A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s3.20

c19.s3.20

The earliest writer of note on Vaishnava topics in Kannada was Rudra-bhaṭṭa, a *Smārta* Brahmin of the time of Vira Ballāḷa (1173-1220). His *Jagannātha-vijaya* is a *Campū* on the life of Krishna up to his fight with Bāṇāsura and based on the *Viṣṇu-purāṇa*. In 1281 Narahari-tīrtha, third in succession from Madhva, composed songs in praise of Vishnu. But the Vaishnava movement began to exert a strong influence on Kannada literature only from the time of Krishnadeva Rāya. And this new Vaishnava literature in the form of translations of Sanskrit classics also marks the transition from medieval to modern Kannada. The first ten *parvas* (sections) of the *Mahābhārata* had been translated by Nāraṇappa, a Brahmin author, who had the title Kumāra Vyāsa and was a rival of Chāmarasa in the reign of Devarāya II; his work, dedicated to the deity at Gadag, came to be known as Gadugina Bhārata. The remaining parvas were translated in 1510 by Timmaṇṇa who named his work after his patron Kṛṣṇa-rāya Bhārata. Then followed the Torave Rāmāyaṇa, so called because it was produced in Torave in Sholapur district. This is the first brahminical version of the story in Kannada and the author was Narahari who calls himself Kumāra Vālmiki; his date is not quite settled. Mention must also be made of the Jaimini Bhārata of Lakṣmīśa composed some time in the seventeenth century. A free rendering in shaṭpadi metre of a Sanskrit original ascribed to the legendary sage Jaimini, the work is ‘esteemed alike by learned and unlearned, and universally studied’. The subject is the wanderings of the horse appointed for Yudhishṭhira’s horse-sacrifice, and thus corresponds to a portion of the Aśvamedhaparva of the Mahābhārata, though there is no correspondence in details. The Bhāgavata found its translator in Cāṭu Viṭṭhalanātha who flourished under Krishnadeva Rāya and his successor Achyuta. He also wrote a fuller rendering of portions of the Mahābhārata which had been greatly abridged by Kumāra Vyāsa—the Pauloma and Āstika parvas. This was a great period not only for Kannada, but for other languages as well—Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil. And not only Vaishnavas, but Lingāyats and Jains, were patronized by Krishnadeva Rāya and Achyuta.