Hlādinī-śakti / Mahābhāva · ह्लादिनी शक्ति
Her essential nature: the bliss-potency of Krishna and the highest, most intensified state of divine love (mahābhāva), of which all other devotional moods are partial reflections.
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Supreme loving devotion (prema-bhakti), divine love, and the bliss-giving potency through which Krishna and the soul are united.
Who Radha is
Rādhā is the eternal beloved (parama-preyasī) and consort-energy of Śrī Krishna, the chief of the gopīs of Vraja and queen of the rāsa-līlā. In Gauḍīya and other Krishnaite traditions she is not a created soul but Krishna's own Hlādinī-śakti - his power of bliss - personified, so that Rādhā and Krishna are one principle in two forms, worshipped together as Rādhā-Krishna. She is revered as the embodiment of the highest love a devotee can offer God, the very mood (bhāva) into which a bhakta aspires to enter.
What Radha embodies
Rādhā embodies the tattva of Hlādinī-śakti, the essence of Krishna's internal pleasure-potency (svarūpa-śakti), and is identified in the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa with Mūlaprakṛti, the root of all manifestation. Where Krishna is the supreme enjoyer (rasika), Rādhā is mahābhāva - love in its most concentrated, selfless and intensified state - so that she is the active power and he the possessor of the power (śaktimān). She is therefore not merely Krishna's consort but the personification of bhakti itself; to approach Krishna at all is to approach him through Rādhā's grace.
Birth & origin
Two major traditional accounts coexist. (1) Theological/cosmic: the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa describes Rādhā as manifesting in eternal Goloka from the left half of Krishna's own body at the dawn of creation, the two having been one undivided form that divided for the sake of līlā; she is thus anādi, beginningless, and is hymned as Mūlaprakṛti and Hlādinī. (2) Earthly/līlā: the Garga Saṃhitā and Padma Purāṇa narrate her descent (avatāra) in Vraja in Dvāpara-yuga as the daughter of the gopa king Vṛṣabhānu and his wife Kīrti (Kīrtidā), at Barsānā (or Rāval near Gokula). A celebrated motif relates that she was discovered as a radiant infant resting on a thousand-petalled lotus, and that she kept her eyes closed from birth until the child Krishna himself was brought before her, opening them only to behold him first.
When: Eternal (anādi) in her Goloka form; her principal earthly manifestation is placed in Dvāpara-yuga alongside Krishna's advent.
Family & vahana
Parents
Earthly: Vṛṣabhānu and Kīrti (Kīrtidā) of Barsānā. In her divine aspect she is unborn, arising from Krishna himself.
Consort
Śrī Krishna (eternally; in Vraja-līlā she is also spoken of in some accounts as nominally married to Abhimanyu/Ayan, a device of the parakīya mood).
Children
None; her union with Krishna is transcendental and is celebrated as nitya (eternal) rather than procreative.
Siblings
Śrīdāmā is named as her brother in several Purāṇic accounts.
Vahana (mount)
None traditionally assigned; she is depicted standing beside Krishna or enthroned with him.
Iconography
Rādhā is shown as a youthful, golden-complexioned (tapta-kāñcana, molten-gold) maiden of incomparable beauty, set against Krishna's dark-blue (śyāma) form, the pair embodying a union of lightning and cloud. She is two-armed, richly adorned in a blue or saffron sārī with abundant ornaments, often holding a lotus or a garland, and frequently stands in a graceful tribhaṅga posture at Krishna's left, sometimes garlanding him or holding his flute. Her standard iconographic context is the kuñjas of Vrindāvana amid the rāsa-maṇḍala, encircled by the sakhīs.
Forms & aspects
Gāndharvā / Gāndharvikā · गान्धर्विका
Her name in the rāsa-līlā and the Gāyatrī; the supreme heroine (nāyikā) of Vrindāvana, mistress of the secret love-pastimes in the kuñjas.
Vṛndāvaneśvarī / Rāseśvarī · वृन्दावनेश्वरी
Queen of Vrindāvana and presiding goddess of the rāsa dance, before whom even Krishna is said to defer; worshipped as the ruler of the dhāma.
Mūlaprakṛti · मूलप्रकृति
Her cosmic aspect in the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa as the primordial Nature from whom the goddesses Lakṣmī, Durgā, Sarasvatī and others are said to expand.
Aṣṭa-sakhī cluster · अष्टसखी
Rādhā at the centre of her eight principal companions (Lalitā, Viśākhā and others) through whom her service to Krishna is organised; she is approached via the sakhīs in mañjarī-bhāva worship.
Key stories
The Rāsa-līlā and Rādhā's disappearance
On the full-moon night of śarat, Krishna's flute draws the gopīs to the Yamunā for the rāsa dance. When the gopīs grow proud, Krishna vanishes; the Bhāgavata describes the cowherd women searching in anguish and finding the footprints of one gopī walking beside him - understood by the tradition as Rādhā, whom Krishna had favoured above all. Her later separation and reunion become the archetype of viraha (love-in-separation) and the soul's longing for God.
Rādhā's birth and the unopened eyes
In the Garga Saṃhitā account, Rādhā descends in Vraja as the daughter of Vṛṣabhānu and Kīrti and is found as a luminous infant upon a lotus. Born blind to all but her Lord, she does not open her eyes after birth; only when the child Krishna is brought before her does she open them, so that the first sight she ever beholds is his face - a story celebrated each Rādhāṣṭamī.
Krishna takes Rādhā's name
A beloved theme of the bhakti poets and the Caitanya tradition holds that Krishna's own attraction to Rādhā is so complete that, in the mood of mahābhāva, he assumes her golden complexion and her love - a theology in which Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is understood as Krishna internally adorned with Rādhā's bhāva. The constant placing of her name before his (Rādhā-Krishna, Rādhe-Śyām) expresses her devotional supremacy.
Mantras
ॐ ह्रीं श्रीराधिकायै नमः
oṃ hrīṃ śrī-rādhikāyai namaḥ
The principal Rādhā mūla-mantra, an invocation of obeisance widely used in her upāsanā.
ॐ ह्रीं श्रीराधिकायै विद्महे गान्धर्विकायै धीमहि तन्नो राधा प्रचोदयात्
oṃ hrīṃ śrī-rādhikāyai vidmahe gāndharvikāyai dhīmahi tanno rādhā pracodayāt
The Rādhā Gāyatrī, naming her as Gāndharvikā; chanted for meditation upon her. (A common variant reads vṛṣabhānujāyai / kṛṣṇapriyāyai in place of the second line.)
Major temples
Śrī Rādhā Raman Mandir, Vrindāvana (self-manifest deity, served since Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī)Rādhā Vallabha Mandir, Vrindāvana (centre of the Rādhāvallabha Sampradāya, where Rādhā alone is enthroned beside Krishna's crown)Bāṅke Bihārī Mandir, Vrindāvana (the Rādhā-Krishna form revealed by Svāmī Haridāsa)Rādhā Rānī (Lādlī Jī) Mandir, Barsānā - her birthplace and the great seat of Rādhāṣṭamī and Laṭhmār HolīŚrījī / Kīrti Mandir and the broader Barsānā–Nandagāon–Govardhana kṣetra of Vraja-maṇḍalaPrem Mandir and the Rādhā-Krishna temples of Vrindāvana, alongside Rāval (her reputed birthplace near Gokula)
Festivals
Rādhāṣṭamī - her appearance day, on the bright eighth (aṣṭamī) of Bhādrapada, the foremost Rādhā festival, observed with great splendour at BarsānāHolī, especially the Laṭhmār Holī of Barsānā and Nandagāon, re-enacting Rādhā-Krishna's play of coloursŚarad Pūrṇimā - the full moon commemorating the rāsa-līlā of Rādhā and Krishna with the gopīsKārtika (Dāmodara) month and Rādhā-kuṇḍa snāna, a season especially dear to Rādhā's worshippers
How Radha is worshipped
Rādhā is almost never worshipped alone in mainstream practice but jointly as Rādhā-Krishna, invoked in the names Rādhe-Śyām and Rādhe-Rādhe and through the Hare Krishna mahāmantra. Devotees offer her flowers (especially lotus and tulasī), sandal, fragrant garlands, sweets, and arati with lamps and song, and in Vraja her grace is sought first as the gateway to Krishna. In the Gauḍīya path of rāgānuga-bhakti, advanced upāsakās cultivate mañjarī-bhāva, serving the divine couple as a maidservant within Rādhā's retinue.
The teaching
Rādhā teaches that the highest relationship with the Divine is not power or knowledge but selfless, all-consuming love (prema) that seeks only the Beloved's pleasure. Her viraha - the pain of separation - is held up as the purest devotional state, showing that longing for God is itself the goal, not merely a means to it. As Hlādinī personified she reveals that bhakti is God's own energy turned back toward him, and that the soul, like Rādhā, finds its fulfilment not in being served but in surrendered, joyful service.