BERHAMPUR: Literary scholars of the State are irked by the wrong depiction of Jayadev as a poet from Bengal in some TV shows.

N.S.R. Ayengar, professor of English of the Berhampur university, who has written a book `Sacred Profanities: A study of Jayadev's Gitagovindam' with English translations said recent researches have conclusively established that Jayadev belonged to Orissa. According to him some programmes on TV like the recent Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) quiz show depict him as a man from Bengal, which is anachronistic and historical humbug.

Mr. Ayengar said Jayadev uses eleven `Raga' in his lyrical writings that are in accordance with carnatic and Odissi classical music. Sir William Jones, the first translator of Gitagovindam had remarked that Jayadev may have been from a southern province, which can never be Bengal as there is was no vocal classical tradition in Bengal.

Thomas Donaldson also maintains that Ragas used in Gitagovindam rarely match with the old lyrical writings of Bengal.

Water imagery

He also pointed out that water imagery like intimate depiction of moon and the ocean could only occur spontaneously for Jayadev as he was born at Kenduli in Orissa, which is close to Bay of Bengal.

Such imagery cannot come to a person born at a hinterland like Birbhum Kenduli of West Bengal, which is falsely claimed to be the birthplace of the poet by some Bengali scholars.

In the KBC answer to a question termed Jayadev to be the poet at the court of a king of Bengal, Laxman Sen. Mr. Ayengar terms it to be a ludicrous travesty of history. Laxman Sen's father Bellal Sen was the ruler during the time of Jayadev. Moreover in his writings Jayadev has not mentioned his patron king. "He was an independent poet of Bhakti era," he said.

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