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34 Translating Medieval OrissaGita Gobinda and Adhyatma Ramayana. At least one differencebetween Valmiki’s text and Balaram’s which needs an elaborateanalysis for purposes of this essay is the fact that Balaram’s text isextremely indulgent while describing the sensuous details. Forexample in the tale of Rusyasringa, Balaram inserts eighty-fivecouplets to describe the history of his birth, which are not found inValmiki. These eighty-five couplets are replete with eroticdescriptions following the ornate Sanskrit poetry tradition. The echoof Sarala’s grotesque imagination can also be heard whenRusyasringa is half-man and half-deer with horns on his head.Balaram’s translation is ultimately a delicate balance between theerotic and the devotional, between the elite tradition of Sanskrit andsubaltern Oriya ethos and between translation as subversion andtranslation as dissemination.Srimad Bhagabad Gita, which belongs to the later phase ofBalaram’s literary career, is a continuation of that delicate balanceand also an advance upon it. It is an advance in the sense that this isfor the first time that a sacred philosophical text of very greatimportance incorporating the essence of Brahminic ideology is beingrendered in the Oriya language. Because of the philosophicallyintricate nature of its discourse, which is not easily accessible tonon-Brahminic castes, Sarala had refrained from incorporating thistext, although it is commonly perceived as a part of the “BhismaParva” of the Sanskrit Mahabharata. For, Balaram too, theknowledge of Gita is “Brahma Gyana” meant exclusively for theBrahmins.However, with the advent of another order of knowledgedominated by Bhakti, or love in which the caste-hierarchies areleveled down by the extent of one’s devotion, the knowledge of Gitabecomes accessible to the real devotees irrespective of their castes.This ideology of devotion is a justification for a Sudra like Balaram,not only to access this privileged knowledge, but to disseminate itamong the devotees of Lord Jagannath, one of whose incarnationsKrishna the original preacher of Gita was. In order to provide this