KANNADA LITERATURE

also spelled Kannada, also called Kanarese, the literature written in Kannada, which, like the other languages of South India, is of the Dravidian family. The earliest records in Kannada are inscriptions dating from the 6th century AD onward. The earliest literary work is the Kavirajamarga (c. AD 850), a treatise on poetics based on a Sanskrit model. Nearly all of the extant early texts in Kannada are poems on religious subjects written by Jaina authors. One of the most remarkable of these is the 12th-century Ramayana of Abhinava Pampa; this work is a Jain version of the famous epic poem of the same name. After the 12th century the Hindu sect known as Lingayat replaced Jainism as the most important religious influence on Kannada literature. (The Lingayats worship Siva as the only deity.) Most Lingayat works are simple in style, and many were meant to be sung. The most popular works were the Vacanakavyas, which were devotional poems to Siva written in rhythmic prose. The earliest work in Kannada that may be termed a novel is Nemicandra's Lilavati (1370), a love story involving a prince and a princess. One of the most famous Kannada works is the Rajasekharavilasa, a fictional tale written in 1657 by Sadaksaradeva in verse interspersed with prose. This work is a morality tale in which the divine intervention of Siva saves a royal family from self-inflicted tragedy in their efforts to uphold the law. Twentieth-century Kannada literature, like other Indian literatures, has modeled itself on European forms, especially the novel and short story.