From Bisnaga to Mysuru, through the eyes of travellers

Mysuru Karnataka: 15-09-2017: An artist's docuimentation of Mysuru Dasara during the era of Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar at the Amba Vilas Palace. PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM.

Almost 500 years ago, Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes described the scenes of a “great feast that takes place for nine days” in the city of Bisnaga (as he called Vijayanagar).

He goes into elaborate descriptions of the pageantry of caparisoned elephants and horses and the awe-inspiring revelry. He concludes that “nothing in the world can compare” to the spectacle. The chronicles of Fernao Nuniz and Paes, medieval writers who visited Vijayanagar in the mid 16th Century, are the earliest available historical accounts of Dasara in Karnataka.

The ‘great feast’

Fast forward to the 19th Century and the events related to the “great feast” have acquired all the trappings of a well-choreographed ceremony as evident in the descriptions of Dasara by Hayavadhana Rao in the Mysore Gazetteer published in 1928. He describes in great detail the king’s observance of religious ceremonies, ascending the throne with 21 gun salute, presentation of State troops, traditional sports, pyrotechnic display, and the final procession of the king on the golden howdah.

In present day, there is little to differentiate in the ceremonies and events that was revived by Raja Wadiyar at Srirangapatna in 1610 AD, a legacy inherited from the rulers of the Vijayanagar. The events that will unfold from September 21 to 30 this year echo the past in many ways, except that the Maharajas have long been supplanted by the State.

Dasara, as observed by the Wadiyars in the confines of the palace, retains the ritualistic elements described by the travellers of yore and have remained unchanged for centuries now, though it is a private affair.

But, the Nada Habba as celebrated by the State in recent years has emerged as a fulcrum to promote tourism and is more of a cultural carnival blending the traditional with the modern.