Contribution of Karnataka to Jain Literature and Culture

Author(s): K Krishnamoorthy
Publisher: Z_Kailashchandra_Shastri_Abhinandan_Granth_012048.pdf

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सब्भावनिन्विकारं उवसन्त-पसन्त-सोमदिट्रीणम् । हो जह मुणिणो सोहति मुहकमलं पीवरसिरीयम् ।।
[Op. cit. p. 124] Glorious is the lotus-face of the ascetic, unperturbed by any emotion, with a calm, tranquil and sweet look!
In the light of this incontestable evidence, one would not be wrong to think that the redaction in Bharata's Natyuśastra including śānta as a minth rasa may have been inspired by the influence of Jaina thought.
The inost celebrated lanmark in the history of Belles lettres is Ravikīrti's ornate eulogy (Prusistikavya) of the Calukya king, Pulakesin II, dated 634 A. D. He regards himself as a poet on a par with celebrities like Kālidása and Bhāravi, At Aihole (Taluka-Badami, Dist, Bijapur), he religiously got a temple of Jina built in hard stone :
येनायोजि नवेऽश्मस्थिरमर्थविधौ सुमतिना जिनवेश्म । स जयतां रविकीर्तिः कविताश्रितकालिदासभारविकीतिः ।।
[Epigraphia Indica, VI. No. 1] The pun (śleşa) and rhyming repetition (Yamaka) even in this single stanza is enough to show his great command over the Sanskrit tradition of ornate poetry. If his contemporary in the North viz. Bāna Bhatta, the courtpoet of Emperor Harsa was singing his patron's glory in hyperbolic fashion (by writing the akhyayika or biography, namely, the Hașracarita, Ravikirti, the court-poet of Pulakesin II in Karnataka could resoundingly poke fun at the defeated Northern ruler :***** farfsaagt 1 Taft 01
[Loc. cit. ] Possibly, he was also the author of a Karnațeśvara-katha eulogising the hero Pulakesin; this work is alluded to in Jayakirti's Chandonuśasana; but it is unfortunately lost.
To the same period belongs Ravişeņa, the author of the Padmacarila or Jaina Rāmāyaṇa in Sanskrit consisting of 18000 verses divided into 123 Parvans or books based on the earlier Paumacaria in Prakrit by Vimalasäri. Like Vālmīki, Ravişeņa too became a poet's poet very soon and we have a number of later Rāmāyaṇa works in several languages following this Jaina version.
Equally important in the history of Sanskrit ornate poetry is Jatāsimha-mandin's Varāngacarita which is a religious and didactic epic couched in the ornate style of the mahakāvya. As Dr. A.N. Upadhye has shown in his learned introduction to this poem edited by him. His other names were Jațila or Jatācārya' and a number of Jaina
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