Sarvajna Vachanas: Epigrams of a Mendicant

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Sarvajna is a household name in the Kannada-speaking world. His Vachanas (three-lined epigrams) are widely quoted by scholars and lay folk, in cities and in villages. He is a major influence in shaping the socio-cultural psyche of Karnataka (India).

Expressing timeless Indic wisdom, in bold and pithy poetic statements, lit up with striking similes, metaphors and images, the Vachanas, belong to the club of world classics like the Dhammapada, the Kural and the dohas of Kabir and Rahim.

Sarvajna is inseparable from vachana. His pithy triads, simply brilliant to say the least, is a treat for every Kannada-speaking person, That Destiny should have chosen us to translate his epigrams into English, ranks on top when we count the blessings in our life. Our salutations to fate for this!

For centuries, Sarvajna's epigrams remained in the oral domain. It was only in XIX Century that some ardent devotees began to collect, annotate and put together the vachanas in book form. We salute these devotees for their love's labour, in particular, to Shri.Kalamdani Guruyaru. We gratefully acknowledge the help we derived from other collections of vachanas by Chenappa Uttangi, B.G.Ramesh and K. Narayana Rao.

Our translation into English of a few of the vachanas included in this book have earlier appeared in two journals, Sharana Patha and Sarasa. The Introduction included here is a revised version of our article in The Literary Criterion. We gratefully acknowledge our debt to the editors of these journals.

Several friends and scholars made time to read through some sample verses and to offer their valued feedback. We thank all of them. Some of them permitted us to publish extracts of their opinion here. Our special thanks to them.