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52 Translating Medieval Orissaidentified with or in a manner of speaking, ‘possessed’ the languagewere prepared to shift their allegiance to the new powerestablishments.The Muslim rulers also reciprocated by avoidingconfrontation with the Brahmin caste and patronizing Sanskritlanguage for their own legitimacy. Thus, a complex relationshipbetween Sanskrit on the one hand and Persian and Arabic on theother grew during medieval times. Shervani characterizes thisrelationship as non-existence of confrontation, mutual admirationand as a process of assimilation (Shervani 1968: 69-70). However,though there was no direct confrontation between Sanskrit and otherlanguages imported by the Muslim invaders, we would like to arguethat an indirect impact of Islam brought about a change in the statusof Sanskrit as a language. Sanskrit literature, of course, had its usualgrowth in the changed scenario, but the Sanskrit language was nomore the only language of theological and political eminence. Thisdiminution of Sanskrit’s privilege and aura as a language revealedby the gods, resulted in the quick consolidation of regional Prakritlanguages as a vehicle of theological exchange. People’s languagesacquired the authority to confront textual wisdom directly. Thisphenomenon can be compared to preaching by various Bhakti cultsduring that time, which advocated the establishment of theindividual’s direct relationship with god without the mediation of thepriestly class. In this linguistic context, the message of Chaitanya’scult of bhakti converged with the translational enterprise of thePancha Sakha and others in Orissa. For example, after Chaitanyaproclaimed Geeta Govinda as his favorite text, several translationsinto Oriya ensued. Even the literary-erotic significance of the textwas undermined in order to project it as a sacred devotional text ofthe Vaishnavas. Vaishnavism, preached by Chaitanya, was adoptedby several Oriya dynasties, and then many Vaishnav texts weretranslated into Oriya. Texts like Geet Govinda and AdhyatmaRamayana were translated several times. Jagannath Das’s translationof the Bhagavata was canonized as a major text after its adoption bythe Vaishnavites as their sacred book. In a manner of speaking, it