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Kannada Literature / 141
sambhava - kavya, birth of Kumāra (son of siva), may be a Jaina version of the birth of Bharata, eldest son of Ādinātha. There are some Kannada stanzas quoted from an anonymous Kumara-sambhava poem in Kāvyāvalōkana of Nagavarma (1040) and Sabdamanidarpaņa of Kēśirāja (1275). A possiblity of that incognito author being Asaga himself is yet to be corroborated. It is said that out of eight of Asaga's works, only three are in Sanskrit and the other five in Kannada.
PAMPA-apogee of Kannada literature
5.6. Pampa (902-945) is a legend of Kannada literature. His two works have acquired epic status by any difinition which can be applied to a literary work. A great epoch in the annals of Kannada literature was helraded by Pampa, a great celebrity among poets and the earliest campū-kāvyas extant from Karnāṭaka are the works of Pampa. In an epigraph dated C. E. 950, his verses are quoted which shows that Pampa had attained great fame by that time.
5.6.1. Pampa, while succintly narrating the genealogy and the life deeds of the Vemulavāḍa line of Calukyas in the prolegomenon verses, also concises his own biography mainly in the last canto. Pampa says that he composed the prabandam olim the campū kāvya, at the behest of the courtpoets and out of gratitude for the great cordiality shown to him by the ruler Arikesarin. The greatness of the poet is that even the verses containing historical elements, are easy and flowing. Any study of Kannada literature is incomplete without reading the two epic's of Pampa. VikramārjunaVijayam is an unsurpassed gem. The work is in some ways unique in the whole range of Kannada literature for the vivid protraiture of its scenes, skilful metrical effects, graphic description of the battlefield-practically unknown to any other work.
5.6.1.1.
Madhava Sōmayāji caste Brahmin of
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