''Vikramarjuna Vijaya'' (Kannada- ವಿಕ್ರಮಾರ್ಜುನ ವಿಜಯ) (''victory of the mighty Arjuna''), also known as Pampa Bharatha is a classic work of the 10th century

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

poet Pampa (902–975 AD). It is a

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

version of the great epic, the ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the s ...

'' of

Vyasa Krishna Dvaipayana ( sa, कृष्णद्वैपायन, Kṛṣṇadvaipāyana), better known as Vyasa (; sa, व्यासः, Vyāsaḥ, compiler) or Vedavyasa (वेदव्यासः, ''Veda-vyāsaḥ'', "the one who cl ...

. Pampa choose the Arjuna, the central figure of the Pandava Clan, as the hero of his epic. This work differs from ''Mahabharata'' in several aspects, one of them being Arjuna crowned the king, subhadra the queen, after Kurukshetra war, instead of

Yudhishthira ''Yudhishthira'' (Sanskrit: युधिष्ठिर, IAST: ''Yudhiṣṭhira'') is the eldest among the five Pandava brothers. He is mentioned in the ancient epic Mahabharata. He was sired by King Pandu of the Kuru Dynasty and his firs ...

, and Draupadi respectively. A court poet of

Chalukya The Chalukya dynasty () was a Classical Indian dynasty that ruled large parts of southern and central India between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During this period, they ruled as three related yet individual dynasties. The earliest dynasty ...

king

Arikesari II Arikesari II ( ) was a ruler of the Vemulavada Chalukya dynasty of present-day Telangana, India. A Rashtrakuta vassal, he played an important role in dethroning the Rashtrakuta emperor Govinda IV and enthroning Amoghavarsha III as the new empero ...

, a Rashtrakuta feudatory, he is most known for his epics, ''Vikramarjuna Vijaya'' (Pampa Bharata) and '' Adipurana'', both written in ''

Champu Champu or Chapu-Kavya ( Devanagari: चम्पू-काव्य) is a genre of literary composition in Indian literature. The word 'Champu' means a combination of poetry and prose. A ''champu-kavya'' consists of a mixture of prose (Gadya ...

'' style, which he created and served as the model for all future works in Kannada. The works of Jain writers Adikavi Pampa, Sri Ponna and Ranna, collectively called the "three gems of Kannada literature", heralded the age of classical Kannada in the 10th century, the

Medieval Kannada literature Medieval Kannada literature covered a wide range of subjects and genres which can broadly be classified under the Jain, Virashaiva, Vaishnava and secular traditions. These include writings from the 7th century rise of the Badami Chalukya empire ...

History

Vikramarjuna Vijaya is a 10th-century work of Adikavi Pampa.

Content

This work is not an abridged version of

's ''Mahabharata'', but, rather, a recreation of the original in the cultural context of Karnataka and the religious context of Jainism. The relatively less dominant and slightly Machiavellian role given to

Krishna Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...

is a major change. Pampa was the court poet of

King Arikesari, a Rashtrakuta feudatory. The work acquires a historical significance because of the equation made by the poet between Arjuna and Arikesari his patron king belonging to the Ganga dynasty. This work was trendsetting in Kannada both in terms of subject and the form.

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Sources

* {{citation , last=Singh , first=Upinder , author-link=Upinder Singh , title=A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pq2iCwAAQBAJ , publisher= Pearson Education , date=2016 , isbn=978-93-325-6996-6 , ref={{sfnref, Upinder Singh, 2016 Works based on the Mahabharata 10th-century Indian books Jain texts Western Chalukya Empire Epic poems in Kannada

History

Content

See also

Notes

Sources