Poet: Devara Dasimayya

Translator: A. K. Ramanujan

Source: Speaking of Siva, Penguin Classics

Performed by M. D. Pallavi and Bruce Lee Mani

For Bhakti Republic with Amit Basole

Radio Azim Premji University, 2023

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To the utterly at-one with Siva

there’s no dawn,

no new moon,

no noonday,

nor equinoxes,

nor sunsets,

nor full moons;

his front yard

is the true Banaras,

O Ramanatha.

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Devara Dasimayya, also known as Jedara Dasimayya, was a prominent figure in Vachana literature, hailing from the village of Mudanuru in Karnataka. He worked as a weaver and lived during the rule of the Kalyani Chalukyan ruler Jayasimha II. Basaveshwara, among the most prominent of the Veerashaiva poets, praised Dasimayya and his wife Duggale in several of his vachanas. Composed approximately 100 to 150 years before Basaveshwara, Dasimayya's 176 vachanas are noteworthy for expressing profound philosophical ideas in a concise form. Dasimayya's vachanas touch upon themes of conjugal discipline, gender equality, and the significance of charity. Dedicated to Ramanatha (Shiva), these vachanas have earned him admiration from the Devanga community, a widespread group of weavers in southern India who consider him an avatara purusha, an incarnation of the divine.