Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s5.41

c11.s5.41

The Stotras, Birudas and Gitas of Rūpa Gosvāmin are of a somewhat different type. They have more rhetoric than reality, more wealth of words than fervour of faith, more artistic than human appeal. They are collected together by his nephew Jiva, in a volume entitled *Stava-mālā*.² With the exception of three opening Aṣṭakas on Caitanya (the first two composed in the Śikhariṇī and the third in the Pṛthvī metre, but showing no remarkable features), the entire body of some sixty separate Stotras. Birudas and Gītas are, of course, concerned with the various details, chiefly erotic, of the Vṛndāvana-līlā of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. Most of the Stotras are small, and the Aṣṭaka form, in the smaller pieces, appears to have found much favour with our poet; he uses in them mostly short lyrical syllabic metres, each stanza often possessing refrain in the last foot. The jingle of rhyme is frequently melodious and the repetition of refrain pleasing, unless both are overdone: thus, in Svāgatā metre (Kuñja-vihāryaṣṭaka):