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DECEMBER, 1890.)
KANARESE BALLADS; No. 5.
419
mounted the litter; and the bearers, my brother !, raising it, took it on their shoulders. Keeping guard around her, they set out, my brother!; three hundred matchlock men in front, and two hundred horsemen behind. Jeering at her with the words "Rayanayaka is coming !," and saying “Hurry on !," - on the left and the right were eight or ten men with drawn swords. Taking the road ............,' the noble gentleman himself came to Dharwad, and inquired into her condition. Said he, "Why, rejecting the food that is given to you, have you been displaying so very evil a disposition towards me? And why, sending Rayanayaka out by night, are you causing the surrounding villages to be burnt by him, in mockery (of us)? (But) kill her not; take her, and place her alone within the walls of Kusugal; there is the place for her."
(With a change of metre), --The palanquin-bearers raised her, and carried her to Kusugal. While she was slowly going into the fort, Iravva made great lamentation. Wailing, and saying “For children that have no mother, there is no support and no prosperity; they should not seek to preserve their bodies," - Iravva implored Siva for death. The lady Iravva made la ment, wailing loudly ; Irav va fell straightway into a state of dejection,
(Raising the voice), — "I have been pillaged, just as if one had taken a fish out of the water and thrown it aside ; (such is) my condition."
Seventh Verse. • Saying that she would live no longer in this world, she refused all food and water. Her arms and legs wasted; and saying "Let the earth be my portion," she let her colour fade away. All her limbs dried up, as if with dysentery; and she was consumed with a fire in her body, like quick-lime. She went to the god) Kâda-Siddha of Nawalgand in the neighbouring country, and there she bathed and put on the sacred cloth. Having drunk the water in which the feet of the priest were washed, she laid aside all care for herself, and concentrated her thoughts in meditation on the linga. In devotion, she summoned the ascetic priests, and sent for gold enough to fill the scales, and weighed it out, and gave it away. Saying " Give me liberation ; thou, O three-eyed Hara ("Siva), art my guide !," - she set out and came to Dharwad.
(With a change of metre), - Hearing it said that her little son Mallasarjâ had been caught, quickly Travva became quite overcome, and meditated on the three-eyed Hara ('Siva). If one has a jar full of gold, what use is it?; it is better to live as a poor woman; if a wife has her husband in the house, then only are ornaments worth wearing. So, she gave away in charity all her ornaments and clothes without exception; and saying that the riches of Kittur had faded away, Iravva is weeping greatly.
(Raising the voice), - She came to Dharwad, and when she had been there some three to six days, the time of death came, and she gave up her life.
Eighth Verse. They all raised up the dead body, and placed it sitting, and, having washed the mouth, spread ashes over it. The virtuous ladies put on her, in folds, the siri, with ends decorated with pearls, that her mother-in-law Chanuavva used to wear. They anointed her with the fragrant musk, and sending for a case of ornaments, they spread them about over her body. In her nose they placed a nose-ring, set with jewels worth eight or ten thousand gold pieces. Burning countless pastilles of the fragrant sandal-wood powder, they filled and set out the small lamps and the jars with ears of corn arranged in water. The priests who read the ancient books (the Puranas), and narrate the stories of the sacred writings, assembled. Saying " It is an unnatural death!," - the people of the whole country-side came together, and stood there and rained down tears.
92 The word disokadind. (in the other copy, dloogadinda) is upistelligible. It is not a village-lame.
I cannot obtain any explanation of this ; unless the name of Mallasarja was given to the boy who we alleged to bave been adopted by the last Deal Irava appeare not to bave had any children of ber owu.
