Sriradha: 'Gopalachampu' and later Bengali Vaishnava literature/ শ্রীরাধা : ‘গোপালচম্পূ’ ও পরবর্তী বাংলা বৈষ্ণব পদাবলী সাহিত্য

Abstract

Srijiva Goswami was one of the sixteen Goswamis of Vrindavan. He was the son of Srirupa and SrisanatanaGoswami. He did not see Lord Chaitanya with his own eyes and was also deprived of the divine presence of Lord Chaitanya. Nevertheless, the role of the learned Jiva Goswamigives a solid philosophical foundation to Premadharma introduced by Mahaprabhu is in no way insignificant. Along with this, SrijivaGoswami recovered the lost glory of Vrindavanbhoomithrough multifaceted actions. Just like Srirupa, Srisanatana gave a strong philosophical foundation to the Premadharmaof Mahaprabhu, the newer Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy also endeavoured to give a permanence to the foundation of that religion. No doubt he was successful in this action. His books are Gopalchampu, Shat Sandarbha, Madhava Mahotsava etc. ItexploresGopalachampuand ​​the novelty of the character of Sriradha in the poem andits influence of the same in later Padavali literature. The date of composition ofthis poem is 1588 AD. The theme of the epic poemGopalachampu is the Krishna Lila, as depicted in the tenth skandha of theSrimadBhagavatam.The value of this book is that it is in the form of a philosophy bookas well asSaraskavya. According to GaudiyaVaishnava philosophy, this text proudly asserts the superiority of Krishna, and Vrindavanlila, and the recognition of the superiority of Sri Radha’s character over Krishna. Not only this, SrijeevSriradha has introduced two fundamental approachestoexploring Sri Radha’s character. Firstly, Sri Radha’s social position, and secondly, Krishna’s marriage to Sri Radha. From the perspective of these twobasic views, we will try to analyze the mixed spark of Tattva and Rasa by reviewing the role ofheroine Sriradha in the entire Gopalchampu poem.