PEARLS - A POEM IN KANNADA

     

Pearls, pearls, here are the pearls!

pearls, pearls, ye people, buy my pearls!

pearls, based on a string of knowledge:

Bhakti alone can buy these pearls.

 

Not to wear on your ears and nose,

Not to hold in your greedy hands,

Nor have the price an end in sight;

Vittal of Purandara

is the name of these pearls.

These were the lines from the poem  PEARLS written by Purandara Dasa in Kannada.  His active life covered the first half of the 16th century. Being a rich merchant in his early life, he became a mendicant, a saint and poet composing Bhakti songs on Vitthala (a manifestation of Visnu), criticising division of cast and class and calling on the mercy of God.

His greatest contribution to Kannada Literature is that at a time  when Sanskrit scholars looked down upon vernacular Litertaure, he demonstrated that despite of  a long established  highly respected tradition, Kannada was eminently suitable for literary compositions of high order.

Furthermore, employing colloqualism from the common man's spoken dialects, he showed that the vitality of  a language lies in the  actual, day to day uses of its speaker; not in the formulaic and uninspiring compositions in artificiality of the royal court and religious institutions.

Through out the state of Karnataka even illiterate people quote and recite lines from his verses without knowing the name of the  composer. 

While his contribution to both Kannada language and literature are great by nay estimate, it is also an accepted fact that Purandaradas has enriched the classical Karnataka style of music. His padas and Kirtanas are landmark in Karnataka music.

(This blogpost is a part of BlogChatter's HALF -MARATHON 2023)