Fw: The Gita Govinda: A Journey Into Realms Of Delight

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--- On Thu, 4/15/10, Syamasundara100008

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The Gita Govinda: A Journey Into Realms Of Delight

Syamasundara100008

Thursday, April 15, 2010, 4:09 PM

 

 

 

 

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The Gita Govinda: A Journey Into Realms Of Delight

Article of the Month - April 2007

Printer Friendly Version

PDF (Acrobat) - 1467 kb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Ferryboat of Love We Cross Over the Ocean of Suffering

The Gita Govinda, a lyrical epic or epical lyric, by Shri Jayadeva, a Sanskrit

poet of the last quarter of the twelfth century, is a poem with a unique and far

different significance in entire Indian literature, before or after. Not merely

a piece of writing, the Gita Govinda was an instrument that completely

revolutionised, or rather re-vitalised, Vaishnavism, which encumbered by inner

conflict of different Brahmanical sects and eroded by Islam and Islamic

invasions frequently storming the subcontinent, was heading towards a point of

collapse. Instead of metaphysical dogmatism, the Gita Govinda discovered

Vaishnavism in love, devotion and absolute submission, the instruments that

dispelled duality and led the self to unite with the Supreme Self.

 

 

 

 

 

Krishna the Supreme Cowherd

What the Gita Govinda presented was a completely changed perception of

Vaishnavism. It neither looked for a divine aura nor for a monarchical frame,

which had so far defined its Vaishnava God or even Krishna as one of the

Vaishnava incarnations. Jayadeva had seen that Indian kingship, once possessed

of divine aura, was unable to sustain against Islamic onslaught and was fast

waning. Maybe, he hence thought it better to separate his God from this

monarchical frame and let Him be one like masses. This not only humanised Him

but also turned an abstract concept into a living reality that one could feel

and realise. The Gita Govinda hence wove its theme around Krishna, its hero, who

it conceived as a humble cattle-grazing cowherd, very much like others, and

enshrined in him Vaishnava Godship. This transformed Vaishnavism into a thing of

masses.

 

 

 

 

 

Krishna and the Ten Incarnations of Vishnu

 

 

 

 

 

Contrary to Puranic position, the Gita Govinda attributes all Vaishnava

incarnations to Krishna, not Vishnu. Here Krishna is seen as the prime

manifestation of God incarnating in various forms. Each incarnation has a

specific role but Krishna hasn't any, not even his crusade against evil forces.

 

 

 

 

 

He is realised in love and in his love reveals the supreme good; all fetters

break and the loved one unites with him in absolute oneness. In a sense, Gita

Govinda is a broad metaphor, which reveals in sensuous love the factum of

spiritual unity. Initially, Krishna loves his favoured one, Radha. Later, he

makes love with others reaching him. Radha, the favoured one, separated from

him, is annoyed for his infidelity but her longing to unite with him is endless.

Krishna realises the wrong he did to Radha who has always loved him. Repentant

he meets her and the two unite in perpetuity.

 

 

 

 

Do Deh Ek Prana (Two Bodies One Soul)

 

 

 

 

Metaphorically, Krishna is the Supreme Self and Radha, the individual. Initially

they are one, but in the course of time separated from each other. The

individual self's longing to unite with the Supreme Self is incessant. However,

they unite only when it pleases the Supreme Self. This sums up Vaishnavism.

Anything beyond it is irrelevant. In simultaneity to its deep philosophical

meaning and theistic thrust, the Gita Govinda is endowed with a very high level

of lyricism and sensuality.

 

 

 

 

 

KRISHNA IN THE BHAGAVATA PURANA

 

 

 

 

Krishna Killing Kansa

 

 

 

The Gita Govinda's predecessor, Bhagavata Purana, had also seen Krishna as a

cowherd boy, but it was just a phase of his life to terminate after he killed

Kansa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Srimad Bhagavata- Mahapurana (Special Edition) - 2 Parts

 

 

 

 

After this phase ended, he was even purified, re-ritualised and properly

schooled, all to befit him in his monarchical frame. The cowherd phase did not

have its traces ever after. He is not only portrayed as one of Vishnu's

incarnations and with Vishnu-like divine aura but also reveals in him Vishnu's

likeness and cosmic magnification. The Bhagavata Purana, a 'purana' - the holy

scripture, was heard with folded hands and bowed to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singing and Dancing with Krishna

 

 

The Bhagavata Purana's Krishna commands not only respect for his divinity but

slightly maintains a distance from others. The Gita Govinda was a lyric to

inhale within, to be sung and danced to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Crowd of Charming Girls Seduce Hari

 

 

Jayadeva's Krishna, though the fountainhead of all Vaishnava incarnations, not

one of them, is till end a cowherd running after cowherd maidens and himself,

always within their reach. Love and love alone is the tie in between and the

strength of both, the seeker and the sought.

 

 

 

JAYADEVA AND GITA GOVINDA

 

 

 

 

King Lakshmanasena with His Five Jewels

 

 

Jayadeva, the poet who composed Gita Govinda, was one of the five jewels of king

Lakshmanasen, the last Hindu ruler of Bengal who ruled from around 1175 A.D. to

1200 A.D. Most scholars consider hence this to be the date of the Gita Govinda,

too, though a few of them take it back to around 1050 A. D. The five jewels of

Lakshmanasena were his five court poets, Jayadeva, Govardhana, Dhoi, Sharana and

Umapatidhara. In the opening section of the Gita Govinda, Jayadeva commends them

all, and also Shrutidhara, his other colleague. The National Museum, New Delhi,

has a painting in Sultanate style of around 1475-1500 A.D., portraying Jayadeva

and these five poets seated around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Earliest Representation of Gita Govinda Available Till Date. (Mewar, ca

1590)

 

 

This miniature suggests that Jayadeva and his Gita Govinda had gained

considerable popularity and had emerged as the painter’s theme by late 15th

century itself, though no such early paintings are available now. The earliest

reported Gita Govinda paintings are from Mewar from around 1590-1600 A.D.

 

 

Kenduli, a Birbhumi village in Bengal, has been identified as Jayadeva’s

birthplace, though Jayadeva himself alluded to Utkal as his land. He mentions

and pays homage to his father and mother, Bhojadeva and Ramadevi. He also

commemorates his wife Padmavati. Each verse of the Gita Govinda is set to a

‘raga’ and ‘tala’, which suggests that Jayadeva had great competence in

music.

GENERIC CHARACTER OF THE GITA GOVINDA

 

 

 

 

Radha Krishna in Moonlit Light

 

 

The full title of Jayadeva's poem is Gitagovindakavyama. In its original sense,

the term ‘kavyam’ meant broadly the 'prabandha kavya', a narrative poem.

'Prabandha-kavya' is arranged, as is the Gita Govinda, into cantos. The thrust

of the Gita Govinda is not, however, narrative. Here events do not grow over a

passage of time, as they do in a narrative. At the most growth has a mystic

perspective. The first verse of the Gita Govinda is the seed out of which grow

the sole leading sentiment of the poem. Seeing dark deep clouds gathered in the

sky and fear in the eyes of child Krishna, Radha escorts him home. When passing

across an arbour on Yamuna’s bank, he makes love with Radha.

 

 

 

In between the period, when he left with Radha and made love with her, the child

Krishna grows to such manhood as gives him competence to make love with a far

matured woman. It was obviously a mystic magnification, not a growth on the

scale of time. Otherwise, too, the poem covers just two days, one of

‘vipralambha', separation, and other of ‘sambhoga’, union.

 

 

 

 

A Frame by Frame Narration of the Gita Govinda

Thus, the Gita Govinda hardly has a narrative character. In fact, it is a

composition beyond set norms of a genre, whatever, lyric, song, ballad, or

poetic drama. Gita Govinda has a lot of dialogue and action, features of a

drama; it comprises a series of moods and emotional situations, something of a

lyrical ballad; its diction, similes, metaphors, rhymed and metered parts,

imaginative fervour and lyrical quality make it a poem; and, with great musical

quality, that it is endowed with, added to it, it becomes a song. Breeding a

picture on each step, it is like a movie.

 

 

 

 

The Merger of Radha and Krishna

 

 

 

 

  Its intense emotional quality makes it a nightingale’s song. Moving the

interior, not exterior, it becomes a journey of mind, or emotional being, not

body or brain. It breathes like a breeze and bounds like a rivulet. Love is its

central theme and, whether monogamous or polygamous, its sanctity is always the

same. It pains Radha that Krishna indulges in love with other Gopis. This

‘otherness’ of the Gopis is the cause of misery of Radha, the individual

self. It on the contrary delights Krishna, as in him, in the Supreme Self, this

‘otherness’ of Gopis dissolves, merges and gets lost.

 

 

 

 

Obviously, with such generic width and mindset, Jayadeva could discover the hero

of his poem in none else but Krishna. Krishna alone could be his source, theme

and character to reveal a drama so mundane and so divine. Wreathed into his

poetic diction and dissolved into his imagery, Krishna alone could land on his

lips as his song, could sing for him and melt into his kavyam as its spirit and

body. Krishna alone could be his ‘Geeta’, song, as he was Arjuna’s Gita in

the Mahabharata; ‘Katha’ of the Bhagavata Purana; and later, ‘Pada’, a

metered composition, of Surdasa, mincing and growing to the blind eyes step by

step; strength of Mira, wandering along and tinkling incessantly from her

‘ghungharus’, bells; tears of the divine experience welling around the eyes

of Chaitanya; ‘Marg’, path, of Vallabha; role-model of Keshava’s

Rasikpriya; poets’ verbal transcript and painters’ pictorial transformation;

‘Aradhya’, object of

worship, of the folded h! ands; ‘Nada’, sound of the drum, ‘Tala’,

‘Laya’ and ‘Mudrayen’, beat, rhythm and gestures of the performer; grace

of the Ultimate; and stay of the transient. Obviously, whatever Jayadeva sang of

him was the source of sensuous delight, but as much spiritually elevating and

benedictory.

 

 

THE THEME OF THE GITA GOVINDA

 

 

 

 

Nand asks Krishna to acccompany Radha to her home

 

 

 

The theme of the Gita Govinda is relatively simple. One evening, when Nand was

strolling in the forest along with Krishna, Radha and others, dark clouds

gathered in the sky. Seeing signs of fear on Krishna’s face, Nand asked Radha

to take him home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DASAVATARA STOTRA

 

 

 

The verse is also interpreted to mean that frightened Krishna, not Nand, himself

asked Radha to take him home. When on way, in an arbour on Yamuna’s bank,

Krishna made love with Radha. This verse, with no apparent link with the rest of

the poem, is the seed of the theme. In the rest of the 'Ashtapadi', a verse

comprising eight stanzas, though this one has eleven, Jayadeva prays Saraswati

and ten Vaishnava incarnations to enable him to compose his poem and extol Hari.

 

 

 

 

The actual theme reveals in the second part of this Canto. Krishna is out in the

forest celebrating the festival of Vasant and dallying with Gopis. Radha, hit by

Love-god’s arrows, too, is searching Krishna, her lover, everywhere but fails

to find him. Around then, her trusted Sakhi informs her how Krishna is engaged

in love with other Gopis. Initially, it hurts Radha and she condemns him for his

infidelity but the heat of passion subdues her and forgiving his folly she asks

her friend to search him and bring him to her.

 

 

 

 

Radha and Krishna - Illustration to the Gita Govinda

Radha’s Sakhi goes to Krishna, describes to him Radha’s sad plight, her love

for him and implores him to go with her and have love with Radha. Krishna

declines but asks her to bring Radha to his bower and indulges again into his

love-game with other Gopis. Sakhi goes back to Radha. At first, Krishna’s

attitude infuriates her but then renewed shots of Love-god’s arrows and

Sakhi’s persuasive words compel her to agree. However, weakened by the fever

of love and day’s long wandering the feeble Radha tumbles down the moment she

attempts to walk. The compassionate Sakhi again goes to Krishna but only to have

the same cool response. The whole night Krishna keeps dancing and making love

with Gopis. In the morning the red-eyed Krishna encounters Radha who chides him

for his infidelity and pitiless attitude. By now, Krishna had realised his folly

and felt repentant. The Love-god, too, had renewed his offensive on him. He

conciliates Radha and retires

with her into the for! est.

 

 

 

 

The Slaying of Madhu and Kaitabh

 

In an arbour, wreathed with garlands of flowers, on the bed of Kadamba leaves,

they make love, and in the love-war passes the whole night. Radha, as if

avenging his neglect of her, was often on offensive riding over him. Costumes

had deserted her body, ornaments had fallen and hair dishevelled. In the

morning, she commands him to re-arrange her ornaments and comb with his fingers

her dishevelled hair, and the enslaved Hari, who defeated Madhu, the mighty

demon,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrange My Tresses My Love

 

 

 

 

 

 

but himself defeated by Radha’s love, complies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

GITA GOVINDA: A SINGER'S PLEASURE BUT A PAINTER'S PROBLEM

 

 

 

 

Krishna Theatre In India

 

 

 

Krishna’s mundane ‘Lila’ and Jayadeva’s unique way of presenting it

turned, in his lifetime itself, into the theme of ‘Yatra’, itinerancy, which

itinerant performers, while moving from village to village, sang and staged by

it His ‘Lila’. Stagecraft was then a live-tradition and Gita Govinda was

found to suit it best. The bands of these singers could sing it to the

prescribed ‘Raga’, ‘Tala’ and ‘Laya’, produce body gestures, assume

various forms and enact the ‘Lila. ‘Jayadeva’s epical expansion of a

relatively simple theme and musical stretch of each verbal phrase were not much

of a challenge to the stage art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gita Govinda on Palm Leaf (Ancient Orissa)

However, it was not so for a painter who sought to transform them into the art

of canvas; and more so when his canvas was a piece of simple palm-leaf or

tree-bark. A palm-leaf could reproduce anatomical figures and even their

gestures, but it could not have such variety of colours, their tonal depth and

iconographic precision, which were essential for revealing a ‘bhava’,

emotion, something that was the very spirit of the Gita Govinda.

In India, palm-leaf as the medium of painting preceded paper and the Gita

Govinda, too, might have been its theme, as it continues till date. But, epical

expansion of Gita Govinda's theme transformed into the vocabulary of colours,

and its verbal phrase, into a pictorial phrase, only after the paper emerged as

the new medium of painting. Now its every verbal phrase gave forth a picture,

and its epical expansion, long series of its visual representations. As a

result, some of the sets of the Gita Govinda paintings run into a greater number

of folios than do those illustrating epics like the Ramayana and the

Mahabharata, though as compared to them, the Gita Govinda has neither that long

chain of events nor that variety of situations.

TEXT-IMAGE RELATION: A NEW DIMENSION OF INDIAN PAINTING

The Gita Govinda was not a text which formal non-contextual imagery, such as was

used in prior illustrative paintings, could illustrate. It required an image

which revealed not only the contents of the text but also its sentiment, mood,

situation, all shades of an emotion, anguish, anger, passionate yearnings,

pathos and pleasure, as also its music, pastoral setting and spiritual ambience,

and all in a chain, repeating the same imagery but discovering each time a

different shade. The Gita Govinda paintings are the earliest illustrative

paintings that seek to determine the character of image in relation to the text

and emphasise the significance of text-image relationship, which provided to all

subsequent illustrative paintings the basis for determining the character of

their image.

The Gita Govinda paintings also pioneered the multiplicity of pictorial

expressions of a single image, or a couple of them, and discovered in each

farther and farther delight. As a matter of fact, no other text has inspired

such multiple pictorial expressions, as has done Gita Govinda. The Gita Govinda

paintings emerged as a new thing in each period, each region, under each patron

and each traditional frame. Change in the taste of patronage might be seen

revealing in the Gita Govinda paintings with mirror-image clarity.

 

 

 

 

Krishna Paints Radha's Breast

Thus, Gita Govinda, despite that it presented many challenges to painters, was

one of their most cherished themes all over and always, from the far west in

Gujarat to the far east in Assam, and in Himalayan hills, Orissa, Bengal,

Rajasthan and Central India. The illustrator was required to discover a

pictorial imagery, which by its parallelism matched the verbal imagery, its

similes and metaphors. He was required to treat the entire text, like a musician

who took a particular phrase, expanded it into the time according to a

‘Raga’, classical mode of singing, and then returned to repetitive verse

forming the ‘Sama’, the point where separate rhythms of the metrical cycle

coincided. The illustrator of the Gita Govinda acted in a similar way. He

identified such verbal phrase, which he could expand into an image and then more

phrases and more images creating a cyclic chain of them. This gave to the Gita

Govinda paintings their pictorial stretch,

magnification and numeric ! width.

Text of the Gita Govinda little revealed tangible features of the image, which

further enhanced illustrator’s difficulty. The illustrator was required to

discover every time his own image and represent his own pictorial version of it.

Depiction of bodily gestures was not a problem to a painter; but, to convert a

gesture into a ‘Hava’, demeanour, which adequately revealed a ‘Bhava’,

emotion, required great artistic skill. Narration or continuous flow of the

verbal phrase could be matched with an alike flow of imagery, but the pictorial

presentation of the text and its pictorial interpretation were two different

things, especially when the text was pregnant with multiple shades of meaning,

as was the Gita Govinda. The meaning in the Gita Govinda moved in parallel on

sensuous and spiritual planes requiring the artist to discover a set of imagery,

a pictorial idiom, which revealed the inherent unity of the apparent duality,

the oneness of Krishna,

the Supreme Self, and! the otherness of Radha, the individual self. And

painters, illustrating Gita Govinda, not only commendably did it but also

discovered the technique, which enabled the subsequent Indian miniature painting

to reveal in colours a multi-layered meaning such as revealed a text.

 

DIFFERENT SETS OF GITA GOVINDA IMAGERY

 

 

 

 

Vishvarupa, The Cosmic Man as Envisaged in the Bhagavad Gita

 

 

 

 

For a better understanding of stylistic variations of imagery in different sets

of the Gita Govinda paintings, a preview of some major iconographic traditions

of Krishna’s image would be helpful. Early Indian texts see Krishna in three

forms, ‘Aradhya-rupa’, ‘Vishwa- rupa’ and ‘Saumya- rupa’, that is,

his votive, cosmic and aesthetic images. ‘Saumya’ is also known as

‘Lalita’ or ‘Lila-rupa’. In texts, his ‘Vishwa-rupa’ is not a

rarity, in visual arts, it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sri Nath Ji at Nathdwara (Rajasthan)

 

 

 

 

 

His major shrines and art forms have either his ‘Aradhya-rupa’ or his

‘Lila-rupa’. Perhaps with the only exception of the Puri shrine, his shrines

in Gujarat, entire Rajasthan and other places enshrine his ‘Lila-rupa’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Radha Krishna in a Garden Pavilion

In Rajasthan, his images abound in great stately splendour, the character of the

land. The overall style of Rajasthani painting tends to have rigorously rendered

minute details. This stately splendour, inclining towards sensualism, and

minuteness of details define the image or rather the overall character of the

Rajasthani Gita Govinda paintings. It has used repetitive imagery in a single

folio not so much for revealing the passage of time or narrative thrust as in

quest of continuously repeating the same sensuous image over and again. Arbours

in Mewar Gita Govinda paintings are adorned like a palace-garden pavilion

prepared specially for a royal couple.

The Himalayan Hills have been broadly a Shaivite or Shakt belt and most of its

shrines are devoted to the forms of Shiva or Devi. However, the art of the

region had an intimate and intrinsic kind of relationship with Krishna. The

Pahari painter saw in him a village lad roaming around his neighbourhood, and in

Radha, coy village lass. The Pahari painter was little interested in his

divinity. He was interested instead in his youthful acts of love and as the one

around whom he could more befittingly portray his pastoral setting, the

distinction of his land. This character of Pahari painting determines as much

its image in the Gita Govinda paintings. Here as fresh is the face of nature as

naпve is the charm of human face. The worlds of man and nature intermingle and

comprise an integral whole. The Pahari artist has discovered the sensuous image

of the Gita Govinda in enchanting aesthetic beauty and overall pastoral charm

rather than in an act of sensualism.

 

 

 

 

 

Sri Jagannatha at Puri

 

 

Orissa, on the contrary, enshrined Krishna’s ‘Aradhya-rupa’ at its supreme

Vaishnava shrine at Puri. Orissa imagery seems to have evolved out of some early

folk worship cult. His image is flanked by the images of his brother Balarama

and sister Subhadra.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Triad consisting of Samkarsana/Balarama, Ekanamsa and Vasudeva Krsna. Mathura

Museum No. 67.529

 

The group seems to represent the foremost of the Vrashnis. Early scriptures

contain references of Vrashnis, the clan to which Krishna belonged, as

worshipping their heroes. Three defaced Kushana sculptures from Mathura and a

few subsequent terracottas have similar three figures, two male and one female,

identified as Krishna, Balarama and Ekananga, the daughter of Yashoda, their

sister

 

 

In Oriya tradition, Subhadra seems to have replaced Ekananga. Later, Krishna

emerged in Orissa as Jagannatha, the lord of the creation, far above one of the

incarnations of Vishnu. The source of such elevation of Krishna in Orissa is not

known; but, interestingly, this is also the perception of the Gita Govinda. The

eleventh verse of the first 'Ashtapadi', in Canto one, summarises the ten

Vaishnava incarnations as those of Krishna, not Vishnu. Like the Oriya

tradition, this 'Ashtapadi', too, does not include Krishna in ten Vaishnava

incarnations. They both perceive these ten incarnations as the incarnations of

Krishna, not Vishnu. Let scholars determine whether Jayadeva borrowed this

perception from his land, Utkal, or the land from her son. Despite such

elevation, Krishna's imagery retained its prior Vrashni character. The images of

Vrashni-Trio, carved out of ordinary Neem wood by local carpenters, with no

stately splendour around, still enshrine the

Puri shrine. They have! also retained their votive form.

 

 

References and Further Reading:

 

Losty, Jeremiah P. The Art of the Book in India.

Kapila Vatsyayan Mewari Gita-Govinda. National Museum, New Delhi, 1987.

Vatsyayan, Kapila. Jaur Gita Govinda.

Vatsyayan, Kapila. Bundi Gita Govinda.

Randhawa, M. S. Kangra Paintings of the Gita Govinda.

Keyt, George. Gita Govinda.

Kulkarni, Dr. V. M. (ed). Jayadeva's Gitagovinda.

Mishra, Vidyanivas. Radha Madhav Ranga Rangi.

Dvivedi, Acharya Shiva Prasad. Gitagovindakavyam.

Daljeet, Dr. and Jain, P. C. Indian Miniature Painting : Manifestation of a

Creative Mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ARTICLE REVIEWS

 

 

 

 

It is bit difficult for Behgali's to give up that claim -- which persisted for

decades with assistance from their master friends -- the British. Birbhum

district and Puri -- what is this made up connection?

- Tony (tonyrana200)

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Jayadeva himself referred to Utkala (Orissa) as his land. Jayadeva also

describes his birthplace being by the sea. This can be in Puri, Orissa, not in

landlocked Birbhum in Bengal.

 

Western Indologists Prof. Thomas E. Donaldson and Prof. Barbara S. Miller have

asserted that Jayadeva was born in Orissa.

 

There is consensus among experts including Bengali ones (Sengupta, Chakrabarty,

Sen) that Jayadeva was born near Puri, in Orissa, not Bengal.

 

Excavations in Kenduli village, near Puri reveal the birth of Jayadeva there.

Moreover, there is a statue that the villagers today revere as " Jayadeva " .

 

Numerous poets in the 16 and 17th centuries refer to Jayadeva as a Utkala

(Orissa) brahmin.

 

Jayadeva's lyrics have had more profound influence in Orissa, and even in south

India than in Bengal. Jayadeva never was associated with Bengali 'Baul' music.

But the Odissi dance is entirely based on Jayadeva's composition.

 

Only in religious websites like this, of questionable historical authenticity,

will one find the anachronistic and fallacious statement concerning Jayadeva's

birthplace.

 

The Birbhum birthplace is a HOAX. An attempt by early chauvinistic Bengali

" historians " to render everything " Aamader so-and-so " !

 

Jayadeva was born in Kenduli Sasan in Orissa. Period!

- Sanjoy (sinubabu)

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The detailed explanation of this article made me so pleasent minded and the

great beautiful pictures are mind blowing and takes us to heavenly feelings.

- YAMUNASURYANARAYANA

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It is curious that although Jayadeva himself refers to Utkal (which is Orissa)

as his land of origin, the article advocakes " Kenduli in Birbhum, Bengal " is

Jayadeva's birthplace. The truth is, Jayadeva was born in Kenduli or Kendubilva

in Orissa, not Bengal. The names Kendu, Kendubilva etc are Oriya names. Even

today, Kendubilva or Kendu leaves are obtained from Orissa (for making Biri).

 

 

- Chintamani Rath

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really a great job ,wonderful,mind blowing material

- mrs yamuna and mrs shubhasachin

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Another great article, this time on my very favorite lyric, for its beautiful

language,and the ecstasy of very human Krishna and Radha. By the way, I have

read it in so many versions, but the best in english is Barbara Stoller

Miller's, especially her introduction and analysis of this beloved classic.

Strongly recommend it.

- Mukunda Rao

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