Jain Journal 2003 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 21

KAMALA HAMPANA POET PAMPA, JINAVALLABHA AND ANDHRA
unknown person by observing the vow of sallekhană, casting of one's body by prolonged fast.
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The possibility of the pair of sacrosanct feet enshrined on the summit of the boulder before Siddhasila being the foot-prints of poet Pampa, is worth pondering. Considering the circumstantial evidence, it is probable that Pampa breathed his last here and the foot-print and the inscripitons along with the relivos of Jinas and Jina śāsanadevi were carved as a fitting memorial to Pampa. In that case the Kurkiyal inscription deserves to the treated as a Niśidhi sasana. The mapping of the unmapped places associated with the life of Pampa and his kith and kin, is a desideratum. It is obvious that Andhra in general, and Vengi and Vemulavāḍa in particular, is the core area of Pampa's creative, period. Pampa had acquired intimate knowledge of its surroundings because his ancestors formed part of the Vengināḍu or Bengināḍu between the rivers of Krishna and Gōdāvarī. The geographic boundary of the Vengimaṇḍala stretched up to the modern Gunțur in the coastal Andhra. Vangiparra or Vengipalu is the modern Peddavegi or Chinnavegi. The Vengi country was predominantly a pocket where Kannada speaking people had concentrated. Major poets of Kannada literature like Pampa, Ponna and Nagavarma migrated from this place. Even Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa, a Kannadiga who assisted poet Nannayya to get acquainted with the VAV, belonged to Vengivishaya that spread to the east and west of the modern Gōdāvari District. Gundaparra may be the modern Guṇḍlakamma river.
The Kammenaḍu or Kammarashtra (also Kamma-Kshiti and Kammavishaya) is also an ancient country to the east of Shrishaila including the area of Narasarao, Bapatla and Kurnool. It is mentioned in Prakrit, Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu inscriptions. The Chalukyas of Bāḍāmi and Kalyāṇa, and the Rashtrakutas ruled Kammenādu. The Kamme-Brāhmaṇas (Bobbūru-Kamme and Ulucha-Kamme) originally hail from Kammenādu. Niḍumgonde of Pampa's grand-father is the modern Nidugundi. Bōdhan was the capital city of Arikesari, where Pampa composed his two peerless poems and where he spent momentous years of his life. Arikesari showered unbounded cordiality