A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s4.6

c19.s4.6

From the twelfth century Vīra-śaivism became an important factor in the religious life of the Telugus and a sectarian outlook became more and more common. The poets of the period were generally supporters and propagandists of this faith. Famous among them was Mallikārjuna Paṇḍita, *guru* of Nanne Choḍa; his *Śiva-tattva-sāram* is an exposition of Vīra-śaivism in about five hundred verses. Nanne Choḍa, a Telugu-Choḍa prince, son of Choḍaballi of Pākanāḍu, was the author of *Kumārasambhava*, a *Mahākāvya* which has recently come to light; it is based on the Sanskrit works on the same theme by Kālidāsa and Udbhaṭa, and draws also upon the Śaiva literature known to the author. Nanne Choḍa employed Kannada and Tamil words in his poetry, and he had a partiality for Kannada metres. The author's style has not commanded universal praise. Atharvaṇa, the grammarian, considered Nanne Choḍa as a poet who courted death by using inauspicious metres. Pālkuriki Sōmanātha was a contemporary of Kākatīya Pratāparudra II (1291-1330). Sōmanātha was a staunch Lingāyat and a prolific writer in Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu. He was an active pamphleteer and disputant in the cause of Vīra-śaivism. His major works in Telugu are *Paṇḍitārādhya Carita*, *Dvipada Basava Purāṇa* and *Anubhava Sāra*. The first was used by Śrīnātha when he wrote a work of the same name. Another *Basava Purāṇa* in Telugu verse was that of Piḍuparti Sōmanātha (1510). Pālkuriki Sōmanātha's *Vṛṣādhipa Śatakam*, a centum of verses addressed to Basava, became very popular.