Religious Syncretism and Literary Innovation. New Perspectives on Bhakti and Rasas in the Vijñānagītā by Keshavdas

The Vijñānagītā (1610) is one of the last works composed by Keśavadāsa. As a work of his old age, growing apart from Rīti mannerism and courtly themes, it seems to answer to the author’s enquiry for spirituality and religious desire. The author’s literary concern is expressed in the framework of the allegory, which represents a structural device enriching the potentiality of poetic significance. The Vijñānagītā is one of the many Hindi adaptations of the Prabodhacandrodaya by Kṛṣṇamiśra, enriched with many philosophical and religious hints coming from different religious traditions. Giving up any mere translation of the Sanskrit text, the author inserts the classical allegoric drama about the war between Mahāmoha and Viveka within the religious and cultural context of the early Seventeenth century north India. The story becomes a pretext to compose a compendium of philosophy extending from classical purāṇic lore, to treatises on moral, up to the popular attitude for devotion in later Vaishavism. Some interesting influences of Bhakti can be traced out in the many quotations taken from the most disparate works, such as Yogavāśiṣṭa. Purāṇas, Rāmāyaṇa up to the Nāṭyaśāstra, allowing hypothesizing some relationship with the concepts of rasas belonging to classical aesthetics applied to the metaphysics of devotion. Dealing with a concept already theorized by Caitanya and well-known in some Vaishnava circles, he interprets the theory of aesthetic emotions in the new context of devotionalism, allowing tracing some connections between the Rīti poetry developed in the literary setting of courts and the popular Bhakti tradition, which so far had always been considered as detached from it, on the basis of different intents and expressive techniques.