Inconsistencies in this story of Sri Purandara Dasaru

by Shri Kesava Rao Tadipatri

It is well known that NavakOTi NarayaNa Srinivasa Nayaka gave up all his possessions and took up vairAgyapUrNa BhikShATana vRitti and came to be known as Sri Purandara Dasaru and gave jnAna-BhikSha to the devotees, who needed it, thru his devotion-filled Dasarapadas. That itself speaks volumes about his vairAgya. Yet someone with an eagerness to project high amount of vairAgya for Sri Purandara Dasaru, built up a story that came thru sAmpradAya. Many great scholars render this with such heart-moving fashion, that the striking absurdities that make this event an impossibility do not surface at all. It is an instant hit for pravachanas, movies and plays. It draws thumping claps. It goes thus.

Sri Krishnadevaraya saw Sri Purandara Dasaru earning his livelihood thru BhikShATana (begging the alms). He wondered why NavakOTi NarayaNa Srinivasa Nayaka was leading such a life. A mischievous thought crept in his mind that Sri Purandara Dasaru might go back to his earlier lifestyle if some precious jewels were put in his sack, or he wished to test the vairAgya of Sri Purandara Dasaru and sought the permission of Sri Vyasarajaru, which was granted.  Sri Krishnadevaraya made his servants pour plates of precious jewels or in some versions he himself did that in the sack of  Sri Purandara Dasaru, continuously 3 or 4 days and was surprised that Sri Purandara Dasaru still continued his life of begging. He might have even suspected that Sri Purandara Dasaru got so greedy that he was not satisfied with that much of jewels. He conveyed this to Sri Vyasarajaru who took him to Sri Purandara Dasaru. Sri Purandara Dasaru and/or his wife complained that some mischievous people have put stones/un useful objects in the sack of Dasaru. When asked where they dumped those stones, they took them to the dust pile in the backyard, where the precious stones still remained as thrown.

The basic problem with such stories is that some one wants to promote a particular concept and then fails completely to realize that this story does not help that concept at all. On the contrary that person is in fact rendering a blow to that very concept and causing a lot of damage to many other things. Thus it makes it even worse. Someone probably admires the vairAgya of Dasaru. So, that person concocted this story, which apparently depicted vairAgya. Some one may even ask "Look at the intention and try to see the positive thing in there. Why go on criticizing?"

Suppose some one opposes the story of jewels in the jholi of Sri Purandara Dasaru, the people will project that as opposing the vairAgya of Sri Purandara Dasaru and his wife and opposing the thought that Sri Purandara Dasaru and his wife treated the ordinary stones and precious stones alike.

As in the tale of the "Emperor's New clothes", all kept silent all along. Like the child in the episode, I am crying out the truth. This story conveying vairAgya of Sri Purandara Dasaru is as real as the New clothes in that episode. The king did not wear new clothes in that procession and this story does not have the message of vairAgya of Sri Purandara Dasaru.

There are so many variations to this story. In one version, the king seeks permission to test. In another version, the king sees Dasaru and just wants to help him and make him not suffer going to “yaayaavaara(begging)” and so pours jewels. Someone who concocted one version had no idea that when a beggar stands in front of the palace, the person can not be seen by the king, who is well inside the palace. In one version, the king himself puts lot of jewels in the jhOLi. In another version, he makes his servants pour the jewels. At Least this is a minor variation, But the king noticing a person coming for begging from inside the palace is an impossibility. Note the great inconsistency in this version. When the king saw Dasaru in front of his palace, he thought  “I gave lot of wealth to Dasaru and so from tomorrow, he does not have to go for begging. This wealth is convenient for his family”. There is no indication of any testing mentality. But at the end, it suddenly changed the color to testing mentality!

In another version, the king is worried about his reputation since many foreign diplomats who see the glory of the kingdom also see Sri Purandara Dasaru begging and will depict that the kingdom has beggars too!! While all these are minor irking things, the major blow is in the central theme itself.

Dasaru and his wife could differentiate between “akki kALu (Rice)” and “kallu (stones)” , but were incapable of differentiating between “kallu” and “muttu ratnas (precious stones)”. The real vairAgya is knowing something and still not wanting. The total ignorance is not vairAgya. You give a precious stone and a shining ordinary stone  to a one year old child and he will treat them same way. One would not comment saying “what an amount of vairAgya that one year old has!!”.

Truly, Dasaru gave up all his wealth and that does not mean that he was hit with amnesia. The same kind of people also come up with another story. After giving up all the wealth, Dasaru and his wife were travelling thru forest and Dasaru's wife expressed fear of thieves. Dasaru said , “we dont have anything – why are you fearing”. He saw his wife clinging to a bundle of clothes. He opened that up and saw a golden tambige in there. He took that out and threw that and said “nothing to fear now”.  Even after giving up all the wealth, Dasaru and his wife were aware what a golden tambige is, but failed to know what precious stones were!!

What is interesting is that Sri Purandara Dasaru composed songs like :

“nimma bhaagya doDDado, namma bhaagya doDDado ,

Sammatinda naavu neevu saaTi maadi noduva banni

1.Hema honnu haNagaLige heraLa bhayagaLuntu …

2.Kadaga kanTha maalegaLige kaLLara anjike yuntu ...

Nimma bhagya lakshmidevi, namma bhagya naarayaNanu...”

If Sri Purandara Dasaru did not know what the other side is, if he has forgotten all the past and lost the knowledge of precious stones, how could he compare the two kinds of bhaagya?

He also composed the songs like :

“muttu koLLiro...” ,

“raama naama ratna haara dorakitu enage” 

“LoLaloTTe ellaa loLaloTTe ….muttu maaNikya loLaloTTe.. “

If he did not know what they were, how could he even mention them in his songs?

So, note that they gave up desire, but not knowledge. Why should Dasaru and his wife be enveloped in total ignorance? Also it is a black mark on the king also. If the king trusts every word of Sri Vyasa rayaru, why would he doubt the word of Sri Vyasarayaru about Sri Purandara dasaru?  If he heard that Navakoti Narayana gave up every thing and took to Dasaru's life, why would he even attempt to drag him into that hole again?

Objection :  What about samaloShTAshmakAJNchanaH (treatment of balls of mud, stones and gold equally by yogis) as mentioned in Bhagavad gIta?

Answer : The verses in question -

j~nAnavij~nAnatR^iptAtmA kUTastho vijitendriyaH |

yukta ityuchyate yogI samaloShTAshmakAJNchanaH || 6-8||

samaduHkhasukhaH svasthaH samaloShTAshmakAJNchanaH |

tulyapriyApriyo dhIrastulyanindAtmasaMstutiH || 14-24||

The treatment given is same, but not losing the knowledge itself. It should be negation of value of the gems due to vairaagya. It should not be absence of knowledge of the gems due to ignorance. That is precisely what is mentioned in bold in the concluding remarks of this article.

The verses also speak of treating the admiring remarks and admonishing remarks alike or equally. Treating them equally does not imply that they are unintelligible or beyond comprehension for a jnaani like Gibberish or gobbledygook.

What is this "tulyatva"? Acharya gives a brief remark -

"tulyatvaarthaH uktaH purastaat"

(The meaning of tulyatva is given earlier)

Then in Prameya Dipika Shri TIkarayaru explains -

"praayaH sarvaan" ityaadyuktariityeti bhaavaH

(As exaplined by "mostly all the desires..." is what is implied).

Then by using the Tippanis, we can conclude the following -

From the Acharya's Bhashya for verse 2-55, one has to know that jnaani gives up the desire for forbidden and undesirable things. So, time and again, only giving up the desire is stressed, but not giving up the knowledge.

In other words, even in case of the knowledge of materialistic things, we should not place jnaanis like Sri Purandara Dasaru at the level of one year old child, but much above people like us, including those who made a wrong attempt of concocting this kind of story.

Appalling are the variations that crept in ranging from the king slipping the gems while Dasaru was bowing to Sri Vyasarajaru to accidentally witnessing and trying to help Dasaru to seeking permission from Sri Vyasarajaru to test Dasaru as some mischievous thought that got lodged in mind to a worry that the foreign diplomats may taint the glory of the king by spreading the news that some beggars were present in the kingdom of Sri Krishna Deva Rayaru, whose glory was widespread.

One of the meanings of the word 'ignore' is 'to dismiss as of little importance'. That is applicable here. The meaning of the word 'ignorance' is 'lack of knowledge, education or awareness'. That is not applicable here. If we use them in one sentence - Sri Purandara Dasaru ignored the gems, not out of ignorance, but out of a combination of vairaagya and full knowledge.

It is improper to come up with dialogues like "yarO paapiShThi janaru namma joLige nalli kaLLugaLannu haakuttA iddAre". It would amount to double ignorance for Dasaru and his wife. The inability to know the difference between stones and gems is also accompanied by the inability to know that the intention behind putting the gems is not really to hurt Dasaru. So, Dasaru and his wife thought that it was paapiShThi act, when it was not. One may argue that since the king wanted to test Dasaru, it was a paapiShThi act. Then by the same token one can argue that since that test brought out the glory of Dasaru, it was not a paapiShThi act. Also think about it - Tiny little stones of the size and appearance of rice grains can pose a big problem separating them. Will it take a long time separating the gems which look totally different from rice?

Baseless churning of illogical masala makes this concocted story an insult, but not a positive contribution.

Purandara Dasaru apaara vairaagya murtigaLu. Avara vairaagya jnaanabharita vairaagyave horatu ajnaanada hoDetakke baliyaada vairaagyavalla.

ಪುರಂದರ ದಾಸರು ಅಪಾರ ವೈರಾಗ್ಯ ಮೂರ್ತಿಗಳು. ಅವರ ವೈರಾಗ್ಯ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಭರಿತ ವೈರಾಗ್ಯವೇ ಹೊರತು ಅಜ್ಞಾನದ ಹೊಡೆತಕ್ಕೆ ಬಲಿಯಾದ ವೈರಾಗ್ಯವಲ್ಲ. 

Link to Purandara dasara kritigaLu