Icons of Bhārat

A.V. Varadachariar was a great actor of the Kannada stage who won an immortal place in the history of the theatre of the region — a performer whose art captivated audiences in Karnataka and in the Tamil country alike. He was also a reformer of the stage and a man of generous character.

Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar was one of the greatest Carnatic vocalists of the modern age — the musician who designed the format of the modern Carnatic concert, arranging its items in the order that every concert follows today. His singing, marked by its clarity and its sweetness, made him the model of the Carnatic vocalist for a century.

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan was the greatest Hindustani vocalist of the twentieth century — the supreme master of the Patiala gharana, whose voice could move from the deepest bass to the highest note in a single breath. Called the Tansen of his age, he made the khyal and the thumri soar to a level no singer of his time approached.

Bala Gandharva was the greatest figure of the Marathi stage — a singer and actor whose voice and grace made him the most beloved performer of his age, and whose female roles — in the era before actresses — were so perfect that audiences wept. His songs became the household music of Maharashtra, and his name remains the highest honour of the Marathi theatre.

Balraj Sahni was one of the most loved actors of Indian cinema — a star whose natural, truthful acting made him the model of the realist performer. His role in the classic Do Bigha Zamin made him a national icon, and his life, marked by integrity and simplicity, made him as loved as a man as he was as an artist.

Basavappa Shastri was the father of Kannada theatre — the scholar and poet who brought the modern stage to the Kannada land and wrote the plays that founded its dramatic literature. His extraordinary learning, his poetic gifts, and his sweet voice made him the maker of the Kannada theatre of Mysore.

Bellary Raghava was the greatest actor of the Kannada stage — a performer whose genius made him the most celebrated figure of the theatre of Karnataka and of the Tamil stage as well. His acting, in the great mythological and historical plays of the age, drew audiences that filled the theatres, and his name became the very word for great acting in the South.

Bidaram Krishnappa was one of the greatest Carnatic vocalists of the Mysore court — the asthana vidwan whose singing of the great composers' kritis, and whose mastery of the music of Tyagaraja and the Mysore tradition, made him the standard of the age. His name is the bridge between the royal patronage of Mysore and the concert music of today.

C. Aswath was the master of Bhavageethe — the art of setting Kannada poetry to music — and one of the most loved musicians of Karnataka. For four decades his voice carried the poems of the great Kannada poets into the homes of the people, and his music became the very sound of the modern Kannada cultural awakening.

Agastya is the Vedic sage who carried the knowledge of the North into the South of Bhārat — the rishi who drank the ocean to save the gods, humbled the Vindhya mountains, and is honoured as the founding sage of Tamil learning and the Tamil language itself.

Ambareesha was a king of the solar line whose single-minded devotion to Vishnu made him untouchable by even the greatest of sages. His story of the Ekadashi fast and the wrath of the sage Durvasa is told across Bhārat as the power of sincere devotion over mere magical power.

Babruvahana, the son of Arjuna and the princess Chitrangada, is the hero of a poignant Mahabharata story of duty and destiny — the prince of Manipura who was compelled to fight and overcome his own legendary father in single combat.

Bahubali, the son of the first Tirthankara, is the Jain ideal of strength turned inward — a prince of unmatched physical power who, when he could have ruled the world, chose instead to stand motionless in meditation until he attained liberation. The colossal statue at Shravanabelagola is his monument.

Bhagiratha is the king whose penance brought the river Ganga down from heaven to earth — the story behind Bhārat's most sacred river. His thousand years of tapas, his patient guidance of the heavenly stream through Shiva's locks, and the river's journey to the sea are the origin myth of the Ganga itself.

Bharadwaja is the sage of learning — one of the seven great rishis, the father of Dronacharya, and the host of the Pandavas during their exile. His hermitage at Prayaga is among the most sacred places of Bhārat, and his name is invoked in every Vedic rite.

Bharata, the son of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala, was the emperor from whom Bhārat takes its ancient name — Bharatavarsha, the land of Bharata. Raised in the forest, recognised by his father through a ring, he grew to be a ruler of matchless justice and might.

Bhima, the second Pandava, was the strongest man of his age — a warrior of vast appetite, vaster strength, and an oath that he kept for thirteen years. He is the arm of the Mahabharata, the force that brought down giants and demons alike.

Bhishma — the grandsire of the Kuru dynasty — was the most formidable warrior of the Mahabharata, a man who gave up his birthright, his marriage, and finally his life for a vow. He chose to serve his family's kingdom for a hundred years, and to die only when he wished.

Alluri Sitarama Raju was the young revolutionary who led the tribal people of the Eastern Ghats in the Rampa Rebellion of 1922–24 against the British forest laws. Called 'Manyam Veerudu', the hero of the jungle, he raided police stations, organised the tribal army, and became the first leader of an armed peasant revolt in the modern freedom struggle.

Ashfaqulla Khan was the Muslim revolutionary of the Kakori conspiracy of 1925 — the partner of Ram Prasad Bismil, a man of Urdu poetry and revolutionary fire, who gave up his life at the gallows beside his Hindu comrades. His name stands for Hindu-Muslim unity in the freedom struggle.

B.R. Pantulu was a journalist and patriot of Andhra who used his paper and his pen to serve the freedom movement. A fearless writer and organiser, he campaigned against foreign rule through his journalism, joined the national movement, and spent his life in the cause of the motherland.

Dr. B.S. Moonje was a surgeon who became one of the most influential organisers of nationalism of Bhārat — a founder-member of the Hindu Mahasabha, the man who helped build the RSS and the DAV educational network, and a lifelong advocate of military training for youth of Bhārat. He was among the great institutional builders of the movement.

Bhaskar Rao — Babasaheb of Naragund — was a prince of the Desai family of Naragund who joined the great uprising of 1857 against the British, leading his small state's forces against the colonial power. He was hanged in 1858, and his sacrifice is honoured as the first freedom war of Karnataka.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak — Lokmanya — was the first great mass leader of Bhārat, the man who took nationalism from the drawing rooms to the streets. A scholar, mathematician, journalist, and fearless agitator, he gave the movement its war cry — 'Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it' — and was imprisoned for it.

Bhagat Singh is the most iconic revolutionary of Bhārat — the young man who threw a bomb in the Central Assembly to 'make the deaf hear', who fasted in prison for the rights of political prisoners, and who went to the gallows at twenty-three singing 'Inquilab Zindabad'. His courage and ideas made him the immortal hero of youth of Bhārat.

Bhai Paramananda was a revolutionary of the Ghadar Party — the movement of emigrants in North America who plotted to overthrow the British in Bhārat during the First World War. He was arrested in the famous Lahore conspiracy case of 1915, and spent a decade and a half in the Andamans and jails before emerging as a revered leader.

C. Rajagopalachari — Rajaji — was the statesman-sage of the freedom movement: Gandhi's closest Tamil comrade, the first Governor-General of Bhārat, and one of the most brilliant minds of the age. A lawyer, writer, and politician of rare integrity, he also founded the Swatantra Party in his later years.

Ahilyabai Holkar was the greatest woman ruler of the Maratha age — the queen of Indore who governed her state for thirty years with a justice and devotion that made her legendary. A devout soul and a brilliant administrator, she is remembered for her temples, her welfare works, and her rule — praised by every historian as a model sovereign.

Ashoka was the greatest emperor of ancient Bhārat — the conqueror of Kalinga who, sickened by the slaughter of war, renounced conquest by arms and ruled by dharma instead. His rock and pillar edicts, urging compassion, non-violence, and tolerance, survive across the subcontinent, and his lion capital is the emblem of modern Bhārat.

Bajiprabhu Deshpande was the Maratha warrior who held the mountain pass of Pavan Khind against a vast army, so that Shivaji could escape — and died fighting at the head of his men. His name is the Maratha ideal of sacrifice: the man who held the gate while his king rode to freedom.

Banda Singh Bahadur was the warrior-saint who led the Sikh rebellion against the Mughal empire after the martyrdom of Guru Gobind Singh. He established the first independent Sikh state in the Punjab, struck at the oppressors of the Khalsa, and faced a martyr's death in Delhi in 1716 — becoming one of the greatest figures of the Sikh tradition.

Chanakya — the 'Machiavelli of Bhārat', who lived 2,300 years ago — toppled the Nanda empire, crowned Chandragupta Maurya, and wrote the Arthashastra, one of the world's greatest books on statecraft, economics, and strategy.

Chandragupta Maurya was the young adventurer who, guided by the strategist Chanakya, overthrew the Nanda dynasty and founded the Maurya empire — the first great imperial state of Bhārat, stretching from the Bay of Bengal to Afghanistan. His empire was described with wonder by the Greek envoy Megasthenes, and his grandson Ashoka would make it the largest Bhārat ever saw.

Chhatrapati Shivaji was the greatest king-warrior of Bhārat's medieval age — the founder of the Maratha empire who carved an independent kingdom out of the collapsing empires of the Deccan and defied the might of the Mughals for a lifetime. He built a navy, a fort network, and a state rooted in the soil of Bhārat — and his coronation in 1674 announced a new power in the land.

Chhatrasal was the Bundela Rajput king who defied the Mughal empire for decades — carving out his own kingdom of Bundelkhand and defending it against three Mughal emperors. He was rescued at the end by the Maratha hero Bajirao I, and his friendship with the Peshwa sealed the alliance of the Rajputs and the Marathas.

Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar was the greatest king of Mysore before the age of Hyder Ali — the ruler who, in the late seventeenth century, expanded his small state into the dominant power of the southern Karnataka country. He was also a great builder and administrator who laid the foundations of Mysore's prosperity.

Banabhatta was the greatest master of Sanskrit prose — the court poet of Emperor Harshavardhana whose Kadambari and Harshacharita are the supreme achievements of the Sanskrit novel and biography. His style, ornate and musical, has been the model of Sanskrit prose for thirteen centuries.

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was the father of the novel of Bhārat — the writer whose Anandamath gave Bhārat its national song, Vande Mataram, and whose novels of Bengal's past awakened the nation's self-respect. His historical romances and his prose made Bengali — and through it Bhārat — a modern literary language.

Bharatendu Harishchandra is the father of modern Hindi — the writer and editor who, in a short life of thirty-five years, transformed the Hindi language from a dialect into the vehicle of a national literature. He wrote poetry, drama, essays, and journalism, and his Bharatendu era gave birth to the Hindi renaissance of the modern age.

Bhartrihari is one of the greatest poets of the Sanskrit tradition — the author of the Satakatraya, three centuries of verses on wisdom, love, and renunciation that are among the most quoted works of Indian literature. His poetry, at once worldly and spiritual, has been the companion of every generation of the learned of Bhārat for fifteen hundred years.

Bhushan was one of the greatest poets of the Hindi tradition — the poet of Shivaji's court who sang the glory of the warrior-king in verses that are among the most famous in the language. His Shivabhavani and his other heroic poems made him the poet of Maratha glory and of the self-assertion of Bhārat.

D.V. Gundappa, known to all of Karnataka as DVG, was one of the most beloved writers and journalists of the state — a man of the pen who served Kannada literature, journalism, and public life for seven decades. His Manku Thimmana Kagga, a book of poems on life's wisdom, is among the most loved books of the Kannada language.

F.G. Halakatti was the great collector and preserver of the Vachanas — the sacred poetry of Basaveshwara and the sharanas of the twelfth century. His lifetime of travel, collection, and editing saved thousands of the Vachanas from loss and made the literature of the Veerashaiva tradition available to the world.

Gopalakrishna Adiga was the pioneer of modern Kannada poetry — the leader of the Navya, the modernist movement that transformed Kannada literature in the mid-twentieth century. His poems, complex and powerful, brought the anxieties and the insights of the modern age to the language, and his influence shaped a whole generation of Kannada writers.

Govinda Pai was one of the most remarkable scholars and poets of modern Karnataka — a man who combined the gifts of the poet and the researcher in equal measure. His verse in Kannada and his pioneering historical research, which proved the ancient age of the Tulu land and the life of its people, made him a unique figure in the literature of the state.

Allama Prabhu was the greatest mystic of the Veerashaiva movement — the 'lord of the Linga' who presided over the assembly of the sharanas at Basava's Anubhava Mantapa. A poet of the Vachanas with the sharpest spiritual vision of the age, he guided the saints and reformers of twelfth-century Kalyana with his piercing questions and his boundless insight.

Andal is the only woman among the twelve Alvars, the Tamil saint-poets — the girl found as a baby in a tulsi garden who grew up believing herself the bride of Vishnu. Her Tiruppavai, thirty verses sung at dawn, is recited through the month of Margazhi, and she is the most beloved of Tamil's saints.

Ashvaghosha was the great Buddhist philosopher-poet of ancient Bhārat — the author of the Buddhacharita, the epic biography of the Buddha in Sanskrit, and of the Saundarananda, and a master of music who converted kings with his songs. His works are among the earliest and finest of Sanskrit literature.

Avvaiyar is the most beloved woman poet of Tamil — the wise grandmother of the Sangam age whose verses of virtue, prudence, and kindness are the first poetry every Tamil child learns. Her proverbs — the Aathichoodi, Konrai Vendhan, and Moothurai — are the moral alphabet of Tamil culture.

The Buddha — the Awakened One — was born Siddhartha Gautama, a prince who left his palace to understand suffering, and who found enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. His teaching of the Middle Path — the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path — spread from Bhārat across half the world and remains one of humanity's greatest gifts.

Sri Chandrashekhara Bharati Mahaswamiji was the 34th Jagadguru of the Sringeri Sharada Peetham — one of the most revered spiritual heads of modern Bhārat, who guided the ancient monastery of Adi Shankara for over forty years and was honoured by the nation with the Bharata Ratna.

Gondavalekar Maharaj was one of the most loved saints of Maharashtra — a householder and a musician of the Lord's name whose life of devotion and whose famous kirtans drew thousands to his village of Gondavale. His teaching that the constant remembrance of God's name is the highest path inspired the modern practice of namasmarana across the world.

Guru Nanak was the founder of Sikhism — a mystic, poet, and reformer of fifteenth-century Punjab whose message of one God, honest work, and service to all gave birth to one of the world's great religions. His hymns, the Japji Sahib, are recited by millions every dawn.

Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, is the martyr of religious freedom — the saint who gave his life in 1675 to protect the right of Hindus to worship freely under the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. His sacrifice is honoured as the defence of faith itself, and his son, Guru Gobind Singh, created the Khalsa in his memory.

A.N. Krishnarao was one of the most influential literary critics of modern Kannada — a scholar and public intellectual who championed the new writing of his age, interpreted the classics for a new generation, and shaped the modern Kannada critical tradition with his essays and lectures.

From selling newspapers as a boy in Rameswaram to becoming the President of Bhārat, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam lived the dream of Bhārat. The scientist behind Bhārat's missiles and nuclear tests, he was loved more as a teacher — 'Dream Kalam' to the millions of students he inspired.

A.R. Krishna Shastri was one of the greatest literary scholars of Kannada — the critic and editor who discovered, edited, and interpreted the ancient classics of the language, bringing the forgotten masterpieces of Kannada literature to the modern reader. His scholarship helped awaken the Kannada renaissance of the twentieth century.

Ananda Coomaraswamy was the scholar who introduced the art of Bhārat to the world — the pioneer of art history who rescued the sculpture, painting, and crafts of Bhārat from Western condescension and revealed their philosophical depth. His books are the foundation of the modern study of art of Bhārat.

Aryabhata was the first great astronomer and mathematician of Bhārat — the scientist who, in the fifth century, declared that the earth rotates on its axis, explained the causes of eclipses correctly, and computed the value of pi with remarkable accuracy. Bhārat's first satellite, launched in 1975, was named in his honour.

Ashutosh Mukherjee, the Tiger of Bengal, was one of the greatest educationists of modern Bhārat — a brilliant mathematician and jurist who, as the Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, transformed it into a world-class institution and fought the British to make higher education accessible to the people of Bhārat. He was also a great judge of the Calcutta High Court.

Birbal Sahni was the father of palaeobotany of Bhārat — the scientist who studied the fossil plants of Bhārat and established the discipline in the country. The Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany at Lucknow, which he founded, is the world's leading centre of the field, and his work revealed the deep history of Bhārat's vegetation and geology.

C.V. Raman was the first Asian and first person of Bhārat to win a Nobel Prize in science — for discovering why light changes colour when it passes through matter, the famous Raman Effect. He was curious about the blue sea; he ended up explaining the behaviour of light itself.

G.D. Naidu — the Edison of Bhārat — was the self-made inventor and industrialist of Coimbatore who built Bhārat's first indigenous motorcar, electric motors, and a dozen industries from textile machinery to pocket radios. A school dropout who became the Tatas' technical adviser, he proved that hands could make of Bhārat anything.

Alasinga Perumal was the devoted friend and disciple who made it possible for Swami Vivekananda to travel to America — the poor schoolteacher of Madras who collected the funds and urged the Master to carry the message of Bhārat to the world. A loyal devotee and a worker for the nation's cause, he is remembered as the man behind the great journey.

Ammembal Subba Rao Pai was one of the greatest benefactors of the Karnataka coast — the founder of the Canara Bank, which grew into one of the great banks of the nation, and a philanthropist who gave his wealth to education and the welfare of the people. His life was a model of the union of enterprise and generosity.

Attimabbe was the queen of the Chalukya age of Karnataka whose charity became legendary — the patron who gave away her gold for the Jain faith, commissioning a thousand copies of the sacred text and feeding thousands daily. She is honoured in the inscriptions of her age as the model of generosity.

Baba Amte was one of the greatest servants of humanity in the modern world — a lawyer who gave up his career to serve the lepers, whom society had cast out, and who built the Anandwan community where thousands of the discarded found a home, a craft, and a dignity. He was honoured with the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Padma Vibhushan, and the Gandhi Peace Prize.

Basaveshwara — Basavanna — was the great reformer of twelfth-century Karnataka, the founder of the Lingayat movement that swept away caste and ritual. A prime minister who preached that work is worship, that all are equal, and that God is within every person, he created a social revolution eight centuries before the modern reformers.

Dattopant Thengadi was one of the great thinkers and organisers of modern Bhārat — the philosopher of integral humanism, the third way beyond capitalism and communism, and the founder of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, one of the largest workers' organisations of the world. His thought shaped the economic and political vision of the modern nationalist movement.

Deputy Chennabasappa was a legislator and social reformer of Karnataka who served the people through public life and social work for half a century. He worked for the reform of society, the uplift of the villages, and the cause of the nation, and his life is remembered in the history of the Karnataka country.

Dhondo Keshav Karve — Maharshi Karve — devoted his life to the uplift of women of Bhārat: he founded the first university for women in Bhārat, championed widow remarriage by marrying a widow himself, and built the institutions of the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women's University. He was honoured with the Bharat Ratna in 1958.

Born into a family considered 'untouchable', Bhimrao Ambedkar rose to become the chief architect of Bhārat's Constitution — and spent his life tearing down the walls of caste. His achievement is written in the fundamental rights every citizen enjoys today of Bhārat.

Amar Singh was one of the greatest fast bowlers Indian cricket has produced — a bowler of the Nawanagar school whose pace and skill troubled the best batsmen of the world. He was counted among the world's finest bowlers of his age, and he was also a fine batsman and fielder — but his life was tragically short, ending when he was just thirty.

C.K. Nayudu was the first captain of Indian cricket — the Colossus of the game who led the nation in its first Test match in 1932 and dominated Indian cricket for three decades. A batsman of enormous power and a giant of the sport, he is honoured as the founding father of Indian cricket.

Gama Pehalwan is the greatest wrestler Bhārat has produced — the undefeated world champion whose fame spread from the akharas of Punjab to the rings of London. In 1910 he won the World Wrestling Championship in London, and for fifty years he was never beaten — the lion of the Indian akhara, honoured by kings and champions alike.

Dhyan Chand is the greatest hockey player who ever lived — the 'Wizard' who led Bhārat to three Olympic gold medals and scored more than 400 international goals. The Dutch once broke his stick to check whether a magnet was hidden inside. It wasn't. It was just genius.

Mohammed Nissar was the first great fast bowler of Indian cricket — the paceman who opened the bowling for India in its first Test match in 1932 and whose speed made him a legend of the game. He took the first wicket in Indian Test history, and his bowling was the terror of the batsmen of his age.

Ranjitsinhji — 'Ranji' — was the first person of Bhārat to play Test cricket and one of the greatest batsmen in the history of the game, the wizard whose leg-glance and late-cut revolutionised batting in Victorian England. The Ranji Trophy, Bhārat's premier domestic cricket championship, bears his name.

Tenzing Norgay is one of the two men who first stood on the summit of Mount Everest — the Tiger of the Snows who, with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953, reached the highest point on earth. A Sherpa mountaineer of the Himalaya, he had tried the mountain six times before, and his courage and skill carried him to the summit that had defied the world.

Vinoo Mankad was one of the greatest all-rounders in the history of cricket — the man who, in 1952, became the first Indian to score a double century in a Test, and whose batting and bowling carried the Indian team through its early years. He is honoured as one of the giants of the game, and his name is given to one of the famous modes of dismissal in cricket.