Worldliness and Devotion in Harihara’s Rakṣā Śatakam

As with his other works, the century-poem Rakṣā Śatakam (“A Plea for Protection in a Hundred Verses”) by the thirteenth-century Kannada poet Hampeya Harihara did not conform with contemporaneous literary practices in Kannada, both thematically and stylistically. The choice of the śataka style was unusual; the choice of voice and theme unprecedented, with a personal lamenting about the woes of a devotee’s life. While some scholars have read this century-poem autobiographically, I propose to consider this work, rather, as a public appeal for constructing a new and composite self for the community of Śiva-devotees in the Kannada-speaking region. This self is a full participant in householder life, but one who finds solace only in ritual worship of the god. In this way, the Rakṣā Śatakam carves an ethical prescription for a worldly life that is, despite its worldliness, centered on devotional self-surrender.