A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.22

c19.s1.22

Similar in spirit and manner are two works on dramaturgy, both composed about 1300 and both including a play calculated to glorify the author's patron and illustrate the rules of the drama: these are the Ekāvali of Vidyādhara, written under Narasimha II of Orissa, and Pratāparudra-Yaśobhūshana of Vidyānātha whose patron was Pratāparudra II, the Kākatiya ruler of Wārangal. The last-named ruler was himself the author of a nīti work, extracts from which appear in the anthology Sūktiratnākara of Sūrya and on which the Telugu Baddana-nīti is based. Vidyānātha is often identified with Agastya, the reputed author of seventy-four Kāvyas in all among which are Bālabhārata, a poetic summary of the great epic in twenty cantos commented on by Sālüva Timma, the minister of Krishnadeva Rāya; the Krishna-carita, a prose summary of the Bhāgavata; and Nalakirtikaumudi which narrates the familiar story of Nala and Damayantī. Viśvanātha, the author of Sāhityadarpana a comprehensive work covering the entire field of poetics, flourished (c. 1350) in the court of one Narasimha, probably the third king of that name to rule over Orissa.