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110 / The Rāstrakūtas and Jainism
5.1.4. A characteristic of the literary style of the authors of the period of Old Kannada was its extraordinary amount of polish and refinement. All the authors were Jains, who had Prakrit and Sanskrit literature as their prototype.The period upto fifth century was the period of ploughing the firtile land of Kannada language, up to eighth cent. was the period of sowing the seed, and ninth cent. onwards was the age of longeval dynamism of reaping a rich harvest. The magnitude of Kannada literature can not be comprohensively condensed in a few pages. Only succinct account of Nirgrantha literature of the Rāstrakūta epoch is attempted in the following pages.
5.1.5. Kannada literature of this eon was completely dominated by the connoisseurship of Jaina authors without any exception. Jaina authors did not confine to the traditional religious literature of their own faith. With their typical catholicity they were alive to the best from all quarters and sources. They had greater regard for Vālmiki, Vyāsa, Bhāsa, Guņādhya, Kālidāsa, Bhavabhūti, Bāņa, Māgha, Bhāravi, Bhatta-Nārayana and a host of major and minor talents. Jaina men of letters did not hesitate to imbibe and emulate these intellectual giants or even freely translate/adopt the works of Sansrit into Kannada. Kavirājamārga (C. E. 850), second earliest work extant, betrays clear traces of Sanskrit Kā vyādarśa (Dandin) and Kavyālankārah (Bhāmaha), in the idiom of Kannada, a Dravidian language.
5.1.6. In the field of general literature of non-sectarian nature, works of Jaina authors are of high rank. Among such works, Vikramārjuna-vijayam (Pampa), BhuvanaikaRāmabhyudyam (Ponna), and Sāhasa-Bhima-vijayam (Ranna) are most outstanding. A broad survey of Jaina literature of the Rāstrakūta age would indicate that royal patronage and religious fervour proved to be two primary factors that promoted and prompted the literary animation.
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