11.5 Kannada Literature — Poets, Movements & Jnanpith Awardees

The Classical Age

The Ratnatraya — the three gems of classical Kannada, all Jain poets writing in the champu form of mixed prose and verse:

• Pampa (902–975): Adipurana (Jain, on Tirthankara Adinatha) and Vikramarjuna Vijaya (also called Pampa Bharata, a Kannada retelling of the Mahabharata centred on Arjuna). Honoured as Adikavi, the first poet. Patron: the Chalukya feudatory Arikesari.
• Ponna (c. 10th c.): Shantipurana; titled Ubhaya-Kavi-Chakravarti ("emperor of poets in two languages", Kannada and Sanskrit).
• Ranna (c. 949–?): Ajita Purana and Gadayuddha (also called Sahasa Bhima Vijaya, on the mace-duel of Bhima and Duryodhana); titled Kavi-Chakravarti. Patron: the Western Chalukya court of Tailapa II.

Also of the classical period: Nagavarma, Janna (Yashodhara Charite), Nemichandra and Durgasimha (Panchatantra).

Vachana Literature — The Twelfth-Century Revolution

The Veerashaiva or Lingayat movement produced the Vachana (ವಚನ): a short, unmetrical, first-person poem in spoken Kannada, rejecting Sanskrit scholasticism, ritual and caste. Its forum was the Anubhava Mantapa at Kalyana.

Vachana literature matters beyond literary history: it is the earliest sustained body of anti-caste, gender-inclusive protest writing in any Indian language, and it was produced by weavers, potters, cobblers and washermen as well as by ministers.

Dasa Sahitya and the Medieval Narrative Poets

• Haridasas / Dasa Sahitya — devotional keertanas in Kannada within the Dvaita tradition. Purandaradasa (Purandara Vittala) is called the father of Carnatic music and the Sangeeta Pitamaha; Kanakadasa, a Kuruba poet-saint, wrote Mohanatarangini, Nalacharitre and Ramadhanya Charite, the last a remarkable allegory in which ragi argues its worth against rice. Vyasaraya, Vadiraja and Jagannatha Dasa followed.
• Kumaravyasa (Naranappa of Gadag) wrote the Karnata Bharata Katha Manjari — the Gadugina Bharata — in shatpadi metre; it remains the most widely recited Kannada narrative poem.
• Lakshmisha wrote Jaimini Bharata; Raghavanka wrote Harishchandra Kavya; Harihara developed the ragale form.
• Sarvajna, the wandering poet, composed hundreds of aphoristic tripadis that function as proverbs.
• Ratnakaravarni wrote Bharatesha Vaibhava; Chamarasa wrote Prabhulinga Leele.
• Honnamma (Hadibadeya Dharma) and Sanchi Honnamma are among the early women poets of the Mysore court.

The Modern Movements

The Eight Kannada Jnanpith Laureates

Kannada has the most Jnanpith awards of any Indian language — eight. Learn the list as a chronology.

Honours, Institutions and Status

Exam Angle for Section 11.5

Four question shapes recur, and each is pure recall:

• Author to work — Pampa to Vikramarjuna Vijaya, Kumaravyasa to Gadugina Bharata, Ananthamurthy to Samskara.
• Author to title — Adikavi, Ubhaya-Kavi-Chakravarti, Varakavi, Rashtrakavi, Sangeeta Pitamaha.
• Laureate to Jnanpith year — the eight-row table above, which is the highest-yield single item in the Kannada paper.
• Movement to founder — B. M. Srikantaiah for Navodaya, Gopalakrishna Adiga for Navya, Basavanna for Vachana, Purandaradasa and Kanakadasa for Dasa Sahitya.

Two errors to avoid: the Kannada Sahitya Parishat's first president was H. V. Nanjundaiah, not B. M. Srikantaiah; and the state anthem was adopted in 2004, not in 1956 or 1973.