A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s3.10

c19.s3.10

Jainism flourished in the Tuluva country more than anywhere else in this period, when two colossal Jaina statues were erected—one at Kārkala in 1431 and the other at Yēnūr in 1603. Accordingly we have four authors from that country. First was Abhinava Vādi Vidyānanda of Gersoppa, an able champion of Jainism in public debates at Vijayanagar and many provincial capitals; in 1533 he compiled the *Kāvyasāra*, an anthology with forty-five different heads, similar to, but much more useful than, Mallikārjuna’s *Sūkti-sudhārṇava*, as he gives the names of many of the poets of the period 900-1430. Sālva (c. 1550), court-poet of a petty prince of Konkan, produced a Jaina version of the *Bhārata*, in *shaṭpadi* in sixteen *parvas*; this was perhaps meant to be a rival to the *Kṛishṇa Rāya Bhārata* which had completed the Vaishnava version about 1510. Ratnākara-varni, a Kshatriya of Mudabidire, wrote a number of works; his *Trilōkasāra* (1557) is an account of Jaina cosmogony; the *Aparājita-śataka* treats of philosophy, morals and renunciation; the *Bharatēśvara-carita* gives the story of the legendary emperor Bharata, the son of the first Tirthankara who turned Jaina ascetic. Many songs by this author are still current among Jains and are known as *Annagaḷapada*, ‘songs of the brothers’. Nemanna’s *Jñāna-bhāskara-carite* (1559) exalts meditation and study as means of emancipation above rites and austerities.