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PAMPA-APOGEE OF KANNADA LITERATURE
HAMPA NAGARAJAIAH
Pampa (C.E. 941) 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 heralded by Pampa, a great celebrity among poets and the earliest campū-kāvyas extant from Karnataka are the works of Pampa. In an epigraph dated C.E. 950 his verses were quoted which shows that Pampa had attained great fame by that time.
Pampa while succinctly narrating the genealogy and the life deeds of the Vemulavāḍa line of Cālukyas in the prolegomena verses also concises his own biography mainly in the last canto, and says that he composed the prabandam olim the campū-kāvya, at the behest of the court-poets and out of gratitude for the great cordiality shown to him by the ruler Arikeśarin; 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 epics of Pampa. Vikramarjuna-Vijayam is an unsurpassed gem; the work is in some ways unique in the whole range of Kannada literature for the vivid portraiture of its scenes, skilful metrical effects, graphic description of the battlefield-practically unknown to any other works.
Madhava Somayāji (A caste Brahmin) of vatsagotra chief of Vasanta, Koṭṭūru, Nidagundi and Vikramapura agrahāras assigned to Brahmins for their maintainance, belonging to Vengipalu in Vengimandala division, now in Andra Pradesh. His son was Abhimanacandra and his son Komarayya who was the father of Bhimapayya. That was the period when proselytism was common. Bhimapayya, who had the title of Abhiramadevaraya, contemplated that 'of the castes, the best is Brahmanism and of the religion the best is Jainism'. After matured consideration, Bhimapayya proselytized on his own accord from Viprakula to Jainism. Bhīmapayya married Abbaṇabbe, a granddaughter of Joyisa Singha, also a proselyte Jain from Śaivism, who was a resident of Annigere, a famous Jaina settlement. Bhimapayya and Abbaṇabbe had two sons, Pampa, the elder and Jinavallabha, the younger. Jinavallabha, also a litterateure and proficient in three languages, has authored the renowned Gangadharam inscription composed in Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu languages, which provides fresh information on the life of Pampa; Gangadharam is also associated with Somadevasūri, a mahā-kavi.
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