Srikrishna Kirtana (or Sri Krishna Kirtana) is a pivotal late 14th to early 15th-century pastoral lyrical work attributed to Baru Chandidas. Written in Middle Indo-Aryan (M.I.A) verse, it recounts the episodes of Lord Krishna's early life, his romance with Radha, and his role as the divine messenger.
The text serves as a major transition point from Apabhramsa/Prakrit forms toward modern Eastern Indo-Aryan (EIA) languages, including Old Bengali and Kamrupi.Linguistic Significance in Kamrupi language
In his landmark dialectological study, A Study on Kamrupi: A Dialect of Assamese (1970), Dr. Upendranath Goswami examines Srikrishna Kirtana as crucial textual evidence to trace the historic phonology and morphology of the modern Kamrupi language. Goswami references the work to demonstrate several key points regarding the evolution of Eastern Neo-Indo-Aryan (NIA) speech patterns:
1. Speech Continuity & Shared Origins
- Goswami highlights that before the sharp regional differentiation of modern Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, a broad Magadhan corridor spanned Kamarupa (Western Assam), North Bengal, and Eastern Bihar.
- Srikrishna Kirtana reflects linguistic elements that are shared by early regional speeches in this continuum, bridging early Charyapada traditions with regional medieval literatures.
2. Morphological Affinities
- Case Inflections and Endings: Goswami points out that specific instrumental and locative case endings found in Srikrishna Kirtana directly parallel forms observed in Old Kamrupi language and the modern Kamrupi.
- Verbal Affixes & Pronouns: The use of distinct third-person verbal affixes, pronominal roots, and auxiliary verbal stems in Baru Chandidas’s text exhibits marked structural overlap with Kamrupi morphological patterns.
3. Phonological Features
- The text illustrates early sound changes—such as the treatment of sibilants, nasalization, and vowel shifts—that align closely with the historical development of Kamrupi sound structures analyzed in Goswami's work.
