is celebrated in Vaishnava song and story. The theologians of the Krishna cult, by symbolic interpretation, make it the prime revelation of a truth that is of central importance in the religious life of all devotees. The dance is re-enacted continually in the most-loved form of sectarian drama.

A raslila is not a re-enactment of the ras alone. The performance of this dance is always its first element, of central importance because it is a ritual celebration of Krishna’s most gracious deed, meaningful to devotees however often it may be seen; but the presentation continues, dramatizing an important supplementary tale as well. Thus, every raslila consists of an initial dance followed by a one-act play based on any one of the multitude of Krishna’s lilas. The entire performance receives its name from its prior element, the ras, its most sacred component and its recurrent feature.

Today’s actors find the origin of the raslila in the example of the gopis themselves. Krishna on that ancient night of the ras, they say, vanished suddenly from the circle of the gopis and disappeared in the forest. His forlorn and despairing sweethearts wandered long among the trees in fruitless search for him.

At last, to cheer themselves with memories of Krishna, they began to mimic his actions before one another. Various gopis assumed the roles of Krishna, Balarama, and the demons, the Vaishnava puranas say; and they imitated Krishna’s gait, his song, his lifting of Mount Govardhana, and his suppression of the serpent Kaliya and other monsters. Seeing the intentness of their devotion, Krishna soon returned to them in person.

Modern people may enact Krishna’s deeds or see them enacted in hope of similar gain. As Kishan Lai Rasdharl of Vrindaban explained the matter to the author, all who have love for Krishna in their hearts are gopis, regardless of their sex. Krishna is the true object of their love, their real ‘husband’.

The most urgent business of their lives is to search for the Lord through the jungle of this world until they find him. Like the gopis of old, we should express our affection and longing for Krishna by performing and seeing the imitation of his lilas. And as Krishna himself soon appeared before those cowherd girls who rehearsed dramatically his greatness and charm, we too, through hearing and seeing his lilas, will sooner be blessed by the beatific vision (darsan) of Krishna himself.

The raslila is a drama of which Braj claims the sole guardianship; it is the monopoly of Braj residents because it is the enactment of those lilas of Krishna which he performed in Braj. Krishna is acknowledged to have done an infinite number of sportive acts in other regions as well. In heavenly realms he carries on his unmanifest sports (aprakat Was) eternally in his transcendent form and therefore in a manner beyond human perception and beyond the reach of drama.

When by his grace he descended to this world and performed manifest sports (prakat Was), which are open to human knowledge, he did many of his deeds in Kurukshetra, Dvaraka, and other places far from Braj. These deeds are not enacted in the raslila. The repertoire of the raslila begins with the celebration of Krishna’s birth (the Janma Lila) and tells his life story as far as his triumph over Kans in Mathura (the Kansbadh Lila) and his sending back a messenger to console his childhood friends

Braj’s claim to the raslila seems to be generally accepted. Although plays on Krishna themes are acted in many fashions in many parts of India, the raslila’s special structure and style have not been seen anywhere else by Braj actors who have traveled throughout the country; nor has the author seen anything on the living stage or in print to indicate that the raslila has any other home. It is recognized as the property of Braj.

There was one other interlude in the nautch, when there appeared six or eight boys dressed as girls, their faces covered with gold-leaf, who performed an abstruse comedy or mystery, and sang a chorus of an incomprehensible character, from which the company were diverted very pleasantly by an invitation to witness the fireworks from the balconies, verandahs, and flat roof of the palace.

This is a classic admission of incomprehension: The raslila is by no means as readily understood as fireworks! Many others may have seen the raslila but failed to write about it because they could not.

If the raslila can be said to be the property of the residents of Braj, then its custodians are the masters of the rasmandalls or troupes of actors of the raslila. The master of such a troupe is called svami or sometimes rasdhari, although this latter title can be extended to the other adults of his troupe also, or, in the plural, to the entire troupe collectively. Because of the extreme youth of most of the performers, the quality of the raslila is entirely dependent upon the sensitivity and skill of their trainers. In 1950 there were some twenty of these directors who were prominent captains in their profession.

The raslila’s own special stage is a circular platform of stone or concrete, standing three feet or less above the level of the ground, and broad enough to provide dancing space for eight persons in a roomy circle. Such a dancing-platform is called a rasmandal. The name is applied also to the circle of dancers and to the circular dance seen in the performances.

These stages stand out-of-doors, wall-less, and open to the sky. The form of the stage reflects the importance of the circular dance as a component of the raslila. The rasmandal provides a smooth round masonry floor, broken only at one margin by a dais (rangmanch) on which Krishna and the gopis rest during certain rituals and in the intervals of their dance.

When, as at Vrindaban, the stone floor is exceptionally broad, spectators sit on mats on the outer border of the platform itself. At smaller installations the audience is accommodated wholly or mainly on the surrounding earth. So far as the author knows, this circular stage is peculiar to the raslila.

In theory these rasmandals are built only in spots where Krishna himself once danced the ras. Hence almost all of them are found in Braj at the stations of the banjatra pilgrimage trail which meanders to the scenes of Krishna’s major exploits. In all other places where the raslila may be performed, rasmandals are not available, and a stage is improvised.