Book Title: Studies in South Indian Jainism
Author(s): M S Ramaswami Ayyangar, B Seshagiri Rao
Publisher: M S Ramaswami Ayyangar

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Page 308
________________ : JAINISM AN UITERARY TRADITION. 101 Nannaya, himself, was the fellow pupil of a great Karnāta poet and scholar, viz, Narayanabhatta and it is not extravagant tu suppose that he himself was acquainted with Karnata literature. Though Nannaya professes to follow Vyasa's Sanskrit Bhāratam, his method may be called 'the Champu method, but it is not the Champu method of, say, Bhoja Champu. - Rice, in his introduction to Bhattakalanka's Sabdanusasanam says “the leading characteristic of the earlier Jaina works (Karnāta) is ' that they are Charpu Kavyas or poems in a variety of composite metres, interspersed with paragraphs in prose.” This description applies 10. Pampa's Vikramārjuna Vijaya, otherwise known as Pampa Bhārata, and an analysis of that portion of it which corresponds to the three parvas of Nannaya's Telugu Bhāratam shows that the "author used most frequently (is it in deference to the Nripatunga [vide Kaviraja Mārga] school of Karnāta Rhetoricians) the Kanda, Campaka, Utpala, Mattēbha types of verse, and his prose pieces outnumber his verses. Out of 772 verses in all, distributed over about 7} chapters, we find 372 Kandams, 190 Campakams, 101 Mattēbhams, and 70 Utpalams. This type of Champu prabandham with a pre-* dominance of prose and Kandam, and, with Campakams, Utpalams, Mattēbhams from the Sanskrit Chandas, must have become the predominant Kavya . type before the time of

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