Karnataka Culture & Language

Karnataka’s culture is old, courtly and regionally distinct, and it is not the same as neighbouring Tamil or Kerala culture.

Hoysala carving

The soapstone used at Belur and Halebidu is soft when quarried and hardens on exposure, which let sculptors work it almost like ivory. The results are bracket figures carved nearly free of the wall, friezes running in continuous bands around the plinth, and details — individual bangles, the strands of a tassel — at a scale that reads as showing off. Several carvings are signed, which is unusual in Indian temple art.

Yakshagana

The coastal theatre form: all-night performances of epic episodes with enormous painted headdresses, heavy makeup, drums and a singer narrating while the actors improvise dialogue. It is loud, energetic and quite unlike the classical dance forms.

Music

Karnataka gave its name to Carnatic music, the classical tradition of southern India, and Purandara Dasa, regarded as its founder, was Kannada.

Mysore painting and silk

A courtly painting style with gold leaf, and the silk industry the Wodeyars established.

The Vijayanagara style

The empire’s builders developed their own architecture — enormous pillared halls with composite piers carved as rearing horses and yali beasts, tall gateway towers, and the thousand-pillared mandapas that became standard across southern India afterwards. The stone chariot at the Vittala temple, a shrine carved as a wheeled processional car, is the single most reproduced image of the site.

Kambala

Coastal buffalo racing in flooded paddy, run at serious speed by pairs of buffalo driven by a runner holding a plough, with the winner judged by the height of the water thrown. It draws large village crowds through the winter months and has its own celebrity animals and handlers.

Sandalwood

The Kannada film industry takes its name from the sandalwood the state is known for, and Mysore’s sandalwood oil and soap remain a recognised product.

Kannada is the state language, written in its own script, with a literary tradition of over a thousand years. Language identity is politically significant here and signage rules are enforced.

Tulu is spoken on the coast around Mangalore and Udupi and is a separate Dravidian language with its own culture; Konkani is also spoken there.

English is very widely spoken in Bengaluru, in the technology sector and among the urban middle class, and is easy for visitors. Hindi is understood but less universally than in the north, and there is some resistance to its use.

Useful Kannada: namaskara for hello, dhanyavada for thank you, eshtu for how much, and swalpa for a little — which combined with an English word will get you understood in Bengaluru.