A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.24

c19.s1.24

Passing over several minor works of poetry, drama and criticism of the early Vijayanagar period, we may notice the *Rasārṇavasudhākara*, a masterly treatise on *rasa* and the rules of dramaturgy. This work is said to be by Simhabhūpāla of Rājakonda (c. 1350), but possibly owes much to his court-poet Viśveśvara, who wrote *Camatkāracandrikā*—also a good manual of rhetoric. The family of Diṇḍimas in the village of Mullandram in North Arcot district produced many authors of distinction. Rājanātha’s *Sālvābhyudaya*, a quasi-historical poem on the wars of his patron Sāluva Narasimha (latter half of the fifteenth century), the *Bhāgavata-campū* and *Acyutarāyābhyudaya* of a later Rājanātha, who lived in the sixteenth century in the reign of Acyuta Rāya, deserve particular mention. This last poem is a useful guide to the events of Acyuta Rāya’s reign. Krishnadeva Rāya was scholar and poet as well as soldier and statesman, and wrote with great power in both Sanskrit and Telugu; his drama *Jāmbavatīkalyāṇa* is marked by a fairly high order of poetic and dramatic skill. Tirumalāmbā’s *Varadāmbikāpariṇaya* is another historical Campū of the period to commemorate the marriage of king Achyuta Rāya with Varadāmbikā.