New Light on Sri Jaya Dev’s Use of Ancient Oriya in His Lyrics

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

I will present a person, who is trying to improve upon what I have said on Sri Jaya Dev’s language.

HE is an active participant in painting competitions and science exhibitions. He is a B.Tech degree holder in Electronics and Telecommunications; yet has mastered in Journalism and Mass Communication. And, has worked as a Copy Editor in Naxatra News and contributed to Odia Wikipedia. He is presently an Associated Editor in Institute of Odia Studies and Research. But, nowhere in these pursuits has he ever stopped. He simply cannot stop; because quest cannot stop at any point.

During around the last last two years, ever since he has read my work on Sri Jaya Dev – Sri Jaya Dev’nka Baisi Pahacha – we have, in each of our mind, met umpteen times with a few appointments for personal interaction sidetracked by situational exigencies.

And, when day before yesterday we met at my place in the afternoon, I have reason to curse the time, because it passed away so soon so deep into the densifying night, that, I had to bear with seeing him off as he was to start for Puri, where he resides.

Not always in life one meets a young person whose life is dedicated to knowledge. To my highest happiness, he is now after ancient Odia language, and therefore, he is studying Pali, ancient Oriya’s mother tongue, in which the greatest ever Oriya – Gurudev Buddha, whom we worship as Jagannatha – had given his sermons, giving birth to what we call Buddhism.

HE is Sambit Mohapatra, born 2nd December 1987, residing at Daitapara Sahi of Puri.

In my book I had shown how Sri Jaya Dev, whose lyrics are wrongfully forced into the edited format called ‘Gita Govinda’ with profuse purposeful interpolations, had sanskritized Oriya in depicting his emphasis on female factor of life’s advancement in terms with the tenets of Buddhist Sahajayana. Sambit moves a step forward and convinces me that, ancient Oriya, i.e. Pali is what Sri Jaya Dev had transformed into the language of his lyrics.

He has sent me a comparative chat that shows how the words used by Sri Jaya Dev in the Mangalacharan to his Astapadis were Pali, the ancient Oriya language.

You may please peruse it here and enjoy the pleasure.