The Nav-Villas has a lovely history that has facinated me personally a lot and I have extensively involved in its background and also in its devotional practice. When reasearching about Nav-villas, it was very clear that this villas was instigated by Shree Krishna in order to make Gopies ashray ananiya.

Shree Hariraiji Prabhucharan has really made the difference, as his diary and the padas on Nav-villas has been our initiation to this lovely villas. Nav-villas has changed a lot since Shree Hariraiji's time and it has taken few modern concept, for better or worse, over the era.

Nav-Villas is set in Aso-sud Ekam till Aso-sud Noom and it more or less coinsides with Navratri Norta Utsava. In Nav-Villas,we are told that there were nine different categories (Prakaar) of Bhakta who instigated this villas with different samagree Bhog, variety of shringaar and vastra dharan and also did affectionate-play (Ramanleela) and invited Lord Krishna and showered Him with "Tan, maan and Dhaan" seva.

It was also during the first day of Nav-villas Vraj-kumarikas (Shree Radha Sahcharijina Uthani Gopio) also started a Jawara growing, the "Jawara" are symbol of expectation of Virgin Kaniya's anticipation to acquire husband who insatiabaly has Lord Krishna's quality. So in Pushti marag, "Jawara" in a symbol of "UDIPAAN" bhava by kumarikas and willed a husband like Kanudo (Shree Krishna). This tradition is always been followed, even today vaishnava observe to grow "Jawara" (some vaishnava pronouces as "ZAWARA"), on first villas (Pratham Villas).

Apart from Jawara, it has also became a tradition that on first day of Nav-villas, vaishnavas when doing Shringar to "Nij Thakorji" show bigger mirror (Moti Arasi). The reason behind this big mirror will be very clear by the following prasang:

On pratham villas, everyone wanted to take part to do Shringaar to thakorji and as they did shringaar they had small mirror and showed thakorji that part of shringar which was done by them. So in the end Thakorji insisted that he wanted to see Nakh-sheek Shringar, hense requested a bigger mirror. All the sakhis were in predicament as they were in jungle and did not have bigger mirror. Although Chandravali tried to put all the mirrors together to make it full-skape mirror but, Thakorji did not approve it by saying that this is not making any justice to shringaar darshan he is seeking. All sakies were back to drawing board, got together and decided the nearby water hole will be a good replacement. They went to see Lord Krishna and with humble face, did request (vinanti) Krishna to come to Jal-dhara (water-hole). This also was not satisfactory solution as the Jaal (water) was muddy and mucky so Lord's reflection in the water was hazy and not clearly to His liking.

Whilst Shree Thakorji was looking at his reflection in the water, Chandravaliji took shelter on shila (rock) at the edge of water hole. This was where she thought was the ideal place to observe thakorji's Shringaar darsan. As she stood on the rock her upvastra got hooked on a tree branch which was adjucent to the rock. She tried to unhook the upvastra and in doing so slipped and fell into Dhara and torn her upvastra completely. The whole torn vastra was hooked onto the branch and she fell without upvastra. With shyness in her voice and turning her back so she could control her ebarassment, she called out for something to cover her. One of the sakhi leapt forward with chundadi, but Shree Thakorji stopped her and said , "Look I can almost see my reflection on to Chandravali's pethika ". Meaning that Chandravali's back was so shinny and reflected Thakorji's swaroop on her back like a huge mirror.

All sakhi then realized how tall Chandravaliji was and how rflective her skin was. It was Lalitaji who sugested that Chandravaliji should stay in that position and let Thakorji use her taan as a mirror to do swayam darshan of his Shringaar.

After this prasang, in villas a huge mirror was made available by Shree Swaminiji for Thakorji to admire the Shringaar. So Vaishnava use bigger mirror for Shringar during villas. Ah...em... now to Nav-villas.

As i mentioned earlier, there were nine prakar of Gopies and these were not common sakhies, they were mahan bhakta who in their previous life were "Rushimunies", "Veda Shruti"and "Golook Dhaam Bhakta of Nitya Sidh Mandal". And hense thakorji revealed his complete Rasa-Swaroop in front of these sakhies. The nine prakar of sakhies are:

1...Rajus 2...Rajus Tamus 3...Rajus Satwik 4...Tamus 5...Tamus Rajus 6...Tamus Satwik 7...Satwik 8...Satwik Rajus 9...Satwik Tamus

Next posting will be of pratham villas and how it was started and its prominancy in Pushti marag.

Daso no das Pushtidas