Foreword: About the Sanskrit Song Book
Gitagovinda palm leaf hanging, Oriya 18C, National Museum, New Delhi 57.46
https://www.museumsofindia.gov.in/repository/record/nat_del-57-46-4865
This second instalment of our open access popular Indian Song Book focuses on Sanskrit songs. We have selected one of the most-performed works of Indian literature, Jayadeva’s late twelfth-century Gītagovinda or “The Cowherd’s Song.” As with the first volume, which featured Hindi songs, this too is a collaboration of language teacher with graduate and undergraduate students at UW, Seattle to share the joy of discovery of our own exploration of Indian songs. During our Spring 2026 advanced Sanskrit classes (SNKRT 313 and 533), we learned about the background and worked together through the Sanskrit text of several of Gītagovinda’s songs. We have collected our findings in this open access volume that starts with a short introduction to the world in which this masterpiece of Indian literature came about, before zooming in on the individual songs. We analyze songs 1, 11, 17, 23, and 24. Our goal is a modest one, to articulate our findings so as to bring a taste of the beauty of Jayadeva’s masterpiece to a wider audience.
Conventions
There are two different recensions of the text of Gītagovinda, a shorter one, which is attested in Newari manuscripts from 1447, and a longer one, on which an influential commentary called Rasika-priyā or “Connoisseur’s Delight” was written that is attributed to the Mewar king Kumbha Karṇa (r. 1433-1468). We have followed the short recension as in the edition of Barbara Stoler Miller (Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda. New York: Columbia University Press 1977). Since the indications of rāga and tāla are unstable in the manuscripts and vary in different performative traditions, we do not focus on those here.
For reproducing these texts, we were aided by the electronic availability of a Devanāgarī text at https://sanskritdocuments.org (Last accessed May 20, 2026). For the transliteration we gratefully acknowledge the 2012–13 Blogpost by Mohan: https://gitagovinda.wordpress.com/ (Last accessed May 20, 2026). In both cases we have adjusted to conform with the Miller edition and Sanskrit transliteration conventions. The text gives the refrain of the song after the first stanza. We have marked it in bold, to indicate it should be repeated after each stanza.
For the wordlist, we have used the dictionary by Vaman Shivram Apte (The Practical Sanskrit-English dictionary. rev. ed. Poona: Prasad Prakashan 1957-59). We have provided the full range of possible meanings, underlining the one we feel is most apt in context. This will allow the reader easy access to all possible associations the Sanskrit word may evoke, which allows a first-hand taste of Jayadeva’s play with words.
We have crafted functional translations, workshopped in class with the goal of being as close to the Sanskrit as possible while still being readable in English, which means we sometimes have added English words (we resisted the temptation to add brackets) and turned participles into main verbs. We have strived for economy of words, which sometimes led to omission of Sanskrit words. We acknowledge gratefully that we have greatly benefited from consulting and recommend to the reader Barbara Stoler Miller’s gorgeous sensuous translation in her aforementioned book, as well as Lee Siegel’s very helpful literal one (Sacred and profane dimensions of love in Indian traditions as exemplified in the Gītagovinda of Jayadeva. Delhi: Oxford University Press 1978). Our class had fans with preference for each. In some cases our translations have been informed by the commentary Rasika-priyā.
Our analysis takes account of classical Sanskrit aesthetics to which we have added our own reflections, speaking to contemporary readers. We are aware that these are limited, representing only a fraction of the combined profundity of the multiple commentaries and theological discourses these songs have elicited over the centuries.
We beg our readers’ patience and pardon for our shortcomings in interpreting these beloved lyrics, but hope they will enjoy this fruit of our labor as much as we enjoyed researching.