Kanakadasa

Kanakadaasa was born in 1508 and died in 1606. He hailed from Kaginele, in Dharwad district in north KarnaaTakaa. Kanaka Daasa was a devotee of Lord Vishnu and was highly attached to a beautiful Vishnu temple in Kaginele. Uniqueness of his compositions is that he embedded common people’s day-to-day language into the complicated classical Karnataka music which was mostly limited to scholarly language. He is also known for propagating Dwaita philosophy of Shri Madhvacharya through poetry and music to the masses in the Karnataka region of South India.

Right from 14th century to 19th, we find several Haridasas who wrote devotional compositions which could be set to music with simple instruments like Tanpura, and Tala (cymbals). They wrote kirtans, bhajans, prayers, lullabies, festival songs, and house-hold-chore songs. Written in simple and spoken Kannada, they had universal appeal. There is a legend that Kanakadasa, who was a non-Brahmin, wanted to have a ‘darshan (encounter) of the idol. He was not allowed into the shrine by orthodox Madhwas, as Kanakadasa was not a Brahmin by birth. Kanakadasa then started singing praise of Shri Krishna and was lost to outside world in a corner outside the temple.