A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s3.2

c19.s3.2

The *Kavirājamārga* is based in part on Dandin’s *Kāvyādarśa*, and must have been inspired if not actually composed by the Rāshṭrakūṭa emperor Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I, its ostensible author. But the first extant work of real literature is the *Vaḍḍārādhane* of Śivakōṭi (c. A.D. 900), a prose work on the lives of the older Jaina saints, written mostly in the oldest Kannada style called *pūrva-haḷa-kannaḍa*. Then we have Pampa, who came of a family from Vengi and flourished in the court of a feudatory of Rāshṭrakūṭa Krishna III, Arikesari II of Vemulavāḍa. Pampa is said to have composed two great poems at the relatively early age of thirty-nine (941). His *Ādipurāṇa* narrates the life-story of the first Jaina Tirthankara; the other work, *Vikramārjuna Vijaya*, contains the author’s own version of the *Mahābhārata* story, and is called *Pampa-Bhārata* on that account; the poet makes Arjuna the hero of the poem and identifies him with his patron Arikesari and introduces into the narrative many interesting details of contemporary history. Critics have unanimously hailed Pampa as the most eminent among Kannada poets. Pampa’s junior contemporary was Ponna whose principal work is the *Śantipurāṇa*, the legendary history of the sixteenth Tirthankara. He wrote also the *Bhuvanaikarāmābhyudaya* now known only from citations in later works, and the *Jināksharamāle*, ‘an acrostic poem in praise of the Jinas’. His family also had its origin in Vengi. He got the title *Ubhaya-kavicakravarti*, ‘supreme poet in two languages (Sanskrit and Kannada)’ from Krishna III.