The Āmuktamālyada of Kṛṣṇadevarāya Language, Power & Devotion in Sixteenth Century South India
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The Āmuktamālyada of Kṛṣṇadevarāya Language, Power & Devotion in Sixteenth Century South India By Srinivas G. Reddy A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in South and Southeast Asian Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor George L. Hart, Chair Professor Alexander von Rospatt Professor Harsha Ram Fall 2011 Abstract The Āmuktamālyada of Kṛṣṇadevarāya Language, Power & Devotion in Sixteenth Century South India by Srinivas G. Reddy Doctor of Philosophy in South and Southeast Asian Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor George L. Hart, Chair The Āmuktamālyada of the sixteenth century Vijayanagara monarch Kṛṣṇadevarāya is a poetic masterpiece of the highest order. It stands out as a landmark in Telugu literary history, not only for its poetic beauty, but also because of the unique religious and political themes embedded within its central narrative. Unlike most contemporaneous Telugu poets who based their works on Sanskrit purāṇas or other Indo-Aryan mythological sources, Kṛṣṇadevarāya turned to the southern Tamil tradition for his inspiration. The Āmuktamālyada is in essence a richly poetic hagiography of the Vaiṣṇava poet-saintess Āṇṭāḷ, or Goda as she is referred to throughout the text. And unlike the great kāvyas of Sanskrit (or even most coeval sixteenth century Telugu prabandhas) that often centered around male heroes, Āmuktamālyada tells the story of an adolescent Tamil girl in love with god. The notion of a female protagonist was surely common to Tamil epic literature, as in the famous Cilappatikāram, Maṇimekalai and Cīvakacintāmaṇi. This geo-cultural shift by Kṛṣṇadevarāya evidences a marked reorientation of the Telugu tradition towards the South, not only in terms of literary source materials and bhakti related themes, but also in a very concrete political sense as the power center of the post- Vijayanagara state system moved to the Tamil country. Both the themes of regional vernacularization and bhakti related transformations are framed by the poet-king‟s lived political life and his ambitious poetic imagination. In many ways Kṛṣṇadevarāya exemplifies the old notion of a kavi-rāja or poet-king; a ruler who could unite both statecraft and literature into a composite expression of kingship. The unique importance of Kṛṣṇadevarāya‟s work is therefore best understood when the text is placed within the historical context of the king‟s political agenda and the sweeping changes that he brought about, leading to both the apex and ultimate demise of the Vijayanagara empire. In this sense, Āmuktamālyada is a significant textual representative of the layered developments within South Asian literary and cultural history writ large. Composed in the early sixteenth century by one of South Asia‟s most celebrated monarchs, the ornate long poem of some 875 difficult verses brings together several diverse themes that coursed through the heart and mind of the multi-faceted poet-emperor, as well as his vast and diverse empire. 1 The Āmuktamālyada of Kṛṣṇadevarāya Language, Power & Devotion in Sixteenth Century South India Srinivas G. Reddy Introduction 1. Ancient Indian Literature 2. Dravidian Studies CHAPTER 1 – Classicism and Regionalism 1. The Sanskrit Cosmopolis 2. The Sangam Corpus 3. Confluence in the Deccan 4. Praise Poems 5. Vernacularization 6. Mārga vs. Deśi 7. Research Approaches CHAPTER 2 – Shift to Bhakti 1. The Power of Bhakti 2. Modes of Worship 3. Relationships with God 4. The Twelve Suns 5. Āṇṭāḷ - Mystic Poetess 6. Advent of Śrīvaiṣṇavism 7. Ubhaya Vedānta and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa CHAPTER 3 – The Poet-King 1. Milieu of a Deccan King 2. Language of Politics 3. Court of Culture, Culture of Court 4. The Dravidian King 5. Body of the King 6. The God-King 7. The Historic King 8. (Auto)biography 9. Historical Corroborations 10. Conclusion CHAPTER 4 – The Poetics of Telugu 1. The Alaṅkāra Tradition 2. Myth vs. History 3. The Tiṇai Tradition 4. Love and War 5. Telugu Poetics i 6. Literary Techniques 7. Divinity in the Everyday 8. Authorial Subjectivity 9. Prosody and Diglossia CHAPTER 5 – Translating Āmuktamālyada 1. Text and Commentators 2. Selection of Poems 3. Literary Translation 4. Translation 5. Annotations Bibliography Appendix I Index of All Verses Appendix II Index of Selected Verses Appendix III Telugu Prosody ii The Āmuktamālyada of Kṛṣṇadevarāya Language, Power & Devotion in Sixteenth Century South India Srinivas G. Reddy Introduction The Āmuktamālyada of the sixteenth century Vijayanagara monarch Kṛṣṇadevarāya is a poetic masterpiece of the highest order. It stands out as a landmark in Telugu literary history, not only for its poetic beauty, but also because of the unique religious and political themes embedded within its central narrative. Unlike most contemporaneous Telugu poets who based their works on Sanskrit purāṇas or other Indo-Aryan mythological sources, Kṛṣṇadevarāya turned to the southern Tamil tradition for his inspiration. The Āmuktamālyada is in essence a richly poetic hagiography of the Vaiṣṇava poet-saintess Āṇṭāḷ, or Goda as she is referred to throughout the text. And unlike the great kāvyas of Sanskrit (or even most coeval sixteenth century Telugu prabandhas) that often centered around male heroes, Āmuktamālyada tells the story of an adolescent Tamil girl in love with god. The notion of a female protagonist was surely common to Tamil epic literature, as in the famous Cilappatikāram and Maṇimekalai.1 This geo- cultural shift by Kṛṣṇadevarāya evidences a marked reorientation of the Telugu tradition towards the South, not only in terms of literary source materials and bhakti related themes, but also in a very concrete political sense as the power center of the post-Vijayanagara state system moved to the Tamil country. Both the themes of regional vernacularization and bhakti related transformations are framed by the poet-king‟s lived political life and his ambitious poetic imagination. In many ways Kṛṣṇadevarāya exemplifies the old notion of a kavi-rāja or poet-king; a ruler who could unite both statecraft and literature into a composite expression of kingship. The unique importance of Kṛṣṇadevarāya‟s work is therefore best understood when the text is placed within the historical context of the king‟s political agenda and the sweeping changes that he brought about, leading to both the apex and ultimate demise of the Vijayanagara empire. In this sense, Āmuktamālyada is a significant textual representative of the layered developments within South Asian literary and cultural history writ large. Composed in the early sixteenth century by one of South Asia‟s most celebrated monarchs, the ornate long poem of some 875 difficult verses brings together several diverse themes that coursed through the heart and mind of the multi-faceted poet-emperor, as well as his vast and diverse empire. As Hart and Heifetz have rightly suggested: South Asian culture is essentially syncretistic. Its writers and thinkers tend not to attempt to create a coherent system by discarding earlier cultural elements that do not fit in with their ideas but rather to synthesize everything that has gone before, throwing away nothing but rather subordinating everything to the idea or point of view that they wish to advance.2 As a thematically polyvalent text, Āmuktamālyada encompasses several productive topics that allow for multiple readings and interpretations. As such, this investigation will explore how 1 See also Hart 1975: 104. 2 Hart and Heifetz 1988: 26. 1 a singule text can embody and exemplify critical developmental trends in the history of South Asian literature, religion and politics; and more importantly, the inextricable nexus of all three cultural elements. The text is well suited for this endeavor, not only for its rich poetic content but also its crucially important provenance. It was composed in the early sixteenth century – the apex of vernacular literary production in the Deccan – and stands as a historical marker from which to look back at the literary developments that gave rise to such a remarkable piece of synchronic literature. Originating from the Deccan, the geographic heartland of South Asia, the text aids in better understanding the productive interactions that were percolating for millennia in the dynamic region. The two most dominant geo-cultural formations of the subcontinent – the Indo- Aryan North represented by Sanskrit, and the Dravidian South exemplified in Tamil – were co- mingling in a Deccani cultural confluence that was in many ways responsible for the characteristic vibrancy of South Asian literature and religion for over a millennium, from roughly 500 CE to 1500 CE.3 Āmuktamālyada was written at a time that was (and still very much is) viewed as an apex of imperial peninsular power, as well as a suvarṇa-yuga or Golden Age of Telugu literary production. As much as the text allows for a look back into historical trends concerning language and power, it equally presents a lens to look forward into the fascinating paradigmatic changes actuated by a developing sense of South Asian modernity. The vast „empire‟ of Vijayanagara, and even more so its „synoptic great king‟ Kṛṣṇadevarāya represents a transitional moment in the political history of South Asia, teetering as it was on the brink of incipient colonial transformations. The poet-king seems to have had one foot in both worlds, like a giant who was straddling climactic developments that would lead to the new socio-political formations of the post-Vijayanagara Nāyakas, as well as new literary forms in Telugu which they sponsored like yakṣa-gānas and kṛtis. In essence, the pivotal and iconic reign of Kṛṣṇadevarāya allows us to analyze a particularly dynamic period of South Asian history through the lens of a uniquely innovative literary work. Chapter I explores Telugu‟s position, both linguistically and geo-culturally, as a hybrid of Sanskrit and Tamil, and places Āmuktamālyada in the context of Telugu‟s emergence as a regional language of political and aesthetic expression.