When the Latin mythographers, mythmakers and poets turned Eros into Cupid, a winged naked cherubic infant,

with arrow and

bow, flying and perching in the treetops (sometimes blindfolded) shooting unfortunate victims somewhat indiscriminately, India
was also, in a different way turning its Eros to its Cupid. Popular portrayals of Kama were becoming more detailed and taking
the form of the god of desire, Kamadeva. Thus Kama the ancient name for the desire principle generally, as discussed by the
scholars of ancient India, was found in the Vedas, Upanishads and Indian Classics the Mahabharata, Ramayana and others.
Kama seems to have later been extended as the figure of Kamadeva emerges, flying on his parrot vahana (vehicle has been
used to translate this Sanskrit word) armed with sugar cane bow and five flower arrows-qualities, and attended to with certain
rituals and modes of worship, mantras and prayers and with a distinct story and panoply of characters, all in turn related to the
various Deities of deities; Vishnu, Shiva, the Goddess Shakti and more importantly his closest kinship and resemblance and
fulfilment in Krishna which we shall focus on here. There are differences and similarities between Cupid and Kamadeva but
Kamadeva is older, more mature, clothed and with discrimination most of the time and has a spouse called Rati. Cupid has his
mother Venus and he is paired with Psyche tragically but it works out in the end. There is no tragic union of Kamadeva and his
spouse Rati though and Kamadeva initially has no mother. Kamadeva is never blindfolded and that which he does and represents
is much more deep and extensive than Cupid in his region of Latin love literatures. Yet both cause madness. Yet in both things go
right with their arrows and things also go wrong but to different degrees. The tragic nature indulged in with Greek and Roman
literature is not much present in Indian literature. There are enough strong similarities though, essential similarities to link both,
even down to the detailed descriptions. Often Kamadeva is seen as the Indian Cupid by people of the west, and in English
translations of Sanskrit texts Cupid is the English translation traditionally used. Amor, in the Latin world, was also an important
name of Cupid, as well as a more abstract principle to describe love, like how Kama represented the deity as well as the abstract
principle of desire in general in discussion amongst philosophers, religionists etc. The Kamadeva-Krishna relation I have briefly
made mention of is therefore a Cupid-Krishna tradition in the east, which I would posit as an Amor-Krishna tradition too, one
with which to compare to its twin brother, Amor-Christ in the west. There was a medieval fusing of Christ and Cupid-Amor, a
linking between charitas (the Christian name for love) and amor in Christian commentary, in various places, as attested in certain
writings, paintings etc but I do not have the space to detail this here. Here I will be dwelling more on the Indian side of things.
As Cupid was the Latin extension and development of the cult of Eros in the west, Eros in turn was a Greek deity form
associated with a more abstract principle as well. Eros can be talked about as Eros meaning simply desire in philosophical
discussions of desire by Greeks, but can also be talked about as a deity as well. Kamadeva is originally like Eros, beyond the
gods and goddesses and yet controlling the generation of all the gods and goddesses and lower beings as well as the Avatars and
Incarnations of Godhead even. Eros is also of form and yet more abstract as we see in the earliest examples in the Greek religion
as detected by the undressed stone on the north cliff of the Acropolis under the Erechtheum which represented him, in the early
days of his cult, as well as the mysterious rock of Eros in the city of the Thespians, which too was more abstract than his usual
carvings and descriptions elsewhere. Kamadeva in India, unlike the other Gods of gods, had not much in the way of carved deity
representation and temples. Eros and Kama could be discussed as the desire principle and also as a deity, both abstract and with
form, but Cupid is always a deity of sorts with form, and can be called Amor too, importantly so. Amor can thus also mean deity
or abstract principle. Krishna too is always personal and Deity and form, never as abstract principle and the same for Vishnu and
Shiva, however the Goddess Shakti too has this abstract and personal nature also. In these all strands of Indias main traditions
Kamadeva is associated, but comes more alive the most in association with Krishna to whom he has the most resonance.
India is a place of oral traditions. The possibility of oral traditions older than the others finding their way into writings later than
the others is a given. This can pose a problem in accurately dating Indian deities and stories and comparing them with the Greek
if depending upon texts and their dates (dates of which are furthermore much debated with much divergence to consider). Thus
we dont know who was first and who influenced who but it would appear that the texts concerning Kamadeva (not Kama) came
later than the period of Greek presence in India and later than texts in Greece about Eros, which can lead some to surmise Greek
influence on India. Perhaps both mutually influenced each other? This article will not make an attempt at answering these types
of questions nor provide a survey of the differing opinions and differing conclusions reached, fascinating though it would be. I

want to explore some curious alchemical elements and resonances in the links between Kamadeva and his spouse, the Goddess
Rati and their association (abstract quality and deity form story) with the traditions of Radha and Krishna and present these
elements by the side of certain strands of both the western traditions of Amor and certain later developments of Amor heading
towards in a more alchemical direction. Then I will make mention how history is bringing the two alchemical resonances of India
and Europe, closer together at significant points of history. It would be good to keep in mind as background ambience the links
established thus so far as regarding, Eros, Amor and Kama as well as Kamadeva and Cupid seeing them all as different branches
of the same tradition of love east and west. I would also clarify my understanding of alchemy as that which is meaning both inner
and outer, the inner transformation and transmutation and the outer concerning ingredients and substances, material energies and
in regards to the outer, not necessarily always of a laboratory or literal foundry nature either.
1
We shall start off with the sweetest thing to taste as we shall see. It is called Shringara Rasa in India. Shringara Rasa is an
important concept associated with Radha and Krishna and Rati and Kamadeva and translates from the Sanskrit as the taste of
love. Let us first look at rasa. Rasa is a Sanskrit term for the taste of the taster who is known as a Rasika as well as being the
taste of that something tasted itself, usually being a drama or play, yet also pertaining to all arts. Rasa is an important Indian
aesthetical concept concerning all of art but has its genesis and early focus in dramaturgy and theatre. Every important drama has
its Bhava, its predominant basic emotion or mood which is an impetus for the taste or rasa which ensues. Rasa is not only just the
taste of the taster and the taste itself though, but also the after-taste derived from the memory of the tasting too and the taste of
that. It is the on-going taste which can be experienced by attending several performances of the same steady Bhava in the drama
that crosses different times. Thus an even more sublime sense and variety ensues in the totality and Rasa is seen to extend and
pervade through time, existing in the theatre, on its stage, and out of it at the same time, afterwards in memory then back again to
see it once again. Extending the example even further for further illustration, the rasa of a written play would be the product of all
the various ingredients; its literary spices, herbal verbs, poetic condiments etc and their tastes combined in one pre-dominating
over all the others giving it a name of a particular rasa. In the Rasa traditions there are eight Bhavas and eight Rasas generally,
although there is also a ninefold grouping also. Rasa is thus the taste of the whole unity of the song and poem etc and all its parts
in their relations. It is seen as the quintessence of it, its purpose, its aspiration, its reason for existence, something higher than
itself. It is also there in the reception of the play itself, it is there in the audience and their experiences, in the writers, in the thing
itself in retrospect thus its totality. It is stable and moves across time and space and through the centuries through repeated
performances. That timeless story, drama we often hear.
There is also the defining of the Rasa that pervades not only secular dramas (also with a spiritual background in ancient India)
but the spiritual plays of the Gods and Goddesses in the scriptures which represent the play of life itself, the drama of the astro
heavens and the earths measures and that which is the Drama of all dramas so to speak. The defining of the Rasa of rasas, the
chief of the eight, the universal Rasa behind all of the eight rasas was defined as the Rasa of salvation and absolute peace and
purity, oneness with the Divine, Shanta Rasa, but later came more to be seen as Love as the chief, as seen in the figures of Radha
and Krishna who, associated with Rati and Kamadeva as well, were all of that same rasa, Shringara Rasa, the Rasa of Love.
Shringara is also seen as the king or chief in regards to the Absolute Truth in philosophical terms as well as metaphysical.
Ultimate Rasa is the taste of the joy of the Infinite, the taste of liberation from worldly suffering, Shanta Rasa, but yet even better
is the taste of devotion and love to Absolute Deity, Shringara Rasa. Of course Shringara Rasa won as taking first place.
The chief of Rasas has its match regarding bhavas. Of the eight bhavas that correspond to the eight rasas, it is Rati Bhava,
which is the Bhava of bhavas. The taste of Rati Bhava is Shringara Rasa. Rati thus has also personal form (spouse of Kamadeva)
as well as an abstract as the Bhava of bhavas. It is a more sublime abstract concept of Rati that is applied to Krishna though,
related but also different to Rati the Goddess of sexual pleasure. It is associated with the Goddess Radha. Both Goddesses contain
Ra. Rati shares also linguistically in the name Rama, derived from the root Ram, in Sanskrit, and Rama means to delight, to
please, to gladden. Rama is also an incarnation of Krishna, or Krishna previously in His last appearance in the age previously.

Rama too has been used in a more abstract way and more personal way. I do however feel the strong possibility the different uses
to which abstract Rati associated with Radha and that Rati which is in Goddess Rati so to speak correspond to the different types
of alchemy of the Sahajiya Vaishnavas and the Gaudiya Vaishnavas* which we shall see.
Rati Bhava is more specifically the name of the love Radha feels for Krishna. She herself is called Mahabhava which translates
as the greatest Bhava. Krishna is also called Rasaraja, or the King of Rasas. Shringara Rasa from Rati Bhava is seen as
crystallising out from it. Krishna Rati is another name of Rati Bhava too. Rati Bhava is sexual pleasure turned around in the
context of the Universal call of the Flute, of Krishna, for it is seen as higher and more pure when turned around in the sublime
and finds its full flowering there, traced thus back to its source in Radha Krishna the Absolute. This is seen as releasing one from
attachments to the grosser kinds of sexual pleasure in the varieties of the world, which are seen as binding spirit-souls back into
the world of re-incarnation. It is seen as the key that unlocks the door to a truer and more lasting liberation and better than
merging into the impersonal bright light of the Absolute, the Brahmajyoti, which is the goal cherished by many ascetics, yogis
and sages who often negate sex desire rather than turn it back to its direct source to re-channel in the higher. The Brahmajyoti are
the rays which are seen to emanate from Krishnas body and are associated with Brahman in Vedanta philosophy (an important
branch of Indian philosophy and metaphysics). Shanta Rasa is the taste of this Oneness and peace of Brahman but is seen as not
being a place stable enough and a plane from which fall down into the wheel of birth and death can take place. Shringara is the
abode of Radha and Krishna and are beyond the bright effulgence and are the final resting place, thus more grounded and secure
in lasting liberation and that from which all the tastes of all relationships and their varieties in the world find their fulfilment and
origin fallen from.
The other goddess associated with Kamadeva is Priti, who is the Goddess of pure affection expressive in romantic love which
can even be asexual and who also by name and more abstract form associates with Krishna as Prema, or pure love in the spiritual
Rasa tradition of Radha Krishna. Kamadeva is flanked either side by these two consorts. Prema is the gold, Kama is the base
metal, we shall see more of this shortly.
Chaitanya (14861534) is considered in Bengal to be a social reformer and a purifier from the disease of caste consciousness
and is also considered to be an incarnation of Radha and Krishna combined, who came to show the way of pure devotion. He was
an expected incarnation mentioned in previous scriptures and thus was seen as fulfilling various prophecies. His way revealed a
new Renaissance in Radha Krishna devotion throughout India. The Chaitanya tradition is still greatly expanding till this day and
actually flourishing all around the world. Many lineages of Radha Krishna devotion of great import and prestige trace themselves
back to Chaitanya and his early Goswami followers. Rupa Goswami (14891564) was and is the chief Goswami follower (there
were six chief Goswamis- Go means senses and Swami means master) of Chaitanya and a prolific composer of the some of
the main literatures of the Chaitanya lineage. He wrote poems and plays, works of philosophy, commentaries on scriptures as
well as also a guide to dramatics, various songs and hymns of praise and a grammar amongst other things. His main introductory
work to rasa is the Bhakti Rasamrta Sindu, which is a good place to start to understand the Rasa Divine. Therein he defines Rati
in various ways one of which is as a warm and sweet flow or a mighty river of joy which is naturally warm and incessant; but
despite emitting heat is sweeter than the cusp of the nectarian moon. A most beautiful description alluding also to nectar, itself
a fascinating word with an interesting history in and of itself, which in Sanskrit is amrta (relates to Greek ambrosia) which has
an extensive use in the literature generally of the tradition. In my opinion Amrta, Ambrosia and Amor share in the same stream
also as Kama, but I have no space to expand on this here. Krishna Rati is sweeter than nectar, yet is still a sweet taste. Rupa
Goswami is essential for research about Rasa for scholars in the field and Rupa Goswami drew on previous Rasa traditions
mainly those of Bhoja, Bharat Muni and Abhinavagupta, whom in all are essential in the study of Rasas and Bhavas and their
subdivisions and universality.
2

Rasa is also found in the actual name of alchemy in India- Rasayana, the way- yana, of Rasa. It is a branch of alchemy to do
with the manufacture of elixirs for health and prolonging life. Rasa therein translates as mercury but is not confined to that
either. Rasa was, in its most ancient understanding in the Vedas, associated with any fluid, mainly the sap of plants. These are the
earliest references. Rasa is often associated with the elixir of life in Radha Krishna traditions of Rasa and alchemical terms are
often used such as the philosophers stone, the transcendental touchstone, the gold of Prema in the literature in the works of
the Goswamis and others. Rasayana makes much of various elixirs, various components of them, and various ingredients,
recipes, combinations. Perhaps the focus on mercury was an aberration though from an earlier tradition, and it neednt have been
the main focus which it became later? In later times, claiming an ability within the tradition for the tradition to adapt, it has quite
naturally left out mercury in some regions. The focus on mercury was no doubt to the detriment of some, although there is also an
argument that the mercurial elements have been misunderstood and demonised with incorrect science and also that they engaged
mercury in complex procedures of purification making it ultimately harmless for consumption. I shall make no judgements on
this.
Chaitanya is also golden. His earliest biography was by Murari Gupta who was by profession a doctor, and doctors in the 1500s
in Bengal would have been well conversant with medical traditions which contain the Rasayana alchemical teachings. The
biographies of Chaitanya contain many alchemical references too. Chaitanya incarnates as a combination of the red-gold Radha
and the black Krishna and combines them both in his golden effulgent body which further displays many ecstatic symptoms
detailed. All important alchemical colours are in the golden Gauranga in Radha Krishna- red, gold and black. Gauranga means a
golden (Gaur) limbed (anga- limb) one. Chaitanya is associated with the internal life force of consciousness and eternity, Chaitya.
This Golden Limbed One, Avatar of the Alchemy of Love, the way of spiritual Rasa is a way of devotion expressed with many
alchemical terms and features. There is a rich palate of various plants, flowers and other vegetation too in the voluminous
literature of the Chaitanya lineages. The stages of love, the process of purification etc is often described in alchemical terms.
Kama, the original and somewhat abstract energy of Kamadeva (that which he is associated with), is seen in different ways
early on in Vedic tradition. Kama is to be transcended, seen as a destructive force even and in his later personalisation is turned
back to abstract form, to ash, by the fierce asceticism of Shiva of the snowy mount. Shiva in anger burns him to ashes with the
heat of his asceticism emerging out from his third eye when aroused from his meditation by him (as the gods needed Shiva to
have a son with Parvati to defeat the demon Taraka). Kamadev aims his arrows towards Shiva and shoots at the greatest of the
ascetics yet is only partially successful- turning to a pile of ashes in the process, formless again but completely at the ends of the
earth alone, the edges, ashes and dust. Due to the grace of Shiva he was further distributed formlessly amongst various springtime
categories, flowers, trees, birds, bees, honey etc and told he will later take form again but this time as the son of Krishna and
Rukmini (one of the chief queens in Krishnas kingdom of Dwarka), Pradyumna. The arrows had penetrated Shiva, the All
Auspicious One, nevertheless. This resulted in the birth of Skanda who appeared after a season of love making with Parvati
invoked by a Kamadeva subsequently turned to ashes. The ascetic and auspicious aspect of the edges Godhead, Parvati and
Shiva, are thus not immune and Kama in the end is destined to become subservient to his higher nemesis Krishna as his son. In
fact it is only Radha Krishna who harmonise and go beyond Kamadeva in their story, who go beyond and are deeper than he
whose power is above all the gods and pervasive in all the realms and subsume or fulfill him and his associates in a new and
more purer springtime. Kama is considered also as the base metal which is to be transformed into love, the gold of Prema,
abstract Priti, the other wife of Kamadeva as I have mentioned. This alchemy of the transformation of iron-kama into prema-gold
pervades the Radha-Krishna tradition, in both the Vaishnava Sahajiyas and their past as well as their orthodox relations they are
estranged from, the mainstream Gaudiya Vaishnavas.
Ashes aside and back to heat, the desire to destroy the lower aspects of Kama as it appears in romantic love and especially
sexual promiscuity (only procreative sex in a loving marriage is allowed) and turn this into ashes, is the direction the Gaudiya
Vaishnavas go in. They completely neglect the use of Kama in the direction of worldly sex and romance and they place their
Kama, or base metal, in another foundry instead, which in this foundry analogy of mine, I shall call the foundry of the Rati we
saw in Rati Bhava and associated with Radha. It is the foundry of the perfection of renunciation concluded. It is a transformation

of the iron of the initial attraction to Radha Krishna, when that iron has been took away from any conjugal interest in the physical
bodies of men and women, to be took and placed in the stronger and more purifying forge of the temple and ashram and sangha
or association, beginning the work of transmutation in the guidance of the stream of the particular lineage of gurus successions
chosen. The goal of both the Sahajiya and Gaudiya Vaishnava is the gold of Prema or pure love, but the Sahajiyas desire to
alchemically work with it and transform it to gold in another foundry to that of the Gaudiya- the foundry of conjugal interest in
the physical bodies and spirit-soulss dress of the physical bodies of men and women in the set and setting of the Sahajiya
groupings and their guru lineages. This I shall call as the foundry of the Goddess Rati herself. The Sahajiyas extolled the
relationship between men and women in their world as a clear reflection to be used in its relation to that which it reflects and
transmute that instead, following the example of Radha and Krishna as Godhead within literally, thinking that Radha-Krishna are
showing what to do in the outer, thinking the innate nature inside every man is Krishna, and in every woman Radha. The more
orthodox followers of Chaitanya saw sex and romance in the realm of men and women as a distorted reflection of the relationship
between Radha and Krishna and furthermore, one which was fraught with suffering and this reflection was even furthermore in a
distorted mirror, especially due to the effects of the evil age of Kali Yuga. The distorted mirror itself as well as the distorted
reflection was to be given up and that reflected in it turned around and liberated from mirror fixation. The Sahajiyas didnt seem
to care much about the mirror and the reflections as being distorted, perhaps because they thought their circles were not to be
compared to those distorted reflections and mirrors elsewhere and they had better mirrors?
These are two different approaches but both sharing the alchemical process of turning the base metal of Kama to the Prema of
love, each doing a different kind of alchemy in different foundries of different aspects of Rati and on different forges and separate
from each other with different understandings of what the process and its parts are, as well as its goal. Both believed Kama to be
the base metal and Prema as gold, however differently they both understood this to be. Both go about a transmutation process,
one as celibate piety and devotion, serving the Deity etc, being pure and chaste. The other, all mentioned in the last sentence to a
certain degree, but with an antinomian twist and also a different philosophical conception also.
3
When Kama was taken into the Goddess Rati forge of the Vaishnava Sahajiyas it also developed in a romantic way. This made
it different than Kamas prior use in the Vajrayana Buddhist as well as Shaivite Tantric heritage that they had preserved. The older
Tantra was sexual but at the same time minus romantic features. It was more of a detached heroic-ascetic mode concerned with
self-mastery of desire and not its negation. It was in regards to the union with the Dombi, or washerwoman of the lower castes
thus a transgressive union by caste feudal standards. It is described as a union of an unfolding natural process of liberation
through internal metaphysical body centres and states (chakras) involving Vajrayana Buddhist Sahajayana conceptions of MahaSukha, the highest bliss. The great poet of the Radha Krishna stream, Chandidas, whom the Vaishnava Sahajiyas honoured and
extended later on, also had his ideal forbidden loving union mentioned as a washerwoman named Rami (and we have seen the
connotations of Ram in Rati and Rama), although some will argue that this has been put into the mouth of Chandi-das and was
not originally written by him. Chandi-das is a great poet of the Radha Krishna tradition revered by all lineages Sahajiya and
Gaudiya. The Sahajiyas try to make him their own and write new things in his name in their rivalry and eclectic borrowing and
competing with the Chaitanya tradition that they honoured for the privilege thus. The prior Buddhist phase of the Vaishnava
Sahajiyas concerning the Dombi was between the 800s and 1200s and is a period wherein we see resonances with the
Troubadours and their transgressive features which were those of adulterous love, which however were different. The courtly
love elements that Radha and Krishna were associated with were adulterous features of the Indian courtly love traditions, that
earlier on were not normally made much of. Later on in those times after the Troubadours, the adulterous theme arose in India in
both Sahajiya and Gaudiya circles. The Gaudiyas seeing it as the breaking away of the marriage to the world to that of God, or
Krishna instead, the Sahajiyas with a heritage of their Dombi woman prior thus came to emulate this adulterous aspect of Radha
and Krishnas love features ritualistically by men enacting adulterous love affairs with women outside of caste marriage
conceptions, in their own communities. The Gaudiyas did not agree with this seeing it a misunderstanding of the adulterous love
of Radha and Krishna, a cheapening of it into a less than perfect world whose reality was not faced up to. But both, like their

alchemy, had the adulterous love feature each in their own ways. It is seen as an ancient understanding resurfacing, rather than
being newly invented. It came out more to the front in the 1400s onwards. For the Vaishnava Sahajiyas, this adulterous love
theme was later than their Buddhist Sahajiya Dombi Tantric period of the past which was also the time period when west, the
Troubadours praised the love of the Lady and they called Domna. Dombi and Domna co-existed around the same time period,
each transgressive in certain ways. Dombi becomes more aligned with adulterous love later than the Domna though, yet love is
love east and west and flouts strict marriage feudal conventions in different ways.
4
In the 16th and 17th century, when the Gaudiya Vaishnava and the Sahajiyas were flourishing in the east, a devotional
Christianity inspired by alchemical descriptions emerges more in the west. Hence the technicalities and fluid systems of Boehme
and Paracelsus and their devotional features were growing in various soils from the Rosicrucians to Pietists, new Bohemist
Philadelphians, Gichtelians and others of that stream at the times of the Protestant Reformation. The Cathars are said to have
been present in the regions of the supposedly heretical Catholics Eckhart and Tauler and various other Rhineland Mystics such
as Sister Catherine, the Brethren of the Free Spirit. Some of these mystics were an influence on the new devotional directions
that Christianity was going in whilst taking in alchemical thinking. For instance Tauler was a big influence on Johann Arndt, who
carried on his vision and devotion. Arndt in turn was a big influence of Jacob Spener the founder of the Pietists. It has been
postulated that the Troubadours in some sense share some influences from the Cathars who dwelled in the same regions in the
south. Then if conjugal elements came from the Cathars in the north, so then we would see similar variations of the same
conjugal elements in the Troubadours in the south. The Dominican and Franciscan authorities that persecuted Eckhart, Tauler and
some of the others, were also those same orders against the Troubadours and Cathars. Thus Amor could well have some historical
association somewhat with influences on the alchemical pietistic devotional Christianity. It is also an interesting bit of
numerology that Paracelsus (1493-1541) lived for 48 years, as did Chaitanya (1486-1534). He was born 7 years after Chaitanya,
and he passed away 7 years after Chaitanya. Paracelsus as well as Boehme made much of the number seven. The deeper spiritual
alchemy of love in India comes first and the more materially tainted one in Europe comes second and the two almost overlap.
History overlaps for the first time. Chaitanya and Paracelsus.
Orientalist interest in India stirred in some circles fascinated with also Middle Eastern traditions such as the Druze, Nuasiri,
various Sufis and Dervishes, Syrian Christianity and others. Esoterically inclined westerners saw these Middle Eastern groups as
possible survivors with an old esotericism which was said to have once also found its way into the medieval monastic orders
associated with the holy land such as Templars and others. Contact indeed between Europeans and people and places of these
Middle Eastern traditions took place through the centuries, it is not a new thing. There are Indian elements within these Middle
East groups it must be mentioned. Thus when modern Gaudiya Vaishnavas during their preaching work in the late 1980s and
early 1990s came in touch with Druze peoples in Israel, the Druze claimed their books were their own religion and that their own
religion talked of Krishna, and that they identified their fringe Ismaili religion (which has existed in the Middle East since at least
1000s AD in Fatimid Egypt) as ultimately ancient and coming from India. Their Ismaili traditions had taken in something more
ancient and kept it alive. The Druze minister of education of the Israeli Druze community thus bought all the books and made
sure they were present in all Druze libraries and schools etc and prominent Druze Sheikhs visited Gaudiya Vaishnavas in India
too. Some of them took initiation into Gaudiya Vaishnava lines. Thus Druze traditions have been integrated by the teachings of
Chaitanya in the early 1990s. History overlaps again. It is interesting thus how the first Gaudiya Missionaries to the west in
modern times in the early 1900s, we see Baba Premananda Bharati, whose Gaudiya missionary work and lectures and teachings
were heard by those of the latter day ends of the Hermetic Order of the GOLDEN Dawn, The Theosophical Society, New
Thought and later Rosicrucianism. The Psychedelic and Consciousness Revolution period also hosted the last important great
wave of Gaudiya Missionary work also in the preaching of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the establishment of the
international organisation ISKCON (which contacted the Druze as before mentioned) which he inspired. History again overlaps
in two cases if we think about it. One an alchemical rose, the other the alchemical lotus and the same lake of love upon which,
may we be following in the trail of those swans who swim from one to other seeking nectar and pleasant shelter, gliding

peacefully, truly for the sake of Love. I feel the alchemy of Kama, Amor and Eros continues in these places, and they meet in
history, as well as here in this study and hope I can inspire more to look in these directions to discover and explore and follow the
swans seeking the nectar.

D Scott Prestbury. 2013

*Vaishnavism is the religion of Vishnu who is the Indian Godhead in a monotheistic sense but with emanations and forms or
Avatars. It is thus a personalistic monotheistic faith and way of life. Vishnu has many incarnations or Avatars, His chief being
Radha Krishna, which some saw eventually as His origin. Vaishnavism predates Sahajiyaism and is a mainstream Indian
alternative tradition to that of Buddhism and Shaivitism as well as Shakti-ite Goddess traditions. The Vaishnava Sahajiyas are
also a fusion of an actual specific offshoot of Vajrayana Buddhism, Sahajayana, with general Vaishnavism, and later on with the
specific Vaishnavism associated with Radha and Krishna that eventually came to be Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Gaudiya Vaishnavas
hold Radha Krishna to be the highest and see Vishnu and His consort, the Indian Goddess of Fortune, Sri, or Laxmi, as both
expanding from them respectively. Gaudiya Vaishnavas moreover hold Chaitanya as an incarnation of Radha-Krishna combined
but with a twist. This incarnation although being them combined is primarily in the mood of Radha, and in the mood of a devotee
to reveal the way to devotion.

Charyapadas in English translation can be found online as well as a good wiki article
Obscure Religious Cults by Shashibhusan Das Gupta, M.A., PHD, Ramtanu Lahiri Professor and Head of the Department of
Modern Indian Languages, University of Calcutta, 1946. (A most important chapter on the Vaishnava Sahajiyas from this
book can be found online)
Both website forums Chaitanya Symposium and Gaudiya Repercussions have a good discussion on them regarding the
Vaishnava Sahajiyas.
Edward Dimocks classic Place of the Hidden Moon, Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava-Sahajiya Cult of Bengal, University of
Chicago Press, 1966.
The Post-Caitanya Sahajiya Cult of Bengal by M M Basu (Bose), 1930
Princeton Readings in Religions, Tantra in Practice: Necklace of Immortality, Glen Hayes, 2000.
Princeton Readings in Religions, Religions of India in Practice, The Vaishnava Sahajiya Traditions of Bengal, Glen Hayes,
1995.
God of Desire: Tales of Kamadeva in Sanskrit Story Tradition by Catherine Benton, SUNY Press, 2006.
Krishna, Israel and the Druze- An Intereligious Odessy by Dhira Govinda Das, Torchlight Publishing 2002

Many texts concerning Gaudiya Vaishnavism of various lineages and branches are now in English translation and many are
free and can be found online including the critiques of Vaishnava Sahajiyas as well which are essential to counterbalance.
There are also various free ebooks of Rupa Goswami translated into English too.