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Kannada Literature / 145
Jinavallabha were also lay followers of JayanandiBhaṭṭarāka of Pandarapalli (Pandarapura). Of the two compositions in the märga-style, of the poet Pampa, Vikramarjuna-Vijayam is easily the best, an account of its copious action, the rich melody and fine imagery of its verse; the description of the war camps and the reactions of the soldiers is par excellence. It depicts the pomp and inevitable circumstances of war, the gruesome details of the battlefield. Pampa had the first hand knowledge of the field of battle. War is a common theme but none could match the quality of Pampa. Adipurāņa was completed on plava kārtika śuddha Pañcami, Sunday, Mula-Nakṣatra Nandiśvara festival day, equivalent to C. E. 941.
5.6.1.7. Adipurāṇam is a work of artistic perfection admittedly distinguished in the field of religious literature. In fact the bhava-valis (successive births) have substituted the concept of avatāras, a main theme of Viṣṇu-purāņas. Mahāpurāṇa of Jinasēna and Gunabhadradeva had standardised the narration of trasnmigration or the cycle of the former and the future existence. Adipurāṇa, a campū in sixteen cantos handles the Jaina legendary theme of Rṣbhadeva, his sons and daughters, with considerable force and power and excells its source of Jinasena's Sanskrit Ādipuranam (C. 850 A. D.), the first part of Mahāpurāṇa. Kannada Adipurāṇam became a model for the later Jinapurāņas, but all of them must take a rank well below their model.
5.6.1.8. The first few cantos are devoted to the successive previous births of Adinatha, the first of 24 Tirthankaras; Jayavarma, Mahābala, Lalitāngadēva, Vajrajangha, Arya, Śridharadēva, Suvidhi, Acyutēndra-I, Vajranābhi, Acyutēndra-II are the ten reptition of births and the next birth to follow was the penultimate in the transmigration. Purudeva, born to Marudevi and Nabhirāja, happily married
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