Devalok
Local story · 2 tellings · Pan-India, South India

Kanakadasa's window at Udupi

Turned away from the Udupi temple, the shepherd-saint Kanakadasa sang outside until the image turned to face him through a gap in the wall.

Who is in it

Places: Udupi

The story, beat by beat

  1. Kanakadasa, a shepherd-caste singer, is refused entry to the Krishna temple at Udupi by its priests.
  2. He stands outside the western wall and sings to the god.
  3. The image turns from east to west and a gap opens in the wall so he can see it.
  4. The window, Kanakana Kindi, is kept and every pilgrim now looks through it.
  5. His contemporary Purandara Dasa, initiated by Vyasatirtha at Hampi, fills Kannada with songs signed 'Purandara Vitthala'.

devotion caste darshan music

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Temple tradition

Udupi temple tradition and Haridasa literature

South India · Udupi and Hampi, Karnataka Vaishnava Kannada Madhva Haridasa

The Haridasas of Karnataka sang to Krishna in Kannada rather than Sanskrit, and their most repeated story is about who is allowed to see him. Kanakadasa, born to a shepherd family, came to the Udupi matha and was kept out by the priests. He went round to the back and sang. Tradition holds that the image inside turned from the east to the west and that a crack opened in the wall so that the singer could see the god's face. The small window is still there and pilgrims still take their first look through it. His fellow Haridasa Purandara Dasa, once a rich merchant, became a wandering singer after his initiation by Vyasatirtha at Hampi and left thousands of songs that Carnatic music treats as its foundation.

Kanakana Kindi — Wikipedia; Kanakadasa; Kanakadasa (Daijiworld feature); Purandara Dasa — Wikipedia

Encyclopedia

Puranic Krishna

Pan-India Vaishnava

The Bhagavata's Krishna is the cowherd of Braj and the king of Dwarka, whose stories are told by sages to kings in Sanskrit.

What is different here:

The Haridasa Krishna answers a low-caste singer against the temple's own gatekeepers, a social framing the Sanskrit texts do not carry.

Kanakana Kindi — Wikipedia

Sources: Kanakana Kindi — Wikipedia; Kanakadasa; Kanakadasa (Daijiworld feature); Purandara Dasa — Wikipedia

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