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Home , Dasa sahitya, Haridasa, Kannada literature

Dāsa Sāhitya: Some Notes on Early Publications, Commentaries and Concerns1

Abstract: Dāsa Sāhitya is a literary genre in , beginning to be seen from the late- fifteenth century. Making its mark both in literature and in , Dāsa Sāhitya attracted the attention of missionaries and other colonial functionaries and was one of the first genres to be edited and published in Kannada in the mid-nineteenth century. Very soon, the native editors and publishers started working on the genre. Usually classified under literature as part of modern , Dāsa Sāhitya got published by individuals of varying interests. This essay makes a survey of some of the early publications of the genre and attempts to segregate varying concerns and interests within what may be broadly and sometimes, urgently termed as either ‘colonial’ or ‘nationalist’, even as it makes certain interesting observations on the changing phase of the literary culture: from manuscript to print.

Key Words: Dāsa Sāhitya, Dāsa, Pada, Kannada, literature, print

Dāsa Sāhitya in Kannada seems to be a post late-fifteenth century phenomenon. It is largely perceived as Vaiṣṇava and Mādhva literature, eulogizing Puraṇic gods in the Vaiṣṇava pantheon and is considered part of Bhakti literature in Kannada. Travelling singers of medieval who had a presence from Rajasthan in the north to north in the south; Iyal and Isai traditions of Tamil and the Vārakarī tradition of seem to have had the foundational impacts on the Dāsa Sāhitya tradition apart from its own indigenous Kannada roots. Purandaradāsa, Kanakadāsa, Vijayadāsa, and Jagannathadāsa have been

1 I remain thankful for the comments and feedback during the presentation of this paper at the Conference, “Translating Oral/folk texts from Indian Languages into English” held in EFLU, Hyderabad, in March 2014. I am also thankful to the Charles Wallace India Trust for a short fellowship sponsoring my short research at the British Library, , which allowed me to use certain materials to bring this paper to a further shape.

1 some of the canonized Dāsas in a line of tradition that runs almost for about five centuries. Pada is the genre that mostly constitutes Dāsa Sāhitya, though there were other, less popular genres such as Ugābhōga, Suḷādi, Muṇḍige, etc. Pada is also a song. Therefore it was meant to be sung and was amenable to be sung. These genres have been institutionalized in the modern period as part of Kannada literature. An early literary historian of Kannada, R. Narasimhacharya, who famously called Kannada literature as Trivēṇī Saṅgama: a confluence of three literary rivers of , Jainas and Vīraśaivas, considers Dāsa Sāhitya as literature (Narasimhacharya 1973).2 Dāsa Sāhitya is also a part of Indian classical music, mostly among south Indian musicians. A large corpus of Dāsa Sāhitya comes down to us mostly through oral tradition and some manuscripts that are reinforced in the modern period by umpteen numbers of print publications. Certain backward communities too passed on this corpus through oral tradition. Both manuscripts retrieved from households and songs collected from oral tradition contributed to the printed corpus of Dāsa Sāhitya.3 (There were occasions when a few publications almost relied upon oral versions.) In the introductory notes to these publications, though such notes appear scantily, we could see the editors and publishers brimming with enthusiasm to place the genre before the readership. Nevertheless, it can be seen that the impulses of, motivations for and concerns about the publication of Dāsa Sāhitya were quite heterogeneous with editors and publishers (sometimes, the roles of an editor and a publisher combined in one) of dissimilar nature taking up the task. In this paper, we shall look into the enterprise of publishing Dāsa Sāhitya and the related literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and make a study of the different concerns

2 Narasimhacharya says that the volume dealt with a total of 350 poets, of whom one hundred and sixty were Vīrśaivas, seventy-five were Jainas, sixty were Brahmanas and others were from other religions (Narasimhacharya 1973: 19). 3 However, it is hard to know the sources of the early editors/publishers. Introduction to some later publications speak of the method of collecting their resources from manuscripts as well as through oral tradition – both from Brahmin households or Brahmin individuals. For example, see introduction to Guru Rao 1927, Guru Rao 1943 and Sharma and Hucchurao Bengeri 1965.

2 embedded in the enterprise. This is to say that there were multifarious responses by the editors and publishers of Dāsa Sāhitya to their materials which should help us in guarding ourselves from collapsing early responses to Dāsa Sāhitya – and in turn, to Bhakti literature – into monolithic categories of ‘colonial’ or ‘nationalist’ ones. In the publication of Dāsa Sāhitya, Basel Mission4 was undoubtedly the pioneering institution. Hermann Moegling, one of the first missionaries working with the Basel Mission, collected a good number of Padas and translated several of them to German. Gottfried Weigle, a brother of Moegling and also a missionary with the Basel Mission, too was interested in Dāsa Sāhitya and translated a few of them. In 1846 he wrote an essay on ‘Kanarese Literature’, where the first ever commentary on Dāsas and their Padas appears. Apparently, these comments were based on the collection of Padas by Moegling:

The authors of these poems are called Dasas (bound to a deity); many of them were people from lower castes who could only work themselves out of the pressure of the circumstances, under which they were born, through their outstanding talent as poets. Their poems are purely folkloric and not without some striking and very sharp comments about the hypocrisy of the nature of Brahmins and the other foolishness of the prejudiced world’s hustle and bustle. At the same time, these poems often reveal a noble longing for something better, being above the transitoriness and triviality of this world, but then of course are always calmed down by fleeing back to one god, to whom the poet is bound (Weigle 1997: 268-291).5

Written in May 1846, the essay was published only in 1848 in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesselschaft (Journal of the German Oriental Society), a German journal on the Orient that had just begun in 1847. The important remarks he makes about the Padas are

4 A pietistic protestant missionary group from Basel, which started work in Mangalore in 1835. 5 Written in May 1846, but published first in 1848 in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesselschaft (Journal of the German Oriental Society), Vol. II, Leipzig 1848, pp. 257-284.

3 that they are ‘folkloric’ and that they came from people of ‘lower castes’. He read the Padas critiquing the Brahmins, being antithetical to them. Almost a century later, in 1937, a renowned litterateur of Kannada, Masti Venkatesha Iyengar6says that the Dāsa tradition must have appealed to ‘a great mass of people’, for whom ‘change seemed desirable, but who were not prepared to leave the pale of orthodoxy for getting it’ (Iyengar 1937: 73-74). It is interesting to note that what has been termed by Weigle as ‘folkloric’ and as belonging to the ‘lower castes’7 should get associated with the ‘pale of orthodoxy’ – connoting the upper caste affiliation – in the commentary of a Kannada elite like Iyengar, suggesting almost a binary-like distance in their standpoints. If Weigle’s work called for more homework and research, Iyengar’s term hinted at the modern identity politics that yearned to appropriate the genre. Weigle had no native audience to strike a conversation with and shared his notes on Kannada literature with the German audience.

In 1850, the Basel Mission Press in Mangalore published the first collection of Dāsa Sāhitya, which was titled Dasara Padagalu.8 Hermann Moegling brought this out in lithograph. Except the place and date of publication, no other piece of information or any note accompanies this collection. It consists of one hundred Padas of different Dāsas and the longish poem of Kanakadāsa, Bhaktisāra also called Haribhaktisāra sometimes. These were published as part of a series of publication titled Bibliotheca Carnatica, which included some works that later came to be known as classics as institutionalization of literature

6 Iyengar began as a civil servant in Mysore state; later he came to be known as the ‘father of short stories’ in Kannada and subsequently awarded the , the highest literary award in India. 7 Weigle was speaking about Kanakadāsa, Purandaradāsa, Vijayadāsa, Vaikuṇṭhadāsa, and Raṅgavallidāsa. Iyengar was basically speaking about Purandaradāsa. As per the contemporary knowledge, only Kanakadāsa among these belonged to ‘lower caste’. 8 William Jackson completely misses on the Basel Mission publication of Purandaradāsa’s Padas as he briefly documents the publications of Purandaradāsa’s Padas in the modern period. See Jackson 1998: 76-77

4 consolidated. He published a second edition of the collection with 174 Padas in 1852. The first hundred Padas in the second edition are the ones that got published in the first volume and the rest seventy four are the newly published ones.9 Each Pada is designated a particular rāga and tāḷa in which to sing it.10 It emulates the first edition in being largely non-informative on the processes of editing and publishing the materials in concern.

Hermann Moegling too, seeks German audience for a discussion on the materials he collects in Karnataka. Moegling published twenty-four Padas of Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa and translations of twelve of them in two articles, with a gap of four years – the first in 1860 and the second, in 1864 (Moegling 1860 & 1864). They were published in the same periodical, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesselschaft, wherein the above work of his brother Weigle too got published. Moegling titles his essay as “Songs of the Kannada Musicians”, ascertaining from his perspective that Purandara and Kanaka were more of musicians than mendicant-poets or Dāsas. In the first article, Moegling writes a small introductory essay on Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa. This is followed by German translations of twelve Padas. There is no commentary on translation. The second article begins with twelve Padas in Kannada, whose translation appeared in the earlier part. The meaning of the first Pada is explained phrase by phrase. This is followed by twelve more German translations, whose Kannada version is not published. What is interesting about Moegling’s article is that it is one of the first narratives available about any Dāsa and sets a trend among the later publishers. The stories are of the Dāsas’ renunciation of the worldly life and taking up Dāsa-hood.11 Later, many times the life-

9 It is possible that he had a bigger unpublished collection of works. He made a distinction between collection and publication. Whereas publication was important, collection also had its own merit (Srinivasamurthy 2006). 10 Rāga is a melodic structure with definite movements of sound patterns or phrases. Tāḷa is the rhythmic meter. Both these are terms of Indian classical music. 11 Renunciation required giving up one’s family, seeking alms and living a secluded life. Renunciation assumes fuller form in post eleventh century Vaiṣṇavism with monks in seclusion

5 stories or rather the hagiographies of Dāsas would be told and retold (in the volumes of Padas or otherwise) so that the ordinary men and women in a twentieth-century-modernity, practice and inculcate the ideals of renunciation enunciated by them.12 However, Moegling’s narrative of Purandaradāsa’s renunciation of the material world and becoming a Dāsa has a few things which are never ever repeated in any other narrative on Purandaradāsa. Moegling says as Purandara renounces his worldly riches he moves with his wife for a pilgrimage. His renunciation story spreads so much that Vyāsarāya, a renowned and powerful monk of , commands the King Kṛṣṇa [dēva] Rāya to dispatch a convoy of a thousand Brahmins to receive the Purandara couple for a royal felicitation and feeding ceremony.13 This passage is important not just because it is missing in other narratives usually discussed but more because it hints at a patronage system and a literary culture existing in sixteenth century Deccan in relation to a particular language. Purandara who renounces the worldly riches as a Dāsa, in fact comes closer to worldly powers of an emperor. It also takes us into a world of literary patronage and appropriation of literary powers by the political power.14

from worldly affairs observing certain rules and regulations (Thapar 1978: 82). But Dāsas did not give up family life. Going by what their lyrics suggest, they did not give up social life. But they did borrow from the principles of renunciation such as being wanderers (or wandering singers) and alms seekers. 12 The people who enunciated these values as writers and publishers were upper-caste males in almost all cases. Such an exercise in the beginning of the twentieth century deployed mechanisms to target-prescribing these values to backward communities, while upper-caste community reaped the benefits of the modernity. For more on this, see Shashikantha 2008. 13 I am thankful to Varadaraja Nayak and I.R. Rao for helping me out with the translation of this account. 14 Rao reasons out why the King Kṛṣṇadēvarāya, who is a contemporary of Purandaradāsa, extolled Telugu (and thereby gave more importance to it) in one of his essays. He says it was possible to contain the non-Brahmin Telugu land lords by doing so, who were a threat otherwise (Narayana Rao 1995). Apparently he did not perceive such threat from the Kannada side. Some critics in Kannada are surprised as to why there was not much Kannada literature

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Moegling goes on to say that Purandaradāsa composed about ten thousand Padas (which again is a figure not repeated in any of the later sources), which is a realistic figure compared to the hagiographic claims of him having composed four hundred and seventy five thousand Padas. Also, the fact that Moegling’s narrative elements never entered the Kannadiga’s realm could mean that the enterprise of building the icon of Purandaradāsa in the twentieth century Karnataka context has kept certain ‘unsavory’ stories deliberately out and entertained only hagiographic ones to exist.15

The non-informative character of Moegling’s Kannada publication was probably limited to Kannada. This was because his motive was to throw a lot of materials – and only materials – to the disposal of the language students, who at that juncture, basically constituted missionaries and British officials. In a letter to one Casamajor, a retired British judge, a supporter of the Basel Mission and a sponsor of Bibliotheca Carnatica, he says, ‘the lithographing would enhance a great advantage to every person engaged in the study of Canarese’ (quoted in Srinivasamurthy 2006).16 On these lines, it appears that Moegling had a different set of audience when it came to discussing his editorial practices. He also tells Casamajor that he ‘could collect a good number of Canarese works here, in the produced during Kṛṣṇadēvarāya’s period (for example, Nagaraj 2004). The point, perhaps, is that Kṛṣṇadevarāya saw the need politically and extended a different sort of patronage to a different set of mendicant poets or Dāsas such as Purandaradāsa, Kanakadāsa, Vyāsarāya, Vādirāja, etc., whose body of works may not be considered ‘classical’ in the contemporary Kannada scene. From other sources we come to know that the three sons of Purandaradāsa get large tracts of land as Dāna from Vyāsarāya, as per the Kamalapur Plates of Kṛṣṇadevarāya, of 1526 AD (Epigraphia Indica 1955). 15 For a discussion on how the challenge of history on Purandaradāsa was tackled by certain Kannada elites and how the icon of Purandaradāsa was constructed in the twentieth century, see Shashikantha 2006. 16 In the span of 6 months in 1848 and 1849, Moegling and Casamajor exchanged twenty seven letters about different aspects of editorial practices. Fragmented excerpts are available in Srinivasamurthy 2006.

7 neighborhood, in the southern Maratta country, in Mysore, , Bellary if I had the money to pay for them’ (Ibid.). The informants, the intermediaries, the individuals who contributed in meaning-making while dealing with the manuscripts do not figure here too. It was important information of money matters for a sponsor. However, paying for manuscripts seems to be a common practice in this early period of publication. A century earlier, the Danish missionary Bartholomew Ziegenbalg says, ‘I have often sent some Malabarick Writers a great way into the Country, in order to buy up Malabarian Books from the Widows of the deceased …. I do what I can to get ‘em at any rate, that so I may be able to unravel the better, the Mysteries and fundamental Principles of the Idolatrous Religion’ (Ziegenbalg quoted in Gupta and Chakravorty 2004: 9).

In 1873, a commentary on Dāsa Sāhitya appeared in Indian Antiquary. It was published by , also of the Basel Mission. This commentary was based on Moegling’s collection of Padas. If Weigle called Dāsa Sāhitya ‘folkloric’ and the creation of people of ‘lower castes’, Kittel identified the ‘sectarian’ element in the genre but never used the word ‘folklore’ to refer to it. He points out these ‘sectarian’ sections of verses which condemn other sects such as the followers of Śankara, the ‘Lingāitas’ and the Śrivaiṣṇavas in the verses of Dāsas such as Madhvadāsa, Vādirāja (Kittel identifies him as Hayavadana), Viṭhaladāsa, Varāha Timmappadāsa, Vijayadāsa, Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa, by quoting them. He quotes Vijayadāsa as saying ‘The good luck of all the Dāsas is to be born as Brahmans, to be instructed in the doctrine of Madhva’. It is also quite clear that Kittel does not share the idea of Weigle that the Dāsas were of ‘lower caste’, except in the case of Kanakadāsa, whom Kittel identifies as Beda or of the hunter community. Kittel says ‘sectarianism has been a great, probably the great, agent in the Karnataka Dāsa movement.’ Kittel briefly mentions certain other aspects of Dāsa Sāhitya. The word ‘popular’ had been first used by Kittel in relation to Dāsa Sāhitya, before Masti: ‘The language of most of the Kanarese songs is simple and popular; I have only met with some four or five Hindustani words. Many songs, however, are rather unpolished.’ (Kittel 1873). At another place, Kittel also points out that a Pada had already become part of a text book, however in ‘-translation’. He says it was the first

8 item in that school book (Kittel 1874). Kittel wanted compositions to be prepared for the Indian Christian youth on lines of Padas. Later, a few publications also appeared from the Basel Mission Press eulogizing the Christ in the genre of Padas.17 However, the Basel Mission headquarters was not pleased with this and thought that these songs would push the Indians from their Christian life back to their original ways. Therefore, such efforts were not very fruitful.18

Kittel’s study seems to be more fine-tuned compared to that of Weigle in terms of observing communities of people in India. Whereas Weigle saw the binaries of lower castes and upper castes, in the composition of Dāsa Sāhitya, Kittel recognized a division among the upper castes themselves in terms of sectarianism. It could be also noted that Weigle and Kittel were a generation apart from each other. Moreover, Kittel was considered to be a scholar missionary, who was more into the nuances of the secular study. The implication was that this made him less zealous about proselytization per se and thereby, a missionary of a lesser rank. This is the reason why Kittel was less known in his lifetime than he is in the contemporary world. Though Moegling too spent a lot of time in academic pursuits, he was equally busy with spreading the word of God (Wendt 2006). As an implication, their treatment of the subjects (such as Dāsa Sāhitya) was not uniform.

17 For example, Krista Dasara Padagalu (A Garland of Canarese Christian Lyrics), of which the 5th edition was published in 1932 in Mangalore by the Basel Mission Book and Tract Depository. This book suggested a rāga and a tāḷa for each of the songs on lines of the Dāsa Sāhitya collection by Moegling. The Tract and School Book Society had brought out an early version of Christian songs to be sung like Dāsa’s Padas as early as 1869. This too, had the same arrangement of a song specified with a rāga and a tāḷa. There were totally 26 songs in this book (The Tract and School Book Society 1869). 18 Kittel proposed during 1870 that Christian songs be sung using the local melodies and using the local instruments. But the Committee which examined this proposal at Basel felt that they had to protect the Christian communities in India from ‘secularisation and contamination’ (Wendt 2006).

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Around the same time (1860s), Wesleyan Missionary Church was also active in Bangalore. They published a monthly periodical The Harvest Field. The periodical was published from 1860 to 1868. In that span, there were four pieces on Dāsa Sāhitya in that periodical, all under the title “Popular Canarese Songs”. Not all pieces were articles. The first carried a couple of paragraphs of general commentary on Padas and then printed five songs in translation. Most of the Padas are by Purandaradāsa. The information as to who wrote the commentary and who translated the Padas is missing. There are occasional explanations for the (translated) words and phrases in the Padas. The paragraphs in the introduction say:

As in other heathen nations, so in India there have been many able satirists who have freely exposed the hypocrisy and immoral practices of mere professors of religion; have condemned idolatry with unsparing severity; have taught spiritual worship of the Supreme; and given many admirable maxims for regulating the life. Their works abound with the most striking representations of the vanity of earthly things. And their hymns, ballads, songs or whatever else we may call these multifarious compositions, are the most popular of all Hindu writings. They are sung chiefly by professional mendicants who beg from door to door and from town to town, accompanying their voices by the monotonous sound of a species of guitar. They are frequently surrounded by crowds who listen with rapturous delight, although their worship, creed, pursuits and conduct are lashed without mercy (Anonymous 1862).

Thus, the Dāsas have been called the satirists rather than poets, who expose the hypocrisies of common life and condemn idolatry, etc. The paragraph also uses the word ‘Hindu’ to refer to the religion that these works belonged to. The author seems to identify a lot of ‘missionary’ potential with the observation that the crowds listened ‘with rapturous delight’ their own religion being ‘lashed without mercy’. In the second piece, we have a small paragraph on the futility of taking holy bath in river Kāvēri or Ganges which is followed by translations of three Padas with the same theme (Anonymous 1863a). Third one, published in the same volume, criticizes the mentality of people to sign off to destiny; the first song deals with this theme.

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There are totally six songs in translation on different themes (Anonymous 1863b). The last one published in 1866, however, specifies the translator: Rev. J. Greenwood, though he speaks neither about the translation, nor about the Padas (Greenwood 1866).

There were also a few stray, less sustained efforts in publishing Padas. For example, Illustrated Canarese Journal published twice a month for the Bombay Vernacular Society from Mangalore, published a Pada in its first number of the first volume in 1862, under the title “Dasara Padagalu” (7). There was no commentary. In 1870, Rev. J. Stephenson published about twenty-five Padas in a book titled Someshwara Shatakavoo, Dasara Padagaloo. The first part of the book deals with Sōmēśwara Śataka, a fifteenth century work in Kannada by Puligere Sōmanātha. The second part consisting of the Padas, again, is a reproduction from Moegling’s collection, without any observatory note (Stephenson 1870).

Slowly, the publication of Dāsa Sāhitya was taken up by the natives. In 1868, Jnanasagara Press in Dharwar published the compositions of Purandaradāsa with the title, Purandaradasara Padagalu. In 1871, Holekallu Narasimhayya edited and published what was earlier published by Moegling, The Dasara Padagalu. As in Moegling’s edition, the rāga and tāḷa was specified for each song but there was no commentary, nor any introduction. The edition only said that the book was being published on the order of J. Garret, Director, Mysore Government (Narasimhayya 1871). In 1873 and 1879, Kanakadāsa’s Bhaktisāra and Viṣṇubhaktisāra were published from Bangalore and Madras respectively. In 1888, Vicharadarpana press in Bangalore published Naḷacarita of Kanakadāsa (Keshavan: 173-175). The earliest versions and publications of Dāsa Sāhitya were quite enthused about the fact that the Padas were getting printed and were going to be available to a large number of people. Hence, they confided to the reader, the difficulty of editing and printing. For example, Madakashira Balakrishna Rao, editor of the first book of Padas to be printed in the Telugu script, says that the book has been ‘edited with great difficulty’, by getting the songs scrutinized by scholars since hitherto there has not been any collection of Padas in the

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Telugu script (Balakrishna Rao: Preface).19 Another early publication of Padas was by Abaji Ramachandra Savantha (published in four parts between 1880 and 1894) from Belgaum. In this, he urges the reader to go through the work of nine Dāsas collected in that book for the sake of religious or spiritual realization (Savantha: Introduction). The editors seem to prompt that spiritual realization is now one step nearer because of the necessary material easily made available to the readers. Both the publications expect a sense of gratitude from the reader/devotee because of the difficult task accomplished by the editors. Ramachandra Savantha published Dāsa Sāhitya in Dēvanāgari script because of the popularity of Marathi in the northern parts of Karnataka. Betageri Krishna Sharma, a Kannada litterateur, says that he knew how to read Marathi (Devanagari) because he used to read the Padas of Dāsas printed in Marathi published from Belgaum (Krishna Sharma: 231). Printing of Kannada Dāsa Sāhitya in Telugu and/or Dēvanāgari script was a tail-end continuation of the rich manuscript literary culture, which was of course, going to end soon.20

The above two instances of publications, those of Balakrishna Rao and Ramachandra Savantha, suggest that there must have been a considerable number of Brahmins who knew Kannada but could only read either Marathi or Telugu (since it was them who were early publishers of Dāsa Sāhitya). In the northern parts of Karnataka, most of the administrative work was done in Marathi from the time of the Peshvas. Hence, Brahmins who were mostly in the job of administration, used to prioritize Marathi over Kannada. Thus, though they knew to speak Kannada, the script was of no use to them. Those who did not know suffered great difficulties in administration. Betageri Krishna Sharma narrates his inability to communicate properly in Marathi and thereby the difficulties he had to face during his early job in the Municipality. Most Brahmin families would make their wards learn Marathi since it

19 The first book he edited was Puarandaradasuluvaru Padina Kirtanalu, published in 1894. The above reference, however, appears in his second book listed here in ‘References’. 20 Krishna Sharma and Hucchurao speak about the Dāsa Sāhitya manuscripts in Kannada, Telugu, Devanagari and Modi scripts, which gave them materials for their edition of Kanakadāsa’s Padas. See Krishna Sharma and Hucchurao, 1965: 213-218.

12 would open up future prospects. The early orientation to the Dāsa ‘literature’ in Kannada urged a nascent nationalism among these Brahmin elites such as Krishna Sharma to take up the work of Kannada, which was further kindled by people like Alur Venkata Rao.21 Both these further made efforts to popularize Dāsa Sāhitya as part of the Kannada nationalist project in Karnataka.22

Dāsa Sāhitya was considered to be the distillation of Madhva philosophy. In Kannada, there was a saying ‘Sudha odi Pada helu’ (Keshava Dāsa: 6). This meant that one should sing (i.e. write or create) a Pada, after reading Sudhā (Śrīmannyāyasudha of Madhvācharya), which was regarded as the essential philosophy of Madhvācharya. This is to insist that a Dāsa should know Mādhva philosophy thoroughly. Early Kannada nationalist Alur Venkata Rao put in a lot of effort to collect Dāsa Sāhitya and publish it. In one of the meetings of Madhva Siddhānta Pracāriṇi Sabhā (of which he was an active member) of Poona in 1914, there was a resolution to collect, edit and publish the Padas of Dāsas.23 The literature was collected, but because of financial crunch, he was unable to publish it. Even in his works, Venkata Rao quotes certain lines from the Padas as guidelines for his life (Venkata Rao 1974).

Except for the above publications of Dāsa Sāhitya in the late nineteenth century, sustainable activity in its publication began only in the 1920s. We can see considerable amount of work related to Dāsa Sāhitya published during this time. On the one hand, some Dāsas who continued in the tradition of Dāsa, composed more lyrics and on the other hand, some of the Madhva Brahmin elites took up the task of printing, publishing, interpreting and

21 M.M. Kalburgi makes a caustic remark that Brahmins have been shrewd enough to learn Marathi as Peshwas administered; then to learn English, as it became the administrative language and finally to go back to Kannada, when Kannada nationalism arose. His argument is that they had a utilitarian relationship with all languages except (Kalburgi 1988: 622-623) 22 The four districts of north Karnataka in the early Karnataka state: Belgaum, Bijapur, Dharwar and . Now, they are further divided into smaller districts. 23 It is curious to note that he uses the word Jīrṇōddhara (reconstruction and revival) for these works (Venkata Rao 1974: 257).

13 popularizing the literature, mainly that of Purandaradāsa, Kanakadāsa, Jagannāthadāsa, etc. Natives from three important places, of what was to be Karnataka later, published Dāsa Sāhitya. They were Pavanje Guru Rao of , Gorebalu Hanumantha Rao of Raichur and Subodha Rao of Bangalore. These three stand out among native publishers of Dāsa Sāhitya because they had a large and sustained frequency of publication. Pavanje Guru Rao (1869-1948) of Udupi brought out Dāsa Sāhitya in print for the first time as edited and scrutinized versions. Though he was from an orthodox Brahmin family, he got English education in Trivandrum by late nineteenth century and subsequently became a Gandhian nationalist. He tried several vocations and failed in them. After facing certain difficulties in his family life, he embarked on the enterprise of publishing Dāsa Sāhitya. In those times, when Dāsa Sāhitya was hardly available in the market for those who wanted to buy it, Guru Rao’s enterprise came as a boon. Even for him, the collection of Dāsa Sāhitya was a herculean task. The Padas and other genres of Dāsa Sāhitya were heard in abundance in Udupi because of Brahmin pilgrims coming to the Kṛṣṇa temple therein, from various parts of Karnataka. Such pilgrims, especially women, had a tough time because of their inability to cope with their orthodox ways in a strange place. Such families found refuge frequently in private households around Kṛṣṇa temple in Udupi. The house of Guru Rao was one such household because of the congenial atmosphere they found there. The women who were hosted in Guru Rao’s house, readily agreed to part with their repertoire of songs and Guru Rao’s daughters noted down the songs from them. Famous singers such as Bai and popular Harikathā performers such as Bēlūru Kēśavadāsa, Gōvindadāsa, Haṇḍe Śrīpādadāsa and Gundacharya spent their days in the residence of Guru Rao, whenever they came to Udupi (Srinivasa Rao n.d.: 31-32). He also got editorial help from such visitors.

Meanwhile, in Raichur, a lawyer called Gorebalu Hanumantha Rao (1893-1969) undertook the enterprise of the publication of Dāsa Sāhitya from his place. He started publishing Dāsa Sāhitya from 1926 and his publications continued till his death in 1969. He faced difficulties in publishing for a different reason – the very nature of print and publication in early twentieth century. According to him, the multiple copies of print would go out of

14 control and the sacredness attached to them would be lost. This was also the argument of some relatives of Prāṇēśadāsa (of the nineteenth century), when Hanumantha Rao wanted to publish the latter’s Padas. Till then, the family of Prāṇēśadāsa considered his literature as its own asset and could maintain the manuscripts with sanctity. For them, print posed a possible threat, the threat of ‘knowledge getting lost on the streets’ (Srinivasa Rao n.d.: 24). However, Hanumantha Rao could convince the family that only those who really knew the worth of the publication would buy the printed version and thus he got it published. Hanumatha Rao also faced problems in marketing his new product. There were occasions when he marketed his publications carrying them physically from place to place (Ibid: 2-3).24

In fact, the notions of purity and pollution were closely associated with print in its early days. Since many texts that first got published were closely linked to religion or rituals, the practitioners were apprehensive that the closely guarded knowledge would go out of control. This seems to be true for the whole of the sub-continent. The very influential Tamil treatise, Sivagnāna Bāśyam, was allegedly kept under lock and away from print because of the fear that ‘it could fall into the hands of the uninitiated’ (Venkatachalapathy 2012: 3). There were also other concerns of purity regarding the properties in the ink used for print among readers (Gupta and Chakravorty 2004: 11-12). The publishers were also equally shrewd in pre- empting this fear and advertising towards annulling the same (Ibid).

Another problem with print and multiple copies would be the difficulty to ascertain if one has paid for the copy or not. Therefore, the copy which was sold was made to have the sign of the author. In 1875, One Anantaramayya edited a book titled Udayaragagalu. It was published by four individuals in Bangalore. More than half the book was Dāsas’ Padas. There were other songs as well. There was a warning statement which said ‘[i]f someone purchases this book without the seal of Velanadu B. Subaiyya [one of the publishers], they would be accused of theft’ (Anantharamayya 1875). This was how Gururāma Viṭhala Subrahmaṇya Dāsa

24 The book referred, Dasa Sahitya Pravartakaru of Srinivasa Rao, speaks about three early publishers of Dāsa Sāhitya. Each section starts with page no.1

15 resolved the issue as well, when he came up with his own Padas. In the initial pages, after the publication details, it is stated ‘One who purchases these books without the sign and seal of the author would be accused of theft.’ He gave away the copy right to one Jagadishavithala Narayanadāsa in this case (Subrahmaṇyadāsa 1905). Therefore, the sign of Nārāyaṇadāsa was required on each of the sold books. The compositions are quite distinct since they carry the sign of maṭṭu in which to be sung.25 Maṭṭus are melodic structures which remain as common templates, but could be applied to different songs. In the early missionary publications, one never saw such expressions, though the rāgas are specified. It is a curious fact as to why they should be mentioned only in later publications.26

In Bangalore, a famous personality called Subodha Rama Rao published not only Dāsa Sāhitya, but also other works related to Mādhva philosophy. However, it was in the field of Dāsa Sāhitya that Subodha performed unprecedented work inside the of Mysore. Under the series, Kirtana Tarangini, which started getting published in 1925, he published the literature of Purandaradāsa, Kanakadāsa, Jagannāthadāsa, Vijayadāsa, Vādirāja, Śrīpādarāja, Vyāsarāya, Mōhanadāsa, Gōpāladāsa, etc. Subodha published other books of Dāsa Sāhitya too, such as Harikathāmṛtasāra, and Padas of Purandaradāsa (Sheshagiri Rao 1989: 63). He also saw to it that his publications were recommended for the school libraries in the Mysore state. Haridasa Kirtana Tarangini was approved by the Director of Public Instruction in Mysore and was recommended for ‘all Kannada Primary, Middle, Normal and High school libraries’ in 1926.27 Overall, his works were seen as educating the

25 Certain Padas however, carry the name of rāga and tāḷa instead of maṭṭu. 26 A lot of drama scripts, which during the turn of the century had a lot of songs in them, used to specify maṭṭu. So, it could be a practice carried from one field to another. But more work needs to be done on this, as well as the manuscript culture of this time, in general. 27 On the back cover of almost every other Subodha, a periodical published by him (giving a prefix to his name), there were advertisements of both Haridasa Kirtana Tarangini and Subodha Kusumanjali Granthamala. Along with that the recommendation of the Director of Public Instruction also appeared. Regarding Subodha Kusumanjali, the advertisement said there is no

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Kannada masses. A magazine said in 1967, ‘What W.T. Stead did for the education of the masses in England and what G.A. Nateshan did to educate the English speaking Indians, Subodha Rama Rao did for the education of the Kannadiga children and masses’ (Srinivasa Rao n.d.: 17). With all these enterprises towards printing and publishing, both by missionaries as well as natives, Dāsa Sāhitya was firmly on its way to being established as ‘literature’ among the literati.28

Conclusion

Thus, we see the concerns and perspectives to be very different from each other irrespective of whether one is a missionary or a native. From among the missionaries, we have individuals who would look at Dāsas as belonging to ‘lower castes’, and Dāsa Sāhitya as constituting ‘folk literature’ and on the other hand, we have individuals who would look at it as ‘sectarian literature’. Yet another perspective among the missionaries is to look at it as being representative of the hypocritical practices of the heathens. Such a missionary as Moegling does not make any comment on the caste or sect of the Dāsas but has a larger comment to make about the literary culture or patronage. Similarly among native publishers, we see publishers who are the pioneers and are enthused to take Dāsa Sāhitya to an unknown audience for the first time; and those who are vary of such an audience who might steal such knowledge. The third category among natives would be that of publishers who would exploit the pan-Karnataka nature of Dāsa Sāhitya for the Kannada nationalist purposes. However, all these, would constitute the ‘Brahmin literature’ component of the Kannada literature (as pointed out by R. Narasimhacharya) in the wake of the twentieth century. Yet, it is our caution other good Kannada book available in such a cheap price, which the parents can use to induce patriotism and religious pride (Dharmābhimāna) in their children. Subodha was also a nationalist and a Congress man. 28 Meanwhile, Padas also enter the music concert format thanks to the palace musicians such as Bidaram Krishnappa and his disciples in Mysore. With this, one may also assume the increase in the singing of Padas. Accordingly, there must have been a give and take between singing and publishing as praxes. For the musical aspect of Dāsa Sāhitya, see Shashikantha 2006.

17 not to collapse all these into a single category as such, but look into the complexity from within.

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