Radha Kund & Shyam Kund

Tucked at the northern foot of Govardhan Hill, roughly four kilometres from Govardhan town, Radha Kund and Shyam Kund are two small, stone-embanked ponds that Gaudiya Vaishnavas hold to be the single holiest spot in the whole of creation.

• To the untrained eye they are a modest pair of adjacent tanks ringed by weathered ghats, temples and bhajan ashrams; to the pilgrim they are the living heart of Radha-Krishna devotion, where the mood of pure, selfless love (prema) is said to be most concentrated.
• The two kunds sit almost side by side, separated only by a narrow embankment, and the traditional practice is to bathe or sip first at Radha Kund, then Shyam Kund, then return.
• The ponds are wrapped in one of Braj's best-loved legends.
• Tradition, drawn from the Padma Purana, holds that after Krishna slew the bull-demon Aristasura, Radha gently chided him, for slaying one in the form of a bull carried the taint of sin.
• To purify himself Krishna struck the earth with his heel and summoned the waters of every sacred river, forming Shyam Kund.
• Radha and her sakhis, unwilling to be outdone, dug their own pond with their bangles and bracelets, and the holy rivers personified came to fill it, creating Radha Kund.
• The two waters are cherished as the very embodiment of Radha and Krishna themselves.
• Historically the kunds were rediscovered and excavated in the early sixteenth century on the guidance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and were beautified by Raghunath Das Goswami, the great renunciant of the Six Goswamis, who performed bhajan on their banks for some four decades; his samadhi stands beside the water.
• Rupa Goswami famously exalted Radha Kund above every other tirtha.
• Uniquely among Hindu holy places, its most auspicious dip is taken at midnight, on Ahoi Ashtami in Kartik (the Radha Kund Snan), when countless devotees, including couples praying for a child, descend the lamp-lit steps in the dark.
• A visit is quiet and contemplative rather than grand: circumambulate the ghats, watch oil lamps flicker on the still surface at dusk, and step into the small Radha-Krishna and Goswami temples that line the perimeter.
• It is an integral halt on the Govardhan parikrama.
• For the vegetarian traveller, Radha Kund sits in wholly pure-vegetarian Braj, and the town runs on prasad, milk-sweets and simple bhandara meals from its ashrams; carry a little food, as verified kitchens are back in Mathura.
• One firm caution: across Braj, roadside thandai and lassi can be laced with bhang (cannabis), sold openly near temples and at festivals, and a bhang drink looks and is named almost identically to a plain one, so avoid unknown thandai stalls entirely.