Male Mahadeshwara kavyaKannada
The life and miracles of Mahadeshwara, a Shaiva ascetic of the southern hills who rides a tiger. The epic runs to tens of thousands of lines and is sung by Kamsale performers who keep time on brass discs.
कब गाया जाता है: Night-long recitation at jaatres and in households under a vow. Sung by initiates rather than professionals, and largely by the communities of the forest edge. Recorded versions exist but the form is designed for a night, not a track.
Manteswamy kavyaKannada
The travels of Manteswamy, a wandering teacher who challenges ritual authority and is repeatedly thrown out of respectable places. Sung by Neelagara singers to a drone and a small tambura.
कब गाया जाता है: All-night performance, chiefly in Mandya and Chamarajanagar. Its social argument is explicit and is the reason the epic was collected late — it circulated among communities whose oral literature was not being written down.
Junjappa kavyaKannada
A herding hero who protects cattle, sung by pastoral communities of the dry northern taluks.
कब गाया जाता है: Cattle festivals and Kadu Golla settlements.
Sobane padaKannada
Women's ritual songs sung in unison at each stage of a wedding, blessing the couple and instructing the bride, with a refrain that gives the genre its name.
कब गाया जाता है: Weddings and naming ceremonies.
Beesuva kallina padaKannada
Work songs timed to the rotation of a hand quern, in which women sang about marriage, in-laws and their own households. The genre is effectively extinct because the machine that made it possible is gone.
कब गाया जाता है: At the grinding stone, before dawn.
Bhoomi hunnime and harvest songsKannada
Songs to the earth sung at the field bund, with offerings made at the furrow rather than in a temple.
कब गाया जाता है: The full moon of the sowing and harvest months.
Tatva padaKannada
Philosophical songs of wandering singers, set to simple recurring tunes and carrying an anti-ritual argument in ordinary village vocabulary.
कब गाया जाता है: Evening gatherings, mendicant singing.