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The Preceptors / 85
their language. It was left for the indigenous dynasties like the Gangas and the Bādāmi Cālukyas to employ and encourage the language of the inhabitants of the region. The Banavāsi Kadambas, though a indigenous family, adopted Sanskrit as their official language. The Gangas contribution to Kannada language and literature is remarkable. Some of the early kings of the Ganga dynasty were great scholars. Kannada was the mother tongue of the Gangas, the Rāṣṭrakūtas, the Calukyas of Bādāmi and Kalyāṇa. The Mandalinaḍu Gangas also continued the religion and language of their family tradition. Thus, Kannada was their mother tongue and the language of the administration. The personal names of the Ganga kings and queens such as Būtuga, Eṛeyappa, Eṛeganga, Muttarasa, Mukkara, Kambayya, Kaṭṭāṇe, Arasāne, Kālabba, Padmabbarasi, Revakanimmaḍi, Kallabbā, Puņuseya Marula, Arumolideva, Nanniya Ganga etc., virtually demonstrates that their mother tongue was Kannada language.
But, whether the Mandali Gangas patronised Kannada authors is not known. Albeit, there were some bards in the courts of these māṇḍalikas, capable of authoring the Mandali charters. When the Kalyāṇa Calukya emperor Tribhuvanamalla Vikramaditya-VI was ruling the kingdom, his feudatory Ganga Permmāḍi's minister was Heggaḍe Nokkayya. His Sandhi-vigrahi and a poet Dāmarāja authored the Shimoga inscription number ten of C.E. 1085. This 'Śāsana-gabba', a śāsana-kāvya as the poet calls it, contains 59 lines, and fairly records the early and later Gangas. This charter with the usual invocatory verse, Śrimatparama-gambhira-syädvāda, in praise of the Jinaśāsana, very often quoted in hundreds of Jaina inscriptions [it is a quotation from Bhaṭṭa Akalankadeva's 'Pramāṇasangrah' (C.E. 730-50)], contains some Sanskrit composition in the beginning. Immediately after the tenth line onwards, the whole inscription is in chaste Kannada language.
Dāmarāja had a sound knowledge of Kannada language and literature. This Taṭṭekere inscription can be considered as an abridged Campūkāvya. It is composed in ornate literary style and contains verses composed in Kanda, Vṛttas of Campakamāla,
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