Prabhu: Lord Of The Caves

Allama is respectfully called Prabhu, the Lord; narratives, following Harihara, describe Allama is a mystic saint and Vachana poet (called Vachanakara) of the Kannada language in the Twelfth century. He was son of a master musician in a temple, as a student of music trained in percussion instrument; Allama as falling in love with a girl and marrying her, and upon her death becoming a recluse, “Allama meeting his Guru Animisha in a care; doing various spiritual practices and wandering all over the land covering and teaching, critizing and guiding various disciples; later narratives, following chamarasa, consider Allama as a courtier of Shiva, born on this earth because of a curse but born perfect, conquering the trap of love and sex, and teaching

Allama Prabhu’s poetic style has been described as mystic and cryptic, rich in paradoxes and inversions (bedagu mode), staunchly against any form of symbolism, occult powers (siddhis) and their acquisition, temple worship, conventional systems and ritualistic practices, and even critical of fellow Veerashaiva devotees and poets. However, all his poems are non-sectarian and some of them even use straight forward language. According to the Kannada scholar Shiva Prakash, Allama’s poems are more akin to the Koans (riddles) in the Japanese Zen tradition, and have the effect of awakening the senses out of complacency. Critic Joseph Shipley simply categorises Allama’s poems as those of a "perfect Jnani"

The melody of this poetry in his Vachanas acts like magical incantation. There is more meaning in it than meets the eye. There is more occult power in his saying than their obvious meaning tends to convey. The construction of the sentences and the arrangement of the words have a special significance and meaning. Substitution of one synonyms for another destroys the intended effect. Unrivalled beauty dawns on repetitious singing of his sayings and the memory becomes impregnated with intrinsic impressions. “In the flight of imagination, in the depth of meaning in the sublimity of expression and in the supernatural regard, Dante comes nearer to Prabhu than Homer or Milton. Dante’s characters are not mere metaphysical abstractions, they are wonderful creations. However, grotesque and strange the images may be, he never shrinks from carcituring them”3. He is never at a loss for the appropriate words. His description is clear, concise and graphically vivid; he counts the numbers, he scales the height and he measures the metres. The dominant features of Dante’s poetry is remoteness of the associations, which impresses the readers not so much by what it expresses but what it suggests, not so much by the idea it directly conveys but by the ideas it implies. However, Prabhu’s