Vaishnava songs of Other Vaiṣṇava Ācāryas

This chapter gathers seventeen songs and verses too varied in origin to sit under any single author's name, spanning nearly the full range of sources Gaudiya Vaishnavism itself draws on. Some come from the tradition's own poet-theologians — Rupa Gosvami's Radhe Jaya Jaya Madhava Dayite, Jayadeva Gosvami's Pralaya Payodhi Jale from the Gita-govinda, verses by Locana dasa Thakura and Govinda dasa Kaviraja, two of medieval Bengal's most celebrated Vaishnava poets — while others reach further back still, to the Bhagavata Purana itself: a prayer of Bhishma Deva on his deathbed, a hymn of the gopis in separation from Krishna, verses spoken by Brahma. One entry, Kadacit Kalindi-tata-vipina, is credited to Adi Sankaracarya, the eighth-century philosopher usually associated with impersonalist Advaita Vedanta rather than devotional Vaishnavism — its inclusion here reflects a long-standing tradition, common across Gaudiya Vaishnava literature, of finding devotional verse in unexpected corners and setting it to song regardless of its author's own school of thought.