Bhaja Govindam (worship Govinda, a name of Krishna) is a devotional hymn of some thirty-one Sanskrit verses traditionally ascribed to the eighth-century philosopher Shankara, the great systematiser of Advaita Vedanta. Its refrain urges the listener to worship the Lord and, at the approach of death, warns that the rules of grammar he has laboured to learn will not save him, a pointed reminder, addressed by tradition to an aged scholar, that intellectual accomplishment and the accumulation of wealth are worthless beside devotion and the knowledge of God. The verses dwell on the transience of the body, wealth and worldly attachments, and call for detachment, the company of the wise, and single-minded devotion. That so austere a philosopher of non-dualism should be remembered as the author of so fervent a devotional poem is itself significant, expressing the tradition's sense that the highest knowledge and heartfelt devotion converge, and the hymn remains widely sung and beloved across Hindu communities.
According to the traditional account behind the hymn's composition, Shankara and his disciples were passing through Varanasi when they overheard an old scholar reciting Sanskrit grammatical rules, and the verses grew out of that encounter as a rebuke addressed directly to him, though as with much traditional biography of Shankara the story cannot be independently verified. The hymn is sometimes called Moha Mudgara, the hammer that shatters delusion, and its short, singable verses have made it one of the most commonly taught Sanskrit devotional texts in modern Hindu religious education, recited by beginners alongside far longer and more difficult scriptures.