Talk:Avadhanam

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Backwards copyvio

Text very similar appears at https://www.cognopedia.com/wiki/Avadhanam but that appears to have copied from this page, not the reverse. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 00:11, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Method section

Hi, I did an extensive copy edit (mostly removing feting for encyclopedic style) and added photos but someone familiar with the topic might like to check the method section. I have read the article, watched the videos and tutorials and I am ashamed to admit I still don't know exactly how the avadhanam works. I haven't checked any of the citations due to language difficulty. Best to all. Vera.Grace (talk) 08:23, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll try to take a pass over it sometime, hopefully later this week. For now I reworded the lede and simply rearranged sentences a bit. Shreevatsa (talk) 16:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Shreevatsa, that it geat - thank you! I was wondering if something in method or the lead needs to mention that the poem is presented in a singing or chant style (if it is). People who are outside the Indian community migh think it is orated as only speech. Cheers, Vera.Grace (talk) 23:59, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Vera.Grace and Shreevatsa! Great work on the article. I have never edited any wiki page and honestly do not know how to do it but I noticed some mistakes in the names, terms and diacritics. Moreover, several new works on avadhanam are not mentioned, such as two recent books: The Art and Science of Avadhanam in Sanskrit by R. Ganesh and B. N. Shashi Kiran from 2020 and Attentive Minds. A History of the Indian Performative Art of Avadhana from the Origin to Modern Times by Hermina Cielas from 2024. Maybe it would be good to consult them? They are both in English. Best to you. Tilabhavini (talk) 21:01, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello Tilabhavini,

Thank you very much for your input. If you would like, you can write a dot point list of errors you see for me to fix. I will certainly look for the texts. I am very curious to understand how the art form works and even see one live one day! Thank you very much, Kind regards,

Vera

Vera.Grace (talk) 02:12, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I find that the english language page for this seems to be very low quality. It seems anything that invovles "concentration" can be called an avadhanam.

Please refer to the telugu langauge page for more information on what avadhanam is in poetry. https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%85%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%A7%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%A8%E0%B0%82_(%E0%B0%B8%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B9%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%A4%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%AF%E0%B0%82)

Please use any translation service like google translate etc for translation. I was very surprised, to know different language versions of wikipedia can be so different.

It mentions that avadhanam used to be done in mughal courts, as a jainish tradition. And then I looked into contemporary jains who claim to be avadhanis, on youtube, they just get a list of objects, and then recite them back?

Which is totally different from what we were taught in school about avadhanam, especially in poetry. This is so much more harder than just remembering things. It is probably harder for people to know these things, if they are new to indian language prosody.

I have never written a wiki article, but I can provide more details about avadhanam in a informal way, and someone can pick it up. I also don't want to use an LLM to just put random things in this page.

this is about literary avadhanams in poetry, where poems follow strict rules(chandas/prosody). The English page has limited details on this form. It mentions a few contemporary Jain avadhanis and the Jain tradition, but videos of them show mostly memory feats, like recalling 1000 random things. Though impressive and requiring concentration, it's nowhere close to poetic avadhanam with strict prosody guidelines. Usually, it involves one avadhani and several prucchakas (task masters). They give tasks, and the avadhani must compose poems on the spot while following all rules. The number of prucchakas determines the type: the basic is Ashtavadhanam with 8. Some avadhanis handled 100, 200, or even 1000 prucchakas, with longer performances lasting 2–3 days. To give you a taste: one prucchaka might ask for a poem on a topic (from itihasa, contemporary issue, etc.) in a specific chandas. That's already hard on the spot. But he also imposes "Nishiddhakshari", banning a letter (akshara) guessing the next based on the topic, meter, and progress. The avadhani recites the poem letter by letter. And the prucchaka bans a certain letter at each letter. For example, if the poem is about Lord Shiva from Shiva Purana and the poem so far ended with "shi," the prucchaka might ban "va" if he predicts that's coming. Another task is Dattapadi: the prucchaka gives four unrelated rhyming words, and the avadhani must compose a poem on a given incident using them in order, following the chandas. Another task: the prucchaka gives an absurd ending line (following chandas), like "the snake was terrified looking at the frog," and the avadhani must build a meaningful poem leading to it. This is called "samasya puranam". There are many such challenges. The avadhani typically addresses one prucchaka at a time, completes a line for each, cycles through all, then returns for the first prucchaka to solve the second line of the poem, and so on. In the end of the event, he recites all poems perfectly, adhering to prosody, restrictions, and meaning. Anyway, I hope I explained literary avadhanam in sufficient details . I don't know why it's far more popular in South Indian languages, especially Telugu. Perhaps because Telugu/Kannada easily forms new words by joining existing ones, making it feasible despite the on-the-fly restrictions. That said, it takes nothing away from the avadhanis' extraordinary skill.

Based on the number of pruchakkas, they call it different names. 8 -> ashtavadhanam, 100 -> satavadhanam, 200 -> dwisatavadhanam, 1000 -> sahasravadhanam.

below is an example video of what "samasya puranam" is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH8ZiyrYmRg where the avadhani, solves the puzzle right away. this is from his sahasravadhanam, it went on for days.

please refer to the telugu wiki page for more details. ~2026-72332-9 (talk) 05:50, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your very informative comments. Part of the problem I found in copy-editing this article is the lack of English language references on the topic. When I have a minute, I will look at the article again with your information top help me. Kind regards, Vera. Vera.Grace (talk) 22:37, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I think it's fine: technically sāhitya-avadhāna (literary avadhāna) is one of the kinds of avadhāna, though in practice (especially in Telugu/Kannada states where avadhāna is popular) the term is used for this specific kind. I think the Jain/Tamil ones (memorizing lists etc) are also worth mentioning / including in this article. I agree that Ganesh and Shashikiran's book is a great resource that goes into much detail, and Cielas's book is a newer one that I have not yet looked at. Shreevatsa (talk) 23:24, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

hi thanks for the feedback. I was hoping to see the details about what kind of questions are part of literary avadhanam, which are the most interesting aspect of it. and as avadhanam has a broad context and meaning, maybe we need a different article or describing those some where over here. telugu version of the article has those details. but i dont know if we can just link them here. ~2026-72332-9 (talk) 09:26, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi. I have a suggestion that might be of benefit: place a request for assistance at Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics . I am sorry I can't help further - I realise from the discussion above the topic is just too far outside my experience for me to be helpful. Kind regards, Vera. Vera.Grace (talk) 23:34, 21 February 2026 (UTC)