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‘Rati Viparite’: Gitagovinda and Erotic (Trans)migrations in Nineteenth Century Bengal I
Article first published online: 24 MAY 2012
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2012.00888.x
© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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How to Cite
Sengupta, R. (2012), ‘Rati Viparite’: Gitagovinda and Erotic (Trans)migrations in Nineteenth Century Bengal I. Literature Compass, 9: 441–452. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2012.00888.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 24 MAY 2012
- Article first published online: 24 MAY 2012
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Abstract
The paper deals with some of the translations and adaptations of Gitagovinda, a 12th century Sanskrit text, in the late 18th and 19th century Bengal. These translations and derivative adaptations were shaped by the colonial experience in Bengal and reveal important strands of colonial discourse and exchange. The English translation of the text by William Jones (in 1789), the famed philologist and the founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, served as one of the seminal texts of Orientalist exploration in South Asia. Also discussed in the paper are Rasamaya Dasa’s Bengali translation of Gitagovinda (published in 1817) and the several adaptations of the text published by the Battala printers. The ambivalence about eroticism in the text has been discussed, along with the subsequent histories of the text as a cultural commodity in colonial Bengal.