From the historical, archaeological, lithographic and literary evidences and the Odissi dance and music traditions, it is fairly established that Jayadeva belonged to Odisha and was born in a Brahmin family in village Kenduli Sasan (formerly Kendu Bilva) in Prachi valley near the famous temple city of Puri. The poet’s parents were Bhojadeva and Vamadevi initiated in Vaishnavism. After childhood education at Kenduli Sasan, Jayadeva moved to Kurmapataka near Konark for further studies in Sanskrit literature and the Shastras.

Soon he became a member of the teaching faculty in the school at Kurmapataka where he composed Gita Govinda around the age of 20, which is supported by the fact that the earliest commentary on Gita-Govinda appeared in 1190 CE by Udayanacharya. Later, he became an integral part of the Jagannath temple at Puri. He introduced a new dance and music form based on his Gita Govinda (which evolved into classical Odissi dance and music) and himself performed in the temple on a regular basis along with his Devadasi wife, Padmavati who herself was an accomplished dancer.

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Jayadeva also institutionalized the system of Devadasi, a system of being offered to the Deity. This system was abolished during the British Raj. While recent research throws considerable light on Jayadeva’s early life and his umbilical association with the Jagannath temple, nothing is known about this great poet’s post-temple life ~ his inheritors if any, date and place of his death and his final resting place. Some people believe that after he finished his duties in Puri, he must have returned to his village, Kenduli Sasan where he finally settled down.

There are others who believe that he migrated to Vrindavan, the mecca of all the Vaishnava sects and died there. According to folklore, at the invitation of the Raja and Queen of Kashi (Varanasi), Jayadeva along with his wife, Padmavati went to Kashi where they spent the last few years of their lives. In the absence of any contemporary memorial, any plaque or written document, this still remains a mystery. The world knows Jayadeva as a solitary-literary-work celebrity for his Gita-Govinda epic poem. But for a genius like Jayadeva, to rest with only one creation is simply unthinkable; he must have composed many more poems and songs, which might have been lost in an age when there was no paper, pen or printing technology and everything was generally written with great dexterity on materials like the palm leaves, bird-feather pens and charcoal ink, preservation of which for generations had been a herculean task.

That Jayadeva created many more things is proved by the fact that a few poems written by him in archaic Odissi language have been published by the Odisha government. Moreover, Jayadeva was instrumental in popularising the Hindu concept of Dasavatara, the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu in another composition, Dasakritikrike. In his version of Dasavatara, Jayadeva has made Buddha an avatar of Vishnu (ninth avatar) while Krishna is not incorporated because Krishna (Keshava) is the source of all incarnations and he incarnated himself as Buddha. Jayadeva also wrote Piyusha Larari, a Sanskrit Goshti Rupaka based on the romantic love of Radha and Krishna, very similar to Gita Govinda. While many Western scholars and a number India’s Sanskrit Pundits including Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Bankim Chandra Chatto padhyay criticized Gita Govinda for its profanities, others are enchanted with the beauty of the poems and interpreted the love songs as expressions of divine love.

Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore was also influenced by Jayadeva’s poems as much as he admired Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti Vidyapati and Chandidas. Irrespective of conflicting appreciations, it is universally accepted that Gita Govinda is one of the great masterpieces in world literature. Gita Govinda became an instant success at the Jagannath temple where Jayadeva himself performed creating his own music with different ragas and new talas and a dance form which later evolved into the famous Odissi classical dance.

The Maharis or Devadasis were meticulously trained to perform along with him and one of the accomplished Devadasi danseuses became his wife. Both of them devoted their lives to the service of Lord Jagannath. The musical poetry of Gita Govinda and the cult of Vaishnavism practiced by him swept Odisha and soon spread to Ben gal, South In – dia, Maharashtra and all over the sub-continent.

The structure of Gita Govinda is unique ~ it is divided into 12 Cantos (chapters) depicting twelve moods of Krishna. Each chapter is further sub-divided into 24 divisions called Prabandhas. The Prabandhas contain couplets grouped into sets of eight known as Ashtapadis depicting eight moods of the heroine Radha, the Ashta Nayika. The lyrics (still in manus cripts of palm leaves) became so popular that they were translated in many Indian and Western languages. It is not known when the original Sanskrit version saw the light in a printed book form although the first printing press in India was installed in 1556 in Saint Paul’s College, Old Goa. In 1806-07 one Babu Ram started a printing press in Kolkata for publication of Sanskrit books in Devnagari script and only thereafter, Gita Govinda could be published in Sanskrit in a book form.

Till then, Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda was confined to manuscripts written on palm leaves, paintings (patachitras) and later in handmade paper. Interestingly, Odisha has a long tradition of writing manuscripts of Gita Govinda in different forms and shapes and illustrated using palm leaves, bamboo leaves, ivory and handmade paper. In the archives of Odissa State Museum exists an astonishing number of various versions of Gita Govinda manuscripts numbering two hundred and ten ~ twenty-one illustrated, one hundred and eighty non-illustrated and nine manuscripts of different shapes like garland, fish and dagger.

Eighteen different commentaries authored by medieval writers have also been preserved in the museum. Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda is considered to be one the finest examples of Sanskrit poetry and contains some of the sweetest lyrics ever written in any language. Within two-three centuries of the Jayadeva era, this masterpiece became highly popular throughout the sub-continent. It has been translated in all the major Indian and many European languages. It was Sir Williams Jones, the great connoisseur of Indian culture and literature, who translated Kalidasa’s Abhijnana Sakuntalam, who also translated Gita Govinda into English in 1792 followed by a German version by F. H. van Dalberg (which Goethe read) based on Jones’ translation.

German poet, Friedrich Ruckart completed a verse version during 1829-1837 based on the edited Sanskrit and Latin translations of C. Lassen. Guimet museum in Paris houses a manuscript in Devanagari script, in superbly decorated folios, telling the love story of Krishna and Radha. In addition to a large number of commentaries on it, Gita Govinda has been translated into English by a number of eminent people. Notable among the translators are Edwin Arnold, George Keyl, Harold Peiris, S. Lakshminarasimha Sastri, Barbara Stoler Miller, and Lee Siegel. The genius of Jayadeva should not be judged only by his beautiful epic of Gita Govinda.

He had a lasting contribution to Indian culture and society. He is the creator and originator of what is known as the classical Odissi dance and music. He was an integral part of the Jagannath temple and his efforts made it the fountain head of Odissi culture. His cult of Vaishnavism based on the divine love of RadhaKrishna swept Orissa, Bengal, Andhra, Maharashtra and the whole of the subcontinent. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was himself greatly influenced by him. In away, he is the precursor of the great Bhakti movement spearheaded by Guru Nanak, Sant Kabir and Sri Chaitanya three hundred years later ~ a kind of renaissance of love.

(The writer is a former Dy. Comptroller & Auditor General of India and a former Ombudsman of Reserve Bank of India. He is also a writer of several books and can be reached at brahmas@gmail.com)