Līlā

Līlā means “play” or “sport”. In Hindu thought it names the idea that God creates the world not out of need or for any purpose, but spontaneously, as play. The Brahma Sūtras answer the objection that a perfect God could have no motive for creating by saying that creation is mere play, as in ordinary life people act for sport without any further purpose.

In the devotional traditions, līlā takes on a richer meaning. The stories of Krishna’s childhood and youth in Vrindavan, his pranks, his dance with the cowherd women (gopīs), are his līlā, the play in which God enters into loving relationship with his devotees. The Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas of Bengal held that this play is eternal, and that the devotee’s goal is to take part in it.

Līlā has also been taken up by modern thinkers, from Ramakrishna, who spoke of the world as the Divine Mother’s play, to Tagore. It offers a view of the world as neither illusion nor necessity, but as the free joy of the divine.