# Trailblazers - Muddupalani

 

Know your Hero(ines)

# Trailblazers

Discovery of one lady courtesan by another. Bangalore Nagarathnamma was a famous dancer and courtesan who lived in the 20^th century was famous as a path breaking woman in many respects. This story is not about her.

This is about another courtesan and literary woman whose work Bangalore Nagarathnamma brought to the fore.

In 1910, Nagarathanamma resurrected the work of another courtesan who lived in the 19^th century Muddupalani. Muddupalani’s work Radhika Santawanam was a treatise to the Bhakti path depicting the love between Radha and Krishna

Muddupalani was a celebrated courtesan and scholar during the reign of the Maratha king Pratapasimha in the 18th century Thanjavur. Muddupalani wrote Santawanam (Appeasing Radhika), a sringara-prabandham popular in Telugu literature with 584 verses which depict Radha’s unfailing love for Krishna and her jealousy as he is married to a younger bride Ila.

The work was published in 1887 and was sanitised to suit prevailing social sentiments at that time. The prologue where Muddupalani talks about her lineage and scholarship was also left out.

 

Nagarathanamma discovered the original manuscript and  also read the sanitised version. She decided to publish the book it in entirety in 1910. The lucidity of the text and it being written by a woman from the same tradition compelled Nagarathanamma in taking up the task. This was of course met with public notoriety and backlash from the British government and some locals.

 

The book continued to be banned till independence. Only after independence, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh removed the restrictions on the book and added it to the available literature in the Telugu languge.