Rādhikā-sāntvanam

The Rādhikā-sāntvanam ('Appeasing Radhka') is a poem composed by the Telugu-language poet and devadasi Muddupalani (1739–90) concerning the marital relationship of the deity Krishna, his new wife Ila, and her aunt Radha and the appeasement of the jealousy of Radha.

Date

According to Dru Bhattacharya,

The precise date of composition is unknown, but we can infer that Muddupalani was at least a young woman when she wrote the work (e.g. 18-24 years of age or circa 1757-1763) and that it was crafted while Maharaja Singh was still presiding over the royal court (ie. 1730-63), we can reasonably assume that the work was mostly likely written sometime between 1757 and 1763.

Content

The work comprises four sections, between them consisting of five hundred and eighty-four poems, and belonged to the genre of śṛṅgāra-kāvya or śṛṅgāra-prabandham, 'a genre associated in the history of Telugu literature with the Thanjavur era' whose poems were mostly inventive retellings of the story of Radha and Krishna, evoking the rāsa of Sringara. It was probably influenced by the padams composed by the seventeenth-century poet Kṣetrayya and may have been influenced by the seventeenth-century Satyabhāma Sāntvanamu ('Appeasing Satyabhāmā') by Liṅganamakhi Śrīkāmeśvara Kavi.

The poetry is detailed like an erotic manual where Radha teaches Krishna's new wife Ila how to sexually satisfy him.

The poem is framed as a dialogue between two legendary wise men: Vyasa's son Maharishi Suka (or Suka Muni) and the philosopher-king Janaka.

It tells the tale of Radha, Krishna's aunt, a woman in her prime who brings up Ila Devi from childhood and then gives her in marriage to Krishna. The poem describes in detail Ila Devi's puberty and the consummation of her marriage to Krishna.