Radha Krishna Paintings depict a love legend of all times. Perhaps no other faith glorifies the idea of love between the sexes as Hinduism, and the Radha Krishna amour, is the greatest of all love stories in Hinduism.
Krishna's relationship with Radha, his favorite among the 'gopis' (cow-herding maidens), has served as a model for male and female love in a variety of art forms, and since the sixteenth century appears prominently as a motif in North Indian Hindu Paintings.
The Radha Krishna Legend
The Hindu Paintings of Krishna's playful dalliances with the 'gopis' are interpreted as symbolic of the loving interplay between God and the human soul. Radha's unflinching love for Krishna and their relationship are often interpreted as the human quest for union with the divine. This kind of love is of the highest form of devotion in Vaishnavism, and is symbolically represented as the bond between the wife and husband.
Radha, daughter of Vrishabhanu, was Krishna's faithful companion since childhood and subsequently, lover during that period of his life when he lived among the cowherds of Vrindavan. Their childhood intimacy, as projected through lore, was indicative of the love that was to blossom between them - they played, they danced, they fought, they grew up together and wanted to be together forever, but the world pulled them apart. He departed to safeguard the virtues of truth, and she waited for him. He vanquished his enemies, became the king, and came to be worshipped as a lord of the universe. She waited for him. He married Rukmini and Satyabhama, raised a family, fought the great war of Ayodhya, and she still held a torch for him. So great was Radha's love for Krishna that even today her name is uttered whenever Krishna is referred to, and Krishna worship is though to be incomplete without the deification of Radha.
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