Raas' : The Mandal Raas of Mulher Province of Maharashtra

The followers of ‘Ramanuj Sampradaya’ in Mulher province worship Lord Shri Krishna. It has its historic importance. The followers of this sect traditionally celebrate ‘Raas-Leela’ of lord Shri Krishna at every ‘Sharad Poonam’. This tradition is 350 years old. The ‘Raas-Leela’ of Mulher is equally important as the ‘Raas-Leela’ of Brindavan. Lots of followers from the interior parts of Gujarat Karnataka and Maharashtra participate in the yearly ‘Raas-Leela’ celebration. They come to worship Lord Shri Krishna among them some thank the Lord for their fulfilled wishes and others pray to God to fulfill their wishes. They have a feeling of love affection and equality about all the religions in their hearts. They all are lost in themselves; their souls are connected to the Lord. They are so engrossed in singing ‘Bhajans’ that they forget hunger thirst etc. In this ‘Raas-Leela’ one local child enacts Shri Krishna and others enact as his ‘Gopis’. All night the followers sing ‘Bhajans’ under the ‘Chakra’. The ‘Padas’ of ‘Raas-Leela’ are sung by them. A total of 105 ‘Padaas’ are sung. They are composed in various ‘Raagas’- Traditional as well as the ‘Raagas’ which are scarcely known. We can easily make out that those ‘Raagas’ are different from the present ones. In this book there is an humble effort to give the detailed information about the history of raas leela the present situation of Raas-leela: a live description Raas padaas with notation ( pt. Bhatkhande notation system ) actual meaning of each pada a study of the raagas in which the padas are composed and an effort to know the actual face or structure of the raagas in medieval period and in modern period.