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Avadhānaṃ is a literary performance popular from the very ancient days in India. Avadhānaṃ originated as a Sanskrit literary process and is revived by Kannada and Telugu poets in modern times. It involves the partial improvisation of poems using specific themes, metres, forms, or words.〔Amaresh Datta, ''The Encyclopaedia Of Indian Literature'', v. 1, ("Avadhanam" ) (Sahitya Akademi, 2006; ISBN 81-260-1803-8)〕 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.〔(Computer Science department - IIT-Madras )〕 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.〔(The Hindu - November 2010 )〕 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. ==Characteristics == 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). It is a general practice for one of the Pṛcchaka to keep ringing a bell randomly and avadhani has to keep track of number of bell rings. The multitutde of all these constraints makes Avadhana one of the greatest arts to master. Of the remaining Pṛcchakas, one person is in charge of "aprastuta-prasangam" (irrelevant incident). His responsibility is to distract the avadhani with questions and topics unrelated to the avadhanam and the avadhani has to reply to his questions and riddles. The Pṛcchaka who manages this should also be equally intelligent and witty to entertain the audience with his questions. An additional challenge for Avadhani here is not to get distracted by these digressions and give witty answers spontaneously even to some of the silly questions. Owing to the memory intensive nature of Avadhana, the number of Pṛcchakas plays a major role. The more the number of Pṛcchakas, the higher the challenge would be. Besides conducting Avadhanas, which in itself is a great feat, many Avadhanis also left a longer and lasting legacy by penning works and mentoring students who often grew up to contribute to Kannada and Telugu literature in their own uniquely rich ways. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Avadhanam」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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