Chroniclers depict lord Krishna as always resorting to Yogamaya, such as lifting the Govardhan mountain, says Dr Asha Goswami
The name Krishna signifying multiple significations — all pervasiveness, all active, and the highest pleasure — is assigned to a divine personae who was equipped with multi-dimensional facets and represented grand figure of perfection in the form of fullest revelation of God who permeates all with his ultimate spiritual reality.
According to the Mahabharata, ‘They call Krishna, the protector of Arjuna as Vishnu himself, who endowed with conch, disc, club, is clad in yellow silken raiment’. The chroniclers depict Krishna as always resorting to his Yogamaya (or Maya) while revealing his super eminence in the form of his magnanimous leelas, such as as a child revelation of his cosmic form to his foster mother by opening his mouth, and later to Arjuna while reciting Gita in the battlefield, or lifting up Govardhan mountain, enacting his sportive raasa with Radha and the gopis, saving the Pandavas on many precarious occasions during the war, and saving Draupadi from Dushasana’s evil intentions of disrobing her.
Hence, there no exaggeration in declaring Yogamaya as the monopoly of Shri Krishna, and during his leelas representing his miracle working inherent power. Proceeding further unravelling the true significations of the notion of Yogamaya, it be emphasised at the outset that the Krishnaite scriptures mostly deal with this notion in the context of Maya only. Bhagavad Gita provides ample clue to ascertain its implications.
Firstly, it is stated that the lord undergoes his regular appearances as avataras in the world through Yogamaya: ‘Mayaya sambhavaami’. Next, the Gita holds Yogamaya as parallel with lord’s infinite mystic power or the divine yoga as he himself says ‘veiled by Yogamaya (the combination of three qualities sattva, rajas, and tamas) I am not manifest to all; it is the same inherent nature which makes me capable of manifesting in this world; bringing forth and supporting all the beings’.
This Gita ideology on Yogamaya runs parallel in the Upanishads too when it is stated that ‘through Maya, the God appears manifold’. The Gita further identifies Yogamaya with the inscrutable energy of the lord through which he transforms a part of himself into the worldly beings. According to the Mahabharata, Yogamaya was created by the lord himself as his prompter and helper and who even brought about his manifestations or avataras, as is said ‘Maya hyesha mayaa srishta yanmaam pashyasi narada’.
While the Harivamsha, which is the blueprint of the Mahabharata, confers Yogamaya with the title of Yoganidra and identifies her with the girl who was exchanged with Krishna and thus proved his saviour, as in his place she was dashed to the stone by Kamsa, but unaffected raised as a divine figure. Here reference be made to a temple dedicated to this very deified power of Shri Krishna, which is situated near Mehrauli.
While dealing with the Gopi element the Bhagavatapurana projects, the dual concept of Yogamaya are seen — wherein both the forms of Yogamaya are distinct from each other. In one form, she represents the deluding power (illusory veil) of the lord, which screens (gopaayati iti gopi) all his divine activities from the mortal view and thus acting as the screening veil, Yogamaya assumes the form of Gopi, who represents the higher phase of lord’s power since she protects him. While in the other form, she represents the Yogashakti of the lord, which prompts him in his infinite and concentrated (nitya anitya leelas) activities.
The same source further elaborating this notion maintains that with the help of Yogamaya, the lord created the world, manifested himself as Shri Krishna along with the gopis and the great time. In this context, Yogamaya be treated as synonymous with his leela, which is nonetheless his power which induces the lord to become many in order to accomplish world process in the spirit of leela — the act which he undertakes for his own pleasure.
Etymologically viewed, Yogamaya is a composite term and made up of two words ‘yoga’ and ‘maya’, with the implications of bringing forth through the screening power, which is deemed as lord’s infinite mystic power which has accrued from the organic unity of the mind and the other organs, since this power is consequent upon lord’s yoga (Yoge maya or yogasya maya).
This term be also derived from the Sanskrit root maa meaning to lay out a plan of building, or to produce or shape an illusionary Image, which in case of Shri Krishna may suggest his inherent power to assume varied forms to display his subtle essence, as he himself is held to be the production of the greater maya and hence a maya manushya, who is seemingly a man but essentially an incognito being, an epiphany of the unfathomable divine in a mortal frame.
Yogamaya is also one and the same Shri Shakti of Shri Krishna, which forms one of the six constituents of his Bhagavan-status and represents the supreme potency of the lord endowed with which he performs both the roles that of being the efficient as well as the material cause of the universe. In this form, Yogamaya acts as divine mother of all the beings.
While concluding in terms of the Vaishnava Theology, Shri Krishna’s Yogayama is one of his supra powers like samvit, sat, samadhini, and ananda, which makes him plan and organise things beyond the powers of mankind and endowed with which he becomes what he really is not and does whatsoever he is not expected to. No wonder, he is acclaimed most befittingly as the Yogayogeshwara.
The writer is a noted Indologist and an authority on Krishnaite studies
