Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets/Satkara
SATKARA.
The only accounts handed down of this poet rests on legendary traditions and a document, according to which he was the chief poet of forty-eight in the congregation of Sanghatar; he was a resident of Madura, and took his place among a concourse of poets, on a seat which had been granted by the God Sundareswar in the reign of Champakamar, called also Vamsachudamani- pandayan. One day Champakamar asked all the poets, whether the perfume on his wife's hair was the effect of art or its own natural smell. The king suspended to a pillar one thousand mads wrapped in a cloth, and promised to give the money to whomsoever should answer the question. An indigent bramin named Dhamaga addressed a mental prayer to Sundareswar, and was inspired by the deity, to declare that the odour of the queen's hair was natural, and received the money as a reward. Satakara made some remarks when Sundareswar appeared to him as an aged bramin, and supported Dhamaja, but Satakara continuing the dispute, Iswar manifested himself and displayed his third eye, the poet was at first so struck with fear, that he started from his seat, but becoming more bold put certain polemic questions to Iswar, who grew enraged, and uttered an imprecation, that the poet should be overcome in disputation by a person of mean extraction. After this Yada Kadar Was conversing with Satakar for a long time, the out. cast poet Teruvalluvor laid his book called the Koral, on the bench which immediately vanished.