A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s3.5

c19.s3.5

The next writer of note was Durgasimha, a Brahmin Śaiva minister under Jayasimha II Jagadekamalla; his Pañcatantra is a Campū professedly based on Guṇāḍhya’s Brihatkathā; it is a learned work perhaps too full of sound jingles (prāsa) to suit modern taste. Durgasimha mentions many of his predecessors and contemporaries. Among the latter was Chandrarāja, a Brahmin polyhistor of the Vājigotra, whose Madanatilaka, a Campū in eighteen adhikaraṇas, is a work on erotics in the form of a dialogue between his patron and his wife; the author claims that he has used the most modern language of his time (posa-kannaḍa). Another Brahmin Advaita Śaiva protégé of Jayasimha was Chāvuṇḍarāya, author of Lokopakāra (A.D. 1025), a guide to daily life, a cyclopaedic miscellany in good verse on various subjects such as astronomy and astrology, sculpture, construction of buildings, omens, divination of water, medicinal herbs and their uses, scents, cookery and toxicology. Śridharācārya, a Jaina Brahmin, showed his capacity for scientific writing (śāstrakavitva) in his Jātaka-tilaka (1049), the earliest work on astrology in Kannada, and his capacity in belles lettres (kāvya kavitva) in his Candraprabhacarite, no longer extant. The Advaiti Nāgavarmācārya, patronized by Ganga Udayāditya (1070), a feudatory of Someśvara II at Banavase, was the author of *Candracūḍāmaṇi-śataka*, a centum of easy verses in *mattebha* metre on the ethics of renunciation.