QUEEN'S ROAD:An important Kannada book by saint-poet Jagannatha Dasa, elaborating on the dualist philosophy of saint Madhwacharya, is now available with English notes.
Called A Commentary on Jagannatha Daasaru’s Harikathaamrthasaara, it is published by the Karnataka Haridasa Scientific Research Centre, an organisation based in Bengaluru and Mumbai.
Dr Ranganath Bhardwaj has brought to non-Kannada readers the most voluminous work of Jagannatha Dasa (1728-1809), who lived in what is today a part of Raichur district in Karnataka.
Earlier called Srinivasacharya, Jagannatha Dasa had acquired wide scholarship in Sanskrit. He did not think much of the Haridasas, the bhakti poets who roamed the streets singing in Kannada.
The legend goes that once, to avoid meeting the pious Vijayadasa — who had called him over after learning of his scholarship — Jagannatha Dasa lied that he had a stomach ache.
Much to his consternation, an ache actually gripped him, and bothered him for a long time. His visits to pilgrim centres such as Tirupati and Mantralaya did not help, and he was finally directed to Gopala Dasa, a poet of great merit, who prepared two jowar rotis for him. The meal cured Jagannatha Dasa of his ailment, and also inspired him to start writing devotional poetry in Kannada.
Interestingly, Gopala Dasa is the poet of the plaintive poem, ‘Aava rogavo enage deva dhanvantri’ (What disease afflicts me, God of Healers?), in which says his legs don’t rise to walk to holy places, his hands refuse to salute the sacred, and his lips can’t utter the name of Hari. Gopala Dasa was well aware of a non-believer’s angst and attributed it to bhavaroga, or ‘the affliction of worldliness’.
Dr Bharadwaj, who did his college in Mysore, obtained a PhD in economics from Bombay University. He has studied Haridasa literature over the years. In 1985, he founded the Karnataka Haridasa Scientific Research Centre at Chippagiri, Andhra Pradesh.
The original is in the Bhamini shatpadi metre beloved of the Kannada poets of the time, and the prose translation in English could prove useful to those studying the literature of the Haridasas, and also to the Madhwa diaspora with little or no knowledge of Kannada.
* A Commentary on Shri Jagannatha Dasaru’s Harikathaamrthasaara by Ranganath Bharadwaj, published by Haridasa Scientific Research Centre, 2014, Rs 650.