Avadhanam

Avadhānaṃ is a literary performance popular from the very ancient days in India. Avadhānaṃ originated as a Sanskrit literary process and is revived by Telugu poets in modern times. It involves the partial improvisation of poems using specific themes, metres, forms, or words. The true purpose of an Avadhanam event thus is the showcasing, through entertainment, of superior mastery of cognitive capabilities - of observation, memory, multitasking, task switching, retrieval, reasoning and creativity in multiple modes of intelligence - literature, poetry, music, mathematical calculations, puzzle solving etc.

It requires immense memory power and tests a person's capability of performing multiple tasks simultaneously. All the tasks are memory intensive and demand an in-depth knowledge of literature, and prosody. The tasks vary from making up a poem spontaneously to keeping a count of a bell ringing at random. No external memory aids are allowed while performing these tasks except the person's mind. Avadhānaṃ can be considered as the Divided attention (clinical model of attention) as it is the highest level of attention and it refers to the ability to respond simultaneously to multiple tasks or multiple task demands.

Avadhāni refers to the individual who performs the Avadhānaṃ; one of the many individuals asking questions is a Pṛcchaka (questioner). The first person to ask the question is called "Pradhāna Pṛcchaka" (s)he is the same as any other Pṛcchakaexcept that he asks the first question. The questions asked are primarily literary in nature. The Pṛcchakas can optionally place additional constraints. Though it is not stated explicitly, conformation to Chandas (poetic metre) is mandatory. Avadhāni should answer them in the form of a poem. The questions generally consist of a description given in prose and the avadhāni has to express it as a poem. The additional restrictions placed by the Pṛcchakas can be anything like asking the avadhāni not to use a given set of the alphabet in the entire poem or to construct only a particular type of poem etc.

The avadhāni is not allowed to recite the entire poem at once. After listening to the Pṛcchaka's question, the avadhāni constructs the first line of the poem, recites it and moves to the next Pṛcchaka. After listening to all the Pṛcchakas, and reciting one line of poem each, the avadhāni shall return to the Pradhana Pṛcchaka (in a round-robin fashion) and continues with the second line of the poem. The beauty and challenge here is that the avadhāni has to remember the question, the line of poem said before and all the additional constraints placed. They shall not be repeated and any mistake shall disqualify the person from being titled "Avadhani". Every poem has 4 lines, so each Pṛcchaka's turn comes 4 times. Avadhaani has to recite the full poem once he finishes constructing all the lines of the poems. This is called "dharaṇa" and forms the culmination of the Avadhana. Avadhani should use only his memory for all this. An Avadhana can run for multiple days (especially Śatāvadhāna).

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