Poets and saints of Puri, from the Gita Govinda to Chaitanya

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Namaste. This is our last sitting in this series on Jagannath of Puri. Let us take a quiet breath together. In. And out.

Over four sittings we have heard how Jagannath came to Puri as sacred wood from the sea, how he rides out on the chariots, how his wooden forms are made new, and how his food is shared with all. Today we listen to the people who loved him in words, in music and in movement. Puri has always been a place of song.

Let us begin with a poet named Jayadeva.

Jayadeva lived in the twelfth century and wrote in Sanskrit. His great work is called the Gita Govinda, the song of Govinda, which is a name of Krishna. It is not a long book. It is a set of songs, each with its own mood, about the love of Radha and Krishna. They meet, they are separated, Radha longs for Krishna, Krishna longs for Radha, a friend carries messages between them, and in the end they are together again.

The Gita Govinda is written with great beauty of sound, and it was meant to be sung, not only read. Over the centuries it spread across India. It shaped music, painting and dance from Kerala to Manipur, and from Rajasthan to Nepal. Many devotional poets who came after Jayadeva learned from him.

Where was Jayadeva born? Here, as with so many old stories, traditions differ. In Odisha, people say he was born in a village called Kenduli Sasana, not far from Puri. In Bengal, people name a village called Kenduli in Birbhum. Others remember him in Mithila. We will not choose between them. Each place loves him as its own.

The Odia tradition also remembers his wife, Padmavati, as a dancer who danced his songs before Jagannath. In this telling, poetry and dance were joined in one household, in service of the lord of Puri.

There is a much-loved story about the Gita Govinda, told in Odisha and in Bengal.

In one of the songs, Krishna, longing for Radha, asks her to place her foot upon his head. The story says Jayadeva hesitated. How could he write that the lord should bow so low? He put down his pen and went to bathe. When he returned, the line had been written in his own hand. Padmavati said he had come home and written it himself, but he had not. The devotees who tell this story understand that the lord himself had come to finish the line.

We share this as a devotional story, as it is told. What it teaches is simple. In the Gita Govinda, love is so great that even the lord is ready to bow before it.

The Gita Govinda came into the daily life of the Jagannath temple.

For centuries its songs have been sung before the lord, especially at the last ritual of the night, before he rests. An old inscription in the temple, attributed to a Gajapati king of Odisha, is said to direct that the Gita Govinda be sung before the lord, and that no other song be sung in its place. Scholars discuss the exact wording, but the love it shows is clear.

The songs were sung, and also danced. For a long time, the temple had women dancers called Maharis, who danced before Jagannath as an act of worship. They were counted among the servants of the temple, and their dance was an offering. The living line of Maharis came to an end in recent decades, and many people in Odisha remember the last of them with great respect.

Alongside them, there was a tradition of young boys, called Gotipua, who danced in the style of the Maharis, outside the temple, at festivals and in villages.

In the twentieth century, dancers, gurus and scholars in Odisha drew on these traditions, and on the sculpture of old temples, to shape the classical dance we know today as Odissi. When you see an Odissi dancer today perform a song from the Gita Govinda, you are seeing something that grew from the service of Jagannath.

Music grew here too. Odisha has its own classical way of singing, today called Odissi music, with old ragas and song forms written by Odia poets across many centuries. Many of those songs are addressed to Jagannath, or to Krishna as he is loved in Puri. And beyond the concert stage, the simplest music is everywhere. In the lanes around the temple in the evening, you may hear bhajans from homes and small shops, a harmonium, a pair of cymbals, a few voices singing together. Nobody is performing. They are simply singing to the lord.

Now we come to a saint whose life is closely bound to Puri, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Chaitanya was born in 1486 in Navadwip, in Bengal. As a young man he was a brilliant scholar. Then, the tellings say, his heart was overturned by love for Krishna, and he gave himself to kirtan, the singing of the lord's names with others. He took the vows of a renunciate and came to Puri, and he lived his later years there.

The tradition remembers how Chaitanya would stand near the Garuda pillar in the temple hall, looking at Jagannath from a distance, lost in feeling, with tears in his eyes. He loved the Gita Govinda and the songs of other poets, and would listen to them late into the night with his close companions.

At the Rath Yatra, the old accounts of his life describe Chaitanya and his companions singing and dancing before the chariots on the Bada Danda, in groups, with drums and cymbals. The king of Odisha of that time came to love him, and the tradition says he too joined in the service on those days.

Through Chaitanya and his followers, Puri became dear to devotees in Bengal and far beyond. To this day, many who come to Puri from Bengal and from other lands come with his memory in their hearts.

Odisha also has its own great poets of Jagannath, writing in Odia.

In the sixteenth century, a group of poet-saints known as the Panchasakha, the five friends, wrote in the language of the people. One of them, Jagannatha Dasa, rendered the Bhagavata Purana into Odia verse. His Odia Bhagavata is still read aloud in villages across Odisha, often in a small village hall kept for this purpose. Many who could never read Sanskrit came to know the stories of Krishna through his simple, musical Odia.

And there is a poet named Salabega, who lived in the seventeenth century. He was born in a Muslim family, and he came to love Jagannath deeply. His songs to the lord are still sung in Odisha, and many Odia people know them by heart. A local tradition says the chariots pause near his memorial on the Bada Danda during the Rath Yatra, as though the lord stops for his devotee.

I find it beautiful that Puri remembers such a poet with so much love. Jagannath means the lord of the world, and Puri has let people from many walks of life come close to him in song.

Before we gather what we heard, let us take a moment. If there is a bhajan or a song to Jagannath or to Krishna that you know, you might hum a line of it now, softly, to yourself. If not, just sit and listen to your breath.

Let us gather what we heard today.

Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, a book of songs about Radha and Krishna, came to be sung before Jagannath every night, and was danced by the Maharis, whose tradition shaped Odissi dance. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to Puri from Bengal, wept before the lord, and danced before his chariots. Jagannatha Dasa brought the Bhagavata to the people in Odia, and Salabega's songs are still sung.

One thing to take with you. Every poet and singer we met today offered what they had. This week, offer something small that is truly yours, perhaps a song you know or a few lines you write, and offer it with love, in whatever way your family prays.

And so we come to the end of this series. Over five sittings we heard of a log of wood from the sea, a road full of chariots, trees honoured in the forest, a kitchen of clay pots, and songs sung late into the night. Thank you for sitting with us.

If you ever go to Puri, go slowly. Walk the Bada Danda, stand for a moment at the Lion Gate, and look up at the tower. And if you cannot go, the tradition says the lord comes out to meet his people. Perhaps he will meet you where you are.

Namaste.

Keep going

• Listen: Poets and saints of Puri, from the Gita Govinda to Chaitanya
• Previous: Mahaprasad, the temple kitchen and one shared meal
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• All episodes of Jagannath: the lord of the world at Puri