Today is November 1, 2021. Sixty six years ago on this day, dreams of Sri. Aluru Venkata Rao and others came true with the formation of Mysore State based on the majority language spoken in the region, Kannada. Seventeen years later, the state was renamed as Karnataka.
What could be a more befitting occasion for me on this wonderful day, than to take up one of the monumental works of Devanahalli Venkataramanaiah Gundappa affectionately known as DVG, the Doyen of Kannada Language for my detailed study. If I could try to understand that epic and express that in my mother tongue Tamil, that would be the icing on the cake for my efforts to understand the classical languages of India.
Yes! I have taken up the Epic by DVG – Manku Thimmanna Kagga for my study. My current knowledge of this wonderful language is limited to only “understanding and speaking to a fair degree of comfort” and I start my journey here like I do in other fields as a toddler.
So the “condicio sine qua non” for the readers is exactly the same as that of my other adventures viz., “pardon me for my ignorance and consider my deficiencies and faults as the learning process of a toddler”.
My sincere thanks to VedaBrahmaShri BR Prabhakar ji for presenting me the translation in the form of a book and a friend in the social media @GunduHuDuGa for helping this toddler to gain confidence and proceed further. My sincere Pranaam 🙏 and thanks to them.
The Prayer
Like all the Epics in our culture, DVG starts the Kagga with a three verses section where he wants us to understand and surrender to that Unknowable Ultimate Reality and Principle called Vishnu, the Creator.
We will begin our study with the Prayer.
Here is the Prayer in the form of a video. The video has both Kannada and Tamil Verses.
Video Link
Prabhu's Ponder 