Govinda-bhashya

Now I've actually got it! :-)

And am I excited about it or what?! It's a major honour to hold it in my hands. This is the Gaudiya commentary on the Vedantasutra, penned by none other than Sri Baladeva Vidyabhushan himself! Looks like it was first printed in 1912 so it is quite old (this reprint, 2002). It doesn't look like the inside jacket-cover was written by the author (Rao Bahadur Srisa Chandra Vasu) because there is a very silly error claiming that Sri Baladeva was a disciple of Sriman Mahaprabhu, obviously incorrect.

Interestingly the intro says that "Baladeva, the author of the Govinda Bhasya, was a follower of Sri Caitanya, the last of the Avataras." Wow. Did Vasu believe that Mahaprabhu was an avatar? If so, does this mean that Vasu was a Gaudiya Vaishnava? It's quite possible that this is a devotional commentary after all!

But we should pay special attention to the following:

"This translation of the Govinda Bhasya is more in the nature of a paraphrase than a literal translation. I have not hesitated in expanding the author's arguments, and supplementing his short references by fuller quotations from the sacerd texts."

Having peeked through the text, I noticed that there were long Upanishadic quotations used as "proofs" and clearly it may not have been done like that by Sri Baladeva, who may have referred to these passages with the like of bracketed references and footnotes. On the other hand the Upanishadic quotations prove useful in proving the point and I can always cross-check them because I have a huge copy of the Upanishads too! It is possible (thankfully) to discern between the writings of Sri Baladeva and the translator (Vasu).

The only thing that I'd complain about is that there is no Romanised Sanskrit text, only the Devanagari is included and I can't read Devanagari. It doesn't matter because the Vedantasutras are available in both Devanagari and Romanised text online, and the Sanskrit of the full Govinda-bhashya is included in the GGM database I think.

But other than that, it's brilliant! I found the bit I was looking for (about Radha-Krishna worship being authorised) which was one of the contentious points brought forth by the Ramanandis of Galta, but I think I'll need to digest that before I discuss it here. It's full of other tidbits too, very exciting ones.

There are two appendices; one, Vasu's own essay where he discusses the influence of Christianity on the Bhakti traditions of medieval India, and two, a very nice translation of Sri Baladeva's Prameya Ratnavali. Again the text of the PR is in Devanagari but I can download a romanised version from GGM with no problems.

You readers have no idea how excited I am about this book! :-) I have been waiting for this one for years and now I have finally got it! :-)