Poetry
Singing the Glory of Lord Krishna
শ্রীকৃষ্ণকীর্তন
Chandidas · 1400
Synopsis
Krishna, born to kill King Kamsa, grows up among the cowherds of Vrindavan; Radha, a cowherd's daughter, was married as a child to Aihan, and her old aunt Barai watches over her. One day when Radha goes to sell her milk and curds in Mathura, Barai loses her on the way and describes her beauty to Krishna, who sends her betel; Radha rejects him, and Krishna, on the pretext of collecting a toll, bars her way to the market.
Context
Basantaranjan Ray Vidvadvallabh found the manuscript in 1909 on a shelf in the cowshed of Debendranath Mukhopadhyay, in the village of Kankilya, in the Bankura district. The leaves at the beginning and the end were missing, and the title with them; a slip left inside the manuscript indicated that it had been kept in the royal library of Bishnupur under the name Srikrishna Sandarbha. The editor gave it a new name, and the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad published it in 1916. The poem has thirteen sections, the last of which is incomplete, and its date remains disputed.
Who it is for
Songs in Old Bengali, for three voices, Radha, Krishna and Barai, with a raciness drawn from popular songs; an annotated edition is indispensable.
Prizes and reception
It is regarded as the most important work of Bengali literature after the Charyapada; its grammar, according to Suniti Kumar Chatterji, sheds light on modern Bengali.