Here are two examples from the section Evidence of early Kannada writings
Example 1
editThe first paragraph in the section states:
"... the Kappe Arabhatta record of the 7th century forms the earliest surviving record of Kannada poetry"
Two sources are cited for this: (a) Sahitya Akademi, 1988, page 1717 and (b) Kamath, 2001, p. 67
When one looks at reference (a), which is: Various (1988), Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, vol. 2, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi., page 1717 (please examine yourself), all one finds is the text:
"The next notable inscription comes from Badami. It is dated 578 AD and it records the excavation of a rockcut temple of Vishnu during the time of the Badami Chalukyan king Mangalesha. The Thattukoti inscription records the heroism of a Badami Chalukyan general by the name Kappe Arabhatta in a powerful style. It says that Kappe Arabhatta was a kind man to the kind, very cruel to the cruel; he was nothing but God Vishnu in this regard. Taking liberties with him was taking liberties with a lion. The Halmidi inscription and the present one are specimens of hundreds of inscriptions recording the valour of the Kannada people."
However, nowhere on page 1717 does the text say that this inscription is the first example of Kannada poetry.
That brings us to the second citation. Kamath 2001. It turns out that this is a reprint of the edition, Kamath, S.U. (1980), A concise history of Karnataka: from pre-historic times to the present, published locally in Karnataka by Archana Prakashana, Bangalore (see the Library of Congress Information for it), which in turn is the English translation of a Kannada book published in 1973. Kamath is a local historian, not internationally known. The 1980 edition of the book (of which the 2001 edition is a reprint) is also available on Google Books (and allows a "snippet search"). See: Google Book Search in Kamath's book. However, when one searches for "Kappe Arabhatta," nothing turns up.
The Google snippet search, however, is not perfect, or it could be that the author spells "Kappe Arabhatta" differently, so I decided to do a search for "Kappe Arabhatta" in some academic and other catalogs:
- In the COPAC catalogue of major universities and national libraries in the UK and Ireland, nothing showed up for "Kappe Arabhatta" in either "title," "author," or "keyword." This is a pretty large catalogue, by the way. For example when you type, "Kavirajamarga," on the other hand you get many returns.
- In the US Library of Congress Catalog "Guided Search," again nothing showed up for "Kappe Arabhatta" in the various categories.
- In the JSTOR academic journal articles database, nothing showed up in the "advanced search" for a full-text search for "kappe arabhatta" in all their journals
- In the Google Scholar Search, there were two old citations to a seminar or journal in Bangalore (1978), but unavailable.
- In the Google Academic Sites search, only one site showed up and it was a Wikpedia clone site.
- What what was most strange to me was that when you do a general Google search, 93 sites show up, but the ones that say anything "poetry" are all clones of the Wikipedia site. Some other sites do say that "Kappe Arabhatta," which is apparently quite well-known in Karnataka, is composed in the "tripadi" metre/verse; but verse is quite different from poetry. Many (if not most) inscriptions were composed in verse.
Of course, catalogs too miss important items. but, regardless, if the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters had thought the inscription to be the first example of Kannada poetry, it would have said so in their Encyclopaedia published in 1988, which, in my view has precedence over a book (not on literature, but on history with a vast scope: from pre-historic times to the present) published in 1973. However, here is what they say on other pages of the Encyclopaedia:
- Elegaic Poetry: "The first occurrence of elegaic poetry is to be found in Adipurana of Pampa (941 AD) (p. 1149)"
- Epic (poetry): "Like many literatures in Indian languages, Kannada literature also was inspired by Sanskrit literature, and Sanskrit works served as models in the early stages. The first extant creative works in Kannada are Adipurana and Vikramarjuna vijaya", both epics composed by Pampa (10th century)." (p. 1180).
- "The extant old Kannada poets are mostly Jainas—Pampa, Ranna and Ponno, etc. and they all belong to the 10th century." (p. 1699)
Thus, in my view, the sources cited do not provide reliable evidence that "Kappe Arabhatta record of the 7th century forms the earliest surviving record of Kannada poetry." Moreover, the same sources are repeated in the two links Kappe Arabhatta and Kannada poetry.
Example 2
editHere is another sentence from the same section: (this version of the page).
"The earliest surviving literary work, the Kavirajamarga ("Royal Path for Poets") is dated to 850 CE, references are made in it to earlier writers such as Vimalachandra (c. 777), Udaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabhandu and Durvinita and poets such as Srivijaya, Kavisvara, Pandita, Chandra, Ravi Kirti (634) and Lokapala"
- Here too there are three references: a) Warder (1988), p. 240, b) Narasimhacharya (1988), p. 2, and (c) Sastri (1955), pp. 355-356.
- Warder's book (by clicking on the ISBN provided in the references) is available on Google Books: Kavya Literature. However, p. 240 has no mention of any of the poets mentioned above. (Please check.) Neither do pages 239 or 241. I then did a general search for "Kavirajamarga" and all the
other names; none show up except Nagarjuna who lived in 150–250 CE in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh and has no history of composing in Kannada.
- What about the other sources? Narashimhacharya (1988) turns out to be a facsimile reprint of a 1940 edition (see British Academic and National Library Catalogue information). That, in turn, is a likely reprint of the 1934 edition (see the 1934 edition information) since the author died in 1936. The facsimile reprint is also available on Google Books:
History of Kannada Literature:Readership Lectures What does it say on page 2?
"His work on poetics presupposes the existence of previous Kannada works, and accordingly we find references in it which enable us to place the rise of Kannada literature much farther back. He mentions several Kannada authors that preceded him: Vimala, Udaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabandhu and Durvinita as the best writers of Kannada prose; and Srivijaya, Kavisvara, Pandita, Chandra and Lokapala as the best writers of Kannada poetry."
This reference is clearly being relied upon; however, no dates are mentioned, and the reasoning is very speculative. (Please read and compare with the text of the second sentence.)
- What about the last book? This too is available on Google books
A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagara. Although "Kavirajamarga" doesn't show up in the snippet search, I was informed later that it is mentioned on p. 393 of the book:
"Among South Indian Languages, after Tamil, Kannada posseses the oldest literature. Its beginnings are not clearly traceable, but a considerable volume of prose and poetry must have come into existence before the date of Nripatunga's Kavirajamarga (850), the earliest extant work on rhetoric in Kannada."
And later on, on the same page,
"The Kavirajamarga is based on in part on Dandin's Kavyadarsa and must have been inspired if not actually composed by Rashtrakuta emperoro Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I, its ostensible author. But the first extant work of real literature is the Vaddaradhane of Sivakoti (c. A.D. 900), a prose work on the lives of the older Jain saints, written mostly in the oldest Kannada style called purvahala-kannada. Then we have Pampa..."
However, neither statement explicitly backs the names given in the book and their provenance. Also this is a history book published in 1955, by historian Nilakanta Sastry. The article Nagaraj (2003), which I have quoted in the RfC, says this about the book:
""See Nilakanta Sastry (1955) and Venkata Ramanaya (1935), two texts that were major influences on the writings of Karnataka histories until recently. Now the work of Stein, Ludden and Karashima, among others, has replaced that of the Indian scholars. (Nagaraja (2003), p. 342)"
The text (published 53 years ago) is therefore not considered the most up-to-date reference by scholars. Unfortunately, none of the books of Burt Stein (Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, (Oxford, 1980), Vijayanagara (Cambridge, 1989)), or David Ludden (Peasant History in South India (Princeton), 1990; Early Capitalism and Local History in South India (Oxford-India), 2005), or Noburu Karashima (South Indian History and Society (Oxford-India, 1984), are cited anywhere in the article as historical references.
The second sentence is therefore essentially based on Narasimhacharya (1934/1988), a 74 year old reference. However, N. doesn't give any dates like "Vimalachandra (c. 777)" and we are not told how they were arrived at.
Analysis of the sentence of Section 1 in the article in Pollock's Book
editAfter I wrote the above, I discovered, Sheldon Pollock's new book, The Langugage of God in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture and Power in Pre-modern India. The ninth chapter of the book is titled, "Creating a Regional World: The Case of Kannada" (pp. 330–379); please take a look. Pollock actually analyzes the example of earlier poets in KRM that are mentioned in the section Evidence of early Kannada writings. His conclusion is that
"there is no reason not to assume that all of them were close in time to the date of the text—or even members of Amoghavarsha's own literary circle. This is actually so in the case of (Parama-)Srivijaya who had a major role in the composition of the margam (KRM) itself.(p. 339)"
Also, echoing some of my internet searches above, he says, "Nothing supports identifying Durvinita with the mid-sixth century Ganga king (whose records celebrate his Sanskrit scholarship ...), let alone Nagarjuna with the Buddhist philosopher of the 3rd century (p. 339)" (see section 1 above).