SANYASA ATTAINED such incredible primacy and durability in Bharatavarsha because every generation from the Vedic times up to the previous century produced a rich harvest of true Sanyasins of all hues — āśramavāsi, avadhūta, parivrājaka, Yogi, Bairagi, poets, musicians, wandering minstrels, etc. Whether all of them had attained Brahmajñāna is beside the point. The fact that they conscientously upheld the Sanyasa ideal by leading such elevated and untainted lives is what matters. A lofty theoretical ideal is ultimately just a theory.
The generational legacy of Sanyasis is as varied as the path of self-inquiry that they chose. To cite just a random example, we have the consummate Ramaṇa-Gita, an illuminating compilation of Advaitic teachings of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, the Mouna Muni who taught through…silence.
THE PRIMARY SUBJECT of this essay is the poetical and lyrical compositions authored by the Kannada editor, writer, poet and polyglot, D.V. Gundappa, which fall into the specific genre called Virakta Kāvya or Renunciate Poetry. The foregoing introduction was meant to provide a broad philosophical framework required to understand this genre.
Even in this genre, one must begin at the beginning — the Vedic lore. From one perspective, it can be said that a substantial chunk of Veda Mantras are the primordial Sanyasa-Gitas. They are the mountain-streams that birthed innumerable perennial rivers of Virakta Kāvyas in every Bhāratīya Bhāṣā.
If the Bhagavad-Gita is the philosophical poetic Deity of Virakta Kāvyas, Bhartrhari’s Vairāgya śatakaṃ is its monarchial tributary. In fact, the Sanskrit Subhāṣita literature abounds with copious Vairāgya poetry collections and anthologies of independent verses. The fact that there is a voluminous corpus of cheap imitations of Vairāgya śataka shows the kind of command that Bhartrhari’s original exercised.
Then we have the immensely popular Bhaja Govindaṃ whose heart lies in this verse:
satsaṅgatve nissaṅgatvaṃ
nissaṅgatve nirmohatvam ।
nirmohatve niścalatattvaṃ
niścalatattve jīvanmuktiḥ ॥
Through the company of the wise and the virtuous arises non-attachment; from non-attachment ensues freedom from delusion; where there is freedom from delusion, there abides Self-knowledge, which leads to spiritual liberation in this very life.
Another popular Kāvya that extolls renunication is Vedanta Desikan’s Vairāgya Pancakaṃ.
In the realm of Indian languages, the yield is equally prolific.
The songs of Mira Bai, although dedicated to her beloved Sri Krishna, emanated from the heart of a renunciate. The same remark is applicable to say, Akka Mahadevi and a marquee of similar saints.
Then there are Avadhūtas, Yogis and Vedantins such as Vemana, Sarvajna, Allama Prabhu, and Sadashiva Brahmendra who each trod their own paths and left behind immortal poems and lyrical compositions. Another renowned example is Tyagaraja. Hundreds of his Kritis celebrate the glory of Vairāgya. We can also mention an obscure Kannada composition titled Cidānaṃda Ragaḻe authored by a mystic named Chidananda Avadhūta.
FROM A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, we clearly observe a rather drastic change in the overall tradition and themes of Virakta Kāvyas in the post-Tyagaraja era.
Mindless, myopic internecine warfare among Hindu kings and the escalating menace of British colonisation began altering this magnificent, pan-Indian spiritual tradition of Renunciate Poetry in ways that we are now beginning to fathom.
More than half a century prior to the 1857 War of Resistance, an army of Sanyasins wrote the preface to this resistance through heroic poetry, ballads, songs, and weapons. Thus, starting from this period, the content of Renunciate Poetry was also imbued with and transformed into powerful expressions of patriotism and national liberation.
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya’s Vande Mataram — Bharatavarsha’s national song — is the most fervent pinnacle of this transformation. His depiction of Bharata Mata as bahubala dhāriṇīm, ripudala vāriṇīm, tvaṃ durgā daśapraharaṇa dhāriṇi not only echoed the mood of the era, it was also Bankim’s posthumous euology to the sacrifices made by those Sanyasins.
In his extraordinary Song of the Sanyasins, Swami Vivekananda paid homage to the path sanctified by not just these Sanyasins but to the whole unbroken ancient tradition of Vīra-viraktas (Warrior-Renunciates).
D.V. GUNDAPPA (1887-1975) was another luminary of the same era who had internalised the best ingredients of the Vedic genius. For seven decades, he served delectable feasts in the form of commentaries, (for e.g., Puruṣasūkta, īśopaniṣad, Jīvanadharmayoga), lectures (Vedanta and Nationalism, Manusmriti, Bhartrhari), drama (Parashurama, Vidyaranya Vijayam) and poetry.
The range of themes that he has explored in his substantial poetic repertoire is truly mindboggling. From philosophical and aesthetic meditations (śrīrāma-parīkṣaṇaṃ, śrīkṛṣṇa-parīkṣaṇaṃ, antaḥpuragīta, gītaśākuntala) to his magnum opus, Mankutimmana Kagga, DVG’s florid creativity was a multi-hued garden whose flowers remain perennially fresh. He typically shied away from the temptation to dabble in “modern” themes because as a tenacious Sanatani, he had realised at an early age that today’s modern will become tomorrow’s outdated.
As an uncompromising classicist, DVG’s poems and songs were always set to metre (Chandas), an area which he enriched by employing both classical and “new” metres. Shatavadhani Dr. R. Ganesh’s masterly analysis (DVG avara chaṃdaḥ prayogagaḻu or DVG’s Usages of Metres) of DVG’s creative trysts with metrical composition is a separate treat to relish.
DVG also composed Geya (Lyrical Poetry or songs) quite copiously and suggested Ragas in which a particular song should be sung.
APART FROM POEMS woven around a specific theme — Antaḥpuragīta, śrīrāma-parīkṣaṇaṃ, etc — DVG composed a prolific amount of standalone or stray poems as inspiration struck him. These were eventually compiled into three poetic bouquets: Vasantakusumānjali, Nivedana and Ketakīvana.
In Vasantakusumānjali (whose title was suggested by a titan of Kannada language and literate, T.S. Venkannayya), we get an early inkling of DVG’s promising talent as an eminent future poet. He was just twenty-four years old when it was published.
His next collection, Nivedana, published in 1924, shows how brilliantly the promising talent had revealed itself.
By the time Ketakīvana was published, DVG had already become one of India’s literary and cultural treasures.
To be continued
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