1. See Barbara Stoler Miller, Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva's Gitagovinda (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 7-14. [BACK]

2. Telugu is a Dravidian language spoken by some fifty million people in the present-day state of Andhra Pradesh. [BACK]

3. Matthew Allen has completed a Ph.D. dissertation at Wesleyan University on the Tamil padam tradition: "The Tamil Padam: A Dance-Music Genre of South India" (1992). [BACK]

4. There is some controversy over the earlier of Tallapaka's dates, since it can be read in different ways in the relevant copperplate inscription. See Veturi Anandamurti, Tallapakakavula krtulu, vividha sahitiprakriyalu (Hyderabad: Privately published, 1974), vol. l, p. 60. [BACK]

5. Vissa Apparavu, ed., Ksetrayya padamulu , 2d ed. (Rajahmundry: Saraswati Power Press, 1963), song no. 297. [BACK]

6. See Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamil Nadu (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992). [BACK]

7. One of Ksetrayya's padams tells us that the courtesans must be able to write down and read back the padams composed by their royal lover. See Vissa Apparavu, ed., Ksetrayya padamulu , p. 213. [BACK]

8. See Srngarapadamulu , P. Sitapati and K. Venkatesvara Ravu, eds., with an introduction by Vadlamudi Gopalakrsnayya (Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Government Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, 1972). [BACK]

1. On Tamil bhakti , see Friedhelm E. Hardy, Viraha-bhakti: The Early History of Krsna Devotion in South India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983); Norman Cutler, Songs of Experience: The Poetics of Tamil Devotion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); and A. K. Ramanujan, Hymns for the Drowning (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). [BACK]

2. On allegoresis in the medieval commentaries, see Cutler, Songs of Experience , pp. 93-110; and F. Clooney, "I Created Land and Sea: A Tamil Case of God-Consciousness and Its Srivaisnava Interpretation," Numen 35, Fasc. 2 (1988): 238-59. [BACK]

3. Hardy, Viraha-bhakti , pp. 318-25, Cutler, Songs of Experience , pp. 93-110. See also Ramanujan, Hymns for the Drowning , p. 155. [BACK]

4. See A. K. Ramanujan, Poems of Love and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), pp. 236-43, on the conventions of akam poetry. [BACK]

5. Vijayaraghavakalyanamu of Koneti Diksitulu, in Ganti Jogisomayaji, ed., Yaksaganamulu (Tanjavuru ), vol. 2 (Waltair: Andhra University, 1956), p. 187. [BACK]

6. See Ramanujan, Hymns for the Drowning , p. 160. [BACK]

7. This number is based on the literary evidence given by Tallapaka Cina Tiruvengalanatha in his Annamacaryacaritra , ed. Veturi Prabhakara Sastri (Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam Press, 1949), p. 45. The actual number of available songs is much smaller: 14,358 according to Veturi Anandamurti, Tallapakakavula padakavitalu: Bhasaprayogavisesalu (Hyderabad: Privately published, 1976), p. 74. [BACK]

8. Annamayya, palukutenela talli pavalincenu : see Veturi Prabhakara Sastri, ed., Srngara sankirtanalu , vol. 4 (Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam Press, 1974), song no. 74. [BACK]

9. For a full discussion of this development, see Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamil Nadu (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992). [BACK]

10. See the Kridabhiramamu of Vallabharaya (15th century?), Bandaru Tammayya, ed. (Madras: Vavilla Ramaswami Sastrulu & Sons, 1953), verse 180. [BACK]

11. E. Krishna Iyer, introduction to Gidugu Venkata Sitapati, ed., Ksetraya padamulu (Madras: Kubera Printers Ltd., 1952), p. xix. [BACK]

12. Even Vissa Apparavu's generally reliable edition ( Ksetrayya padamulu , 2d ed. [Rajahmundry: Saraswati Power Press, 1963]) occasionally succumbs to this temptation, as, for example, on p. 81. The often highly explicit Nayaka-period srngarakavyas proved particularly vulnerable to this type of editing, especially given prevailing Victorian sensibilities. Early editions of Sesamu Venkatapati's Tarasasankavijayamu , for example, often replace whole sections of text, which describe lovers' union, with asterisks. [BACK]

13. Subbarama Diksitulu, Sangita sampradaya pradarsini , 2d ed., 2 vols. (Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Sangita Nataka Akadami, 1973), 1:9. [BACK]

14. Vissa Apparavu, Ksetrayya padamulu , pp. 7-9; Apparavu includes the version reported by Rallapalli Anantakrsna Sarma. [BACK]

15. For a translation of this padam , see pp. 109-10. [BACK]

16. On these categories, see the afterword to Hank Heifetz and V. Narayana Rao, For the Lord of the Animals—Poems from the Telugu: The Kalahastisvara Satakamu of Dhurjati (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). [BACK]

17. We give the Telugu original for those who wish to consult it: [BACK]

18. The verse reads cinnappudu ratikelikan' unnappudu kavitalona yuddhamulonan vanne sumi rakottuta cennugano pusapati sitarama : see Veturi Prabhakara Sastri, ed., Catupadyamanimanjari (Hyderabad: Veturi Prabhakara Sastri Memorial Trust, 1988 [1913]), verse 526. [BACK]

19. David Shulman, Songs of the Harsh Devotee: The Tevaram of Cuntaramurttinayanar (Philadelphia: Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1990), verses 616 and 617. [BACK]

20. Ibid., verse 490. [BACK]

21. Venugopalasatakamu (Madras: N. V. Gopal & Co., 1962), verse 33. For an earlier example from the padam corpus, see Annamayya's poem nimisam'eda tegaka . . . nidurace konnallu neramula konnallu . We thank Sonthi Saradapurna for this reference. [BACK]

22. See Edward C. Dimock, The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava-sahajiya Cult of Bengal , 2d. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), and "Doctrine and Practice among the Vaisnavas of Bengal," in Milton Singer, ed., Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, University of Hawaii, 1966), especially pp. 60-63. [BACK]

23. A. K. Ramanuian, Speaking of Siva (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1973), p. 81. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. [BACK]