Sobane padaKannada
Blessing songs sung by women of the household while the ritual is performed, with the bride's household and the groom's answering each other verse for verse.
Sung at: Weddings and naming ceremonies.
Kalyana Karnataka · Deccan Inland Plateau
Folk songs
Beesuva padaKannada
Songs timed to the turn of the quern — marriage, a natal home left behind, the labour itself. The metre is set by the stone, which is why they scan the way they do.
Sung at: At the grinding stone, before dawn. Largely gone with the arrival of the flour mill, and among the first Kannada song forms to be recorded by folklorists for that reason.
Tatva padaKannada
Philosophy argued in household images — a locked house, a leaking pot, a bullock that will not plough. Sung by wandering singers to an ektari.
Sung at: Night gatherings, jatras, roadsides.
Moharram rivayatKannada and Dakhni
Karbala narrated in verse, sung around the panjas in villages through the night.
Sung at: The first ten nights of Muharram.
Gormati songsLambani (Gor Boli)
Migration, cattle, a bride leaving her tanda, and the caravan trade the community once ran. Sung antiphonally by women in a circle.
Sung at: Weddings, Teej, Holi.
Vachana gayanaKannada
The twelfth-century vachanas sung rather than read — Basavanna's ethical formulas, Akka Mahadevi's renunciation, Allama Prabhu's riddles.
Sung at: Sharana gatherings, Basava Jayanti, mathas.
The folk songs of Kalyana Karnataka — what they are about, who sings them and when. (6)