(Vasanta raga) evocative of the amorous sentiment, for Song iii, Radha’s friend’s description of “springtime, the sensual season” when Krishna plays and dances at night in the forest with the cowherd women.

The majority of names of ragas listed by the commentators refer to certain regions of India, presumably the places where the melodies had originated: Bengal, Malwa, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Gondakari, a region in the Eastern Vindhya Mountains. Such designations may well have reflected, or have been intended to promote, a broadening of the geographical appeal of the performed text. Other ragas are referred to as Desi or Desakha, probably indicating folk or local melodies, pastoral tunes or “country music,” to be chosen by the singer. The songs had become popular throughout India by the end of the thirteen century. It is likely that the musical fashions and tastes of the various regions in which they were performed dictated different modes. That there is substantial stylistic and melodic variation in modern performances of the “Gita·govinda” makes it reasonable to suppose that this may have always been the case.

Just as the original melodies of the songs cannot be determined with any certainty, so too the commentarial designations of the rhythms seem conjectural. Neither the ragas nor the talas are indicated in the oldest manuscripts. The most frequently noted rhythmic pattern in the printed editions of the text, designated for about half of the songs, is the “rhythm of pauses” (yati tala). This probably refers to arranging pauses in the music, manipulating tempo and beat, to conform to the meter in which that song had been com- ________