UDIPI KRISHNA TEMPLE - KANAKADAS WINDOW

Normally the naivedyam offering is made of costly stuff due to addition of spices and other ingredients. Never a cheap quality stuff is given to higher ups, much less to the adorable deities during naivedyam ritual. But in one temple it is regularly made and devotionally offered. The archamurti, as the story goes accepted it with full heart and relished it more than other dishes placed in naivedyam items. Sounds strange is not it? It is neither strange, nor thrust upon compulsion on the deity seeing it enjoyed with face wreathed in smiles and eyes flashing light, the pontiff ordained that it should be regularly offered to the deity.

On unveiling the curtain, we see the grahita is no other than the much venerated Balagopala of Udipi Krishna temple and the data a true bhakta belonging to the lowest caste by birth, but highest in the evolution of bhakti that won greatest honour even from the venerable pontiffs. He is Kanakadasa whose devotion charged songs are sung by thousands and thousands of gayakas that submerged millions and millions of asthikas. His place in the Dasa Sahitya of Karnataka State is decidedly greater, weightier and superior than many who are catapulted to the high ranks. He is an unlettered, underfed wandering minstrel, whose worth was realised by a high souled Godman.

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