Kanakadasa Jayanti 2026

About Kanakadasa Jayanti

Kanakadasa Jayanti marks the birth of Kanakadasa, the 16th-century Kannada poet-saint of the Haridasa movement, whose songs to Krishna questioned caste. Karnataka keeps it as a state festival and government holiday on Kartika Bahula Tritiya, the third lunar day after the Kartika full moon. In 2026 it falls on Friday, 27 November 2026.

Ask a Kannadiga to name a Haridasa, one of the wandering singer-devotees of Vishnu, and you will most likely hear Kanakadasa or Purandara Dasa. Both were disciples of the same teacher and both wrote in everyday Kannada rather than scholarly Sanskrit. What sets Kanakadasa apart is where he came from. He was not a Brahmin, and his songs keep returning to the question of who gets to stand near God.

Who Kanakadasa was

By most accounts he was born Timmappa Nayaka, around 1509, in Bada (also written Baada), a village near Bankapura in Shiggaon taluk of today's Haveri district. His parents were Beerappa and Bachamma, and his father served as a local military chief under the Vijayanagara empire. Sources differ on his community. Most accounts, and the Kuruba community that reveres him, describe him as a Kuruba, from a family of shepherds. Some older accounts call him a chief of the Bedas, a hunter community.

The stories of how he turned to devotion also vary. A common telling has him lose a battle, and nearly everything with it, and walk away from soldiering. He became a disciple of Vyasatirtha, the Madhva teacher who was close to King Krishnadevaraya and who brought bards of any caste or trade into the Dasakoota, the circle of singer-devotees. One Mysuru writer reads his long poem Mohanatarangini as leaning towards Ramanuja's Sri Vaishnavism instead, because it praises Ramanujacharya. Scholars have not settled that, and you don't need to.

He spent his later years at Kaginele, a village in Byadagi taluk of Haveri district, and signed his songs with the name of its deity: Kagineleya Adikeshava. He died in the early 1600s; sources give years from 1606 to 1609.

What he wrote

Kanakadasa wrote keertanes and other short sung forms meant for anyone, and long poems in the classical kavya style. Counts of the songs that survive range from about 240 to about 316.

Ramadhanya Charite is the one people quote at dinner. Rice, the grain of the well-off, and ragi, the grain of the labourer, argue over which is greater. Rama has both stored away. When he checks them later, the rice has spoiled and the ragi is still good, so Rama honours ragi with his own name. Readers have long taken it as the poet siding with the poor, and some call it an early piece of protest writing in Kannada.

One of his best-known songs makes the point directly.

The window at Udupi

The story most people know is set at the Krishna temple in Udupi. Kanakadasa comes to see the deity and is kept out because of his birth. He stands behind the temple and sings. The wall cracks, and the image of Krishna turns west to face him. The opening in the western wall is called Kanakana Kindi, Kanaka's window, and pilgrims still look through it.

The temple's own history is more tangled. The earliest written version, recorded by the missionary Hermann Mögling in the 1860s, differs from the one told now. The silver window with nine holes directly in front of the idol, the Navagraha Kindi, is often mistaken for Kanaka's window. And in 2018 The Hindu reported on a document that, according to those who found it, contradicts the belief that he was refused entry at all. For a wish, the meaning of the story is what matters: a devotee who was turned away, and a god who turned round.

How the day is marked, and how the date is set

In September 2008 the Karnataka cabinet, at a meeting in Gulbarga (now Kalaburagi) led by Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, decided to celebrate Kanakadasa Jayanti as a state festival, which made it a government holiday. It sits in the state's annual list beside Basava Jayanti and Valmiki Jayanti. Private companies make their own holiday lists, so a Bengaluru colleague may well be at work.

The date follows the lunar calendar. Karnataka uses the amanta calendar, in which a month ends on the new moon, so the day is Kartika Bahula Tritiya: the third day of the waning moon after the Kartika full moon, the same full moon as Kartik Purnima and Guru Nanak Gurpurab. North Indian calendars, which end the month on the full moon, call the same day Margashirsha Krishna Tritiya. It usually lands in November, two to four days after Guru Nanak's birthday. The state government notifies the exact date each year, and that notification is the one offices follow.

In 2004 the state set up the Kaginele Development Authority to look after places and records linked to the poet, and the Kuruba community's Kanaka Guru Peetha math stands in the village. India Post issued a stamp in his name in 1990. In homes and music classes the simplest way to mark the day is to sing or play one of his keertanes.

What to write

Haridasa

A servant of Hari (Vishnu); the name for the singer-devotees of Karnataka's Dasa movement

Dasa Sahitya

The songs and poems of the Haridasas, written in simple Kannada

Keertane

A devotional song meant to be sung, usually with a refrain

Ankita

The signature name a Haridasa puts in every song; Kanakadasa's is Kagineleya Adikeshava

Kindi

Window, in Kannada; Kanakana Kindi is Kanaka's window at Udupi

Bahula Tritiya

The third day of the waning moon

Shubhashayagalu

Good wishes, greetings

Related days: Karnataka Rajyotsava falls a few weeks earlier and celebrates the Kannada language his songs helped shape, and Valmiki Jayanti is the other poet's birth anniversary on Karnataka's holiday list. See the full calendar for 2026.

How to wish someone on Kanakadasa Jayanti

A good Kanakadasa Jayanti wish honours the poet and what he stood for, devotion open to everyone and songs in plain Kannada that anyone could sing. Mention one of his songs, his signature Kagineleya Adikeshava, or the ragi of Ramadhanya Charite. Keep the tone respectful rather than festive: "greetings" or "shubhashayagalu" suit the day better than party language. Don't make caste the point of the wish, and don't present the Udupi window story as settled history.

Write a few lines in your own words, pick a design and share it as one link on WhatsApp, Instagram or anywhere else. They open an animated card made just for them, with no app and no sign-up.

Language tip: English, Kannada.

When is Kanakadasa Jayanti in each year?

Kanakadasa Jayanti is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar, so it falls on a different date each year. In 2027 it falls 11 days earlier than in 2026.

Frequently asked questions