An out of print ACK # 330
Vaddaradhane by Shivakotiacharya is the earliest extant prose work in Kannada. It is a didactic work consisting of nineteen stories and is based on Harisena's bruhat hari katha kosha. It gives a detailed description of the life of Bhadrabahu of Shravanabelagola. The work is dated to the 9th century but some scholars advance a pre-sixth century date for the work. Based on internal evidence, it is suggested that Shivakotiacharya may have been a native of Kogali, in the Bellary district of modern Karnataka.
The list of 19 stories are
- Story of Sukumara swamy
- Story of SukaushaLa swamy
- Gajakumara
- Sanathkumara prince
- Annii kavrutha
- Bhadrabhau bhatarara
- Lalithaghate
- Dharmaghosha
- Siridhinnia bhatarara
- Vrushabha sena bhatarara
- Karthika rishi
- Abhayaghosha rishi
- Vidyuthchoraa rishi
- Gurudatta bhatarara
- Chilata putra
- Dandaka rishi
- Mahendradattacharyaand
- Chanakya rishi
- Vrushabhasena rishi
P.S.: 1. Jains heavily used Jain Prakrit (Magadhi Prakrit) terms in their works. As such Kannada works do show heavy influence in the literature. Though very few of them have become part of native parlance.
2. The Idli and Dosa of Southern India each have a long history, though not every detail can be clearly traced. The idli seems to be first mentioned in writing in Shivakotyacharya's 'Vaddaradhane'.
