Srimanta Sankardeva and Madhavdeva: Composers, Contributions and the Borgeet Repertoire
What the domain tests
This section asks you to distinguish the roles of Srimanta Sankardeva and Madhavdeva in creating and shaping the Borgeet repertoire, and to avoid treating the whole corpus as the work of one person.
Core contributions
- Sankardeva (traditional dates 1449–1568) founded the Ekasarana Dharma movement in Assam, composed devotional lyrics, and established the institutional and performance forms in which Borgeet is sung. His literary output also includes the Kirtan Ghosha and Ankiya plays.
- Madhavdeva (traditional dates 1489–1596), Sankardeva’s successor, composed Borgeet and the Nam Ghosha, and consolidated the tradition after Sankardeva’s death.
- Traditional attributions assign large shares of the Borgeet corpus to both composers, but exact counts vary across manuscripts and editions. Learn the principle of dual authorship; do not stake an answer on one fixed total.
- Borgeet are often identified by opening line, raga, tala and composer attribution. The song rubric, not guesswork from a single word, is the reliable guide.
Worked example
A lyric addresses “Madhava” and appears in a Sattra songbook. A careless candidate may say the composer is Madhavdeva because the name appears. The safer reasoning is: “Madhava” can be a name of Krishna in devotional address, so check the song’s attribution rubric or colophon before assigning authorship.
Traps that cost marks
- Attributing every Borgeet to Sankardeva.
- Confusing Madhavdeva with the vocative “Madhava.”
- Quoting a single exact count of songs as universal.
- Confusing the Kirtan Ghosha with the Borgeet corpus; they are different kinds of text.
Key points
- Sankardeva founded the movement and shaped its performance institutions.
- Madhavdeva continued and consolidated the Borgeet tradition.
- Authorship is traditionally shared between them.
- Exact song counts vary by source.
- Use rubrics, not vocatives, to decide attribution.