Krishna Karnamrita is a popular devotional poem dedicated to Sri Krishna. Also known as Krishna Karnamrutham is the work of Leelasuka, who is also known as Krishna Lilasuka and Bilvamangala or Vilvamangala. He belongs to the period before 1300 AD. You can also download the Krishna Karnamrita text in book format in pdf.
Each of the 330 verses in the three cantos of Krishna Karnamrita stands by itself.
The poem as a whole gains unity by its devotional fervor, verbal melody, and sensuous pictorial effect.
The dance of the gopis around Sri Krishna (the Raas Leela) is described with lyrical beauty and ecstatic emotion.
A major example of the poetry of the Bhakti movement, the work advocates the path of devotion (bhakti marga) as the best means of reaching the divine. It asks readers who are tired of traveling incessantly in the forest of Vedanta to search for the meaning of Upanishads in the houses of the gopis and find it personified in Krishna tied to the mortar.
A manuscript containing only the first canto was obtained by the Bengali Avatar Chaitanya (1486 – 1533 AD), during his sojourn in South India. He popularized it in Bengal; subsequently the poem became popular all over India.
In North India, where several regions have claimed Bilvamangala as native of their soil, it is believed that only first canto is his work.
Literary evidence, however, indicates that the poet was from Kerala and the southern tradition has uniformly regarded all the three cantos as forming the original text of the poem.
There are several commentaries on the poem by scholars from all over India.
There are also several anthologies of verses on Krishna Bhakti which, though containing only some verses from Krishna Karnamrita, have been ascribed to Bilvamangala.
If you with to read the book you can download it here - Krishna Karnamrutham Book pdf
Bibliography
- Krisnaliasn Kamnni (1970) by Krishnaliasnkamni – Published by Sree Gandiya Math Kolkata
- The Contribution of Kerala to Sanskrit (1958) by K.K. Raja – Madras University
- Encyclopedia of Hinduism volume VI – page 136 - IHRF