It took several centuries for the world to receive this fabulous literary treasure. And to reach the world stage, it had to fly on the wings of an English translation. Sir William Jones, the famous Indologist, undertook the translation in 1792. He was the founder of The Asiatic Society of Bengal and a pioneer in many such ventures. Thus, more than five hundred years after it was composed in Sanskrit, the Gita Govinda was read by foreign eyes and hailed as a product of an extraordinarily talented poet. The next English translation of the note, perhaps the more popular one, was Edwin Arnold’s version (1875) which carried the subtitle “The Indian Song of Songs”. The German writer and statesman J. W. von Goethe wrote that he found remarkable the “extremely varied motives by which an extremely simple subject is made endless”.
Nearly eight centuries have gone by, and Jayadeva’s epic love song is still sung across the country and enjoyed...
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