Playing God: Participant Frameworks in

the Ras Lilas of Krishna

Holly Walters
Brandeis University

Abstract: As one of the most popular deities in contemporary Hindu worship, representations
of Krishna are ubiquitous throughout South Asia. However, characterizations of Krishna
also commonly appear in popular media, including television shows, movies, and comic
books. But the division between traditional religious representations of Krishna and his
more modern media images is not as stark as it might first appear. Using an analysis of
linguistic frameworks in popular dramatic stage performances centred on the re-enactment
of Krishna stories, this article demonstrates the continuum of religious practice that links
the actor playing Krishna with ritual practices that presume the manifestation of the deity
himself. In this way, the lines between tradition and modernity become blurred as particular
methods of entertainment become themselves a vehicle for the realization of the divine.

Keywords: Hinduism, Krishna, ras lila, participant frameworks, drama, theater, India,
Vaishnavism, ritual

The ras lilas (typically translated as ‘‘play/dance’’ [lila] of ‘‘aesthetics’’ [ras]) are a type
of folk dance/theatrical drama common in northern India, where famous scenes from the
life of Krishna are performed using a combination of stage acting, solo and group dancing,
singing, chanted recitations, and instrumental accompaniment.1 The traditional stories that
are narrated and performed in the ras lilas are derived from Hindu scriptures, particularly
the Bhagavata Purana and the Bhagavad Gita, and other devotional literature such as the
Gita Govinda (Jayadeva 1977; Varadpande 2002), where Krishna appears as the principle
deity, child hero, and divine trickster. Apart from the general usage, the term also comes
from the Sanskrit words rasa and lila where rasa typically translates as ‘‘juice,’’ ‘‘nectar,’’
‘‘emotion’’ or ‘‘sweet taste’’ and lila means ‘‘act.’’ By taking this etymologic breakdown of
the word literally, rasa lila means the ‘‘sweet act’’ (of Krishna), and it is often freely inter-
preted as ‘‘the dance of divine love.’’ In this way, the ras lilas also contain deeply erotic
themes of desire and sexuality where Krishna’s passion for Radha is conceptualized as the
epitome of yearning between devotee and God, between the lover and the beloved (Schweig
2007). In the most common rendition of the lila plays, the rasa lila dance takes place one
night when the gopis (cow-herder girls) of Vrindavan, summoned by the sound of Krishna’s
flute, sneak away from their households and families and into the forest to dance with
Krishna throughout the night. During the dance, Krishna then supernaturally stretches the
length of the night into a kind of eternal eon.2 In the Krishna bhakti traditions, the rasa
lila is considered to be one of the highest and most esoteric of Krishna’s pastimes where
romantic love between human beings in the material world is viewed as a kind of illusionary
reflection of the soul’s original, ecstatic, and often eroticized spiritual love for Krishna.
In much of Hindu worship, in general, and in Vaishnavism, specifically, faith is some-
thing that is lived more often than it is learned. Because one needs an active, physical, rela-
tionship with the divine in order to integrate religious traditions with one’s own daily life,

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 Playing God: Participant Frameworks in the Ras Lilas of Krishna

the gods surround you. Thus, through their images—be they painted or sculpted, photo-
graphed or cinematic—gods become visible, accessible to the senses, and communicate
with their devotees through the various media in which they are depicted. This kind of
living presence within material representation lies at the heart of Hindu ritual and dramatic
practice, where the ambiance of a religious experience is just as vital to devotional under-
standing as the narrative. In addition, the combination of material physicality with textual
truth creates a space wherein deities become available for those who seek them (Stratton-
Hawley 1992, xi–xiii). In the case of Krishna this is especially true, and the merging of his
divine play with the theatrical performances of actors and dancers helps to blur the lines
between material reality and immaterial transcendence in such a way as to turn the dialogue
of the play into a kind of multi-layered ‘‘god-voice.’’ In fact, much of the continued popu-
larity of the ras lilas revolves around the Vaishnava belief that, in this manner of worship,
god’s meaning and intentions are not interpreted from the translated word because, within
the theatre, god speaks for himself.
In the ras lilas, gods and actors take the stage at precisely the same time in precisely the
same bodies. This double vision of theatre and religion transcends notions of character and
performance to place God upon the stage, not as a matter of metaphor but, rather, as a
matter of material reality. Given that, historically, India’s general population was largely
illiterate, coupled with a religious tradition that emphasizes the need for a physical living
relationship with divinity, the ras lilas find their ultimate expression in the dramas of Braj
and Vrindavan.3 In the past thirty years, a number of notable scholars have written at great
length about the public ras lila performances held each year in the pilgrimage village of
Vrindavan, describing in great detail the arrangement of the stage, the elaborate costumes,
the stylized gestures and dance practices, the spatial convergence of private worship and
public performance, and the extensive literary history of the romantic dialogue (Mason
2009; Schweig 2005; Stratton-Hawley 1981; Wulff 1984). However, few scholars have given
specific ethnographic attention to the idea of ‘‘god speaking for himself,’’ a concept that pre-
supposes a more complicated nature to the language that is spoken by the actor privileged to
play Krishna personally.
While the author of any ras lila play is literally the person who has composed each word
and phrase spoken by the actors, the character of Krishna encompasses an even more
complex and multi-faceted speaking position. ‘‘His’’ use of scriptural quotations and poetic
references act to not only emotionally involve the audience in the play but also to position
the audience as active co-participants in constructing and interpreting the spiritual dramatic
event. A deconstruction of the speaker position of Krishna in a particular segment of ‘‘The
Great Circle Dance,’’ the principal ras lila within the tradition, reveals that Krishna com-
prises two distinct speaking roles within the play: Krishna the dramatis persona and Krishna
the deity. I propose the distinctions of dramatis persona (or character) and deity as different
roles for two reasons: first, because they are two separate roles in the way that they interact
with other participant roles and possibly in the way that the audience perceives them and,
second, because the two roles do different cultural work. By analytically dividing the role of
Krishna into two parts, it is easier to demonstrate the ways in which these two separate
forms of Krishna come to act as two separate authors and principals for specific utterances.
Krishna as a dramatis persona arises out of the situation/actor/role relationship. This
means that while Krishna the character is leveraged to further the mythical narrative that
structures the performance, Krishna the deity also comes to inhabit the stage as an embodied,
but outside, agent who is continually addressed and conversed with throughout the perfor-
mance. In other words, Krishna the deity becomes an additional interlocutor through the

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shared belief that god himself has become incarnate on the stage and is speaking to the
audience of (presumed) devotees through the embodied words and actions of the author
and the actor. Accepting that the material fact of one person does not preclude the spiritual
presence of another is not uncommon in Hindu belief. David Mason (2009, 3) addresses
this element of ‘‘seeing’’ both what is empirically present and what is not in ras lila theatre
when he says that ‘‘one way in which audiences reach the point at which they see Krishna
and an actor in the same time and space is through the basic practice of Krishna worship,
which trains them in ‘seeing’ from childhood,’’ an intersection that joins performing theatre
with practising religion. This overlay of theatre and religion is vital to understanding where
and how each recreates and reinforces the other and where the line between them becomes
so indistinct as to be functionally non-existent. This is not to imply that there is no distinc-
tion between dramatic character and deity but that these two entities are mutually con-
stitutive in the context of the performance and come to inhabit the stage jointly. By paying
specific attention to when, where, and to whom ‘‘god speaks’’ within ‘‘The Great Circle
Dance,’’ I suggest that the dual speaking roles of Krishna work specifically to organize and
reinforce religious relationships outside of the sacred space of the theatrical play itself.
There are other parallels between ras lila performances and Hindu ritual practices, partic-
ularly that of darśan, which is typically translated as ‘‘visions or glimpses of the divine.’’ In
Vaishnavism, devotees believe that a temple’s resident deity statue, called a sthula, is Krishna’s
archa-vigraha form, the material manifestation of his divine presence. Normally, the archa-
vigraha (also called a murti or divine image) is kept shrouded by a curtain. At certain times,
the attendant pujari (temple priest) raises the curtain to reveal the deity to waiting devotees
so that they may ‘‘see and be seen by’’ Krishna and receive his blessings (Eck 1998, 4–6).
This act of ritually viewing the archa-vigraha is referred to as ‘‘taking or receiving darśan.’’4
The performing troupe of a ras lila mirrors the darśan each time they raise the theatre curtain
to reveal the actors to the audience. The ras lila is Krishna’s stage where the actor who plays
Krishna also assumes Krishna’s godhood, and, accordingly, imitation and ontology become
one and the same. Therefore, the hierarchical relationship of deity, priest, and devotee that
is otherwise present in Hinduism generally becomes clearer through the exploration of
participant frameworks surrounding the relationships between divine character, author, and
audience. Lastly, though my focus here relates to religious performances and rituals in the
Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism, it is important to note that many of these beliefs and prac-
tices, such as ritual performance and darśan, are common in other bhakti contexts and Hindu
traditions as well.
While I am choosing to focus on the speaking role of Krishna in terms of the ras lilas, I
do not privilege the speaking role in establishing the participation framework. Judith Irvine
(1996, 152) alludes to similar ideas in her discussion of Wolof insult poems, where ‘‘there is
no preconceived limit to the contextualizations, or the shadow conversations that a speaker
might have in mind or an interpreter might imagine.’’ It is not solely the speaker who
determines the course of the interaction, either on the stage or in everyday life, because the
framework of the ras lila, like the Wolof poems, is co-constructed. Meaning is constantly
negotiated through the fragmentation and participation of multiple persons, parties, and
figures and is not inherent in the author’s script alone (Irvine 1996; McIntosh 2005). Further-
more, I must also acknowledge the limitations of textual analysis in this case. Anthropological
ethnographic analyses of the ras lilas are slim, and the performance of such plays is limited
largely to festival seasons in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh and, in rare cases, in some Western
countries. My own fieldwork in West Bengal, India, indicates that the links between religious
observances and theatrical performances are repeatedly demonstrated during festival events,

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 Playing God: Participant Frameworks in the Ras Lilas of Krishna

but I was by no means able to attend and record a comprehensive sample of ritual perform-
ances. Therefore, I must limit my analysis to previously published transcripts and descriptive
texts and concede that this analysis could be contested with more subjective ethnographic
levels of complexity and cooperation within other Hindu temple performance traditions or
in other ras lila participant frameworks in situ.
The concept of participant frameworks was originally introduced by sociologist Erving
Goffman (1981) who critiqued previous speaker/hearer dyad linguistic models by recognizing
that socio-cultural context and the purposes for the talk, identity, and the participant’s
perceived roles regulated, constrained, and directed verbal interactions (De León 2012).
While Goffman’s model of participation frameworks has since been refined and elaborated,
namely by Charles Goodwin (1986), Stephen Levinson (1988), and Herbert Clark (1996), it
remains a primary theoretical framework for investigating how multiple interlocutors and
bystanders construct relevant action within specific social worlds. The role of the speaker
in Goffman’s model is deconstructed further into the more specific roles of ‘‘animator,’’
‘‘author,’’ ‘‘principal,’’ and ‘‘figure’’: the ‘‘animator’’ is the entity who physically produces the
message; the ‘‘author’’ is the one who composes the content of the message; the ‘‘principal’’
is the person whose beliefs, ideas, or sentiments are expressed in the message; and, finally,
the ‘‘figure’’ is a person whose presence is projected into the hearer’s imagination through
specific utterances (Goffman 1981; McIntosh 2005).
However, Irvine (1996, 134) criticizes both Goffman and Levinson’s decomposition of the
speaker/addressee participant role models as failing to represent other, potentially endless,
participant role deconstructions, which could include ‘‘the person quoted against his or her
will,’’ ‘‘the absent party named in an accusation,’’ and ‘‘the role in a stage play, as opposed
to the actor playing it.’’ Irvine’s criticism of previous understandings of participation frame-
works is crucial because, though Goffman identifies the roles of ‘‘figure,’’ ‘‘animator,’’ and
‘‘author’’ in theatrical terms (that is, as character, actor, and author), he applies these roles
to all possible speech events, whereas I will be limiting these roles explicitly to an actual
stage. Furthermore, I will centre my arguments specifically on the participant role of the
speaker, as it relates to the performance of Krishna as the main character in ‘‘The Great
Circle Dance,’’ with additional commentary on the dynamics of other ratified participants,
such as the hearers, the side participants, and others. By exploring the speaker role of
Krishna as both a deity that devotees believe is physically incarnate during the play (thus
the presumed ‘author’ and ‘principal’ of his own words) and as a dramatis persona (a ‘‘figure’’
whose words are both animated and authored by other persons), I will demonstrate how the
actor’s interactions with the other actors, and through other actors with the audience, shape
socio-religious interactions both inside and outside of the ras lila performance.
It is almost ironic that Irvine (1996, 131) characterizes her analysis of participation frame-
works as ‘‘the structure of participation in the game’’ mainly because the ras lilas are them-
selves re-enactments of games. ‘‘The Great Circle Dance’’ is a divine game that symbolizes
much of what constitutes Vaishnava beliefs. In 1976, John Stratton-Hawley (1981) recorded
and transcribed one such performance of the ‘‘The Great Circle Dance’’ arranged in Vrindavan,
India. Unlike most other ras lilas, this particular version owed its entire composition to a single
author, a locally well-known Krishna devotee named Premanand. The play was performed
by actors from a variety of ras lila companies who supported the two main actors, Svamis
Sri Ram and Natthi Lal (166–7). The particular section of the play that I will detail here
takes place in the beginning of the second act, following a dramatic verbal confrontation
between Krishna and his principle spiritual nemesis, Kamdev, the god of lust and desire.
Having defeated Kamdev and sent him from the stage, Krishna proceeds to play his flute,

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which mesmerizingly summons the gopis from the nearby town. The continuing scene
consists of an argument between Krishna and the assembled group of gopis where Krishna
poses a series of questions and commands meant to test the girls’ faith before the sacred
dance can begin. But as Krishna’s taunts become more emphatic and as he continuously
demands that the girls return home to their husbands and families, several of the gopis
become incensed by Krishna’s contradictory behaviour—calling them only to send them
away. They respond to their dismissal by calling Krishna their divine husband, their spiritual
counterpart, whom it is within their very natures to desire and seek. The presence of the
gopis in a ras lila is often symbolic of both the audience and of all devotees in general, and
their dialogue is meant to represent the ‘‘conversation’’ of devotion and worship between
deity and disciple (Brooks 1990, 279; Radhanath 2011). Krishna responds to the gopis in
the first part of a lengthy monologue:
Krishna: Well if you were so obedient to my every wish then, what’s changed now?
Go home! [Then, singing a couplet from the Bha#gavata Pura#na]
By hearing about me and chanting my names, meditating and visualizing,
You might possibly find a touch of my presence.
But not here with me, so go home. (Stratton-Hawley 1981, 201)
In this dialogue, Krishna’s speaker role begins to fragment. Krishna the character is
quoting Krishna the deity (from the Bhagavata Purana) in lines 2 and 3, thus creating an
ambiguous meaning behind the phrase ‘‘but not here with me’’ in line 4, where ‘‘me’’ might
refer to one or both of Krishna’s dual roles as god and as dramatis persona. The play’s
author, Premanand, has chosen to include verses from the Bhagavata Purana as dialogue,
verses he did not originally author. The author in the case of the Bhagavata Purana is believed
to be Krishna himself, a point I will elaborate further shortly. This rhetorical construct is then
repeated again and again throughout the play (and as a standard poetic device in many ras
lilas overall). For example, following the monologue, the gopis respond to Krishna’s arguments
using a similar construct:
Sakhı # (Gopi) 2: And, moral preceptor [she quotes from the Bhagavad Gı #ta#],
Just as the devoted approach me in worship, so I devote myself to them.
That was the promise that issued from your very own mouth. Now are you going to limit
that promise to men,
or will you fulfill it for women too? (Stratton-Hawley 1981: 206)

In this passage, not only are the gopis quoting Krishna the deity to Krishna the character,
but they are also quoting him from a time that, in the context of the events in this play, takes
place in the future—a time that will not enter the theatrical present until Krishna has aged
another thirty to forty years. Vaishnava devotees believe that the words of the Bhagavad Gita
were spoken by the historical person of Krishna himself and were then recorded by the
scribe Vyasa (or Badarayana) sometime between 200 bce and 200 ce (Vivekananda 1894)
in the Mahabharata. But at the time of the ‘‘Great Circle Dance,’’ it is clear that Krishna is
only a boy aged nine to twelve years who will not dictate the famous verses until he is
roughly between forty or fifty years old. The temporal distance between the two roles of
Krishna here signifies a change in authorship as well as a difference in intended hearer.
The people in the audience, who we must remember are symbolically represented by the
gopis, are the hearers intended for the scriptural recitation. Note especially that these specific
words exist outside of the sacred theatrical space of the stage as words uttered by Krishna
the deity in the past. This convergence of past, present, and future within the dialogue of

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Krishna the character is integral to the creation of the sacred space, lending it an eternal,
timeless, quality. By leveraging this quality of timelessness, the author of the play extends
the reach of the dialogue outside of the particular time and space of the performance itself
to include the audience as active participants. The author’s temporal transgression links the
character of Krishna with his audience by situating the dialogue as that between the deity
Krishna and his devotees. This is how both an actor and a deity can be said to be speaking
simultaneously. Another example of this convergence occurs immediately after the previous
passages as the debate continues:
Sakhı # (Gopi) 1: Oh, but Mr. Preceptor, we have your very own promise on this point.
[quoting from the Bhagavad Gı #ta#]
Abandon all claims of right and wrong and come, take refuge with me alone.
Is this another one of those promises that only applies to men, or does it extend to women,
who love you too?
Sakhı # (Gopi) 2: And what about when you said [quoting from the Bhagavad Gı #ta#] that
Those who draw near me, Kaunteya, will never endure another birth.
Is it true what you’ve said, as we’ve heard in many sermons, that if a soul takes refuge at
your feet, you will never force that soul to endure further reincarnations?
Krishna: Yes, it’s true. (Stratton-Hawley 1981, 207)

Krishna the character carries the narrative of the play forward by responding to the ques-
tions posed by the gopi characters even though the gopis are quoting Krishna the deity,
who, I argue, is an equally intended ‘‘you’’ that the second gopi is referring to in lines 4
and 6. In addition, because Krishna the deity enters the interaction by means of the gopis
through whom he is speaking, he is positioned as an interlocutor who exists in another
time and space outside of the actor currently representing him. In one case, Krishna the
character even calls back to the speaking presence of Krishna the deity within the scriptural
quotations when he says:
Krishna: I don’t care what wastrels or boors your husbands may be,
It’s they whom you should serve if you have any hope of heaven.
So the scriptures decree. (Stratton-Hawley 1981, 205)

Eventually, the gopis even take him to task for this declaration, and when Krishna the
character becomes offended, they appeal, in an ironic tone, to Krishna the deity:
Sakhı # (Gopi) 1: Lord, that sermon on woman’s duty that you just gave isn’t really correct,
because scripture considers it improper to sermonize without being asked to do so. . . .
If we’d put you on the orator’s box and asked for a discourse,
that would have been one thing. But we didn’t,
so you should have kept that sermon to yourself.
Krishna: But the scriptures also specify that if saying something will be beneficial to the
person concerned it is a sin to withhold it.
Sakhı # (Gopi) Oh yes, Lord, thank you so much for having deigned to speak!
Now if only you’d put a little of that into practice and show us how we can get back on the
right track! . . .
Come on, Syám Sundar, give us a real lesson in how it’s done. (Stratton-Hawley 1981, 209–10)

The conversation shifts so quickly between Krishna the character and Krishna the deity that
it can sometimes be difficult to keep up. In this interaction, the first gopi begins by referring
back to the previous scriptural dialogue that, again, does not temporally exist in the events

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of the theatrical present, followed by a playful admonishment to both iterations of Krishna

that it should not have been spoken. Krishna the character responds by appealing to the
voice of Krishna the deity speaking to his devotees in lines 6 and 7. He is then cut short
when the first gopi acknowledges (and taunts) the voice of Krishna the deity in line 8 before
calling upon Krishna the character to physically demonstrate the lesson, the ‘‘real lesson’’
she refers to in line 10. This position of Krishna the deity speaking to his devotees is not
confined in the ras lilas only to the interaction between the Krishna the character and the
gopis, it appears again in the interjecting dialogue of the musicians.
The musicians, a group of actors who also provide the musical accompaniment to the
play, behave in the ras lilas as a kind of theatrical chorus; a homogeneous, non-individualized
group of performers who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action. The role
of the musicians in the ras lilas is quite ambiguous given that neither the actors nor their
characters ever interact with the main characters during the course of the performance, and
their footing can shift drastically between outside commentary and additional exposition,
supplying supporting dialogue in the voice of other characters or even voicing the internal
thoughts or feelings of a character, all for the benefit of the audience. In the context of the
two distinct speaking roles of Krishna, the dialogue of the musicians that takes place during
the argument between Krishna and the gopis provides an additional dimension to the frame-
work of ‘‘The Great Circle Dance.’’ For example, after Krishna has just delivered a particu-
larly long reprimand to the group of gopis, the musicians interject before the first gopi is able
to respond:
Musicians: Manmohan, there’s nothing else gone wrong, it’s only your love that’s driven us
wild.
Gokul’s endured no great disaster,
all we’ve suffered is love’s deep wounds. (Stratton-Hawley 1981, 200)

While it is assumed here that the musicians are speaking in the voice of the gopis, it is not
entirely clear who they are speaking to. Krishna as the dramatis persona never acknowledges
them, nor do the gopis directly repeat their words. As the ras lila is a religious gathering, the
musicians likely occupy an ambiguous space that can be read in a multitude of ways: as the
musicians speaking for the audience to Krishna the deity (even though they are responding
to Krishna the character); as the author of the play speaking to the audience outside of the
characters in order to help them follow along or to influence how they feel about the events
taking place; or even as the author interpreting the mental and emotional reactions of the
principal characters for the audience. In each case, however, what is clear is that the gopis,
the audience, and the musicians are each positioned within the dialogue as Krishna’s lovers.
In the bhakti movement, in general, and in Vaishnava theology, in particular, devotees of
Krishna are routinely feminized in their relationship to the divine (Goldman 1993, 376–7,
383; Nanda 1990, 21). Thus, both the audience and the musicians are situated as lovers
in relation to Krishna, the ultimate, divine, lover. The use of ‘‘Manmohan’’ to call out to
Krishna is also an interesting choice because of a possible dual meaning. Manmohan is
an ancient name for Krishna that translates to ‘‘mind-alluring’’ and refers to Krishna’s
personality as being irresistible and entrancing (Mittal 2006, 431). However, ‘‘Manmohan’’
could also slyly refer to Manmohan Krishna, a celebrated Indian singer and actor who
performed from the 1940s to the 1980s, most especially because the play’s author, Premanand,
was known to be a fan of Indian films and lived from 1951 to 2011. Therefore, the subtle
word choices and references within the text of the play may also represent an intersecting

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of religion in what is considered a traditional form of dramatic performance with modern

influences drawn from Hindi film acting.
In addition, in more recent media iterations, links between earlier traditions of sacred
performance and popular themes within Indian movies and television series are also becom-
ing notably prevalent. The musicians, however, do not consistently impose on the action in
the same way. Only moments later, as the argument continues, the musicians shift their
footing in order to narrate the actions of Krishna the character as he, yet again, commands
the gopis to return home to their husbands:
Krishna: But don’t forget, they can always be told that you simply forgot the way,
Or tell them while going to sell milk in Mathura
You met with misfortune, some great delay,
Because of a bamboo flute, you can say.
Musicians: And with that a tiny wink danced across his eye.
Krishna: Now come on, girls, turn right around to where you came from and go home
(Stratton-Hawley 1981, 201)

The musician’s uncertain role within the participant framework might be addressed meta-
pragmatically, particularly as the various linguistic cues that signal the meaning and function
of the musician’s speech continue to shift throughout the remaining scenes.5 In her dis-
cussion of participant frameworks and ritual among the Giriama of Malindi, Kenya, Janet
McIntosh (2005, 42) characterizes some of the rituals as having highly meta-pragmatically
structured participant frameworks where ‘‘there is little doubt as to what is being said and
what is being achieved in the saying of it,’’ and I maintain that this is also an accurate assess-
ment of the ras lila performance/rituals.
However, the ras lilas might also contain a number of meta-pragmatically undetermined
elements, such as the role of the musicians, which leaves further room for uncertain mean-
ings and interpretations. Because the transcript does not include notations of music use,
gestures, or meaningful gazes, I am forced to leave the question open-ended and accept
the role of the musicians as undetermined. But as the play draws to a close and the sacred
dance begins, the musicians once again take up their narrative, speaking enigmatically to the
audience as they introduce the most complicated part of the Krishna role yet revealed.
As the musicians begin their description of Krishna’s dance, Stratton-Hawley’s transcript
indicates that the actor playing Krishna breaks away from the circle of dancers and begins
to taunt the audience with a small pot of milk sweets, appearing to delight in their frustra-
tion at not being able to reach him or the treats. Here, Krishna the character both acknowl-
edges and makes physical contact with the audience, drawing them into the performance
with playful banter and quick poses for photographs, which again demonstrate the integration
of modern elements (much like the earlier reference to Hindi film) into contemporary
versions of the lilas.
The ambiguity between character and deity reaches its zenith as the musician’s final
song begins. As Krishna the character retreats from the audience, a great tableau of actors,
all playing various versions of Krishna, appear at the back of the stage. The musicians then
turn their attention to the audience specifically as they sing verses to Krishna the deity:
Musicians: He laughs at the prisons the world has made for him,
Eluding the trances that saints and yogis spread,
But willingly he’s trapped himself in Yaśoda#’s ample lap,
The one who is known as the deathly terror of Time (Stratton-Hawley 1981, 226)

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 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 28:2-3 Fall 2016

By the end of this verse, nine Krishnas and numerous gopis inhabit the stage. As the musi-
cians complete their final song, continuing to refer to Krishna the deity and to events
outside the performance of the play, the audience is allowed to come forward, touch their
heads to the feet of the many Krishnas, and make their sacred offerings to any or all of the
assembled character-deities. When all offerings have been made and the assembled devotees
have had the chance to walk through the space marked off for the dance, a number of pujari
appear with trays of lamps so that the main Krishna who has now paired up with Radha
(his divine consort and the leader of the gopis), can leave the presence of the audience
(Stratton-Hawley 1981, 226). This departure of both Krishna the character(s) and Krishna
the deity from the sacred theatrical space marks the end of the play, the end of the worship,
and the end of the interaction. Through this concluding ritual and the ambiguity between
god and actor, it becomes apparent that not only has Krishna the deity been present
throughout the performance in its entirety, but Krishna the character has also been him all
along.
The ras lila makes the obscure manifest and the hidden revealed, just as Vaishnavism
itself, and indeed much of Hindu bhakti, does with the archa-vigraha and within the darśan.
Therefore, as the performance blurs the distinctions between theatre and ritual, the author
of the ‘‘The Great Circle Dance’’ becomes the priest of his own temple. As a guru bridges
the boundaries between the deity Krishna and his devotees, the playwright bridges the boun-
daries between the character Krishna and his audience. What is then blended within these
spaces is not only the perception of a divine presence (the deity) but also the creation of
that presence (through the character) by way of the performance of the lila. The temple
curtain conceals the murti in the darśan, just as the theatre curtain conceals the actors of
the ras lila, and when the curtain is drawn back, both are revealed as archa-vigraha, divinity
in material form. The author of the ras lila mediates the relationship between actor-god and
audience-devotee using a combination of authoritative dialogue and shared sensory experience
that is analogous to the techniques of the priest mediating between the temple deity and
petitioner with scriptural reading, chanting, and puja (participatory ritual worship and offer-
ings). This duality demonstrates how the boundaries between theatre and religion are perme-
able in Indian culture, where the ras lila performance seamlessly flows into the same spatial
and temporal world of Vaishnava devotion. Within this theatre as religion, the audience of
the ras lilas is as well versed in ‘‘being’’ with God as the actors are in portraying him, and by
co-participating in the ras lila performances, the audience actively cooperates with the actors
through the medium of the author’s script in order to make imitation and authenticity
merge. From the temple to the stage, the representation of God becomes itself a living in-
carnation of the divine.

Notes
1. (Hindi: ).
2. ( kalpa). Also referred to as ‘‘One Night of Brahma,’’ a unit of time lasting approximately
4.32 billion years in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. The concept is first mentioned in the
Mahabharata. The definition of a kalpa equaling 4.32 billion years is found in the Puranas
(specifically Vishnu Purana and Bhagavata Purana) (Johnson 2009).
3. Meaning, specifically, that reading and writing were typically confined to the cultural and social
elite up until relatively recently.
4. In Hindi, darśan dena ( ) and darśan lena ( ).
5. Metapragmatically in the sense that the language choices and other performative aspects of the
musicians signals to the other participants (that is, the audience) what it is that they should under-
stand about what is going on in an interaction.
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 Playing God: Participant Frameworks in the Ras Lilas of Krishna

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