Brahma-saṁhitā

The Brahma-saṁhitā is the hymn with which Brahmā the creator praises Govinda after seeing His abode. Of the saṁhitā's hundred chapters one survives — the fifth: Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu found its manuscript in 1512 in the Ādi-keśava temple in South India and brought it to Bengal, and since then it has been read as a book in its own right. Sixty-two verses: the structure of Gokula, the generation of the material world, Brahmā's appearance in darkness and the mantra given to him, and then twenty-eight stanzas with a single refrain — govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi, "Govinda, the primeval Lord, Him I worship." Here too are the famous verses on Kṛṣṇa as the source of all descents (5.39), on the impersonal Brahman as His effulgence (5.40), and on His being seen by an eye anointed with love (5.38). The bare text is given with word-by-word glosses, a literary translation and commentary; Jīva Gosvāmī's Dig-darśinī ṭīkā is not part of this book.