Krishna's Inner Circle: The Ashta Chaap Poets

These devotional biographies recount the lives and songs of the Ashta Chaap poets of Vraj. For these 16th century poets, Shri Krishna was not an image, but the living Supreme Being. Their poems reveal the intimate divine plays of the Lord as well as the greatness of the Lord, guru, and fellow practitioners, and are like mantras able to evoke the seed devotion and yield the divine fruit of bhava realization - divine mood. For the exceptional, bhava-inspired soul, Krishna Lila can be experienced anytime and anywhere. For the rest of us, the bhava of accomplished ones like the Ashta Chaap should be relished and emulated. The Ashta Chaap poets display a rare combination of artistic perfection, renunciation, and passionate devotion. Their lives and songs enhance even Shri Krishna's flavor. For hundreds of years, their songs have been sung, their life accounts told and retold in the homes of devotional practitioners all over India.