Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa

Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa was a disciple of Rādhā-Dāmodara Gosvāmī. Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa’s śikṣā-guru was Viśvanātha Cakravartī (c. 1630–1725), an illustrious rasika who wrote scores of outstanding books, including an extraordinary commentary on Śrīmad Bhāgavatam and another on Kavikarṇapūra’s Alaṅkārakaustubha. Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa is famous for his Govindabhāṣya (1718),^[1] an erudite commentary on Vedānta-sūtra, and for Gītā-bhūṣaṇa, a scholarly commentary on Bhagavad-gītā.

In Sāhitya-kaumudī, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa changed nearly all the illustrative examples in Kāvya-prakāśa. He often quotes verses from Rūpa Gosvāmī’s works and from Alaṅkāra-kaustubha. On occasion, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa himself composed amazing verses. At the end of the treatise (11.53), he praises his line of gurus.

In his commentary on Bhāgavatam, however, he pays tribute to his mentors:

śrīmad-yaśodā-suta-keli-sindhuṃ vigāha-mānasya mamālpa-śakteḥ |
sanātana-śrīdhara-viśvanāthadayā-lavaḥ samprati śakti-rāśiḥ ||

“My self-conceit has plunged in the pastime ocean of Yaśodā’s beautiful son. I had little ability, but now, having become the recipient of the specks of the mercy of Śrīdhara, Sanātana, and Viśvanātha, I have much ability” (Vaiṣṇavānandinī 10.1.1, third invocatory verse).

Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa extols Jīva Gosvāmī ahead, in text 7.122.

Most Sanskrit scholars simply refer to Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa’s Sāhitya-kaumudī as his commentary on Kāvya-prakāśa. Notably, in writing Sāhitya-kaumudī, on occasion Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa took inspiration from Śrīvatsa-lāñchana Bhaṭṭācārya’s commentary, called Sāra-bodhinī. According to Dr. Goparāju Rāmā, Śrīvatsalāñchana was a Bengali who lived around 1600; one manuscript of Sāra-bodhinī is dated Saṃvat 1665-1680 (c. 1608-1623 CE). Śrīvatsa-lāñchana is also the author of Kāvya-parīkṣā.^[2] Sometimes he took ideas from Viśvanātha Kavirāja’s commentary, called Kāvya-prakāśa-darpaṇa, which was uncovered and firstly published by Dr. Goparāju Rāmā. Dr. Sushil Kumar De writes: “Viśvanātha—Author of the commentary Kāvya-prakāśa-darpaṇa. He is identical with Viśvanātha (q. v.), author of the Sāhitya-darpaṇa, which is referred to in this commentary as his own. First half of the 14th century.”^[3] Śrīvatsa-lāñchana was a well-known commentator in those days, since Paṇḍita-rāja Jagannātha mentions him.^[4]

Other commentaries used in this book are Narahari Sarasvatī Tīrtha’s Bāla-cittānurañjinī (c. 1300),^[5] Govinda Ṭhakkura’s

Kāvya-pradīpa (sixteenth century)^[6] and Nāgeśa Bhaṭṭa’s Uddyota (late seventeenth century).^[7]

Further, Sāhitya-kaumudī is one of four Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava books on poetical theory. The three others are: Alaṅkāra-kaustubha, by Kavikarṇapūra; Kāvya-kaustubha, by Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa; and Bhakti-rasāmṛta-śeṣa, by a disciple of Jīva Gosvāmī. Bhakti-rasāmṛta-śeṣa covers the poetical theory which is not found in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and follows the theory in Viśvanātha Kavirāja’s Sāhitya-darpaṇa. For the most part, in Kāvya-kaustubha Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa reiterates the literary ornaments propounded by Pīyūṣa-varṣa Jayadeva (not the Jayadeva who wrote Gīta-govinda). The best of those ornaments are expounded in the eleventh chapter of Sāhitya-kaumudī.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Vaiṣṇava-digdarśinī.

[2]:

Kāvya-prakāśaḥ, ṭīkā-traya-saṃvalitaḥ (Bāla-cittānurañjinī, Sāra-bodhinī, Kāvya-prakāśadarpaṇa). Rāmā, Goparāju, and Pāṭhaka, Jagannātha (eds.). Prayaga, India: Ganganatha Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, 2006 [1976], Introduction, pp. 1-3.

[3]:

De, S.K. (1988), History of Sanskrit Poetics, Vol. I, p. 161.

[4]:

etena “tyāgaḥ sapta-samudra-mudrita-mahī-nirvyāja-dānāvadhiḥ” iti śrīvatsa-lāñchanoktam udāharaṇaṃ (on KP verse 40) parāstam, tasya guṇībhūta-vyaṅgyatvena rasa-dhvani-prasaṅge’nudāharaṇīyatvāt. (Rasa-gaṅgādhara, Bombay: Kāvya-mālā edition, 1888, p. 39)

[5]:

“Narahari called Sarasvatī Tīrtha—His commentary is called Bāla-cittānurañjinī. […] His commentary on Mammaṭa states that he was born in Saṃvat 1298 = 1241-42 A.D., in Tribhuvanagiri in the Andhra country. When he became an ascetic, he took the name of Sarasvatītīrtha and composed his commentary at Benares.” (De, S.K. (1988), History of Sanskrit Poetics, Vol. I, p. 158). The source for the text of the commentary is Goparāju Rāmā’s book mentioned above.

[6]:

“Govinda is earlier than 1600 A.D.” (Kane, P.V (1995), The Sāhitya-darpaṇa, Introduction, p. 8).

[7]:

The source for those two commentaries is: Kāvya-prakāśaḥ. Vāsudeva Śāstrī Abhyaṅkar (ed.). Vārāṇasī: Caukhambā Vidyābhavan, 1994 (second edition).