Avadhanam

Avadhanam is a literary feat popular from the very ancient days in Sanskrit and more
exclusively in Telugu (అవధనం)and Kannada Languages. It requires immense memory
power and tests a person's capability of performing multiple tasks simultaneously. All the
tasks are memory intensive and demand an in depth knowledge of literature and
grammar. The tasks vary from making up a poem spontaneously to keeping a count of a
bell ringing at random. No external memory aids are allowed while performing these
tasks except the person's own brain, not even so much as a writing utensil.

Avadhani(Telugu: అవధని ) refers to the individual who performs the Avadhanam; the
one who queries them is the Prucchaka(Telugu:పృఛఛకల) . The first person to ask the
question is called "Pradhana prucchaka" He is the same as any other Prucchaka except
that, he asks the first question. The Prucchakas put forth questions to the avadhani which
are literary in nature. The Prucchakas can optionally place additional constraints. Though
it is not stated explicitly, conformation to Chandassu (The syntax for poems) is
mandatory. Avadhani should answer them in the form of a poem. The literary questions
generally consist of a description given in prose and the avadhani has to express it as a
poem. The additional restrictions placed by the Prucchakas can be anything like asking
the avadhani not to use a given set of alphabets in the entire poem or to construct only a
particular type of poem etc.

Characteristics of Avadhanams
The beauty of Avadhanam is, the avadhani is not allowed to recite the entire poem in a
single go. After listening to the Prucchaka's question, the avadhani constructs the first line
of the poem, recites it and moves to the next Prucchaka. After listening to all the
Prucchakas, and reciting one line of poem each, the avadhani shall return to the Pradhana
prucchaka (in Round-Robin fashion) and continues with the second line of the poem. The
beauty and challenge here is that, the avadhani has to remember the question, the line of
poem said before and all the additional constraints placed. They shall not be repeated and
any mistake shall disqualify the person from being entitled to "Avadhani". Every poem
has 4 lines, so every Prucchakas turn comes 4 times. Avadhaani has to recite the full
poem once he finishes constructing all the lines of the poems. This is called "dhaarana"
and forms the culmination of the Avadhanam. Avadhani should use only his memory for
all this. Some times, Avadhanam goes for days at an end!!!

It is a general practice for one of the Prucchakas to keep ringing a bell randomly and
avadhani has to keep track of number of bell rings. The beauty and challenge of the
Avadhanam is that the avadhani has to do all these tasks simultaneously.

Of the remaining Prucchakas, one person is in charge of "aprasthuta prasangam" (Telugu:

అప
రస
తత పృఛఛకర). His responsibility is to distract the avadhani with questions and
topics unrelated to the avadhanam and the avadhani has to reply to his questions and
riddles. The Prucchaka who manages this should also be equally intelligent and witty to
entertain the audience with his questions. The challenge for Avadhani is not to get
distracted by 'aprastutha prasangam' but also should give witty answers spontaneously to
the silly questions.

Because of the memory intensive nature of Avadhanam, the number of Prucchakas plays
a major role. The more the number of Prucchakas, the higher the challenge. Higher the
challenge, more is the fame.

Besides conducting Avadhanams, which in itself is a great feat, many Avadhanis also left
a longer and lasting legacy by penning works and mentoring students who often grew up
to contribute to Telugu literature in their own uniquely rich ways.

[edit] Types of Avadhanams

The number of Prucchakas can be 8 (ashtavadhanam) or 100 (shathavadhanam) or even
1000 (sahasravadhanam)! A person who has successfully performed Ashtavadhanam is
called as Ashtavadhani, a shatavadhanam is called a Shatavadhani and sahasravadhanam
is called Sahasravadhani.

The other lesser known forms of Avadhanam are Chitravadhanam (painting),

Nrutyavadhanam (Dancing) and Ganitavadhanm (Mathematics).

[edit] Trend Setters

The trend of Avadhanam was popularized by Divakarla Tirupati sastry (1871-1919) and
Chellapilla Venkata sastry (1870-1950) who were popular as "Tirupati Venkata Kavulu".
Contemporaries of Tirupati Venkata Kavulu that are famous for enriching the heritage of
Avadhanam include Kopparapu Sodara Kavulu and Venkata Raamakrishna Kavulu.
Kopparapu Sodara kavulu are well known for their speed in composing poems.

Students of Tirupati Venkata Kavulu include famous Gnanapith award winner

Viswanatha Satyanarayana and well known Subbanna Satavadhani. Sri Paada
Subrahmanya Sastri, a well-known short story and novel writer is a student of Venkata
Rama Krishna Kavulu.

[edit] Some of the Current Avadhanis

• Dr. Garikipati Narasimha Rao. He is referred to as Maha Sahasraavadhani for
having subjected himself to thousand Prucchakas! He is well known for
amazingly fast recollection of hundreds of verses composed and recited earlier
and has the title 'Dhaarana Brahma Raakshasa'. His 'Saagara Ghosha' is an
acclaimed literary work.
• Dr. Medasani Mohan. He performed many Ashtavadhanams, Satavadhanams ,a
Sahasravadhanam and a panchasaharsravadhanam i.e answering FIVE
THOUSAND PRUCCHAKAS.Besides being Avadhani he also heads the
Annamacharya Project involved in uncovering, compiling, classifying and
popularising Annamayya works at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam.
• Dr. Nagaphani Sarma. He performed many Asthtavadhanams, Satavadhanams
and also Sahasravadhanam. He performed avadhanams in both Telugu and
Sanskrit languages. He also lead the Telugu Adhikara Bhasha Sangham.
• Kadimalla Varaprasad. He conducted many Ashtavadhanams, Satavadhanams
and also a Sahasravadhanam. His students include Satavadhanis like Vaddiparti
Padmakar and Kota Lakshminarasimham. In past, "Jamta kavulu" conducted
Ashtavadhanams and Satavadhanams, but Kadimalla Varaprasad and Kota
Laksminarasimham pioneered as "Jamta kavulu" in conducting Sahasravadhanam
together.
• Astakala Narasimha Rama Sharma. A teacher by profession, he is referred as
Wikipedia of ASHTAVADHANAM prakriya and completed more than 150
asthavadhanams. He also built a unique temple for goddess Saraswati in Medak,
Telangana.
• Dr. Rallabandi Kavitha Prasad (Director, Dept of Culture, Govt of Andhra
Pradesh) has performed more than 500 avadhanams, including satavadhanam and
dvisatavadhanam. He also performed various avadhanas such as
navarasavadhanam,and astadasavadhanam,etc and introduced various new trends
in avadhana vidya. Osmania University awarded him a Doctrate degree for his
thesis on avadhanam vidya. He hails from Nemali Village, Gampalagoodem
Mandalam in Krishna District of Andhra
Pradesh.(http://www.kavithaprasad.com/swagatham.htm). He is the author of
books like Kadambini etc.
• Dr.R.Ganesh (Research Officer at Southern Regional Centre,[1] Bangalore). He
performed more about 500 avadhanas in around 8 Langages. Dr.R.Ganesh is the
master in more than 17 languages (Indian and foreign).