Sarvajna of Karnataka: The People's Poet In the realm of Kannada literature, that rich expression of the life of Karnataka

and of the various grand phases of her experience through the ages, are the glorious demesnes of great poets, great philosophers. Among them stand in the forefront such poet-kings as Pampa, Ponna and Ranna. They are not poets of Karnataka merely, but world poets. They can, with justice, be classed with Milton, Dante and Goethe, in the quality of their contribution to the literature of the world, and consequently, as interpreters of divine truths to man. But it is a fact which is generally recognised that poets like Milton or Dante secure but a small number of readers. Their intensity of vision and their richness of expression cannot stir the masses and illumine the dark corners of their souls. In a word, they are not popular. That is exactly the case with our own poets like Pampa. The praise of these poets is universal and yet the intelligent appreciation, or even the perusal of their works, is limited to a few. Is it the fault of exalted genius that its expression is incomprehensible, or the fault of the people that they cannot understand them? Among the popular poets who are distinguished by a certain poetic plainness of expression as contrasted with the poetic magnificence and aloofness of the literary giants, but not unlike them in their realization of Truth, which all pursue, Sarvajna stands supreme. His verses are on the lips of every countryman of his, rich or poor, learned or unlearned. If Pampa and others are poets of the grand style, Sarvajna is the poet of the simple, the lucid current style. If the former express eternal truths in a magically beautiful language, surrounding them with a certain highly imaginative atmosphere, the latter expresses the same in verses couched in plain and terse language, which, by their very plainness and terseness, are pleasing and penetrating. But this should not be understood to apply to all his verses. His real poetry comes in when Sarvajna stands as a Yogi with the vision of the Eternal before him, singing his own rich experience of the Beyond. Secondly, he brings this vision of his to bear upon the society of his time, denouncing its sophistry, its idolatry, its complicated and soul-killing system of castes and creeds. Not that idolatry, as such, is to be condemned; but when people have lost or misunderstood its purpose and have made it an end in itself, then the Sarvajnas have to rise and roll up the curtain of darkness that hinders the true vision of the people. The verses that express this phase of Sarvajna may be called verses of social satire, instruction and criticism. Then in the third category, stand his miscellaneous verses such as those on astrology, weather-lore and the like-terse and pithy expressions of almost all the sides of Karnataka culture. There are even riddles written by him and verses which prophesy the events taking place in the future, such as the one foretelling the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire. Thus

Sarvajna is a typical Kannadiga, one who knew himself and his country and who understood the secret of the well-being of the society of his time, and devoted his life to the uplift of his countrymen.