NOW, WE CAN BEGIN exploring DVG’s body of Virakta Kāvya using his own poetic preface to the aforementioned Hakkiya Payana essay. It is befittingly the concluding essay of the volume titled Hrudaya Sampannaru. After all, it is rare to find a greater Hrudaya Sampanna (literally, “Richness of Heart” or “Warm-hearted”) than DVG.
The metaphor of the flight of a bird beautifully fits the quest of a renunciate. It denotes unfettered freedom, careless wandering and elevation akin to the upward journey of the Atman. This has a lofty parallel to Devudu Narasimha Sastri’s introduction to his classic novel, Mahabrahmana:
“Anyone who has produced a great work would have had this experience — the Jiva who constantly chants “Me,” “Me,” “Me,” suddenly abandons its smallness and soars aloft like a seashell. And then, at that height, it attains a greatness beyond itself, beyond everything, and fills its heart with this new discovery. This is what the Upanishads call as Devāpya.”
The poem prefacing Hakkiya Payana resembles a Q&A session between a human and a bird. The human is curious to learn its secrets ranging from its journeys, its “profession,” its travel experiences, its diet and finally, the secret of its melody.
The bird’s answer to each query is an exposition of the various shades and facets of renunciation. Here, the bird symbolises a wayfaring ascetic. In DVG’s Daarigara Haadu, the Saṃnyāsis narrate their story in the first person while in this poem, we get a sense that the bird, by virtue of its ability to fly, is on a much higher plane both literally and philosophically when it says:
“I’ve seen the Heavens, I’ve seen the Earth,
I’ve known peace and I’ve heard noise,
I’ve seen the Garden of the Gods,
I’ve known the deception of the rogues,
I’ve seen the Garth of the Divines,
I’ve seen the mess made by men on this Earth.”
And then the bird finishes with a flourish:
“I know not how to sing,
Who is to teach me the Raga?
…
Who keeps the note in mine throat?
…
Does my cry become a Raga?
Does speech become song?
Perchance ’tis a melody, perchance a discord,
Who knows what sound it is?
Who knows the secret of these mysteries?
Who knows the meaning of Brahma’s Creation?
Only Timmalingi knows.”
The word Timmalingi occurring at the very end of the poem is a colloquial and rustic usage denoting the harmony between Vishnu and Shiva. Timma signifies the Deity of Tirumala while Lingi connotes Shiva. D.V. Gundappa has used a variant of this compound word both in the title and refrain of his renowned Mankutimmana Kagga. Here, Manku (or Manka) is a synonymn of Shiva.
This brings us to a delightful episode in DVG’s life. It was his chance encounter with a Shiva-Sharana (literally, “Servant of Shiva.” Shiva-Sharanas are renunicates belonging to the Veera-Shaiva sect and are typically attached to a Maṭha) in Gandhibazar, Bangalore. It is beyond the scope of this essay to narrate the full episode but the following is a summary.
The Shiva-Sharana mistook DVG to be a kindred soul and enquired the name of the Maṭha he belonged to. DVG’s answer: the Maṭha of Timmalinga-Devaru.
The conversation that followed between the two is thoroughly enjoyable and rather profound; it offers us another insight into DVG as a renunciate.
When the Shiva-Sharana asked DVG to deliver a philosophical discourse, DVG composed a series of impromptu verses lauding the glory of Shiva, the Primal Saṃnyāsi and the ideal householder. These verses merit an independent exploration but in passing, we may mention a solitary line to offer a flavour:
“ummaḻavillada nmmadi kailāsa”
It is hard to translate the beauty and depth of the original. It essentially means, “contentment bereft of worry is Kailasa.”
What is rather remarkable in this episode is DVG’s lament that he was not carrying his beloved Ekanāda (Iktara) as he sang those verses.
WE CAN CONCLUDE this essay by examining his Daarigara Haadu or The Song of the Wayfarers. It is included in his Nivedana poetry collection and belongs to the Geya class of poems. DVG has recommended the Mohana Raga to set it to tune.
Daarigara Haadu adheres to the spirit of Bharthari’s Vairāgya śatakaṃ. We can also characterise it as a poetic commentary of sorts to Vairāgya śatakaṃ.
The historical and cultural context in which DVG composed it is also significant. It was an era when Indians — Hindus especially — were rapidly abandoning their roots, being dazzled by English education and the British society with its superficial accoutrements of dress and etiquette; the spoon and the fork had become the ultimate arbiters of refinement and barbarism.
In fact, B.M. Srikantaiah, his own contemporary in Kannada literature, had sought to take inspiration from the British literary tradition to infuse “newness” into Kannada literature. His English Geetegalu (Songs of English) became the most popular poetic expression of this quest. However, DVG not only stuck to his Indian roots but took his inspiration from American poets like Emerson, Thoreau, Whittier and Whitman and translated their contemplative poems into Kannada in poems like jīva-gīte, (Song of Life) ātma-gīte (Song of the Soul), etc. In his fine assessment of DVG’s vision in this regard, Shatavadhani Dr. Ganesh gives us a valuable insight in his DVG avara sāhitya saṃskṛti (The Culture of DVG’s Literature):
“DVG felt that America was more important to Indians than England, which had made us its colony. America too, had been a British colony but had successfully liberated itself. While B.M. Srikantaiah followed the path of the English Romantic poets, DVG turned towards American Transcendentalists and translated their poems into Kannada. In his view, Kannada Renaissance poetry had to become introspective; it had to be imbued with philosophical contemplation and simultaneously stand on the firm ground of hard, practical realities.”
Viewed even from this perspective, DVG’s Song of the Wayfarers has a magnetic pull that is hard to express in mere words.
The scholar and writer, M.V. Sitaramaiah aptly characterises it as a Dārśanika Gīta (A song imbued with philosophical revelation). He further says that the poet has donned the part of a seasoned wayfarer who is also a renunciate who shows the path to the world.
Like all DVG’s poems suffused with high philosophy, Daarigara Haadu too, lends itself to layered interpretations.
Each stanza ends with the Sakhare (My Friends) refrain, just as Mankutimma is the culminating refrain in Mankutimmana Kagga. Few Kannada poets of DVG’s vintage had used the refrain as a powerful device of reinforcement.
Deliberate anonymity is the other hallmark of this poem. We are not told who the friends are; we don’t know the names of any of the wayfarers or their Guru or the village or town they are presently in; nor do we know the name of the village that they were coming from.
Eventually, we get some hazy hints. The wayfarers have merely come from “afar,” and they have no fixed residence. Sakhare stands for universal brotherhood in its truest sense much like DVG’s accidental encounter with that Shiva-Sharana. Only Shiva bound the two strangers together for a brief moment. DVG records that he never saw the man again.
The wayfarers then describe their typical travel-day from dawn to night. Their journey spans both space and time — dawn, morning, the blazing noon, the thundering downpour and their haste to reach their “nest,” where they can finally “relieve their burden.”
To invoke M.V. Sitaramaiah again, this is a brilliant allegory, a superb metaphor and a miniature of a person’s entire life depicted in a single day which contains all the seasons. Thus, the dawn, the soothing rays of the early morning sun, the tree-shade and cool stream-water signify childhood and youth. The scorching afternoon that blisters their skin and the stormy rain symbolise middle age with all its attendant miseries. Finally, the desire to reach the nest and abandon all cares stand for renunciation.
But the heart of Dārigara Hāḍu lies in the following stanza:
Imprisoned we are not by the
Stubborn bonds of accomplishing something;
Afraid we are not of the ardours of our chosen path;
Holding steadfast to the song of our Guru inside our hearts,
We rejoice in his words,
My friends || 14 ||
After this, DVG couches a sublime tenet of philosophy when he says, “gūḍa hakki... ālaya serabeku,” that is, the bird of the nest must reach the temple. To which we ask in Kannada, “alemārigaḻige yāva ālaya?” that is, which is the temple of the wayfarer?
In the final reckoning, The Song of the Wayfarers is pregnant with possibilities; it is, as its title suggests, a pathfinder, a lesson, a discourse, a fable, a philosophy and an earnest guide, which shows the path to facing destiny’s blows with tranquility, compassion and humility.
The final stanza, “We relish with joy any morsel, any fruit that falls into our hand,” reminds us of another eternal mantra given by a great renunciate Kannada poet: “nī koṭṭaṣṭu tindu nī karedāga baruve,” — I will eat whatever You give, I’ll come to You whenever you call me.”
The Song of the Wayfarers is the Song of Life and a Hymn to Renunciation. Its composer was a forest-flower who dwelled in the city and a bird who couldn’t fly but ultimately reached the abode it had yearned for.
|| Om Tat Sat ||
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