text: Odisha has a tradition of writing the Gita Govinda in different forms, like in the form of a manuscript designed to look like a fish, or one that is made as a garland made of small round pieces of palm leaf, used as a portable text for memory. Manuscripts of the Gita Govinda have been written and illustrated in Odisha in large numbers, some of them counting among the finest pieces of Indian art. Dr. Bhagyalipi Malla, curator of the manuscripts section of the Odisha State Museum, writes : An exceptionally large number of Gitagovinda manuscripts are preserved in the Odisha State Museum, numbering two hundred and ten. These include twenty one illustrated, one hundred and eighty non-illustrated and nine manuscripts of various shapes like garland, fish and dagger. Apart from the aforesaid palm leaf manuscripts, there are several versions of the Gitagovinda written in ivory, bamboo leaf and even handmade paper. There are eighteen different commentaries preserved in the museum.
  Even today, traditional craftsmen and scribes come together in Odisha to finely stitch together leaves of the palm at one end for the manuscript to open up and fall like a chart made up of folios, on which the text of the Gita Govinda is written, complete with illustrations.