Yāmuna bhāvāvalī — Yāmunācārya's Ecstasies of Love

Yamuna-bhavavali, the sentiments of Yamuna, opens Gita-mala with its largest section, twenty-seven songs built on the Stotra-ratna, a Sanskrit hymn of surrender composed centuries earlier by Yamunacarya, a foundational teacher of the Sri Vaishnava tradition rather than the Gaudiya line Bhaktivinoda Thakura himself belonged to. Rather than translating that hymn directly, Bhaktivinoda reworked its verses of self-abasement and longing into Bengali song, carrying Yamunacarya's mood of humility across sampradayas into his own 1893 songbook — the same year he published Saranagati, his other major songbook of surrender, making the two close companions in both date and theme. The section stays close to Yamunacarya's own voice throughout: doubt about one's own qualification, hope resting only in the Lord's mercy, comparison of oneself unfavorably to other, more fortunate devotees. Gita-mala's four remaining sections move in a different direction afterward, but this opening one establishes surrender, borrowed here from outside Bhaktivinoda's own immediate lineage, as its foundation.