Jagannatha Dasa - Overview

Overview

For about a century after the death of Vadirajatirtha (1480–1600), a noted saint-poet, the Haridasa devotional cult which propagated the Dvaita philosophy of Madhvacharya through lucid Kannada devotional songs, seemed to wane. The movement however revived in the 18th century under the guidance of Vijaya Dasa, this time centered on the holy town of Mantralayam in modern Andhra Pradesh and a large area covering the Raichur district in modern Karnataka. The poetry written by these later day saints closely followed the style established by the 15th- and 16th-century saints of the Haridasa cadre. The Haridasa contribution to Hindu mysticism and the Bhakti literature overall is similar to the contributions of the Alvars and Nayanmars of modern Tamil Nadu and that of the devotional saint-poets of Maharashtra and Gujarat. According to the scholar H.S. Shiva Prakash, about 300 saint-poets from this cadre enriched Kannada literature during the 18th–19th centuries.