KANNADA: LITERARY LANGUAGE
Kannada has been in use as a literary language for more than fifteen
centuries. The documentary evidence itself dates back to 450 A.D. (Halmidi
Inscription) The production of literature of the written and oral varieties
could easily date back to the beginning of the Christian era. Dr Sha. Settar
has opined in his latest work, ‘Shangam Tamilagam mattu Kannada Naadu-Nudi'
(2007) that some poems belonging to the celebrated Sangam literature in Tamil
were written in an earlier version of Kannada. He proves that the regions where
in these poems were written were ruled by some royal dynasties of Kannada.
Naturally, this Kannada was not replete with Sanskrit words, as is the case
even with the inscriptions dating from 450 A.D. This fact, points to a period
when Kannada was relatively unaffected by Sanskrit and was much closer to its
cognate Dravidian languages. Of course a lot of research needs to be undertaken
involving a comparative study of these languages to arrive at conclusive
evidences.
It
is fallacious to arrive at any conclusion about the nature of the spoken
languages based on literary texts. Actually the literary language of any period
does not have a one to one relationship with the spoken language, let alone the
dialects that are prevalent. Consequently one must think in terms of the
stylistic options taken by the poets and the reasons there of. Literary
language is more often than not a combination of the standard and the
dialectic. In fact Srivijaya the author of ‘Kavirajamarga’ makes a disparaging
remark about the dialects of Kannada and declares in an exaggerated manner that
even the thousand tongued Adishesha will despair if asked to enumerate the
various dialects of Kannada. His work tries to create a standard language that
is built around the spoken variety in the region surrounded by Koppala,
Pattadakallu, Badami and Mudgallu as those places are now known.
The
literary Kannada of any age seems to be a dependent variable changing according
to the nature of the implied reader as well as the stylistic choice made by the
reader. Kannada poets who composed their works during the tenth and eleventh
centuries used a language suffused with Sanskrit vocabulary and their poetic
language was bound by the rules of prosody. These Champu epics were not recited
but read by scholars in the royal courts and the lettered minority outside the
courts. There was no need for any explicatory commentary. In short, Kannada
literature had taken a turn away from its oral tradition. The literary language
was ornate, stylized and highly erudite. This is not to deny its literary
merits. A Champu work which alternated between prose and poetry offers many
opportunities for stylistic experimentations. It depended on the ability of individual
poets to create great poetry or to write in a dry and scholarly style. A
contrastive study between
‘Vaddaradahane’
is unique for more than one reason. Firstly, it is in prose and secondly it
uses a language which is relatively less affected by Sanskrit. Quite often one
notices the influence of Prakrit and that of the Dravidian cutting across one
another.
Twelfth
century was a turning point not because there was a dramatic change in the
spoken language of the people per se. Shivasharanas who never meant to create
literature intended to reach the laymen in order to propagate their principles.
The language was powerful yet lucid. The need to create a long narrative was
not there. The lyrical outbursts were not bound by stringent rules of prosody
either. A sparing use of Sanskrit was as much an ideological choice as a
stylistic decision. Medieval Kannada (Nadugannada) was preferred because it
could reach the masses. However even here a standard literary language was
created and dialects were eschewed. Of course it is purely speculative to
hazard a guess about the nature of the spoken language in the twelfth century.
Harihara
is indisputably an important name in this regard. He was well versed in both
styles as evidenced by ‘Girijaa Kalyaana’ and ‘ragales’. He chooses the
stylized and sanskritized language for the former work and moves on to the
spoken language when composing his ragales. Harihara comes closest to the
spoken language of his times because his major ragales use prose and poetry in
alternative chapters. They contain a lot of drama and conversational prose.
This leads inevitably to the spoken variety. Secondly most of his protagonists
hail from the working communities and they have to use a rustic style if not a
rural-dialectical language. These characters speak differently but they do not
use dialects either. Harihara’s contribution is important because he uses the
language for narration, description, conversation and reflection with out any
import from Sanskrit. This goes a long way in establishing the potential of
Kannada as a literary language. Of course
Kannada
never looked back after Harihara. No doubt Champu works were still being
written for a limited readership but their days were gone. Raghavanka was the
harbinger of the desi kavyas written using the Shatpadi meter and his works
such as ‘Harishchandrakavya’ and ‘Siddaramacharite’ are perennial favorites.
His style was a little more ornate than Harihara at least in their descriptive
passages. Kumaravyasa continued this tradition with great success because he
succeeded in using the language of the common man for the narrating a story of
epic dimensions. The distant Mahabharata in Sanskrit becomes a part our
cultural psyche because of Kumaravyasa’s Kannada. His case is unique because he
must have been a bilingual with a close acquaintance of Marathi.
Haridasa
tradition lead by Purandaradasa and Kanakadasa were similarly motivated as the
shivasharanas. Many of their keertanas combined the lyrical and the descriptive
with admirable success. Purandaradasa uses various registers including the one
used by young children. The desi tradition was successfully carried forward by
poets such as Chamarasa and Lakshmeesha quite competently.
Amidst
all this one should not loose sight of the fact that most of our poets
developed an individual style of their own in spite of some common elements.
Gradually
one notices the fading away of the medieval Kannada and the advent of
‘hosagannada’ (Modern Kannada). This period heralds the era of prose works for
many purposes. Many knowledge based texts were now prone to use prose. The
nature of literary language in the modern needs a separate study.
Yet
another area that needs to be delineated is the literary language created by
the folk literature. These works created for the illiterate communities had to
adopt different strategies. They had to use the rural varieties of the
geographical dialects and couch them in music. This makes folklore closer to
the people and allows it to retain its uniqueness.
This
brief survey is to be supplemented by scholarly treatises dealing with the
topic.