Gita Govinda and the Scribal Fashioning of the Ideal Listener

Abstract

Writing sometime in the 18th century, Dharanidhara would have found himself at an exciting moment in the history of Odia Vaishnava literature, post-Chaitanya. While the Bhagavata Purana was making headway in the bhakti ecosphere through the great Sanskrit commentaries of famous Gaudiya Vaishnavas such as Baladeva Vidyabhusana the Gita Govinda continued to circulate in the Odisha region through popular literary spin-offs such as the numerous Radha Krishna lila performances, the
earliest being, perhaps, the recitals in the natamandira of the Jagannath Temple, Puri1. Jagannath Dasa’s Odia Bhagabata too had gripped the popular imagination. It is not too difficult, therefore, to imagine the liberative environment that Dharanidhara might have experienced to embark on his translation of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda.