Braj Bhasha is a Western Hindi language historically associated with the Braj region around Mathura and Vrindavan in North India, traditionally revered as the birthplace and childhood home of Krishna, and became the preeminent literary language of Krishna-centered bhakti devotional poetry from roughly the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, a status comparable to Awadhi's role in Rama-centered devotional literature composed in the same broader period and region.
Braj Bhasha belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family and is closely related to, though historically distinct from, modern Hindi, which eventually displaced Braj Bhasha as North India's dominant literary standard from the nineteenth century onward even as Braj retained its specific devotional and poetic prestige within Krishna bhakti circles.
Major Braj Bhasha poets, including Surdas, a blind poet-saint traditionally dated to the sixteenth century whose extensive devotional poetry to Krishna remains foundational to the tradition, established a body of literature still performed and studied today within Vaishnava devotional communities centered on Krishna worship. Braj Bhasha poetry flourished further through the Ashtachhap, a traditional grouping of eight major Krishna-devotional poets associated with the Pushtimarg lineage, whose collective compositions remain a core reference corpus for Braj devotional song performance today.