JAYADEVA (late twelfth century?) was an Indian poet-saint who composed the dramatic lyrical poem Gītagovinda. Dedicated to the god Kṛṣṇa, the poem concentrates on Kṛṣṇa's love with the cowherdess Rādhā during a rite of spring. To express the complexities of divine and human love, Jayadeva uses the metaphor of intense earthly passion. The religious eroticism of the Gītagovinda earned sainthood for the poet and a wide audience for his poem.

There are conflicting traditions about Jayadeva's place of birth and region of poetic activity. Modern scholars of Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar have claimed him for their regions, but the most convincing evidence associates him with the Jagannātha cult of Puri in the latter half of the twelfth century. Although the poem originated in eastern India and remains most popular there, it spread throughout the Indian subcontinent in the centuries following its composition...