The word often used to describe DVG Is “dheemantha.”

The epithet finds full justification in a poem like “Manku­thimmana Kagga.”

It has proved to be one of the most popular poems in the language, and in the course of forty-four years has seen eight editions. The poem has a frame; also, the opening verses capture the vision of a vast universe in which millions of lives are engaged in a frenzied dance, a universe of awesome clashes and invasions, a universe of balls of fire and of terrifying abysses.

The questions are asked:

What is the goal of man, inhabitating such a universe?
What is his worth?
His end?
What is the meaning of it all?

It seems to me that the rest of the poem is to be read in this context – of a sentient and intelligent being in an immense universe in which inscrutable forces are at work. In every section the speaker-viewer shifts his point of view, but informing the entire poem is a central vision of the meaningfulness of life, even when viewed in the frame of the vastness of the universe and the immensity of Time.

Again and again the reader feels as if a button has been pressed and a light flashes forth.

The best parts of the poem achieve a balance of thought and feeling, a balance, to use a cliché, of the head and the heart.

(This is an extract from the letter L S Sheshagiri Rao who wrote on Life and Achievements on DVG as part of DVG birth centenary celebrations (1987) , for full letter do check here )