Page:Classical Poets Of Gujarat.pdf/26

 14

the tender-hearte@ mother whom mankind find in life and not the horrible Durga who wants to devour animals and even human’ beings _at sacrifices, such as is known and ‘worshipped in other parts of India. Woman’ in ‘Gujarat not only got her mother in this way but also got her tover ‘Krishna; In the presence’ of either of them, as enshrined in her heart or in the idol’s niche, she could ‘stand and love as she would her mother or husband, and talk over the little scenes of her little life without reserve and with full faith that she-was being listened to by one who. took interest in her and sympathy for her little ways of living. The Gujarati poets have sung of this Mata and Krishna, and, in those songs, have sung out all such little ideas and ideals as had been endeared to them or cherished by them in their domestic life and yearnings. In Gujarat divinity hedges the hearth and not the king, -and the poet meets it guarding both home and hearth from the ravages of the sings of the age. To him Krishna’s life does not and cannot poison the life of the Bhakta. Krishna has said : ‘He who will try to follow my life will go to hell : listen to my word and obey it if you want beatitude and if you love me. My life is a mystery that is full of lesson for the intellect that can unravel it, but the fool that will take it for a model will go to hell.”

It is in this spirit that true Bhaktas sing and celebrate the life of Krishna, and what pious and