The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
In October 2011, we visited Sringeri , Udupi and Kollur . It was a memorable trip with tightropeartists and rainbows giving us a respite from the temple visits . We were really looking forward to the last leg of our trip, which took us to Shimoga and then to the River Tern Lodge. However, we still had much to experience before we reached Shimoga! We had decided to use public transport as much as possible during the trip, so we stuck to KSRTC and private buses which ran on the hills. We had no problem finding convenient buses , and to my surprise, almost always managed to find seats too. The people were helpful, and with a mixture of Tamil and Hindi, we managed to travel from one place to another with the least amount of trouble. The people at the bus stands, as well as the driver and conductor were polite and helpful, and nowhere was it more apparent than on the last part of our journey, from Sringeri to Shimoga.