Kamat's Potpourri: Amma's Column -

Saturday, February 23, 2019

Students of Kannada literature are familiar with the nostalgic memories of Poet Pampa (10th Century) wherein he craved to be born as a bumble-bee or a cuckoo in the land of Banavasi. Poet Bilhana (11th Century) also fell in love with Banavasi and has devoted considerable space, to describe its pristine beauty, in his epic, Vikramankadeva Charita.

Here is description of Jiduvalige-nad a county in Banavasidesha, in a stone inscription of 1145 CE, which throws light on the picturesque landscape of the region.

In that nad,
with rows of rice fields from town to town;
with running channels from place to place;
with flower gardens filled with the fragrance of areca, punnaga, naga, vakula, champaka, jasmine, screw-pine, sandal, kanavira and white rose;
with groves of areca, cocoa-nut, plantains, jack, mango, rose-apple and other trees; with darkly shaded gardens of betel leaf, and plantations of sugar-cane trickling with juice; with lines of gardens of waving lotus and waterlilies;
most beautiful to behold, devoted to yogis and pleasure, a pleasing jewel-mirror to that nad, was Jidvalige-nad. In which the royal city was Uddhare; its praises.

Amma's Column by Jyotsna Kamat

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Jyotsna Kamat Ph.D. lives in Bangalore.

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