Two young men, take the blame
One is Praveen, Zahir, other’s name
One means expert; other, to express
My word has both, in Its Flame.
Poor are their hearts
Dull are their wits
who only need, in tiny bits
even the cake and such sweets
They are seldom eaten so
Cherry once, once the flour
Half the distance, for a step
One seldom reaches the door
What’s there in the name?
As per the traditions, some typical jobs, works, posts, and such would end up as the surnames along the generations. It’s a ubiquitously prevalent practice all over time and space. Now I have been mesmerized by two names, rather what has happened around them.
Kempu means red color in kannada. When used in names, to ease its contiguous pronunciation and conjunction with other parts, it would turn to kempe or kempa as in kempa-amma or kempe-rAya etc.
wruddi means development.
wrudda means developed or one with attainments and accomplishments.
grAma wrudda means some one who is well developed (rich) and prominent in the whole village.
During its etymological metamorphosis it turned out to be gAvuda and now gowda.
The most prominent with that name in the recent history, is Shree Kempe Gowda maharaja, the leader who is credited to have built the town, which eventually developed into today’s
Bangalore.
70kms away, the name that was making rounds during those days in my school and our dinner-conversations was that of an exclusive shop, full of toys and dresses for kids. It never made any sense to me who spent quarter century waiting for those parcels of old discarded cloths from the affluent
Mysore relatives. But it’s name was interesting. It was named Kids Kemp.
Located in the road named after the king, the second part is derived from his name. It was a Kid’s shop on KempeGowda road, hence Kids Kemp.
More than a decade later, that shop opened a bigger branch on Airport road. But the name was Big kids Kemp. This was a very important step in proliferating the word Kemp out of Kempe Gowda road. It had started to signify, more of less, a niche shop. It had assumed a meaning of its own.
Recently I saw a make shift saari shop named Sri Lakshmi Saari Kemp, and another make shift niche shop selling 15 types of Dosas named Ganesh Dosa Kemp. The evolution was complete. Only entry into Webster’s is pending now!
All this happened in front of my own eyes, in a matter of two decades. Is this called Globalization?
The second case is more involved.
It is a tradition that has some living and many not so, examples.
In the earlier days, I mean before three thousand years or so, it was of great importance to maintain the fire, for its many utilities in the house. So, each day the men of the house, would take care of keeping a fire burning at some designated place non-stop. This ritual was called agni kArya, and those who did it religiously were called agnihOthri. This has even come down to present times in some families I know.
[Many of those families talk only in Sanskrit in their homes, making it difficult to discern the nuances of our reception. One day, when I visited one such family, their 3 year old kid was incessantly plucking my pen from my pocket, to play with it. I was in a fix; could not even reprimand the kid nor allow it to play with my pen, which could get damaged in its hands. Then intervening, its mother shouted “nA Karomi vatsA” , interestingly that naughty kid understood and went off, to play with his own toys.This brought to my mind a story by Gorur. In that story, during a ShrAddA in a similar Sanskrit speaking family, a kid was playing with a ball, which went into the ritual area. The head of the family became angry and wanted to shout in kannada MumDe ganDa , but had he uttered any non Sanskrit word his vow would be broken and he had to take bath and do other purifying rituals to cleanse him back from the loss of vAkShuddi. Then he shouts vidhavA pathi!!]
But that is fine if the name indicates their acts. Else too, if they take a liking to those acts once done by their fore fathers, ok, “to each his own.”
Don’t raise eyebrows about Rathi Agnihothri’s Cabarets!!
But there was a YagnyA, performed during Vedic times, and the most recent record of it I heard of, was in late 1800s. In that a very healthy, fully adult cow would be sacrificed. Since those rituals are very rare, for any one who accomplished them, following all their intricately specified rules and regulations, usually a title would be given to him bearing the name of that YagnyA. Since such accomplishments are rare it is a norm to carry such a title for generations too. Now there is a great cry to stop the cow slaughter by many people and there are congregations and movements in that accord. Even a political party with that as one of its manifesto came to power at the centre and established their leader as the prime minister of
India.
The name of that YagnyA is VAjapEyA and one who does it is given the title VAjapEyi.
!!!
shAnthi shAnthi shAnthi-hi!!!
The midsummer night's dreams are becoming
too indulging that they stretch in time
all day.The reality seems one of the
options for mind, where as to not to loose
myself from its option I need to bootstrap our
status quite cohesively albeit with some morbid
disentanglement from the long acquainted way
ward traits. The whole thing culminates in the day's
cliffs and troughs , getting assimilated by
evening of the evening into the dark night which
leaves me to me, to gaze at the past rage,enrage
and the garbage since dawn.The whining pathos some
times pull me to the edges of the known world into
uninhabited spaces.On one such occasion I bought
a weekly which sells at the shop, only 3 copies a week
compared to the popular one which does 25. While
going through that diverged progeny of its parent
weekly, I saw a book being serialized in it.It is
a scathing take on the first epic of our civilization.
The fact that I would have undone all the
civility by that time of the day, does not
make it an anomaly to look being its reader.
Though it does not interest me much,I
flick to the next page. But I cant bury my
reminiscences unvoiced, of that book ,
he had got me to read two decades ago.
The voices of the past haunt , with its
image mollifying my fragile serenity.
The weekly is Lankesh by Gauri Lankesh and
the book is Seethayana by Dr.Polanki Rama Murthy.
In the dark chambers of the night, as the
world seems going apart, I clutch to that
singularity called hope. The integrity that
I impart to it, draining my vitality transcends
my relevance beyond now.Along with time.Only
to discover many new "now"s. Which just toss
me to the next.The monotony of this truely
has reached the nadir now. The only escape
from this now is the now of a different kind.
A fully actual one, with all virtues and
the real one. A self contained cocoon which
spawns all my restlessness around it like
the thread which webs insulating me from
the chaos in and around. During the
transitive aberrations like these , an
"interpreter of maladies" due to the
"inheritance of loss" it makes.
Then my vanishing persona wakes.
yes true.
We wake.
Some days ago there was a series of
non-events that got to the extreme to
leave me frustrated.I was going through
the reactionary work of D.R .Nagaraj,
Allama Prabhu Matthu Shaiva prathibe,
which had such a tone of
criticism of the prevalent nationalised
view of Indian Philosophy,
of Das Guptha,that
it really popped up many interesting
points regarding the issues
of translation and the vernacular's
socio-anthropological so
called singularities. In a very deep
sense I was really going through a
very piece of reactionary literary
scholastic work..As the going got tough,
as my correspondence works met
a dead end during week-end, I decided
to go to the canteen and sip
tea with "colorful"
view around and finish this book,
which I had prioritised to be
before I go ahead with my mail
works.Then as usual there were many
attractive girls, some with boys
many without!, being themselves,
chatting and in abandon. I wonder
are these girls more beautiful
then those of the previous generation
or that these get them selves
suitable haircuts and dress to
maximise the impact, rather than the
monotonously dressed and monotonously
done hair of the previous generation?
after all how can I say! The impact
being a serious function of the
readiness of my self to get impacted ,
makes an objective assessment impossible.
So, any way I just bask in the
thrill of the moment that my circumstances allow me to.
And there was this group of 5 girls
sitting around diagonally facing me,
two tables away, making huge noice.
I was thinking how destituted
the rigour of my work
is making me, by placing a demand on my
time so tight, that I am surely
without any concession, to be devouted to
this lone cause while life with
so much of "these" around me,
gets un touched and unfelt. In a
vague flight of delussion I was
thinking how would it be if I would
go and and talk to them, and
have some fun? Allas there was no
reason for me to relate to them or identify
with them which made this fantasy an
impossibly abberated reality.
Hence I turned the page to delve into
the objection Nagaraj finds in the
ideological ways of Allama with the
anthropological diversions of the
Veerashaiva Movement and how he
compromises his epistemological stands.
Then I survived that hard core analysis
and entered the section where he
addresses the objection of Allama about
the Tatvamasi of Adishandkaracharya.
Then I suddenly heard Hello,
I look up and the girl from that
group whose morphology had achieved
the maximum share of my attention
span is infront of me! I said yes!
but with an annoyed
face as if to make it clear that
I was being disturbed from my study.
She asked "Do I know you?" I Dont
know, pat came the reply. Then she said
"I mean I thought I had seen
you some where." I said "may be!"
Well, at this level, since I did not
have any genuine desire or affinity
for an aquaintance this really annoyed.
I looked annoyed too. Then she asked
where am I from, I told about
my college and my stint at the
company and the Institute. The girl
appologised and went off.
I was since at a very interesting
stage of the book reverted back with
no momentum loss, from this what
could have been a sweet diversion.
I went back and finished the book.
Meanwhile I finished two more cups
of tea. While that girl again was crossing me,
I just asked her had she been to
Institute for some reason,
as there is a chance that she
might have seen me there?
She bluntly said ,
"Look We were playing a game called
'who dares?' ".
In that we have to do some
thing daring. I was asked to
come and ask about your
details which I did. Apart from that
it was nothing else.
"I have never seen you and sorry for
your inconvenience".
uff As Always !!! Why me? Well,
I did not even have the
next page of the philosophical
text to revert back. I just
had to tell myself...
It happens Dude!! It happens!!!
Moral of the story:- There is some
thing about my exterior, atleast,
which makes girls need "daring"
to approach me! Its time I correct
it completely and become inviting...
I dont have much time
... Soon I shall be swept off my feet,
by my other half...
I am getting ready mate!!!
With kaveri tribunal’s verdict and city corporation giving water once in three days, the ritual of baths are solemnized by
gangecha yamunechaiva godavari saraswathi
narmade sindhu kaveri, amazon nile mississippi
jalesmin sannidhinkuru
With the battle field getting bloody between norton McCaffe and AVG, each would invite proliferation of virus along with the ever-spying software popularly called WindowsXP, before booting system [with internet connection]
Apa Dhuurthanthu ye bhootha, ye bhootha jaala samsthitha
ye bhootha viGhna karthaaraha, the nashyanthu shivaagnaya
After the boom of IT and ITES the anthropology of our academic times goes by
Aakashaath pathithan thoyam yathaagachchathi saagaram
sarvavidyaa arjanethi software prathigachchathi
With the computers becoming smarter, and people becoming intricately dependent on them, not just functionally……… well all of us becoming just clients of at the human ends for big servers.
So? the ever enchanting invocation of
Kshyisali shivethara kruthi kruthiyalli
moodali mangaLa mathi mathiyalli
kavi rushi santhara aadrarshadali
sarvodayavaagali server-rali
ad sari aadre… client-alli?
—————
yeno
idamittham….
I read about “Future Poetry” by Aurobindo Ghosh. I don’t know what he meant by it. But here is the way, I see it happening.
One side effect of being on the road, away from the desk, even when the freewheeling effect of studies, is running like a persistent asymptote, in the back ground, is an inter disciplinary spillover.
Time scaling is an important concept for all the DSP guys.
Explanation: If we have two similar graphs[with x-y axes],one below the other, and if we have the scale markings on the x-axis of the top and the bottom graph by hours and days respectively, if we bring any figure from the top graph to the bottom intact, we are indeed scaling it by a factor of 24, as there are 24 hours in a day.
This process has very deep philosophical and epistemological strings attached to it. It is a very often used tool in many mathematical procedures.
Instead of working further problems towards finishing my work, when I stupidly while away, a thought pops up!
Now how will it reflect in poetry?
That late lyricist, had penned a crisp popular anthem in Taal, as
Ramthaa jogi vo ramthaa jogi
sAri madushAlA pI Aya
mI ek pal me sadiyA ji AyA
Yes this is the apt example! in a second or moment [Ek pal ],
centuries [sadiyA] are lived..
Now coming to infinite series, we have a more immediate example. In my post called “blogonomy” [http://recognition.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/blogonomy/] the last two lines are the representation of
summation, i from 1 to infinity, of N divided by 2 times i is always less than N.
Now I am gone.
One guy lost his mother soon after his birth. He was encouraged to be a learned man, and was tutored a lot in philosophy, oriental mostly. This guy was mainly supported by his Grandpa who , a rich man, devoting all his resources to make him “wise” and may be enlightened. Suddenly his grandpa died (:-( . This guy lost direction, left college, went on shouting from as many podiums as he could, he went out of his mother organization shouting at its poster boy some horrible shit, got married blew up all his grandpa’s money, had three kids, moved out of family, got some other patron in a lonely European woman (what is it with these single western women? Do they think oriental guys as some hunky mysterious, and fascinating? ). Lived with her on her money; May be he wanted more!, so one day said , in the words of G-1, “Bulb hathkothu”= “I am enlightened”. He from then on revived his shouting, this time with lowered sound and greater malice. In small groups and staying amongst those who paid his bills. Finally he died.
Alas, the world has less audio noise for his demise, and much less malice and contempt in air.
There is a guy who, usually takes Hollywood stories, Pakistani music , casts non-superstar materials and churns out films, when he is not “selling his wounds”[in affective way] as he ran out of them due to his rate of blabber. This guy befriended that recently died guy, 3 decades ago, to come out of the clout of another “enlightened ” man. He seems addicted to the need to cling to one or the other. This late guy was a master in getting guys clinging to him[paying his bills!], by telling they are not.
The poster boy of his former mother organization was famous for “making his listener’s head empty” putting them in “pathless land”, while this guy was notorious for making the listeners’ “heads missing” , applying Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to people, or some thing close to it, challenging the notion of their being!
The poster boy died of cancer, while the later due to spasms in his heart last month.
The senior undid all he did, went and apologized to those he had hurt, albeit after they died in front of their graves in secret, while the recently died one was master of saying self-contradictory things.
Both shared their given names. Both felt hopeless about the other, but related to essentially.
In my wandering years, my pathless manners got their stuff visited, and for those memories, here is an obituary.
Thank God, there is death!
Even for …
Mistaken by birth,
Messed up in Life,
Abducted by Salvation,
Rescued by DEATH.
Zindagi veeran banjar
jis se ut gayi basthiya
Zindagi Khola samundar
jis me DUbi kaStiyAn
Jisko kahtE ho Janam
Vo maut kI SuruvAt hi
Zindagi kya bAth hi
Zindagi kya bAth hi
The previous three posts looked to be out of blue, after the original post being deleted by U.R.Aananthamurthy at his Blog. Incidentally, I had a copy of it and I am posting it here to make my sequence of previous posts look thematically coherent.
It was titled
When wont is more than will
Sir,
This is the response to your two posts , on K.V.Subbanna and K.P.P.Thejasvi.
It is true that, for years I had been argueing , that the creative impetus you gave to the whole social thought of our culture was very distinctly having an edge over others, due to your exposure. My favorite example for it has always been that an author who was the president of a Kannada Sahithya Sammelana, had said in his presidential speech, that he could not figure out any thing new to say, in his presidential address other than what has already been said by precedents, but just like to urge the establishment to take the ideas so expressed and impliment them.But when you presided on a later occasion you came up with the new message of samskruthika sandhikaladalli sanghrashavalla anusandhanada margavannu anusarisabeku.When thre was a dead end, you had an ideological sliverline…
But it is some event to now realize that it was originally an idea of Subbanna in your post! Then when you call him, who contemplates allow dalits to permit or not into the living room of his house after allowing them into the front yard now, as Bharathiya manassu, there are some serious issues popped up.I have no objection to your calling his as Barathiya manassu.
1.When a person is not either sure of the idea of castless humanity there are some ideological problems, about the credibility to their monism and other such phylosophical and literary stands.
2.When if he is contemplating with the actual impacts of personal kind, then it becomes more intersting. It seems the transition he has made gives him an ideological advantage only among those who cannot even allow dalits into front yard. So, he is sort of obstinately inhabiting that memetic scenario.Or is it that these scinarios being incubated for such derivable prudishness and advantages?
When the depth of insight of truth, cannot completely impart atleast an ideological clarity , not the full ACTual one, I start to doubt these ideologues if they are not the driving force but loads on the culture.
(The reason is in the last paragraph of this post)
—————————————————————–
Then when I heard the news of demise of Thejasvi, I did get impacted. But after the post recovery period, I realized it was time for an objective “coming to terms”, that was best. I have read for 10 hours all available obituaries and memoirs.
But
satt emme hathu seru halu karithittu annuva gojige hogadiddare…
What life and living , from which Kuvempu took inspiration, and found his literary vision, and DID the act of creating his literautre, Thejasvi WAS living it in his Mudugere life. But what his literary creations envision was sort of deconstructing his father’s doing.Not destroying but deconstructing it. There is no better, greater or different vision, but just a literary disability creating distinction. The excuse cited as avoiding the simplification of the complex life is too meek. The resolving and refining are confused with ignorance and abandon.
He is the only writer who has escaped the “Egoistic sublime”, is what you say in your “Betthale puje Eke Kudadu”. True, there is nothing sublime about his ego in his work.It is open, in-the-face and suffocating. When I read Karvalo, I was suffocated by the charecter based on himself,
1.Who has an intrinsic advantage over other due to his societal stature.
2. He is culturally advantaged with greater exposure than most, due to his city up bringing,
3. He mocks at the seriousness of the scientist driven by his purpose, where as his own pursuit is not seriously defining his life. So, he can afford to be careless about happenings, while mocking at the scientist’s urge.
4.He with his superiority complex mocks at the suffering of less fortunate rural people.(if one cant add any value then they must atleast not mock, move on to where one can do. Atleast the Lankesh’s piece of criticizm of Kuvempu appearing in the present ugadi visheshanka (of Gouri Lankesh’s Lankesh last motnth) calls it as “Moral choice”.)
5. When others around are engaged in the battles life and living, it becomes too vulgar to observe it with the distant of over-security of my-life-not-at-stake, as a food for novels. This literary position taken makes all the charecters around just a matter of disrespected entertainment, for the suthradhara.I always wonder similarly about Chekov and Leo Tolstoy too.Though Chekov is more humane, that atleast he goes through the suffering guilt, Leo is an outright escapist, but neither is of much value addition.
6. When I raised such cognitions earlier, I was discarded by some trying to attribute it to “some esoteric indiviualistic style” of naration by Tejasvi. But co-incidentally, his Annana Nenapu, came as the final and sufficient proof of my observation’s correctness. How much of Anna(Kuvempu) is there in it, and in what way… gives the complete statement of justification of my stand.
7. He is only because of his circumstances. And not even that justifyably.He inherited the legacy of a great literary meme, which he lavishly used for his personal entertainment only. But for the lack of respect to life and living, the literature he coughed aloud, need not have been so self indulging, without being self-involving and tragic.
8. Calling his amazement , vismaya, which you call as his literature’s sthayi bhava, is OK.But how it failed to become a spirit of enquiry than just an urge for personal entertainment is the story of literary tragidy.Where there is no clarity of knowledge, at the frontier of know hows, if one cognizes mysticism and imparts a sense of wonder filled perception, it can be understood. But where there is no explicite confusion, if one tries to creat for the sake of sensationalization, and filles a sense of wonder, “vismaya”, then it is an insult, both of subject, and that of reader. This is what he has done for science in Karvalo, and many socio-political movements in other works.But for such snobbishness , the inherited literary meme could have been used for some thing for more positive.
9.How he refused to answer if there was a haruva othi or not not in reality, makes his novel a vulgar page turner only to decieve the seriousness of the reader with absolute disrespect. The escapism, for the reader’s attention being insulted, is nearly as bad as that by Leo Tolstoy in many of his short stories.
10. May be , what Kuvempu had got out of those rual life, to create an empire of literature, Tejasvi inherited it , only to deconstruct it and to spend its benifits upon his amusements amongst those rural ambience.Sort of Kereya neranu kerege challi…..
—————————————————————–
This whole response, analysis, is an offshoot of one singular comment, which I carry with me. That was made during the function celebrating the works of Master Hirannayya, some years ago. That coment goes as below.
“Charlie Chaplin made The dictator. Thus made fun of Hitler.But had he not done that, we would have been able to hate the ills of dictatorship with more vitality and seriousness.
(I found a resonance of my belief in Bharatha Muni’s statement that Shrungara Kettaga Haasya aagutthe).”
As usual , while teaching our whole generation to think, visualize and verbalize , you had made a seminal contribution to the collective cognizance, when you said that.
But to keep that tradition alive it becomes my moral responsibility to imbibe it , and indina sandarbhadalli nammanne inthaha manthanakke oddikulluva anivaryatheya tatvanishte
urges me to raise these unvoiced dhvanis.
Sathyam Shivam Sundaram
Bismilla-errehmaanerrahim.
One day I had the chance to interact with U.R.A’s close friend Rajeev Tharanath, the student of Ali Akbar Khan. I was remembering the film music he had composed and on that day was on a high due to some Mozart.
I asked him
Sir, How is it that you, who do both composing and performance, can give more time to the later, when you can have a chance to experience the greater realm of ecstasy of finding a new thing in composing?
I will never forget his answer in my life, which went as follows.
I don’t think I am looking for “hosathana” novelty in my musical endeavor as much as I am looking for “hada”, harmony.
His further elaboration would look like this in rough English translation.
When I can achieve that, due to lack of noiselessness inside myself, during the course of rendering a raga in its pristine state, I would have resonated with the natural [Ananda] bliss.
It is not “Vismaya” that is at the root of all the spiritual experience but that harmony cognized as bliss, Ananda.
It took two days to verbalize myself out of his argument.
Anando Brahmethi vyajanaath
AanadaaDhyeva KKhalvimaani BBhuthaani jaayanthayy
AAnandena Jaathaani Jeevanthi
Aanandam PrayanthyaBBhisamvishanthi
Rough translation goes like this.
Everything starts from, exists due to, moves towards and Ends into Ananada.
And lack of that harmony, at the actual level, and involvement was my objection in that much read and debated post.
I remember Prashanth also pointing out his similar reservations about “The little prince”. Of course in Kannada, Meshtru puts it best. By trying to broaden literary vision, the life must not be curtailed. [This ugadi visheshanka of Lankesh]
Alas, it took me 2 days to verbalize and come out clear of his argument; co-incidentally my correspondence work also reached a stage of certainty, relieving me immensely.
But I, realized how much depth and facilitations go into his arguments and am quite surprised. I expected much worse.
Now I don’t need my poems to prove my point. I have categorically cleared the air conclusively: in the words of Bertrand Russell, defining by intention rather than defining by extension.
Now I am really lagging in my schedule. If I don’t want to kill myself soon, I must go and start working towards fulfilling my duties. I hope any one who has been misled by his arguments would take this into his cognition and get clarified and be happy.
Bye for now. Allahoakbar.
A very serious and dense book. Here are my views on it. If you find time do read it, for the rigor of analysis. Its as good as it gets in the twentieth century kannada literature in terms of its rigor.
Recently, I read the book, Allama Prabhu matthu Shaiva Prathibhe by Dr.D.R.Nagaraj.
1.During the 9th century, there was a great thrust of Buddhist, Jain, and many locally spurn agnostic thoughts moving around. During the period, Adishankara, went on to take cognizance of the vedic pedigree in ideas, responded to the circumstance around. Epistemologically it can be explained by an example. Though it is true that in Itheriyopanishad, and thaithariopanishad, there are sublime references, about the origin of cosmos, saying what was there before everything was also sat, and what was there before was asat, respectively, I quote Shankara in his contribution, to the evolution of the ideas, introduced in Dakshinamurthy sthothra a more coherent idea.He calls the priori state as nirvikalpa; lacking diverging consequence. Its like this, kalpa(collection of mahayugas) is a huge measure of time. And time is a count of re-cognitions.If the present idea of cosmic singularity is to be taken into account, the sense of time ceases at the cosmic big bang. So, the consequence is not tangible. Hence the nirvikalpa is a fitting concept.
I mentioned the above to conclude that AdiShankara made original improvements to the MARGA, the traditional knowledge pedigree, he received. Now for me Shankara comes from a place, which had sheltered The disciple of Jesus and his further lineage since 800 years, in kerala. In spite of the social exclusiveness, with which the life might have been during that time, I don’t know for sure how much he was un-influenced by the such other thoughts. But proposing a new thing, apart from the traditionally accepted, realm of Darshana, in itself, has to be,AS A RULE, sourced by the living experience of the person.What comes like this, from the life lived, originated by the living experience, cannot be not called, DESI, as per the paradigmal definition.
In another sense What Adishankara brought into the collective thought is not , unqualified to be called DESI, as per the definitive norms used by Nagaraj himself. Adishankara, came during the time when Buddhist were having the royal patronage. Shankara’s voice was the voice of the poeple, and a minority at that. Thus it has all the qualifications, as per Nagaraj’s scale, to be called DESI.
2. Considering the collective distributed ideas of the Vedic heap available at that time, it was a very good effort to bring all of them in to consideration and make a sense out of them. It was a mammoth task. Shankara did it. Just like Vyasa had done to collect the body of ideas, edit them, and give it some coherence during his time. Of course it is very clearly discernible by any keen mind that , reducito absurdum in terms of refinement was way beyond his effort. TO bring all the things into consideration was itself a huge task.Now it had prepared the scene for the further refinements, in DArshana, based on contemporary ‘evolved’ living experience, for the further eager minds. Duely Ananda Theertha(Madhvaacharya) and RamanujaCharya , Nimbaraka others have done their part. Even today, eager minds are chipping in their own bit. What in later time makes Shankara’s work to look like MARGA , in essence, in content, was having a DESI origin during its creation. It became Marga because, it was thought relevant by the later minds to work upon, and relevant as reference to proceed further. If just the language, meter used were to be the deciding factor, then it becomes a trivial issue. So, lets rule out that. Other than that if bhava dvani,rasadhvani,kalpana dhvani,tatva dhvani and darshana dhvani are to be considered, then my present analysis covers the ground.
[Else even K.V.Puttappa should be called a Marga writer. Which would be absurd, taking his revolutionary stands, and quite antagonistic style , and very fiercely original, based on his time and place, style of ideas. This cannot be simplistically labeled as MARGA even if he , he writes , avalannu balasi avala prushtagalannu votthi votthikonllutthaliddanu, to describe copulation of two "villagers", in Malegalalli madumagalu, written in late 20th century!!!]
So, the value of the contribution made by any one to the DARSHANA, has to be measured with both aspects.
1.The quantum of original novelty, inspired by the personal and contemporary living experience of the person, that is imparted to the tradition he has inherited.
2.How much that is affective to the subsequent consequence.
A person living in his own ways, if founds out a novel idea, its value of novelty is granted. But how much does it impact the collective’s on going evolution is a very important aspect which decides its value. To put it precisely, In fact value is scientifically decided by two specific things: use and relevance.
So, if Allama has got Novelty of Darshan Dhvani in his poems, its value of novelty is appreciated. But how much affective momentum it imparts in the evolution of the collective is what actually decides its “use”. Hence, it’s historical qualification as Marga.
In my field of mathematics and computer science, many times, many people work out obscure results and die. Centuries , some times, it takes for their work to be integrated usefully. Like most of us, you might also have experienced this during your school days. You, in some inspired moment, discovered a theorem in the second chapter, while just going through the first chapter! This also comes to the same. Both the delineations vary in having time and space as the variables!
So, it is not having any value other than descriptive, to measure any one’s contribution by considering only the novelty, into the consideration. In case of philosophy, it is true that Allama has many differing views than his forerunners. But , the novelty, that he is able to create, was only due to his own exclusiveness from the society; he was a sort of rebel, outside the operating strictures of the society, and his ideas (differing in their practical implementations by the anubhava mantapa, as mentioned by Nagaraj himself) are also lamed, both in form and content, from inability for integration. And his ideas to the collective idea. Thus fails to impart any practical impact, to the evolution. Any one can be eccentric, and find a new thing. But unless he can integrate it with the collective its useless to collective. Thus it also has no “use” for the collective. Thus collective’s neglect of it is justified as it was originated solely by the neglect of the collective! Thus it(Allama’s Darshana) is worth the seclusion it has got.
To me the DESI can be only the measure of the novelty, inspired by the person’s living experience, while Marga is that the tradition he inherits, to which he adds on, and what goes on. His roots come from the both; and value is decided by the use and relevance, time finds of the work.
This perspective is solely missed by Nagraj in his rage. I could only remember Tagore’s words, “What starts in anger must end in regret”. As Nagaraj says, what makes him angry, and inspired to write this book, is that Das Guptha saying “There is nothing effectively new in Dravida DArshana that cannot be found in the main stream of Sanskrit Indian line of thought”. By the way, he tries to impart the cognizance of value of Allama’s works, for its novelty, and finally trying to see it relatively to Shankara, for his justifications. He concludes, hege shankaranondige vagvada nadesi, allma marga matthu desi madhyada antharavannu visarjisutthane.
Its like Nagaraj, builds his own reference frame, which he of course obscures from Das Guptha’s statements, where he puts the works of shankara, abhinava guptha etc and Allama.Creates his own arguments around the structure. And finally dismantles the reference frame, trying to signify a ubiquitous value of Allma.
If Allama cannot give his head to the problems of the collective like Basava, then there is no logic in objecting the reduced relevance the collective gives to him than Basava. It is this truth, that makes , at the user level, to the collective, the esoteric difference Allama might have had in his Darshana with Basava, indistinguishable , in the larger picture.
Novelty from the collective, which cannot be put back into collective to give it newer momentum, is not the measure of the contribution to the collective. But that effective novelty to the collective from the collective inherited is the measure. Nagaraj solely misses it in his conjectures of some concoction of exalted value to the considered works.
Satyam Shivam Sundaram
