Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Ivan M. Granger August 20th, 2008

The Hovering One
by Devara Dasimayya

English version by A. K. Ramanujan

Ramanatha,
who can know the beauty
of the Hovering One

who’s made Himself form
and of space
the colours?

— from Speaking of Siva, by A K Ramanujan

/ Photo by atomicjeep /

These few lines, just a handful of words, are almost undefined, walking us along that thin border between frustration and delight.

I mean, what is Devara Dasimayya trying to emphasize by naming God “the Hovering One”? Several of this Indian saint’s songs recognize the Divine within the ether or akasha, the subtle atmosphere that permeates all material existence as a living field of knowledge. I suspect he is saying that God “hovers” in the ethers, just barely hidden behind the multiplicity of material existence.

The Divine hovers, too, beyond all form, but from that airy formlessness, has inexplicably manifested form and color — the entire kaleidoscope of surface reality.

But those are just statements to satisfy the intellect. Dasimayya’s question still rings in the air: Who can truly know, fully appreciate, and directly witness that beauty — from the apparently tangible to the most teasingly subtle? Who bothers to cultivate the vision that can take in the wholeness?

Devara Dasimayya was one of the earliest of the Virasaiva poet-saints, a forerunner of later beloved figures like Basavanna and Akka Mahadevi.

Dasimayya addressed his poems to Ramanatha, or “Rama’s lord,” a reference to Shiva as worshipped by the divine hero-king Rama.

Tradition says that Dasimayya was performing intense ascetic practices in a jungle when Shiva appeared to him and told him to stop punishing his body. Shiva urged him instead to work in the world. Dasimayya renounced his extreme practices and took up the trade of a weaver.

Like most Virasaivas that followed him, this gentle saint taught a life of complete non-violence, even teaching local hunting tribes to renounce meat and, instead, provide for themselves through pressing and selling olive oil.

Dasimayya became a famous teacher, eventually giving initiation to the wife of the local king, who was a Jain. Dasimayya engaged in several debates with the powerful Jain community and, through a series of miraculous events, managed to convert large numbers to the worship of his loving vision of Shiva as the eternal God.

More poetry by Devara Dasimayya

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