The amuktamalyada of Kr&dotbelow;s&dotbelow;n&dotbelow;zadevaraya Language, Power & Devotion in Sixteenth Century South India

The amuktamalyada of the sixteenth century Vijayanagara monarch Kr&dotbelow;s&dotbelow;n&dotbelow;adevaraya is a poetic masterpiece of the highest order. It stands out as a landmark in Telugu literary history, not only for its poetic beauty, but also because of the unique religious and political themes embedded within its central narrative. Unlike most contemporaneous Telugu poets who based their works on Sanskrit puran&dotbelow;as or other Indo-Aryan mythological sources, Kr&dotbelow;s&dotbelow;n&dotbelow;adevaraya turned to the southern Tamil tradition for his inspiration. The amuktamalyada is in essence a richly poetic hagiography of the Vais&dotbelow;n&dotbelow;ava poet-saintess an&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;al&dotbelow;, or Goda as she is referred to throughout the text. And unlike the great kavyas of Sanskrit (or even most coeval sixteenth century Telugu prabandhas) that often centered around male heroes, amuktamalyada tells the story of an adolescent Tamil girl in love with god. The notion of a female protagonist was surely common to Tamil epic literature, as in the famous Cilappatikaram, Man&dotbelow;imekalai and Civakacintaman&dotbelow;i. This geo-cultural shift by Kr&dotbelow;s&dotbelow;n&dotbelow;adevaraya evidences a marked reorientation of the Telugu tradition towards the South, not only in terms of literary source materials and bhakti related themes, but also in a very concrete political sense as the power center of the post-Vijayanagara state system moved to the Tamil country.;Both the themes of regional vernacularization and bhakti related transformations are framed by the poet-king's lived political life and his ambitious poetic imagination. In many ways Kr&dotbelow;s&dotbelow;n&dotbelow;adevaraya exemplifies the old notion of a kavi-raja or poet-king; a ruler who could unite both statecraft and literature into a composite expression of kingship. The unique importance of Kr&dotbelow;s&dotbelow;n&dotbelow;adevaraya's work is therefore best understood when the text is placed within the historical context of the king's political agenda and the sweeping changes that he brought about, leading to both the apex and ultimate demise of the Vijayanagara empire. In this sense, amuktamalyada is a significant textual representative of the layered developments within South Asian literary and cultural history writ large. Composed in the early sixteenth century by one of South Asia's most celebrated monarchs, the ornate long poem of some 875 difficult verses brings together several diverse themes that coursed through the heart and mind of the multi-faceted poet-emperor, as well as his vast and diverse empire.