Krishna in love

In the aforementioned article, Rabin suggests that the poet of the Song lived in a time of extensive trade between Judea and the east, and that this fits the time of Solomon. He also suggests that the poem was likely written as an allegory: The poet “had in mind a contribution to religious or wisdom literature, in other words that he planned his work as an allegory for the pining of the people of Israel, or perhaps of the human soul, for God. He saw the erotic longing of the maiden as a simile for the need of man for God,” similar to the comparison of the longing Psalmist of Psalm 42 with a deer panting for water.

Religious uses of eroticism make yet another connection with India: “In Indian legend love of human women for gods, particularly Krishna, is found as a theme. Tamil legend, in particular, has amongst its best known items the story of a young village girl who loved Krishna so much that in her erotic moods she adorned herself for him with the flower-chains prepared for offering to the god’s statue. When this was noticed, and she was upbraided by her father, she was taken by Krishna into heaven. Expressions of intensive love for the god are a prominent feature of mediaeval Tamil Haivite poetry. The use of such themes to express the relations of man to god may thus have been familiar to Indians also in more ancient times, and our hypothetical Judaean poet could have been aware of it. Thus the use of the genre of love poetry of this kind for the expression of religious longing may itself have been borrowed from India.”