Ponna ( kn, ಪೊನ್ನ) (c. 945) was a noted
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 ...
poet in the court of
Rashtrakuta Dynasty
Rashtrakuta (IAST: ') (r. 753-982 CE) was a royal Indian dynasty ruling large parts of the Indian subcontinent between the sixth and 10th centuries. The earliest known Rashtrakuta inscription is a 7th-century copper plate grant detailing their ...
king
Krishna III
Krishna III whose Kannada name was Kannara (r. 939 – 967 C.E.) was the last great warrior and able monarch of the Rashtrakuta dynasty of Manyakheta. He was a shrewd administrator and skillful military campaigner. He waged many wars to bring b ...
(r.939–968 CE). The emperor honoured Ponna with the title "emperor among poets" (''Kavichakravarthi'') for his domination of the Kannada literary circles of the time, and the title "imperial poet of two languages" (''Ubhayakavi Chakravarti'') for his command over
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
as well.
Ponna is often considered one among the "three gems of
Kannada literature
Kannada literature is the Text corpus, corpus of written forms of the Kannada language, a member of the Dravidian language, Dravidian Language family, family spoken mainly in the Indian state of Karnataka and written in the Kannada script.
A ...
" (''Ratnatraya'', ''lit'' meaning "three gems";
Adikavi Pampa and
Ranna Ranna may refer to:
*Ranna, a subdivision of the town Auerbach in der Oberpfalz in Bavaria, Germany
* Ranna, Estonia, a village in the former municipality Pala Parish, Estonia
* Ranna (Danube), a river of Bavaria, Germany and of Upper Austria, trib ...
being the other two) for ushering it in full panoply.
According to the scholar R. Narasimhacharya, Ponna is known to have claimed superiority over all the poets of the time.
According to scholars Nilakanta Shastri and E.P. Rice, Ponna belonged to
Vengi
Vengi (or Venginadu) is a delta region spread over the Krishna and Godavari River, (also called Godavari and Krishna districts), the region is also known as Godavari Delta, that used to house world famous diamond mines in the Medieval period. The ...
Vishaya A vishaya (IAST: Viṣaya) was a historical administrative unit of India, generally equivalent to a modern district.
Several other terms for units equivalent to a modern district appear in historical inscriptions, including ''āhāra'', ''rashtra'' ...
in
Kammanadu
Kammanadu (or Kamma-nadu, also Kamma-rashtra) is a historical region in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It consisted of parts of the present day Guntur and Prakasam districts.
According to historian and geographer K. Iswara Dutt, Kammanadu ...
, Punganur,
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
, but later migrated to
Manyakheta
Malkhed originally known as Manyakheta (IAST: Mānyakheṭa, Prakrit: "Mannakheḍa"), and also known as Malkhed,Village code= 311400 Malkhed (J), Gulbarga, Karnataka is a town in Karnataka, India. It is located on the banks of Kagina river i ...
(in modern
Kalaburagi district
Kalaburagi district, formerly known as Gulbarga district, is one of the 31 districts of Karnataka state in southern India. Kalaburagi city is the administrative headquarters of the district. The district is the headquarters of Kalaburagi divi ...
,
Karnataka
Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
), the Rashtrakuta capital, after his conversion to the
Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, 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 ...
.
Writings
His most famous extant works in Kannada are ''Shantipurana'', written in ''champu'' style (mixed prose-verse classical composition style inherited from Sanskrit), ''Bhuvanaika-Ramabhyudaya'', a eulogical writing, and ''Jinaksharamale'', a Jain ''
Purana
Purana (; sa, , '; literally meaning "ancient, old"Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (1995 Edition), Article on Puranas, , page 915) is a vast genre of Indian literature about a wide range of topics, particularly about legends an ...
'' and an acrostic poem written in praise of noted Jain saints and Tirthankars (''Jainas'') in 39 chapters (''kandas'').
[Sahitya Akademi (1987), p. 620][Mukherjee (1999), p. 291]''Ramakatha'', a writing based on the Hindu epic
Ramayana
The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...
, of which only a few stanzas are available is also assigned to Ponna.
Historians Kamath and Shastri are not certain whether his extinct classic, ''Gatapratiagata'', is in Kannada or Sanskrit. However, according to the professor L.S. Sheshagiri Rao of the Sahitya Akademi, the writing is in Kannada and belongs to the genre of "literary exercise".
[Rao in ]
''Shantipurana'' is an important Jain
purana
Purana (; sa, , '; literally meaning "ancient, old"Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (1995 Edition), Article on Puranas, , page 915) is a vast genre of Indian literature about a wide range of topics, particularly about legends an ...
, and a eulogy of the 16th Jain
Tirthankara
In Jainism, a ''Tirthankara'' (Sanskrit: '; English: literally a 'ford-maker') is a saviour and spiritual teacher of the ''dharma'' (righteous path). The word ''tirthankara'' signifies the founder of a '' tirtha'', which is a fordable passag ...
,
Shantinatha Swami. It was written to commemorate the attainment of ''
nirvana
( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...
'' ("salvation") of a Jain guru called Jainachandra Deva. The writing comprises twelve sections (''ashwasas'') of which nine sections focus on Shantinatha's eleven previous births, and the remaining three sections give biographical details of the
protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
. In this writing, Ponna borrowed significantly from previous works of the Sanskrit poet
Kalidasa
Kālidāsa (''fl.'' 4th–5th century CE) was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on the Vedas, the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and ...
though he does rise to great heights in his narration justifying his claim to scholarship (''Vidwat Kavi''). Ponna also seems to have used as a source, a narrative poem written by a Kannada poet called
Asaga
Asaga was a 9th-century Digambara Jain poet who wrote in Sanskrit and Kannada language. He is most known for his extant work in Sanskrit, the ''Vardhamana Charitra'' (Life of Vardhamana). This epic poem which runs into eighteen cantos was wri ...
, whose works are now extinct. Ponna's claim that his work is superior to that of Asaga gives us information that the latter must have been considered an important poet of that era.
Scholars were divided about Ponna's protagonist in ''Bhuvanaika-Ramabhyudaya''. The scholar D.L. Narasimhachar had opined that Ponna had eulogised Shankaraganda, a vassal king under emperor Krishna III. This opinion was based on the fact that Shankaraganda held the honorific ''Bhuvanaikarama''. However, modern Kannada poet
Govinda Pai
Manjeshwar Govinda Pai (23 March 1883 – 6 September 1963), also known as Rastrakavi Govinda Pai, was a Kannada poet. He was awarded the first Rashtrakavi title by the Madras Government (Kasaragod district was part of South Kanara district of M ...
argued in his 1936 article, ''Ponnana Bhuvanaikaramanu yaru'' ("Who was Ponna's Bhuvanaikarama"?), that king Shankaraganda being a Jain by faith could not have been the central figure in a secular writing and that emperor Krishna III also held the same title. Later, the scholar D.L. Narasimhachar confirmed the validity of Govinda Pai's findings.
Influence and style
Ponna was one of the most-notable writers of the classical age of Kannada literature, a period usually categorised as starting from the middle of 10th century and lasting for about a hundred and fifty years thereafter. During this era, Ponna and two other poets, Adikavi Pampa and Ranna, produced works of lasting merit, writings that set a standard in poetic form and composition that would influence future poets for centuries.
[Sahitya Akademi (1987), p. 754] So adept were these poets that their style of ''champu'' brought together the best of the earlier masters of Sanskrit literature in various proportions, giving their narration an artificiality: poet Bana's prose, Kalidasa's graceful verses, Bhatta Narayana's dramaticism and Megaduta's lyrical flavour are seen used deftly giving naturalised and assimilated Sanskrit words in the Kannada language priority over native (''desi'') expressions.
Despite adherence to strict classical Sanskritic models (''margam''), the native composition styles of Kannada language, such as the ''
tripadi
Tripadi (Kannada, lit. ''tri'': three, ''pad'' or "adi": feet) is a native metre in the Kannada language dating back to c. 700 CE.
Definition
The ''tripadi'' consists of three lines, each differing from the others in the number of feet and mora ...
'' (three-line verse), are found distributed in the narratives poems of these poets.
[Sahitya Akademi (1992), p. 4392] Just as Ponna eulogised his patron king Krishna III as ''Bhuvanaikarama'', so did the other Jain poets of the classical age. Kannada writings by them used impressive Sanskrit-derived verses interspersed with prose to extol the virtues of their protagonists, who were often compared to heroes from the Hindu epics. While
Adikavi Pampa (''Pampa Bharata'', c. 941) compared his patron, the feudatory
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 dynas ...
king
Arikesari, to
Pandava
The Pandavas (Sanskrit: पाण्डव, IAST: Pāṇḍava) refers to the five legendary brothers— Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva—who are the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Mahabharata''. They are acknowledg ...
prince
Arjuna
Arjuna (Sanskrit: अर्जुन, ), also known as Partha and Dhananjaya, is a character in several ancient Hindu texts, and specifically one of the major characters of the Indian epic Mahabharata. In the epic, he is the third among Panda ...
, in his version of the
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...
, Ranna (c. 983) found it suitable to compare his patron, Chalukya
King Satyashraya, to Pandava prince
Bhima
In Hindu epic Mahabharata, Bhima ( sa, भीम, ) is the second among the five Pandavas. The ''Mahabharata'' relates many events that portray the might of Bhima. Bhima was born when Vayu, the wind god, granted a son to Kunti and Pandu. Af ...
.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponna, Sri
Kannada poets
History of Karnataka
Converts to Jainism
Indian male poets
10th-century Indian Jain poets
Poets from Karnataka
10th-century Indian poets