Natyasutra Online

The Content Structure

The poem is structured as twelve chapters or cantos and sub-divided into twenty-four divisions called Prabandhs. The titles of each of the 12 sargas or cantos in the Gita Govinda carry 10 different names of Krishna. The poem contains twenty-four songs, all written in moric metres based on the number of beats to the line. Each Prabandh contains two further divisions, usually comprising eight couplets, called Ashtapadis – poems with eight stanzas. The Ashtapadis are preceded by verses composed in a different meter, which describe the backdrop of the subsequent Ashtapadi. Each ends with a dedication by Jayadeva. The intervening sections are an introduction, narrative and comment written in classical Sanskrit metres, i.e., fixed patterns of light and heavy syllables.

Jayadeva use of diction and dextrous manipulation of syntax is inimitable. It has produced a luxuriant interlocking of rhymes and inter-rhymes by which erotic descriptions have been very cleverly sublimated, making it more acceptable and popular, and hauntingly beautiful at the same time. Jayadeva has masterfully interwoven a religious theme with the science of erotica. In the Gita Govinda, we have on the one hand, the love of Radha and Krishna as a means of worship and devotion (the theme of God and devotee), and on the other, the hero and heroine in love (the theme of Nayaka and Nayika).