Narendra Jhā’s Bhaktamāl: Paṭhānuśīlan evam Vivecan is a thorough account and critical edition of Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl. Jhā’s detailed study, published in 1978, still provides the best general overview of the Bhaktamāl, engaging closely with the previous literature and carefully weighing the evidence. In addition to treating basic but nonetheless difficult questions of author and date, Jhā positions the Bhaktamāl within Hindi literature and devotional Hinduism. He surveys this text’s extensive commentarial tradition, and he provides a detailed account of Bhaktamāl manuscripts in India. Jhā’s volume culminates in a critical edition of the Nābhādās’s work that attempts to reconstruct the original form of this important but understudied text.
There have not been many book-length studies of the Bhaktamāl, and none of these are in English. Jhā has provided an important service to all subsequent Bhaktamāl scholars by carefully and definitively considering prior debates about the most fundamental elements of the Bhaktamāl and resolving them as far as the evidence allows.
Jhā, Narendra. Bhaktamāl, Pāthānuśīlana evam Vivecan. Patna: Anupam Prakāśan, 1978.
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