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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIII, No. 4 April 1999
Pāndavas. Bharata and Bāhubali respectively symbolising the lust for power and the eternal delight in renunciation. Pampa is highly indebted to Jinasena's Adipurāņa, but he soars to greater heights of poetic excellence. Jinasena is primarily a religious preceptor, an unp Nirgrantha patriarch of the age and secondarily a poet of eminence; but Pampa is primarily an eminent poet and secondarily a Jaina śāstrakāra. Pampa has produced poetry from the tip of his quill, just as Siva produced the Ganges from the tip of his top knot. Kannada language and the campū style reached its perfection in his hands; he has employed the standard dialect spoken around Puligere; the poet is convinced that the excellence of his diction has enhanced the power of speech of goddess Sarasvati! Pampa is not an escapist, he does not denounce the profane life outrightly. He positively advocates a life of pleasure in the company of women who are a moving creeper of ananga, the cupid. In one of the final benedictory verses of his epic, while enunciating the benefits of reading his kāvya, he wishes the reader to derive the satisfaction of spending happy time in the company of the desired woman; but that is not the end of everything. He has greater things to say. Thus his poem is the greatest epic in Kannada literature. Pleased by his achievement and contribution, Arikeśari-II, sent words, seated him by his side on the throne, granted maid servants, villages, ornaments of pañca-ratna for daily use, excellent dresses, cattle-all in plenty; crowning all this, the king alloted to Pampa, Dharmavura, the best of agrahāras which was glittering like the treasury of the king.
Pampa belonged to the lineage of Kondakunda anvaya, desigagana, pustaka (sarsvatī) gaccha (baļi) and had the following titles: Kavitā-guņārņava, Purāņa-kavi, sukavijana-mano mānasottāmsahamsa, Sarasvati-maņihāra and samsāra-sārodaya. He was a savyasāci, equally at home both in the art of war and to drive quill. A host later literati irrespective of their religion, have paid glorious tributes to the literarum doctor Pampa. His sweet and flowing style is valued highly by critics. Pampa, as a self critic, has assessed his works and has remarked that his poem is always new and dignified as a sea; there can be no better evaluation.
Pampa vibrates with zest for life. He explored new vistas and made enormous cultural excavations, in the process, exploiting the creative possibilities of Kannada language and exploding the uni-dimensional quality of Kannada literary tradition. He has employed the standard Kannada dialect of his time, spoken around the north-karnataka region; it was then called as the Puligere-Kannada, the place considered as the cream centre of cultural and socio-political activities.
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