Kannada writer Mallikarjun Kadikol, who spoke on tatvapadas at the 85th Akhila Bharat Kannada Sahitya Sammelan at the Mahatma Gandhi Auditorium, Gulbarga University campus, here on Thursday, expressed displeasure that such a rich contribution as tatvapadas has been neglected from the mainstream Kannada literature and Kannada hermeneutics.
He said that tatvapadas are not merely mystical songs or poems. They are a living tradition practised throughout the State, irrespective of caste and creed. Tatvapadas did not encourage any discrimination against people but represented true democracy, avoiding much significance to blind faith and motifs. Tatvapadakars tried to speak about universal human values, he said.
Mr. Kadikol said that though tatvapadas were not in the form of documentation, they were passed on orally and tatvapadakars were very cautious about preserving the main philosophy behind the tatvapadas.
Devendra Heggade, who spoke on the “Origin of Buddhism and its Literature”, said that the earliest Buddhist texts were found in middle Indo-Aryan languages called Prakrits. Buddhism gave the greatest blow to Brahmanism in the Sixth Century, he said.
Mr. Heggade divided Buddhism into the Golden Era, the Dark Age, the Revival and the Rejuvenation period.
The teachings of Buddhism spread far and wide like fire as it provided relief to society overburdened with Brahminical rites and rituals.
The factors that worked for the spread of Buddhism was Buddha’s ideal life, shortcomings of the Vedic religion, the use of Pali language, and the royal patronage extended by rulers such as Bimbisara, Ajtasatru, Asoka, Kaniska and Harshavardhana. Buddhism spread across Tibet, China, Indonesia and Japan, he added.
However, “we can observe the decline of Buddhism in India from the Seventh Century. The reasons being laxity of monastic rules, the revival of Hinduism and Brahmanism, and the invasion of Islam, the use of Sanskrit language, and the worship of motif,” he said.
Parveen Sultana, who spoke on Sufi literature, said that the first stage of Sufism appeared in the pious circles as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad period (661 and 749). The word Sufi is derived from the Arabic word Suf, meaning wool.
The other meaning for the word Sufi is in Persian. It goes in the rhyme: Sufi Chist-Sufi Chist. It means: A Sufi is a Sufi, and it is indefinable as there is no synonym for it and it cannot be defined linguistically.
Sufism has its great names in Prophet Mohammed, Ali-Ibn-Abitaleb, Maulana Rumi, Ibn-al-Arabi, Jami and Mansur-al-Hallaj, she said.
Ms. Sultana said that Sufism is believed as an essential pillar of Islam, but it also contemplated on the problems and deeper meanings of life. Sufism also questioned the prevalent dogmas of society and brought people together with the message of love and equality.
Almost all Sufis across the world trace their lineage back to Hazrat Ali, but it is in cities such as Basra, Kufa, Cario, Baghdad and Damascus, Sinai and Mesopotamia where the Sufi movement really took roots.
The famous Sufi Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti came to India in 1192. After staying in Lahore and Delhi for some time, he finally shifted to Ajmer. The Khwaja’s young disciple, Shaikh Hamiduddin Nagauri, made Rajasthan the chief Chistiyya centre; he was succeeded by his grandson Sheikh Fariduddin Mahmud, she said.
The Sufi who did the most to make the Chistiyya popular in the Deccan was Sayyid Muhammad Bin Yusuf al-Hussaini, commonly known as Hazrat Khwaja Bande Nawaz Gesudiraz. He was in Gujarat and then settled down in Gulbarga (Kalaburagi), she added.
