________________ xiii observes: " This, however, clearly overstates the position; it is utterly improbable that the original of the poem was ever in anything but Sanskrit, and the most that can be said is that the use of rime which is regular in Apabhramsa poems may have influenced the author of the Gitagovinda." Dey, too, has very aptly shown that apart from the fact that no such tradition exists, literary and historical considerations.entirely rule out the theory of translation from an Apabhramsa original." Mystical significance of the Gitagovinda : The poem describes the loves of Radba and Krsna with uninhibited frankness. The love is essentially physical rather than of the mind. That such amours should be ascribed to the Divine Parents Radha and Krsna is abhorrent to the taste of some orthodox pandits. To them it is an outrage, a sacrilege. They, therefore, hold that the poem has a mystical significance and seek to offer a mystical interpretaion of the poeni." According to them, "Radha stands for human soul and Krsna for God. The love of Radha for Krsna is the love of the human soul for God. In the poet's view the whole eroticism of the poem is merely a part of the bhakti, the religious devotion to god Krsna." For such an interpretation Jayadeva does provide some clues in the following lines : यदि हरिस्मरणे सरसं मनो यदि विलासकलासु कुतूहलम् / Franslatoraat Ty aci paauha 11--Canto I-3 and यद्गान्धर्वकलासु कौशलमनुध्यानं च यद्वैष्णवं / __यच्छृङ्गारविवेकतत्त्वरचनाकाव्येषु लीलायितम् / तत्सर्व जयदेवपण्डितकवेः कृष्णकतानात्मनः 17aT: frete grr: fritattarca: 114-Canto XII-12 It is possible to say that in the poem Jayadeva represents his mystic (1) For a detailed refutation see Dasgupta and Dey: History of Sanskrit Literature, (pp. 394-395) (2) Keith : History of Sanskrit Literature (p. 194) Dasgupta and Dey: History of Sanskrit Literature (p. 392) M. Winternitz: History of Indian Literature (p. 147) M. Krisnamachariar : History of Classical Sanskrit Literature (p. 341) The Gita-Govinda-Kavya ed. S. Laksminarasimha Sastri : Introduction, pp. 19-22. (3) See M. Krishnamachariar, ibid, p. 341, f.n. 2 (4) The line 78 ha afgh T TE TY' (opening verse of the Gitagovinda) is also mentioned in this case to demonstrate that Krsna described in the poem is the "Bala-Krsna" and his sports with Radha are innocent. This defence is, to say the least, very lame,
