Food for thought

Puranadara Dasa, and Food in Carnatic music

Those who listen to Carnatic music are usually in awe of the creative genius of its Pitamaha (father) Puranadara Dasa, the Kannadiga poet from medieval times. A rich but miserly jeweler, fascinated with music, changes his materialistic outlook after a life-changing event, that was Dasaru or Dasarayya as he is popularly known then going on to lead a mendicant’s life, singing and eating morsels of food provided as alms by the occupants of homesteads he passed by. His purported repertoire of some 475,000 poems extolling Vittala (Lord Krishna) are a testament to his prolific output over a period of some 40 years, to stand foremost among the Bhakti movement poets. 

Let’s first check out the legend about his life and the life-changing event which we mentioned earlier. As the story goes, Srinivasa Nayaka was a wealthy jeweler in Araga, a Malanad village in Shimoga, born around 1484 or thereabouts. He gets married to a pious lady by name Saraswati and they are leading a life, which one would term ‘usual’, i.e. till a poor man visited their rich abode. The man meets first meets the miserly Srinivasa and asks for monetary support to conduct his sons upanayana (thread ceremony). The millionaire jeweler drives him away, after which he meets lady Saraswati, who after listening to the request patiently, replies that she had no money to spare. When the visitor pointed to her heavy nose ring, the lady removes it without any hesitation and gifts it to the poor man, who departs happy and contended. Now, our poor man turns around and goes to Srinivasa to pledge the same nose ring.  As soon as Srinivasa sees it, he recognizes it as his wife’s and after loaning the required money to the poor man, locks up the nose ring in his money chest. He then accosts his wife who is shivering in fright thinking of consequences of having gifted her nose ring to some worthless fellow. The lady decides to end her life drinking poison, but lo and behold, as she is about to sip the poison from the bowl, she sees her nose ring in it and quickly shows it to her husband.

Srinivasa is confused, he hastens back and finds that his locked money chest is still locked, the key is with him and that there is no nose ring in it. In a flash, he realizes or comes to the conclusion that the poor man was none other than Vittala or Krishna who had come to teach him a lesson and wean him away from his bad ways. He goes around looking for him, but he has simply vanished! Chastened, Srinivasa gives up his material life and becomes a wandering bard, a mendicant living off alms and singing poems in praise of the Lord Vishnu, Krishna or Narayana.

Step back a bit, actually after some wandering around for 10 years, he comes across Vyasathirtha, the Rajaguru in the flourishing Vijayanagara empire and learns the fundamentals of music from him, at the ripe age of 40. The guru bestows on him the name Purandaradasa (disciple of the lord of Purandara). The next 40 years are spent by him, traveling the length and breadth of the vast Vijayanagar empire and composing and singing close to half-million songs he is credited with, spending his final years at the capital Hampi. Unfortunately, only some 700 of his poems are known to us today. He is also credited with the structure of early Carnatic music, making its teaching systematic, with graded lessons and the fusion of raaga, laya and bhava. More interesting is the fact that his poems encompassed the daily life and routines he saw around him.

With that said and done, let us take a look at some of his poems which touch upon the food habits of the people in the region. You may wonder why and how I got into this peculiar study, well, some weeks ago, I listened to a nice conversation between Arun and Manjusha concerning organic food, going back to the roots, etc, and wrote about the historic food habits of the people of Malabar. A question about chillies and their origin reminded me of the short poem about chillies written by Puranadara Dasa. When I mentioned this to our music teacher Suchitra Hiraesave, she remarked that there were a few other poems of his where Dasaru mentions food. With Suchi’s help, we traced out a few of them from Dasaru’s collection and I will present them briefly, but only relating to their connections to food.

We will not talk about raaga, taala or anything, but by just looking at the various ingredients, we will try to get a reasonable understanding of the habits of medieval Hindu Kannadiga! Note once again that we will not talk about the compositions, their beauty, or the skill of the poet for there are umpteen sites which will on a simple google search provide you such data. We are just focusing on food in Purandara Dasa’s poems. And something unique to mention, in the Vijayanagar area, they used cotton oil to cook!

Surely other languages and poets have touched upon food and I encourage readers to mention examples from Tamil and Telugu in the comments section from the collections of Thyagaraja, Dikshitar and Shyama Sastry or later day composers. Appalam ittu paar with Ramana Maharshi explaining Vedanta through food, is a classic example, you can listen to Abishek Raghuram’sversion  and read its explanation here. (Thanks Manjusha, for the input!)

I am also not sure if there are any in Malayalam, even in the manipravala (Early Malayalam dialect – a Tamil Sanskrit admixture) poems of Swati Turunal and Irayiamman Thampi. Please excuse me for not providing complete lyrics or full translations here, they are available in various sites, you just need to do a bit of googling.

Ragi Thandira

When you mention Purandara Dasa, the very first composition (the poem which our previous teacher Sunitha taught us) which comes to your mind is Ragee thandeera. (Translation thanks to Raja Thata). Millet or Ragi being the staple food of the Kannadiga villager, Dasaru in this very famous song of his exhorts everybody not to forget the importance of giving alms, and to take care of the have nots. He asks you to ensure that you have stocked enough Ragi to ensure that those who need it, be gifted the grain when they turn up.

Purandara Dasa explains how one should live and in a very charming way he plays with the word “Ragi”. He starts off the song with the common day to day meaning of the word and wakes you up with a jolt with clever uses of similar-sounding words having totally differing meanings, as he gets deeper into the poem. In simple terms, he advises the listener to lead a simple, honest and happy life. Let’s look at the Pallavi as an example and see how we can see the mention of Raagi as food, the word yogyaragi is to be read as yogyar aagi (be upright), similarly bhogyaragi is bhogyar aagi (enjoyer of life) and bhagyavantavaragi is bhagyavantavar aagi (be fortunate).

Raagi thandeera bhikshake, Ragi thandeera, Yogyaraagi, bhoghyaraagi, Bhaagyavanthavaraagi neevu - This roughly translates as - Have you brought Raagi for giving alms, have you brought Raagi, May you be an upright person, May you be one who enjoys, May you be fortunate.

Now think back, the only grain which was eaten in Malabar was rice. But we come to see a different grain popular in Deccan plateau and parts of Tamilakam, especially Carnatic Vijayanagara, that being millet. Finger millet or Raagi is the staple diet of many residents of South Karnataka, especially in the rural areas. Raagi is also used to make roti, idli, dosa and conjee. In the Malnad region of Karnataka, the whole raagi grain is soaked and the milk is extracted to make a dessert known as "keelsa".  If you have lived in Bangalore, you will not forget the Ragi Mudde and the very special way Mudde balls are swallowed whole, a dish that will stave off your hunger for hours! For a while, the millet was consigned as a famine grain eaten by the middle and lower classes, as rice and wheat took over the affluent kitchen, though it is nowadays making a resurgence in Karnataka as a healthy grain.

I am deliberately posting a new wave rendition by Vasu Dixitwhich I liked, Together with the classic MLV version 

Vahova Re Menasina kayi

More interesting is the poem which touches upon a new entrant in the South Indian kitchen brought in by the Portuguese from South America, the Chilly. Pippali or long pepper was, however, native to India and is rarely used these days (perhaps only in nihari stews). As you will see, Dasaru is exhorting people to be careful with the use of this new and celebrated spice, adding that it is all good, but you should not forget your prayers.

The entry of chillies into India is a subject by itself. Expectedly Columbus who thought he was in India after reaching the periphery of North America, came across chillies and thought them to be a relative of the famed Malabar black pepper, and called them chillies (Chilly peppers) just like he termed American natives as Indians. Later, Portuguese sailors from Brazil carried them to Malabar and Goa in the 16^th century, popularizing them in South India (Note that Moghul India used mainly the black pepper, not these chillies, until much later). So Dasaru’s poem must have caught its cultivation at its infancy and like those other poems which we read about in my earlier articles relating to Coffee and tea, he warns people not to get addicted to the pungent taste of the new spice and use it in moderation. Today India is one of the largest Chilly producers!

In this song, Dasau says that he has brought the celebrated chilly (then called Goa Mirchi) to eat with the dry raagi roti, he has been watching it grown first as a green fruit, then red and eaten as a celebrated spice. He warns the listener that it is very tasty if one or two are used (crushed), and that it becomes a little bit hotter if a couple more are used; but using two more makes it very very hot, so beware! He adds that it is very useful to the poor, somewhat essential for cooking food; but If bitten raw, it is hot as fire, nevertheless, spice or not - it is important to pray to Purandara Vithala. (Translation – Thanks to Murthy NMG).

The song sung in a Hindustani raga is linked here 

Rama Nama Payasake

This one is a masterpiece, covering a variety of sweet dishes, i.e. desserts intermixed with various gods and morals to prove how sweet a prayer can be! Take a look and decide!

To the sweet dish called Rama, add the sugar called Krishna, and mix the ghee called Vittala, and enjoy the taste in the mouth. After bringing the wheat called single-mindedness, powder it in the mortar called detachment, and adding the buttermilk called innocence, to make thin vermicelli. In the pot called heart, boil the green gram called bhava, make a broth called devotion and serve it on a plate. When we eat it with joy and bliss, and complete it with two burps, think of the blissful God, Purandara Vithala!

Priya sisters render it nicely, the link is here 

Hari Kotta Kalakke Unalilla

In this, he condemns a miser for eating the common dishes of guggari and rice while there was the richer huggi (pudding) and ghee in his home. Guggari by the way is the Bengal gram, in vogue among the poorer classes even today. The poem goes thus - You ate corns (guggariyannava) when you had enough of ghee (tuppa) and rice (huggiyu), You searched for a small coin when all your wealth was vanishing in a moment!

You can hear it here 

Kallu Sakkare Kollidu

Similar to the next number, in this he equates Stone sugar to Lord Krishna. The sweetness of Krishna's name is known only to those who have tasted the sweetness of Kallu sakkare; the name of Sri Krishna itself is as sweet as the kallu sakkare. Buy the sugar candy, for the sweetness of the sugar candy called 'Krishna Nama' is known only to those who have enjoyed that. This sugar candy need not be taken on a bullock cart, it need not be kept filled in gunny bags (for preserving), it is not taxed, and it is the best product which can also give best returns. This sugar candy will always give us profit, will never rot, costs nothing, will not get spoiled by ants, and thus this sugar candy is very popular in the towns. This need not be taken from one market place to another (for sale), this sugar candy makes the buyers' (bhaktas) tongue sweet, and this sugar candy is nothing but Purandara viittala's name!

PB Srinivas’s version here, Dr Rajkumar version sounds better though!

Hannu Bandide Kolliro

In this poem, like the above one, he talks about the person who has come to buy pearls, fruits, honey, but extols the virtues of the pure and genuine Kallu Sakkare - stone sugar, equated to Lord Krishna

R S Ramkanth’s version 

Bhagyada Lakshmi Baramma

The very popular number hummed often by Carnatic aficionados, He asks the lovely queen of Venkata Ramana to let sugar and ghee flow in our homes in streams, just in time for worship on auspicious Friday! Though there are many traditional versions out there, this one is unique – Bhimsen Joshi’s take 

Aroganeya Madellaya

This one is replete with all kinds of food items and showcases either Dasaru’s affluent upbringing or perhaps his time spent at the Vijayanagara palaces.

Oh Lord, in the Brahmanda inside the merumantapa, Devi has set food on golden plates, set with jewels, dazzling like the sooryamandala;  Bhoodevi has offered for you pickles made out of heralae ( citron lemon), nimbu (lime), pepper, cardamom, nellikai (gooseberry), ambatekai (hog plum), lovely mango, bilvamangruli, sondekai (tindora) and tasty papatekai; Sridevi has offered you pappad, sandige (fried vadagam), various curries, ghee, sugar and fruits, fruit salad flavored with camphor and Kasturi (musk); Durgadevi has , within short time, described and offered for you fried atirasa (rice appam), mandige made from jaggery, different kinds of rice preparations, shalyana (kesari) made from thin sevia; Oh Lord please get up and partake your food.

The interesting item in this is the Mandige which is a complex flatbread made with jaggery (other versions exist). In the traditional recipe, wheat flour is kneaded with sugar, ghee, and cardamom and rolled very thin and cooked over an inverted Kadai until crisp. Considering that wheat was probably not that common in the region it may have been made with another flour, I am not sure of this though!

Naivedyava Kollo Narayna Swamy

The translation goes thus - Please accept my offerings oh Lord, I have prepared with utmost care and devotion. It has the balance of all the six tastes (Shadrasa: sweet; salty; bitter; sour; hot (chilli); and Kashaya (astringent). I have prepared Shalyanna (sweet rice); five sweets (Pancha Bhakshyagalu) and nectar drenched heavenly rice. Mentions other delicacies that require special ingredients and careful preparation such as Atirasa with freshly made ghee. Just as you prepare food with care when you offer it as Naivedya (food offering) to God, be sincere, dedicated and have pure intentions when you give to or help fellow human beings.

You hear about mosaru bhatti (curd rice), chitranna (sesame rice), the most ideal sweet – the appam or atirasam and there is the very taste ambode (parippuvada or masala vada)!

V. N. Padmini’s version 

Hasuve Aguttide Amma

The gist of this song is about the childish fuss Krishna makes about food. He wants avalakkai (beaten rice – poha) with jaggery, medium warm, and is insistent that the saru should not be spicy, he would rather prefer it sweet, adding that the ghee should not be watery but thick and solid so he can eat it faster. He does not leave it at that, he wants thick and not watery yogurt. His mother agrees as she is getting the plate ready, at which point Krishna reminds her that his friends have to be fed too, with treats such as banana, jaggery or sugar as well as dry coconut. Mom agrees, but warns that they should not hang out outdoors for too long as wild animals like tigers are roaming around, outside!

Interestingly Dasaru strays from stone sugar which he had been mentioning often and stresses on jaggery, in this poem! For the first time, we hear of the curry as it existed, called Saru or gravy! Saru as Suchitra explains, is made with toor dal, tamarind, salt, jaggery, curry leaves and put Ghee, mustard seeds and hing Vaggarane (tadka) in the end.)

In some other poems, he mentions grits of grain and godduli (plain soup and also what one should not partake in, from his point of view. He condemns the man who eats sour radish and onions, he mentions forbidden items such as garlic, nuggekai (drumsticks), kavadekai, mulangi (radish), gajjari (carrot) and pundipalle. We hear also that the guggari of avaraikaai (flat broad beans) on Ekaadasi, the fortnightly day of fast, was strictly forbidden!

Jyotsna Burde has published an interesting paper on the subject of food habits in medieval Vijayanagar, which may be referred to if you are so inclined. Borrowing from her paper, and with thanks, I can summarize some of the dishes and ingredients, as follows.

Portuguese visitors mention that wheat was indeed around, so also rice, other grains, India corn and a certain amount of barley and beans, moong, pulses and horse-gram. Loads of sweet and sour oranges, and wild brinjals, and other garden stuff were sold in markets. The markets are overflowing with an abundance of fruits, grapes and oranges, limes, pomegranates, jackfruit and mangoes and all very cheap. Rice was the staple food amongst the upper classes, Salyanna salyodana ( Kesari bath) is frequently mentioned. Other rice dishes were chitranna (sesame rice), pakvanna or paramanna (sweet rice) and dadhyanna or mosaru butti (curd rice). Plenty of green vegetables were used, and were usually fried in oil. For seasoning, cumin seeds, black-gram dal, methi (Fenugreek), mustard, black sesame seeds and pepper were used along with ghee. The vegetables were (green) plantains, brinjals, tonde, pumpkin, Heere (sponge gourd), jackfruit, drumsticks and magge (a kind of cucumber). Raw dishes and salads such as krisara, paccadi and kusambhari (Kosambhri) were known. There were varieties of vegetable hotchpotch (Kalasogara) spiced preparations (shaak, melogara) and soups (kattogara, sargal). Many dessert items can be identified and interestingly Sikarane (resembling the modern fruit salad) was prepared from ripe fruits, usually mango and plantains, is frequently mentioned. Dishes of black gram were prepared on certain occasions, and important among these were idlis (iddalige), vade and dosa.

A take away from this culinary journey, in my opinion, is that Carnatic music is not just to be viewed as a form of devotional music but also a testament to the social life in those days! Puranadara Dasa does provide a window into the medieval times and we can view not only the affluence but also the food habits of the masses!

But then again, I am sure you are all hungry now, some may go looking for an Ambode while others would be happy with shali anna, the adventurous may google the recipe for athirasam or sikarane (it is the season for mavina hannu (mango) sikarane now), and the grumpy ones may settle for mosaru anna!

To each his own!

References

Notes, guidance, explanations and translations provided by Suchitra Hiraesave

Food and Food Habits in Vijayanagara Times - By Jyotsna Burde (The Journal of the Karnatak University, Vol. VII., 1963)

Pics – Karnataka Thali Courtesy Megha’s cooking channel, Vittala temple - Wikimedia

Note – One can conclude that Dasaru was often around the Vittala temple in Hampi - The Ranga Mantapa is one of the main attractions at the Vittala Temple, it is renowned for its 56 musical pillars. These musical pillars are also known as Saptaswara pillars, indicating the musical notes emitted by them. Musical notes can he heard when the pillars are tapped gently. Each main pillar is surrounded by 7 minor pillars and these 7 pillars emit 7 different musical notes from the representative musical instruments.