The Vijayanagara Empire or the Karnata Kingdom was a late medieval Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, members of a pastoralist cowherd community that claimed Yadava lineage.
Krishnadevaraya was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire reigning from 1509 to 1529. He was the third monarch of the Tuluva dynasty, and is considered to be one of the greatest rulers in Indian history. He ruled the largest empire in India after the fall of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate. Presiding over the empire at its zenith, he is regarded as an icon by many Indians. Krishnadevaraya earned the titles Andhra Bhoja, Karnatakaratna Simhasanadeeshwara, Yavana Rajya Pratistapanacharya, Kannada Rajya Rama Ramana, Gaubrahmana Pratipalaka and Mooru Rayara Ganda. He became the dominant ruler of the peninsula by defeating the sultans of Bijapur, Golconda, the Bahmani Sultanate and the Gajapatis of Odisha, and was one of the most powerful Hindu rulers in India.
Achyuta Deva Raya was an emperor of Vijayanagara who succeeded his older brother, Krishnadevaraya, after the latter's death in 1529 CE.
The Reddi kingdom or Kondavidu Reddi kingdom was a kingdom established and ruled by Prolaya Vema Reddi from 1325 to 1448 CE in southern India. Most of the region that was ruled by the kingdom is now part of modern-day Rayalaseema, coastal and central Andhra Pradesh.
Telugu literature is the body of works written in the Telugu language. It consists of poems, short stories, novels, plays, and song lyrics, among others. There is some indication that Telugu literature dates at least to the middle of the first millennium, the first extant works are from the 11th century when the Mahabharata was first translated to Telugu from Sanskrit by Nannaya. The language has experienced a golden age under the patronage of the Vijayanagara Emperor-Poet Krishnadevaraya.
Mahakavi Allasani Peddana was a prominent Telugu poet and the foremost Ashtadiggaja in the imperial court of Emperor Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara.
Ashtadiggajas is the collective title given to the eight great Telugu scholars and poets in the court of Emperor Krishnadevaraya, who ruled the Vijayanagara Empire from 1509 until his death in 1529. During his reign, Telugu literature and culture reached its zenith. In his imperial court, these eight poets were regarded as the eight pillars of his literary assembly. The age of Ashtadiggajas is called the Prabandha Age. Each Ashtadiggaja had composed at least one Prabandha Kavyamu, and it was the Ashtadiggajas who gave Prabandha its present form. Most Ashtadiggajas were from Rayalaseema. The Ashtadiggajas Allasani Peddana, Dhurjati, Nandi Thimmana, Madayyagari Mallana and Ayyalaraju Ramabhadrudu were from Rayalaseema. Pandit Ramakrishna hailed from Tenali in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. Ramarajabhushanudu and Pingali Surana were the other two Ashtadiggajas.
Deva Raya II was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire. The greatest of the Sangama dynasty rulers, he was an able administrator, warrior, and scholar. He authored well-known works in Kannada and Sanskrit. He was patron to some of the most noted Kannada poets of the medieval period, including Chamarasa and Kumara Vyasa, the Sanskrit poet Gunda Dimdima, and the noted Telugu language poet Srinatha, whom the king honored with the title Kavisarvabhauma. He supported development in secular literature as well as the noted South Indian mathematician Parameshvara, from the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics in his empire.
Saluva Timmarusu was the prime minister (mahapradhana) and military commander of Krishnadevaraya. He is also known as "Appaji". He had also served as the prime minister under Viranarasimha Raya and Tuluva Narasa Nayaka.
Vyāsatīrtha, also called Vyasaraja or Chandrikacharya, was a Hindu philosopher, scholar, polemicist, commentator and poet belonging to the Madhwacharya's Dvaita order of Vedanta. As the rajaguru of Vijayanagara Empire, Vyasatirtha was at the forefront of a golden age in Dvaita which saw new developments in dialectical thought, growth of the Haridasa literature under bards like Purandara Dasa and Kanaka Dasa and an increased spread of Dvaita across the subcontinent. He himself composed many kīrtanas in Kannada and Sanskrit.
Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire from the Saluva Dynasty. A patron of the Madhwa saint Sripadaraya, he authored the Sanskrit work Rama Bhyudayam. He also patronised Kannada poet Kavi Linga.
Kāvya refers to the Sanskrit literary style used by Indian court poets flourishing between c.200 BCE and 1200 CE.
Hoysala literature is the large body of literature in the Kannada and Sanskrit languages produced by the Hoysala Empire (1025–1343) in what is now southern India. The empire was established by Nripa Kama II, came into political prominence during the rule of King Vishnuvardhana (1108–1152), and declined gradually after its defeat by the Khalji dynasty invaders in 1311.
A large body of Western Chalukya literature in the Kannada language was produced during the reign of the Western Chalukya Empire in what is now southern India. This dynasty, which ruled most of the western Deccan in South India, is sometimes called the Kalyani Chalukya dynasty after its royal capital at Kalyani, and sometimes called the Later Chalukya dynasty for its theoretical relationship to the 6th-century Chalukya dynasty of Badami. For a brief period (1162–1183), the Kalachuris of Kalyani, a dynasty of kings who had earlier migrated to the Karnataka region from central India and served as vassals for several generations, exploited the growing weakness of their overlords and annexed the Kalyani. Around 1183, the last Chalukya scion, Someshvara IV, overthrew the Kalachuris to regain control of the royal city. But his efforts were in vain, as other prominent Chalukya vassals in the Deccan, the Hoysalas, the Kakatiyas and the Seunas destroyed the remnants of the Chalukya power.
Mallana was a Telugu poet and one of the Astadiggajas in the court of the king Krishnadevaraya.
Rashtrakuta literature is the body of work created during the rule of the Rastrakutas of Manyakheta, a dynasty that ruled the southern and central parts of the Deccan, India between the 8th and 10th centuries. The period of their rule was an important time in the history of South Indian literature in general and Kannada literature in particular. This era was practically the end of classical Prakrit and Sanskrit writings when a whole wealth of topics were available to be written in Kannada. Some of Kannada's most famous poets graced the courts of the Rashtrakuta kings. Court poets and royalty created eminent works in Kannada and Sanskrit, that spanned such literary forms as prose, poetry, rhetoric, epics and grammar. Famous scholars even wrote on secular subjects such as mathematics. Rashtrakuta inscriptions were also written in expressive and poetic Kannada and Sanskrit, rather than plain documentary prose.
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 to the 16th century, coinciding with the decline of Vijayanagara Empire. The earliest known literary works until about the 12th century CE were mostly authored by the Jainas along with a few works by Virashaivas and Brahmins and hence this period is called the age of Jain literature,. The 13th century CE, to the 15th century CE, saw the emergence of numerous Virashaiva and Brahminical writers with a proportional decline in Jain literary works. Thereafter, Virashaiva and Brahmin writers have dominated the Kannada literary tradition. Some of the earliest metres used by Jain writers prior to 9th century include the chattana, bedande and the melvadu metres, writings in which have not been discovered but are known from references made to them in later centuries. Popular metres from the 9th century onwards when Kannada literature is available are the champu-kavyas or just champu, vachanasangatya, shatpadi, ragale, tripadi, and kavya.
Vijayanagara literature in Kannada is the body of literature composed in the Kannada language of South India during the ascendancy of the Vijayanagara Empire which lasted from the 14th through the 16th century. The Vijayanagara empire was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I. Although it lasted until 1664, its power declined after a major military defeat by the Shahi Sultanates in the battle of Talikota in 1565. The empire is named after its capital city Vijayanagara, whose ruins surround modern Hampi, now a World Heritage Site in Karnataka.
The Āmuktamālyada is a Telugu epic poem composed by Krishnadevaraya, the ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire, in the early 16th century. Amuktamalyada translates to "One who offered the garland after wearing it herself". Considered as a masterpiece, the Amuktamalyada describes the legendary wedding of the Hindu deity Ranganayaka, an avatar of Vishnu, and Andal, one of the poet-saints called the Alvars, at Srirangam.
