The Kavirajamarga, the earliest Kannada work on poetics
Around 850, at the court of the Rashtrakuta king Amoghavarsha I Nripatunga, the Kavirajamarga (‘Royal Path for Poets’) was composed — the earliest known Kannada work on poetics and one of the oldest surviving works of Kannada literature. Adapting Sanskrit poetics to Kannada, it praises the land of the Kannada speakers between the Kaveri and the Godavari and names earlier writers whose works are lost.
- Date
- c. 850year known, approximate
- Place
- Manyakheta (Malkhed), the Rashtrakuta capitalapproximate locationtoday: Malkhed, Kalaburagi district, Karnataka, India · South Asia
- Participants
- Amoghavarsha I, Rashtrakutas
- Threads
- South Asia (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Kavirajamarga; Kavirājamārga; Royal Path for Poets; Nripatunga; Srivijaya (poet); Кавираджамарга; Нрипатунга; Шривиджая (поэт)
The treatise goes under the name of King Nripatunga, that is, Amoghavarsha I. A. S. Altekar called the king ‘either the author or the inspirer’ of the work, and many scholars think that it was composed, wholly or in part, by his court poet Srivijaya. Scholars see in it the influence of the Kavyadarsha of the Sanskrit theorist Dandin, but it deals with the Kannada language and its literary styles: it lays down that a great poem must describe nature — the sea and the mountains, sunrise and moonrise, the seasons — as well as heroic life, love, adventure and festivities, and it warns against careless borrowing from other languages. It describes the Kannada country as stretching from the Kaveri to the Godavari and praises its people as quick to grasp poetry even without schooling.
The Kavirajamarga names earlier Kannada writers of prose and verse — among them Vimala, Udaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabandhu and Durvinita — whose works have not survived, which shows that a literary tradition already existed; of the surviving works only the prose Vaddaradhane may be older. Amoghavarsha, who built the new Rashtrakuta capital of Manyakheta, was a patron of Sanskrit and Kannada letters and of Jain scholars such as Jinasena and the mathematician Mahavira, and Arab writers of the time described the Rashtrakuta king, whom they called the Balhara, as the greatest king of India.
Connections
Related events
- Krishna I carves the Kailasa temple at Ellorabetween 756 and 774 · South AsiaRashtrakuta patronage: Krishna I’s Kailasa at Ellora and the literary court of Amoghavarsha I
- Mahavira writes the Ganitasarasangrahac. 850 · South AsiaMahavira wrote his mathematical compendium in the reign of the same king
- Accounts of China and India: merchants’ reports on the sea route to Guangzhoubetween 851 and 852 · Middle East and Egyptthe Accounts report that Indians and Chinese count four great kings in the world — the caliph, the emperors of China and Byzantium and, last, the Balhara, the Rashtrakuta king (then Amoghavarsha I)
Same participants
- The tripartite struggle for Kannaujbetween 783 and 790 – between 915 and 918 · South Asiavia Rashtrakutas
Adjacent events in the thread
- Dharmapala founds the monasteries of Somapura and Vikramashilabetween 770 and 821 · South Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Aghlabid conquest of SicilyJune 827 – 1 August 902
Eastern Europe
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
- The Khazar rulers adopt Judaismbetween 740 and 861
Balkans and Anatolia
- Leo the Mathematician heads the school of the Magnaurabetween 843 and 866
Middle East and Egypt
- The House of Wisdom and the translation movement in Baghdadc. 800 – c. 900
- Accounts of China and India: merchants’ reports on the sea route to Guangzhoubetween 851 and 852
- The mihna: the Abbasid inquisition over the createdness of the Qur’an833 – between 848 and 852
Africa
- Ifriqiya under the Aghlabids800 – March 909
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
Central and Northern Asia
North America
Latin America
- Classic Maya collapse in the southern lowlandsc. 800 – c. 950
- Rise of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatánc. 800 – between 900 and 1000
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Cacaxtla and Xochicalco: the Epiclassic cities of central Mexicoc. 650 – c. 900
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Kavirajamarga
- Wikipedia (English): Amoghavarsha
- Wikipedia (English): Srivijaya (poet)
- Wikipedia (Russian): Литература каннада
- The Age of Imperial Kanauj / Ed. R. C. Majumdar. — 2nd ed. — Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1964. — P. 10, 16–17, 221–223
- Altekar A. S. The Rashtrakutas and Their Times. — Poona: Oriental Book Agency, 1934. — P. 87–88
- Wikidata: Q6379262