by Prof. A.V. Narasimha Murthy, former Head, Department of Ancient History & Archaeology, University of Mysore

I had the good fortune of serving the Numismatic Society of India, Varanasi, as its President, Secretary and Editor. I used to attend the annual conferences of this Society regularly. I once noticed that scholars attending the Varanasi Conference from South India could be counted on finger tips. The reason, I learnt, was that North India was very far and travel would be difficult and many scholars suggested ‘Why not a South Indian Coin (Numismatic) Society be started?’ It was a good suggestion and I contacted Dr. R. Krishnamurthy, Editor of Dinamalar (Tamil Daily) from Chennai and he welcomed the idea but told me that his business as the Editor of a Daily would not allow him to devote full time and energy for this. But he hastened to add, ‘If you can take that responsibility, my full support to you is there.’

Prof. K.V. Raman of Chennai gave me his support. The Head of the publication of New Era, Dr. Srinivasan Srinivasan agreed to print and publish the Journal of the Society on the condition ‘I should be its Editor.’ I agreed and South Indian Numismatic Society came into existence in 1990. So far it has conducted 26 conferences at different centres in Karnataka, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala. This time it met at Thiruvananthapuram in Jan. 2016. About 150 Numismatists attended.

It was our good fortune that it was hosted by the Centre for Heritage Studies under the Cultural Affairs Department of Kerala. K.C. Joseph, Minister for Rural Development, Culture and Planning, who inaugurated the conference, extended full cooperation to this conference which was a success.

There was a time when barter was the system of trade. People realised its limitation and began using coins. Coins as such have not been noticed in the Indus Valley Culture. However, Rig Veda mentions coins like Nishka, Rukma, Khadi, in the sense of coins. But actually Nishka means a necklace and hence, it has been taken as a necklace made of gold coins (kasinasara). Anyway, that is the earliest coin of our country.

South India had a period which is generally referred to as Sangam age and it was considered as a literary imagination or even bunkum. Suddenly, Dinamalar Krishnamurthy discovered a coin belonging to a Sangam King called Peruvalathi. For the present, this is considered to be the earliest coin of South India. Barring this, the Satavahana (Andhra) coins are the earliest coins of Deccan and South India.

However, we have had uninscribed punch marked coins all over the country including South India and Karnataka. These silver coins had 5 symbols punched on them and one of them represented the government or the king. At this time, Roman merchants came to South India and gave their gold and silver coins and purchased our spices, especially black pepper, which was considered as an antidote for malaria. Thus the large number of Roman coins gave an impetus for the minting of coins in South India.

Kadambas of Banavasi are considered to the actual inaugurators of coinage in Karnataka. They issued what are called Padmatanka coins. A Padmatanka is a gold piece which has a central punch of a lotus or Padma with some symbols and letters like ‘Sri’ with or without the name of the issuer. The Pallavas of Kanchi issued their own coins in gold and copper. This system was continued by the Cholas of Thanjavur. They minted the portrayal of the king with Nagari or Tamil legends. Chola coins have been discovered in plenty as to fill up them, in gunny bags. In Andhra area, Vishnukundins minted coins. In Karnataka, the Chalukyas minted coins and their most popular coin is called Varaha. This word survives even today in traditional parlance. In fact, the coin name Varaha is a contribution of Karnataka in general and that of the Chalukyas in particular.

The Western Gangas of Talakad minted gold and copper coins with elephant as the important symbol. Unfortunately, Rashtrakuta coins have not been discovered in plenty. Later, Chalukya coins have been found in plenty. The Hoysalas minted coins in gold and copper. Vishnuvardhana minted coins with lion and the legend Talakadugonda symbolising the defeat of the Cholas. One interesting coin is the one which has a portrait of Saint Ramanujacharya. The Sevunas or the Yadava coins include those of Bhillama, Singhana and Ramachandra.

Kings of Vijayanagara introduced innovation in coinage. It is not only a golden age but a golden period for Karnataka coinage. Their coinage has been praised by foreign travellers also. They introduced legends in Kannada and Nagari. The most important coin of Krishnadevaraya are the coins representing Lord Venkateswara of Tirumala and Sri Krishna holding a lump of butter in his hands. Krishnadevaraya performed Kanakabhisheka to Balaji of Tirupati by minting gold coins which had the representation of Venkateswara with Sridevi and Bhudevi and his name in Kannada or Nagari. Nayakas of Madura imitated the coinage of Vijayanagara. Their coins contain legends in Kannada and Tamil.

We may turn our attention to the coinage of Muslim kings — the Bahamani dynasty, Adil Shahi dynasty and Barid Shahi Sultans. They minted coins with legends in Arabic and Persian on both sides. Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan occupy an important place in Karnataka history. Tipu’s innovation in coinage is amazing. He established seventeen mints in different parts of South India and minted coins in gold, silver and copper. He gave each coin a name after the Islamic Saints. His gold coins contain the Persian legend ‘The religion of Ahmad is illumined in the world by the victory of Hyder.’ The reverse has the legend ‘He is the Sultan, the unique, the just, the third of Bahari, cyclic year Azal 2.’

The Wadiyars of Mysore (now Mysuru) began issuing coins with legends. The representation of Hindu Gods by Krishnaraja Wadiyar is unique. They also minted coins with portrayals of lion and elephant with legends in Roman, Kannada and Persian. Once the British took over, they began to follow the British coinage. After independence, the entire country, including South India, is following the system which we are now seeing. Thus, South India followed a unique system of coinage which has a history of over 2,000 years.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / February 21st, 2016

Akshaya Kavya by K.V. Tirumalesh

Abhinava, Rs. 150

Dr. K. V. Tirumalesh’s first collection of poetry,Mukhavadagalu (Masks, 1968), was written in the Navya or Modernist mode; but, very soon, he began to explore ways of transcending the constraints of Modernism, culminating in his famous Mahaprasthana (1990). Till today, he has published eight collections of poetry, his most ambitious and experimental work being Akshaya Kavya (2010), which has won the Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 2015. Today, though he can loosely be called a post-modernist poet, he declares, “I will not willingly identify myself with any movement” (“My Challenges in Poetry”, Muse India). However, Tirumalesh has also written novels, short stories, regular columns, and criticism besides scholarly works on Kannada grammar and linguistics. Being a bilingual writer, he has written on language and linguistics in English also, his well-known work being Derrida’s Heel of Achilles. A few of his translations from English to Kannada include the poetry of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens.

Talking of his Akshaya Kavya, Tirumalesh says, “I would like to call it an epic poem.” In his Preface, he confesses that the voluminous work does not have any “characters, situations, style and grammatical person-tense markers.” We can add that it has no punctuation also.

When one begins to read the work, one finds it a “labyrinth,” full of recursive themes and images.

Loosely, it can be viewed as a brilliant and colourful ‘collage’ of motifs and word-pictures or images. It was Georges Braque and Picasso who practiced this technique of collage with great success in painting, and hence it is no wonder they are often alluded to in Akshaya Kavya. In this world of ‘ever- full poetry,’ fleeting moments of personal experiences, passage of Time, works and characters in Indian and European literatures, philosophers and artists – all jostle with one another. We find here miniatures of philosophers like Buddha and Nietzsche, poets like Vyasa and Dante, literary characters like Draupadi and Beatrice. Interspersed with such word-pictures, there are constant meditations on the nature of language, the relationship between word and meaning, and glimpses of the poet’s own life.

Here are a few representative passages in which the poet reflects on word and meaning, the purpose of poetry and the mystery of poetry.

“What is the least demand of the poem from the poet?

Does it demand active involvement in a big social struggle,

in broad daylight, visible to all? Or, total surrender before a great force?

No, none of these; / all these are the domain of actors.

What is required here is purity of everyday – life,

total self-control, not the figure that comes out of the darkness

of the imbalance between speech and action.” (p.64)

“Words sitting near words / what do they say or do?

They are talking with each other / like shy people muttering something.

They are quiet, they pinch each other / touch and embrace each other/

whisper some secret in others’ ears.

They place their hands on the head of others/ and reach out to those sitting away from them / or, they just tease.” (p.201).

There are two long poetic passages at the end of the volume. The first one (pp. 380-409) gives us snippets from Buddha’s life and the way we respond to the Buddha today. The snippets include Buddha’s sermons on the body and soul, Angulimala and Kisagautami episodes, Buddha’s idols, Ashwaghosha’s narrative about him, and such. Importantly, all the teachings and incidents in the life of Buddha are viewed from a critical angle. The last passage (‘What remains is as Usual – Now’, p. 458-478), mostly autobiographical, records the poet’s wrestling with words and meanings. A highly emotive paragraph runs thus:

“O my very personal god! / You are a witness / to my conflicts/

the ambition to include the entire history/ the intention to hold the sky

on my palm./ You used to laugh and ring warning bells . . .

But I didn’t believe you” (p. 460).

“Not being in the main stream of Kannada, I have been writing such invisible poetry,” Tirumalesh says ruefully in his article “My Challenges”.

I am positive, with Akshaya Kavya and the recognition of Sahitya Akademi, his poetry will become very, very visible.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Friday Review /  C.N.Ramachandran /Bengaluru – February 18th, 2016

Belagavi :

City based chef Mandaar Sukhatanakar has been awarded with Chef of the Year in the Times Food and Night Life Awards for 2015-16 organized by the Times of India recently at Hyderabad.

It was the first time, People’s Choice Award instituted by the Times of India. In previous year, Mandaar had adjudged as one among top 10 young chefs of India that had published in The Celebrated Chefs of India, a publication of Times Group. Mandaar is the son of late Col. Ajit and Bharati Sukhatanakar from Belagavi.