Jagat

I am currently working on getting my 1992 Gopāla-campū doctoral dissertation ready for publication. I knew this wouldn't be easy and I have been procrastinating because there are just so many other projects that beg for attention. But the opportunity has arisen for the Gopāla-campū work to finally be published so it is do or die now. When I finished the thesis work at SOAS, my advisor, J.C. Wright, wanted to get it published by the university publisher. Career-wise it would have been a good move. But I have never been very career-oriented, no doubt a huge character flaw where worldly life is concerned. Something Friedhelm Hardy said during my oral examination also affected me disproportionately. Hardy was a professor at King's College and a scholar for whom I had great admiration. He was jovial and gregarious as well as a brilliant man. He lived not very far from where we were staying in London, though I was hardly a part of his social circle. I only went there o...

1. Until recently, Kavi Karnapura has generally been accepted without question as the author of a book on the life of Sri Krishna Chaitanya entitled Śrī-caitanya-caritāmṛta-mahā-kāvya [CCMK]. The date of this work is given as 1542(1) by the author himself in its final verse. In the two penultimate verses of the work, he identifies himself as the youngest son of Shivananda Sena and as a mere child ( śiśu ).(2) If Kavi Karnapura is indeed the author, it is certainly a matter of great interest as he is one of the most prolific and authoritative writers amongst Chaitanya's followers. His father, Shivananda Sena, was a rich and influential devotee of Chaitanya, responsible for the management of the yearly trips to Puri that played such an important role in the latter part of the great saint's life.(3) Unfortunately, with the exception of a few such autobiographical words in Karnapura's own compositions, such as the Ānanda-vṛndāvana-campū [AVC], Caitanya-candrodaya-nāṭa...