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...
The car came to a halt, and all I could see ahead was a small, local school. “Where is the palace?” I asked and the driver pointed to a compound wall on the left. I had been expecting an impressive structure, fit for kings. After all, this was once the retreat for the royal family of Coorg! The surroundings were impressive enough, situated as it was amidst forests, quite dense even today, but the school was all that was visible from where we had alighted, and I decided to hold on to my thoughts till I actually saw the palace!