Radhastami - Appearance day of Srimathi Radharani

The deity at Raval - Srimati Radharani in Baby form 

Tomorrow, 10th September  is the Auspicious Appearance Day Festival of Sri Radhastami,celebrated by many in India and all over the world.
Wish you all happy Radhastami Festival.

"tapta-kancana-gaurangi

 radhe vrndavanesvari

 vrsabhanu-sute devi

 pranamami hari-priye

I offer my respects to Radharani, whose bodily complexion is like molten gold and who is the Queen of Vrndavana. You are the daughter of King Vrsabhanu, and You are very dear to Lord Krsna".

Srimati Radharani is always to be found with Sri Krishna, and Madhav is always to be seen with Radhika. One is never without the other's company.She is the embodiment of Maha-bhava, or the highest transcendental ecstasy, and none of the other gopis, or cowherd damsels of Vrindavana, posses Her excellent qualities.

What this means is  - Lord Krishna is called as Madan Mohan, one who is most attractive and beautiful that he defies even cupid. And Srimathi Radharani is called as Madan Mohan Mohini, because she won the heart of Lord Krishna with her beauty and loving service.

On this special occasion, I wanted to write about a place that I previously visited and that is connected to Srimati Radharani.

Raval Landscape

Raval village - Just outside the temple

A mysterious tree on the top of the temple 

Raval is a small village situated about 10 Kms from Vrindavan.This pristine village is a special and important place because,this is the same place where Srimati Radha Rani, about 5000 yrs appeared.It so happened that one day,King Vrishabhanu went to take bath in river Yamuna and saw in the river, a beautiful, golden lotus flower that was full of radiance and splendor. When the king reached the lotus, he noticed a beautiful, golden complexioned baby girl - Srimati Radharani. Immediately, the King had the divine vision of Lord Brahma, who advised him that, because of the great austerities performed by him and his Queen in the previous life,the consort of Lord Vishnu decided to appear as their child.The king happily took the baby girl to home and along with Queen Kirtida, started looking after the baby girl with love and happiness.However, they had one concern that the child eyes are completely closed and would not open them. Nevertheless, the King as per the instructions of Narada Rishi went ahead in the performance of all the auspicious Birth ceremonies.There were great celebrations and many friends and family members were invited, which included Nanda Maharaj and along with him,came the Baby Krishna.Krishna crawled into the jewel studded cradle of Srimati Radharani. As soon as this happened, Srimathi Radharani immediately opened her eyes and looked at Lord Krishna, who is her eternal Consort.This was the first meeting of the divine couple in this material world. Thus, the first person Radha Rani ever saw was Lord Krishna and with her eyes closed, this was the moment she was waiting for.

You can see the gated garden said to belong to Radha Rani or the temple.

This place is still untouched by the urbanisation and somehow retained the simple, beautiful with typical Indian village setting. The small temple consisted of small deities of Radha Krishna on one side and next to it is the small deity of baby girl - Radha Rani.

We climbed the steps to go to the first floor of the temple, where I got some nice pictures of the landscape and fields of Raval. In front of the temple, there is a garden which is said to belong to the temple deities.By the time we went, The garden was closed and unfortunatly could not go inside the garden.From here, we proceeded to Gokul,where Lord Krishna and Balaram spent their childhood and was about 30 mins drive from here. I liked this place which is simple, fresh air, kind and innocent villagers and hope to go back there in future.