DĒVARA DĀSIMAYYA

(Jedara Dāsimayya)

(10th century)

Dēvara Dāsimayya was one of the poet-saints of the Vīra´saiva reform movement within Hinduism. He seems to have lived a century before the other two most famous poets in the tradition, BASAVANNA and MAHADEVIYAKKA. Like them he wrote in the Kannada language of southern India, and wrote chieflyvacanas—short poems in a colloquial and direct language that communicated spiritual ideas to common people. The reformist Vīra´saivas eschewed the highly ritualistic practices of the Hindu priesthood, and called for the breakdown of the traditional Hindu caste system, thus many of their members were from the lower castes.

Tradition says that Dēvara Dāsimayya was born in Mudanuru.In the village was a Rāmanātha temple— one dedicated to ´Siva as worshipped by the epic hero Rāma, known as an incarnation of the god Vishnu. Thus all of Dāsimayya’svacanasare addressed to “Rāma’s lord.”

There are many legends concerning Dāsimayya. One says that he was in the forest mortifying his flesh when ´Siva appeared to him and told him that working in the world was a more acceptable means of worship, after which Dāsimayya returned to Mudanuru and became a weaver (thus he is sometimes called “Dāsimayya of the weavers” or “Jedara Dāsimayya”). Other legends depict Dāsimayya winning debates with Brahmins, Jains, and others. He was apparently a well-known teacher in the territory ruled by the Jain king Jayasimha, whose wife Sugale was converted by Dāsimayya. Legend says he ultimately converted the king and 20,000 of his subjects. Whether the legends are true or not, clearly Dāsimayya had a reputation as a great Vīra´saivist missionary.

Dēvara Dāsimayya’s spirituality was mystical, like that ofMahadeviyakka after him. The Vīra´saivist rejection of ritual was meant to stress individual, personal spirituality that aimed for a oneness with God, or ´Siva (one of the three major gods of Hinduism). In part, this meant transcending the barrier between body and soul, as Dāsimayya suggests in one poem: “You know the secret of my body/I know the secret of your breath./That’s why your body/is in mine” (Ramanujan 1973, 106).

It meant, as well, blurring other distinctions in the physical world, such as that between male and female. In another poem, Dāsimayya says:

they call it a man:

nor woman.

(Ramanujan 1973, 110)

Such a blurring of distinctions, of course, ultimately implies a breakdown of castes as well, as Dāsimayya’s successor Basavanna realized. Dāsimayya is distinguished from the other poet-saints of Virasaivism by the direct nature of his language, sometimes verging on coarseness. But like the other poet-saints, he evinces a mystical outlook and radically reformist ideals.

■ Ramanujan, A. K., ed. and trans.Speaking of´Siva. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1973.