Vachana is short poem to express an insight or experience of the devout. These poems were written on palm leaves but spread through folk songs. Sharanas held conferences in 11th century to discuss and debate various questions pertaining to society, practices and the relationship with divine.
Sarvajña, the 16th century Kannada poet-saint, composed exclusively in tripadi - three-line poems. Each one compresses an entire worldview into roughly fifteen words.
Further compression is in the form of a Gaadegalu - proverbs that are deeply rooted in local language and can be thought of as audio memes. Gaade is a line rooted in experiences of life but packaged to carry an epigram or an aphorism.
This is information compression of the highest order. In an age of infinite content, there is something radical about insisting that wisdom must be brief enough to carry in your head.
I’m collecting and annotating all vachana literature putting together a compendium of the works of Sharanas as a side project. More on that project soon.