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Archive 1Archive 2

Not satisfied with the way my life is progressing...not at all...

Request for Comment: When does the literary tradition in a language begin?

The first inscription in the Kannada language of South India dates to 450 CE; the first extant literary work dates to 850 CE. The literary work, however, mentions previous works that have been lost. At issue is the question of when the literary tradition begins.

Statement by Fowler&fowler (talk · contribs)

In order to explain the content dispute, I need to provide some background. The amount of text in front of you might seem forbidding, but please bear with me as I try to explain things as painlessly as possible. Also, although I initially had grander visions for this RfC, I've decided, in the interests of getting concrete feedback, to focus on the content of two sentences in the lead (sentences A and B, see below). Before I do that though, I'd like to state at the outset that I don't speak the Kannada language; nor do I speak any of the other languages, I'm told, it does ideological battle with on the pages of Wikipedia. What, you might ask, am I doing in this RfC? I have increasingly asked that question myself, especially as the discussion, in my view, has degenerated from the sublime to the ridiculous. Anyway, to begin things at the beginning, ...

Kannada literature, a former FAC, is a page about the literature of Kannada, a Dravidian language, spoken in the Karnataka region of South India. The emergence of literature in Kannada towards the end of the first millennium CE was a part of the broad "vernacularization" of South- and Southeast Asia; not only writers of Kannada, but also those of other local languages like Telegu, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Bengali, and even faraway Newari (in Nepal) and Khmer (in Cambodia) emerged from under the shadow of the "cosmopolitan" (or trans-local) languages, Sanskrit or Tamil, to compose their own literary works.

The literary tradition in Sanskrit itself had begun not long after writing—in the form of the Brahmi script—had been invented in India late in the first millenium BCE. Sanskrit's own script was derived from Brahmi and, until its creation, all religious works in the language (like the Rig Veda) were transmitted orally through mnemonic systems of great fidelity developed for such purposes. (In fact it has been speculated that it was precisely the success of oral transmission that kept writing at bay in India longer than it had been in other contemporaneous cultures.) Later, in the first millennium CE, the Brahmi script further evolved into different local scripts for the languages spoken within various regions. Most language scripts in South Asia (e.g. Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali) and many in Southeast Asia (Burmese, Thai, Khmer) have descended from Brahmi. The local scripts were at first used only for documentation (land deeds, the boundary of the King's domains); however, by the end of the millennium and early into the second, literature—until then the province of Sanskrit—began to appear as well. Sheldon Pollock, one of the world's leading scholars on Indian intellectual history, (Pollock, Sheldon. (2007). "Literary Culture and Manuscript Culture in Precolonial India." (pp. 77-94) In Literary Cultures and the Material Book (ed. S. Eliot et al), London: British Library. Pp. 444. ISBN 0712306846), has described this succinctly,

"This development was characterized in most places in India by a time lag between what I have called literization, the committing of local language to documentary, non-literary, written form, and literarization, the development of literary expressivity in accordance with the norms of a dominant literary culture. The interval between these two moments is often substantial and dramatic. Three to four centuries, as in the case of Kannada and Marathi, is not uncommon (for the first, literization in the early sixth century, literarization in the late ninth; for the second, late tenth century and the late thirteenth respectively); more extreme cases include Khmer and Newari (for the former, literization in the seventh century, for the latter the ninth; literarization for both only in the seventeenth) (p. 81)"

In Kannada, the oldest documentary inscription dates to 450 CE, but the oldest existing literary work—really a book on rhetoric—to 850 CE. The rhetoric, Kavirajamarga (KRM), mentions some earlier authors without giving any dates, but none of their works have survived, nor can the authors be identified with any certainty. The content issue on the Karnataka literature page is about how best to date the beginning of the literary tradition.

My opponent user:Dineshkannambadi, is the main author of the Kannada literature page; His version of the second sentence in the lead reads,

A: "The history of Kannada literature, which spans 15 centuries, is usually divided into three phases based on the style of writing: ancient, medieval and modern."

The citation provided for this is a somewhat grandiloquent introduction to an on-line language course likely written by a web designer. (Please read and notice new word, "varietable.") In addition, by the use of "ancient" and "medieval," the sentence awards Kannada literature a provenance it has hitherto failed to enjoy; for, whether you believe that the Ancient Age ended with the Fall of Rome in 476 CE or the Death of Harsha in 647, Kannada literature had entirely medieval beginnings. His version of the lead also says in the second paragraph,

B: Although the Kavirajamarga, authored during the reign of King Amoghavarsha is the oldest surviving work of this corpus, it is widely acknowledged that Kannada literature is of greater vintage and that a fully cultivated literary tradition must have existed going back a few centuries."

Here two of the references are from 1897 and 1921 respectively, and the third is quoted incorrectly, since it only surmises the existence of a grammatical tradition, not a literary one. My own view is that according to the best contemporary sources, the literary tradition, at the earliest, begins with the first extant work, KRM (850 CE), and even a little later. I also believe that contemporary scholarship regards the description of earlier works in KRM to be vague, perhaps even a ploy on the part of the author to have examples to critique as he was attempting to start the tradition. In another paper, (Pollock, Sheldon (1998), "The Cosmopolitan Vernacular", The Journal of Asian Studies, 57 (1): 6–37, doi:10.2307/2659022.), Pollock, when speaking of KRM, says,

"The first extant text in Kannada describes how difficult a task it is for the author to identify literary models for the prescriptive project before him: he is forced to "hunt for scraps" of Kannada literature like a mendicant ...."

Elsewhere, (in Pollock, Sheldon (2006), The Language of Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture and Power in Pre-modern India, Berkeley and London: University of California Press. Pp. 703, ISBN 0520245008) Pollock is even more forthright:

"... there is no reason not to assume that all of them (the earlier authors mentioned in KRM) were close in time to the date of the text—or even members of Amoghavarsha's own literary circle ... 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."

My version of the second sentence in the lead reads:

A: The literature, which has a continuous tradition from the ninth century to the present, is usually divided into three linguistic phases: Old (850–1200 CE), Middle (1200–1700 CE) and Modern (1700–present)." ("Old," "Middle," and "Modern" is the terminology used in all contemporary books or reference works on Dravidian linguistics and Kannada literature, including the Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature published by India's National Academy of Letters and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Please read the current version for my citations and judge their quality.

Since the script was already there in 450 CE, people must have done something with it. What did they do? For one, they created documentary inscriptions in stone. All pre-850 examples of written Kannada are such inscriptions, many of which are written in verse. Do they constitute literature? The scholar D. R. Nagaraj has called these inscriptions "public narratives," since something well known to a community was being reproduced (see Nagaraj, D. R. (2003), "Critical Tensions in the History of Kannada Literary Culture", in Pollock, Sheldon (ed.) (ed.), Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, Berkeley and London: University of California Press, pp. 323–383, ISBN 9780520228214 {{citation}}: |editor-first= has generic name (help) p. 323). Nagaraj, talking about the author of a verse inscription says:

"Why can't we consider, Bokimaiah, the author of the inscription a poet? The material he had to handle had all the potential to become a literary text.... Bokimaiah and other writers of public narratives seem to have been condemned to a state of creative unfreedom. They had every formal instrument at their command, yet their work clearly lackes something, some element of imagination and sentiment. They had no entry point into the inner lives of real people. (p. 330)."

However, the presence of a literary turn of phrase in a prose inscription, or that of a stanza more poetic than the others in a verse one, suggested forays into literary forms even during the 500–850 CE period, forays that the scholar Nagaraj has termed "folk literary practise" (sometimes also desi or popular literature). Why was this not considered real literature, let alone a part of a literary tradition? Mainly because "literature" and "power" were inextricably linked in first-millennium India. Literature involved the creation of certain well-defined artificial forms (Kavya) that were both sponsored by a court and in turn legitimized the court. Sanskrit, moreover, was the "language of the Gods," and the cultural injunction to write in any thing else was inviolable, especially at a time when the King's domains themselves included many local-language areas. The historian Romila Thapar has written about this as well (in Thapar, Romila (2004), Early India: From the origins to AD 1300 | Berkeley and London: University of California Press. Pp. 586, ISBN 0520242254):

A seventh-century inscription of a Chalukya king at Badami mentions Kannada as the local Prakrit or natural language, and Sanskrit as the language of culture, which neatly summarizes the relationship between the two languages. This relationship was later labelled that of the desi or local, popular literature, and the marga or mainstream literature in Sanskrit. (p. 345)"

The vernacularization of literature at the end of the first millennium CE was strictly about producing the formal literature of Sanskrit in the local language; it was not about popular literary practice or desi. Many centuries later, the "folk literary practice," would itself define a genre of literature, but that didn't happen in late first millennium CE, let alone earlier. (This is the gist of Nagaraj (2003) and Pollock (1998, 2006, 2007).) Consequently, my version of sentence B reads:

B: "Although the Kavirajamarga, authored during the reign of King Amoghavarsha, is the oldest surviving literary work in Kannada, 'public narratives' in the form of documentary inscriptions dating to as early as 450 CE have been found; a few of these suggest the presence of contemporary 'folk literary practice' in Kannada." (Please read check the citations here.)

I believe this is all we can accurately say. I also believe modern literary scholars and linguists date the beginning of the literary tradition in Kannada to no earlier than the ninth century CE, or if they don't date it, they simply state that KRM was the first literary work, and then talk about the real literary traditions that began in the 10th century CE, since KRM itself was strictly speaking a book on grammar. However, no literary scholar or linguist, as far as I'm aware, talks about the literary traditions of the period 500–850 CE. That, in my view, would be hard to do when the evidence is missing and the witness is unreliable. Here, in compressed format, are a few more examples from modern scholars that are especially pertinent to Wikpedia's summary style. The examples are either from signed Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on Kannada language and literature written by well-known experts or overview articles or book chapters. The scholars Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Kamil Zvelebil, and A. K. Ramanujan, are among the world's great scholars of Dravidian linguistics and literature; that they—in a pre-eminently summary-style setting—say what they say, is significant for what we can say in the article, and especially in the lead.  :

I also believe that the sources used to support my opponent's claims are either old or unreliable or both. I have examined some of the sources on my subpage: KLsources:Two Examples. I have also expressed some of my concerns here.

I would like to get some feedback from the Wikipedia community on how to resolve this dispute. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Dineshkannambadi (talk · contribs)

I have repeated myself agan and again and will do so again. The literary history of Kannada literature prior to the earliest existing writing (Kavirajamarga) is well accepted and has no shortage of scholars writing about it. The disputes brought up by Fowler and Aadal are frivolous. The historians cited by me have actual field experience (such as Benjamin Rice, S. Kamath etc) and are well established historians whose credibility is immpeccable.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 22:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Tonight I will give a simple and lucid statement what I think the article must carry in the lead and the first section thereafter (currently called "Evidence of Early writings"). So let us not be lead down the path by Fowler just as yet.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 13:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I have scratched out Fowlers "version" of my claim. This is an Rfc, not a neighbourhood brawl. So let us stick to our claims and not tread on what we think others claim.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 13:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


I start my rebuttal to Fowler's comments, edits and arguements, reading from the version of the article just before Fowler tagged it for his edits. I will call that version as old version.

  • The very first statement in the old version, History of Kannada literature, which spans 15 centuries,[1] was taken from the web page of Central Institute of Indian languages (CIIL) which is funded/approved and highly respected even by the Govt. of India. This is verifyable. I believed that their claim was made based on the sum total of all the research that exists on Kannada literature and the development of the language. Being a Central Government undertaking, I felt it was a reliable source. Moreover, as we go along, we will see why I felt so and why CIIL used the 1500 years number.
  • Regarding the three phases of Kannada literature, Fowler does not understand that the distinction is based on the style of Kannada language used in literature and not on a Western calender. Despite his innocence on the issue, he comes fairly close in writing Old (850–1200 CE), Middle (1200–1700 CE) and Modern (1700–present).[3]. The beginning phase of the second period is actually around 1150 and conincides with the Veerashiva movement and ending phase (which he calls Middle but is better termed Medieval) should be 1800, old Kannada being the language in the 1200-1800 period and indigenous non-Sanskritic metrics being the order of the day. So the definition of these phases is not so simple and even seasoned experts struggle wih it. Risker, a user with no previous knowledge of Kannada, who was copyediting the article upon my request (and did a great job at that) brought up this inconsistency that Fowler has created in the article by introducing a Western concept of periods of Kannada literature. However, I do forgive Fowler.
  • Regarding Halmidi inscription of 450 CE, I have not claimed it should be considered as literature, but argued with Aadal (who wanted it removed) that it needs to be included in the article lead or elsewhere. I felt so because all discussions on Kannada literature, after the Halmidi inscription was discovered, has started with a discussion on the Halmidi itself. The Sahitya Akademi citation covers that. Because of its importance it needs to find a place on the article and it has. I am happy Fowler has done the right thing and put the Halmidi in the lead ,where as, I had to move it to the section after the lead to please Aadal.
  • Regarding Kavirajamarga, one only needs to do a google books search, to realise that it is, with a few exceptions, widely accepted as the First available book that could be called quality and developed literature (on Rhetoric, poetics and part grammar) in Kannada. I am glad to see this statement exists in the lead and it always has. However, of late, Fowler has introduced a dubious, highly minority view point inline citation from Zvelebil claiming that Kannada literature begins with Nrpatunga's Kavirajamarga, about AD 850. This statement is cleaverly couched into an inline citation to contradict a popular world view that Kavirajamarga is the oldest surviving or first available work on literature in Kannada which in itself implies previous existence of literature, or at least lets you ponder over it. The Zvelebil inline citation needs to go because 95% if not 99% of the sources use the term First available or oldest surviving. It would be naive to assume Kannadigas woke up in 850 CE and wrote on grammar, rhetoric and poetics.
  • Now let us come to the other contentious issues. In the old version, it said Although the Kavirajamarga, authored during the reign of King Amoghavarsha is the oldest surviving work of this corpus, it is widely acknowledged that Kannada literature is of greater vintage and that a fully cultivated literary tradition must have existed going back a few centuries.[9][10][11]

Fowler has a major problem with this. He belives in the couched citation that he introduced. However, the numerous and growing evidence on this page suggests that very few scholars believe Kavirajamarga is the very first work of literture. How the above sentence is going to be finally worded needs to be worked out. But a mention of earlier established literature prior to Kavirajamarga is a must for any reasonable attempt to cover the glory of this beautiful language.

  • I dont think there is any contention regarding the rest of the lead.
  • Now regarding the section called "Evidence of early Kannada writings" we touch upon the poets and writers menioned in Kavirajamarga. Apart from one feeble source [Pollock (2006))] whose personal opinon it is that these earlier writers were either contemporaries or never existed (Fowler has to prove the use of term "some historians") Folwer has not been able to produce any other citation to disprove my 3 citations in the article and the several "quotations" at the bottom of this page (from Karmarkar, B.L. Rice, etc ) who faithfully reporduce the contents of Kavirajamarga itself. May I ask why Pollock should get more prominance than these grand masters of Kannada literture.? I think the Pollock citaion is WP:UNDUE and should be removed.

Regarding this topic, I think an attempt is being made/conclusion is being drawn to showcase that Kavirajamarga is the only source that mentions earlier Kannada writers/poets. Not sure how this misconception came about, but I am in the process of adding citations that prove this thought process wrong before people start picking on the validity of Kavirajamarga itself and re-write history here.

None of the remaining contents of the para has been disproven by Fowler. Kavirajamarga also discusses composition forms peculiar to Kannada, the chattana and the bedande, poems of several stanzas that were meant to be sung with the optional use of a musical instrument.[29][30] Other early writers of Kannada literature whose works are known are Syamakundacharya (650), who authored the Prabhrita, and Srivaradhadeva (also called Tumubuluracharya, 650 or earlier), who wrote the Chudamani ("Crest Jewel"), a lengthy commentary on logic.[31][32][33]. If Fowler or Aadal want to record their contradition to this, they have to bring multiple citations categorically denying the existence of the above mentioned writers and their writings, or hold their peace. One only needs to look at the "Quotations" ( 2 lists) provided at the bottom of this page to see how many scholars accept the existance of earlier writers and their writings. Any arguement to the contrary is mute and borders on the silly.

I wont even bother to discuss about the remaining extinct works from around 800 to 900 CE and cited in the article, (Karnatheshwara Katha, Gajashtaka, Chandraprabha Purana, Karnata Kumarasambhava Kavya, Varadamana Charitra, Gunagankiym etc) because my opponent has not. Perhaps their closeness to 850 CE does not make them attractive targets.

Dineshkannambadi (talk) 22:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"..this Rfc has been entirely in bad faith." - Dinesh, you should consider this before you attribute this nonsense to bad faith. Sarvagnya 23:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by aadal (talk · contribs)

  • I completely agree with the views of user:Fowler&fowler in this matter. The factual accuracy and the quality and currency of scholarship is seriously at question here. No attempt is made to present a balanced narrative.
  • An example of poor reference: A simple booklet for teaching Carnatic music lessons, translated from Tamil into English is brought up here as some substantial evidence, when the said book is not a scholarly work at all, The book is- Iyer, Panchapakesa A.S. [2006] (2006). Karnataka Sangeeta Sastra. Chennai: Zion Printers. (I am quite familiar with this booklet and I have read the original Tamil edition as well as the translated booklet)
  • Another "reference": Pranesh, Meera Rajaram [2003] (2003). Musical Composers during Wodeyar Dynasty (1638–1947 A.D.). Bangalore: Vee Emm. This is apparently a book based on her Ph.D thesis (2001-2002 or 2003). There is no methodology provided in this thesis-cum-book. Much of the book is a free-style story-telling of the various Wodeyars without being clear about sources, methodlogies, analyses. A number of stories are narrated, but very little is provided for the veracity of the information. This is not a source that can be relied on. If one were to look at the Bibliography section of this book, consisting of books, magazines, Newspapers, journals etc. one would see how inadequate it is.

I'll add more later.

Comment by Sarvagnya (talk · contribs)

"...At issue is the question of when the literary tradition begins..."

This is a classic case of making a mountain out of a molehill. To answer the question, the tradition begins when scholars in the field opine it begins -- not something we decide with malformed RfCs. If anything, this is something that is best solved via WP:BRD than any stupid RfC, laced as it is with half-truths and special pleading ('age of sources', "local historian" etc.,.)

The scholars Dinesh cites are very categorical and clear in what they say. The gist of their contention is that - Kavirajamarga is the oldest extant work.... but given the nature of the KRM itself, the references it makes to earlier literature and writers, the references that later literature and writers make to these pre-KRM texts and the references available in inscriptions -- this combined with the wisdom/judgement/education/methods of the scholars and the scholars are of the view/opinion/educated guess that there must/may have existed literature in Kannada pre-dating the KRM -- predating, they say, by atleast 2-3 centuries.

If there is a problem with the paraphrasing, "wash, rinse, repeat" and fix it. If you have any references which explicitly deny or rebut the contention of the above scholars, cite them. If the sources you cite do not explicitly deny or rebut the contention of the above scholars, then such sources cannot be used to deny or rebut the contention of the above scholars because it runs the risk of WP:SYNTH, WP:OR and WP:UNDUE among other things. A B. L. Rice's or E. P. Rice's scholarship doesnt get invalidated simply because a Sheldon Pollock appears blissfully unaware of their scholarship or for his own reasons chooses not to discuss them.

Sheldon can at best be quoted in addition to what others have said, but his words cannot supersede what others have said, especially when he doesnt explicitly rebut them. And if an overwhelming number of sources say things which are at odds with what Sheldon says (or Fowler would have us believe he says), then Sheldon's views most certainly dont belong in the lead and perhaps not even in the article per WP:UNDUE. And even when we cite Sheldon, we shall only attribute to him what he has explicitly said, NOT what we read of his silence on other scholars' views.

As for the questioning of sources on age grounds, nothing could get more ludicrous. Or specious. Some of the authors like B. L. Rice and R. N even worked extensively with primary sources and are considered trailblazers, and their works are widely relied upon by scholars to this day. Nothing in any policy on wikipedia prevents using them as reliable sources. So, it would help things here if people stopped obfuscating thing on baseless grounds.

As for Dr. Suryanath Kamath, regardless of what user:Fowler &fowler thinks of him, his credentials are impeccable. He is a well known historian, has been President of the Mythic Society - a society of scholars which counts among its former members the likes of Sir C. V. Raman and Sir. M. Vishweshwariah, Director of Karnataka History Academy, Chairman of the Textbook Committee (GoK), Chief Editor of the Karnataka State Gazette, former Director of the Raja Ram Mohan Roy Library, Calcutta - a premier institution of scholarship in India and among other things has chaired conferences of scholars like the Annual Conference of the Indian Historical Society in 2004. He is a reliable source many times over and no amount of raving and ranting with pejorative use of phrases like "local historian" etc., can change that. Every source on wikipedia doesnt have to be affiliated with an american university to be considered credible. Sarvagnya 20:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by AreJay (talk · contribs)

Quite simply, literary tradition begins with the dating of the earliest known use of the script. In the case of Kannada, it is the dating of the inscription in question (KRM), which is 450 CE. This statement has been well cited in the article through the use of multiple sources so I fail to see any issue with it. As far as the credentials of the authors in question, what exactly does "Kamath is a local historian, not internationally known" mean? Since when has being a Kannadiga been grounds for disqualification on topics relating to Karnataka? Dr. Kamat is a very well known and highly respected historian in Karnataka, having received numerous felicitations for his work from the government; his international affiliations (or lack thereof) are irrelevant. AreJay (talk) 01:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Abecedare (talk · contribs)

Let me see if I understand the facts right:

  1. Halmidi inscription (c. 450) is the earliest surviving Kannada writing
  2. Kavirajamarga (c. 850) is the earliest surviving writing that is indisputably classed at "Kannada literature."
  3. Some think that the Halmidi inscription represents the beginning of "Kannada literary tradition" (citations ?)
  4. Some think that Kavirajamarga represents the beginning of "Kannada literary tradition" (Pollack, 2007; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Krishnamurti 2003)
  5. Some think that "Kannada literary tradition" originates sometime between the inscription and Kavirajamarga ( Kamath 2001; Sahitya Akademi 1988; Pollack 1998; others)

Is that a fair summary ?

Notes
  • I have not cited Steever, 1998 and Ramanujan, 1979 for point 3, because of their use of the qualifiers "continuous" and "extant" in characterizing Kavirajamarga.
  • Point 1 and 2 are statements of historical facts, and we are very lucky that there seems to be broad agreement on those two.
  • Statements 3-5, on the other hand, depend not only on how one interprets historical evidence (such as poets and works named in Kavirajarama) but also on how one defines "literary tradition", and it is not surprising that scholars hold different views on this.
  • I have based statement 3 on AreJay's comment above, although I don't see this claim being made in the article. Can someone provide citations for this ?

If we can agree on the facts† themselves, it shouldn't be very difficult to come up with appropriate phrasing for the lede and the early history section. In order to help in that effort, please let me know (in the section below) if I have got any of the points 1-5 wrong; so that I can correct my error and arrive at statements that all can agree. Once we have agreed on what the sources say we can then proceed with deciding on what weight should be assigned to each source (so please don't comment on that aspect yet) Abecedare (talk) 02:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

†: by facts I mean what sources are acceptable and what they say; and not historical truth.

Comments about factuality of Abe. Statements 1-5

please me brief :-)

  • Sahitya Akademi says nowhere that there was an earlier literary tradition, only that they may have been a grammatical tradition even before KRM. Those, two are quite different, as I point out above in an earlier post.
  • Also, Nagaraj belongs to 4. Nagaraj's point is that the tradition didn't even really begin with KRM (although the author of KRM by excluding people was desperately trying to start a tradition), but even later; before that it was what Nagaraj calls "folk literary practice," or "public narratives."
  • Also Pollock 1998, is really subsumed by Pollock 2007, where he says clearly that literarization began in the late ninth century (evolution of his views, if you will).
  • The rest of them, I'm sorry are not reliable historians. Nagaraj himself says in Nagaraj (2003) :"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)" Find me a quote from Burt Stein, David Ludden or Noburu Karashima. How come they are all silent on the great literary tradition of Kannada?
  • And Kamath? (Kamath 2001, btw, is really Kamath 1973). He doesn't have a single article in any internationally recognized historical journal; no book of the gentleman has ever been reviewed by an internationally recognized journal; JSTOR turns up empty. Moreover, on the side, the gentleman is a Hindu nationalist fellow-traveler, who also believes in other fringe theories like Aryabhatta (a life-long geo-centrist) beating Copernicus to heliocentrism by 1000 years. Read the professor in his own words.

Should we now cite this web site and recommend the Copernicus page for AfD? (Except for BL van der Waerden, who, after a lifetime of great success in algebra, tried to do History of Science in retirement, and failed, no one believes in Aryabhatta's heliocentrism; even van der Waerden did so only half-heartedly.) And here is Takeo Hayashi, and expert on Indian mathematics, on Aryabhata in Britannica. Do we hear anything there about heliocentrism? I mean, since when did Wikipedia become the last refuge for all shades of outdated mediocrity?

Abecedare, I appreciate your trying to create consensus, but as your own user page says, you can't create a consensus with Randy in Boise, or Kamath in Bangalore. Also, I think you are being a little unfair in not including Ramanujan (1979) or Steever (1998). True, they say "extant," or "continuous," but really, don't you think that if there was even a snowball's chance in hell of their being an earlier literary tradition, they wouldn't have mentioned it? Tradition, by its very definition, is continuous in time, and is not that easily erased, barring a major calamity. You think if there really was a tradition, nothing would have survived? Especially in a country like in India, which had a great tradition of oral transmission in Sanskrit for two thousand years before 850 CE, where after 2000 years the Rig Veda had no variant readings, and in a region like Karnataka, where the writers were bilingual (Sanskrit/Kannada) during the period 500-1000 CE? If there were writers, who the society decided to ignore, and eventually forget, then there wasn't any tradition. Tradition, by definition assumes collaboration with society and even with power, as both Nagaraj and Pollock remind us.

The bottom line for me is that references from 1897, 1921, 1934, or 1955 are not up-to-date references for any field, but especially not for a field like textual analysis and exegesis, where the standards have changed radically in the last 50 years. Doesn't it seem a little ludicrous that all my references are recent ones published by Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley, Chicago, Britannica, and all my authors are internationally known; and the other side has only publications from Podunk Press in Bangalooru or treatises on Kannada written by Rev. Doppelganger Kettel in 1875? How come it's not Oxford-India or Penguin-India? How come it is not the 21st century? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

F&f, Are you saying that the statement 4 above is factually incorrect i.e., no scholar claims that a literary tradition existed pre-KRM, or are you saying that while such sources exist, they are outdated and superseded ? Since a long debate such as this one often goes in circles, it may be good to take baby steps and see where we agree. Abecedare (talk) 07:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi there. I'm assuming you mean 5 ("Some think that 'Kannada literary tradition' originates sometime between the inscription and Kavirajamarga ( Kamath 2001; Sahitya Akademi 1988; Pollock 1998)). And I mean the latter: that while such sources may exist, the one's I have seen, which even remotely suggest earlier provenance for the tradition (than 850 CE), are outdated or superceded.
Also, I think the Sahitya Akademi (1988) (or for that matter any of the other four volumes of their Encyclopaedias) do not belong to 5. i.e. they don't say anywhere that there was a literary tradition before 850 CE, just that there may have been a grammatical tradition in place before Kavirajamarga (since it was a treatise on rhetoric) and it is said in their sub-article on Kannada-Grammar; all the Sahitya Akademi articles on poetry (elegaic, epic, ...), prose, or drama give much later dates to the beginning of any of those traditions. A grammatical tradition is quite different from a literary tradition. In Sanskrit, the former began with Panini either long before a literary tradition was in place (if you believe it began with Kavya), or long after (if you believe it began with the Rig Veda); in other languages, like Hindi the grammatical tradition came long, long after the literary tradition was well-established. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
F&f, yes I did mean 5; thanks for the correction and clarification of your views. I have some further questions and would like to propose a baby-step 2 to see whether we can have broader agreement; but I am going to be busy for the next few hours. Can we freeze the discussion in this section for (say) 12 hours ? Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 15:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Finally, modern experts don't think that writers who do fall in category five are reliable. Here is A. K. Ramanujan, Kannada speaking himself, writing in 1979, in the "additional readings" section of the South Asian arts article (Ramanujan, A. K. (1979), "Dravidian Literature (Tamil Chola Period, 10th century–13th century)", Encyclopaedia Britannica):

"Very little has been written on Kannada literature. Mention can be made of the older Edward P. Rice, A History of Kanarese Literature, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (1921); and of H. Thipperuda Swamy, The Virasaiva Saints (1968).

Clearly, Narashimacharya, 1934 (still masquerading in this article as Nara. 1988) was already around. Similarly Nagaraj (2003), explicitly, says in reference to some date, that Rice is unreliable on it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is questioning 1 and 2. About 3, I would prefer it to be referred as "public narrative" as Nagaraj says, and I do not agree that it can be termed literary tradition. Agree with point 4. About point 5, I think the wording sometime before is too vague and considering what Sheldon Pollock says, I would be hesitant to say anything definite. Unless we have something to counter Pollock or to disprove what Sheldon Pollock says (not by citing some much earlier 19th century work etc.), we have to correctly weigh that in. Sheldon Pollock is not saying something outrageous either that we have to dismiss it. The early attestations are not the only areas of dispute. In the section Kannada_literature#Mystic_literature, factual accuracy and neutral narrative is questioned. K.A.N. Sastri does not seem to point to Siddharama's 68,000 poems and I would like to see a quote from KAN Sastri (1955 book). Tamil Bhakti influences are not mentioned at all (both Shaivite and Vaishnavite). The influence of Sanskrit and Tamil on Kannada literature is not discussed, even in 2-3 lines. A similar point was actually raised by Taxman during the first FAC. Though an earlier mistake in Kappe Arabhatta translation, which I pointed out had been corrected now, many details are added with little judgment here (for example Purandara Dasa's 475,000 songs, presumably set to ragas. In 100 years there are 36,500 days. In another place Siddharama is cited to have composed 68,000 poems etc.) There is a claim "more than 300 poets (called Vachanakaras) who wrote in this genre" while no reference is given. There is very little in terms of references or pointers to critical editions. --Aadal (talk) 21:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
In the section Kannada_literature#Vijayanagara period, the last two paras are clearly one-sided. Kannada got nothing from Telugu? --Aadal (talk) 22:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by KNM (talk · contribs)

I have examined Fowler's sources; and with the possible exception of Sheldon(2006, p.339) none of the other sources, deny or controvert the claims made by Dinesh's sources. Also, as Dinesh's sources (shown in "Other scholars who concur with point #5" section below) seem to far outnumber Fowler's sources, it may be WP:UNDUE to include Fowler's source to counter Dinesh's. Other claims that Fowler makes about the age of sources etc., is not valid for two reasons -

  • One, all of Dinesh's sources are WP:RS and policy says nothing about age of RS sources.
  • Secondly, not all of Dinesh's sources are old as Fowler is claiming. Dinesh also lists below sources which are fairly new. One of them is also from 2003.

If one user has a problem with the age of the sources, he should take his concerns to WP:PUMP or the talk page of WP:RS and get community consensus first. AFAIK, there is no WP policy which prohibits the use of old books, or books written by "local historians". The claim made in the article is not based only on any one author's book. So, lets keep those arguments away. Also, if one has any problems about any sources in particular, he should take that source to WP:RSN for more scrutiny. Either way, Dinesh's sources seem to far outnumber Fowler's. KNM Talk 20:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Mattisse (talk · contribs)

I know nothing about the specific contested issue here. I do know that in my field, which is more of a science, recency is given prominence over older data, and that nothing is stated as fact unless it is unequivocally shown to be fact up to that point in time. Further, at any time new findings will most likely change what is thought to be fact now. I also know that new findings through archeology, carbon-dating etc. in the last 25 years have been revolutionary in our understanding of the ancient history of China. The history of my country is being revised continually as those whose writings survived tend to dictate "truth" until more sophisticated findings, a greater aggregate of evidence shows otherwise.

As to the issue here, why cannot the true state of the situation be explained — that there is controversy. "For centuries this was thought, however, more recent work suggest that such and such may be the case...." Does not controversy make articles more interesting anyway. It brings history to life, showing how history morphs, and exposes the intricacies of issues. The mixing and meshing of cultures has been a continuous process in human history. Hence the richness of our collective history.

You obviously have not examined the sources and you dont know what you're talking about. There is no controversy here except in the mind of user:Fowler and fowler. Come back when you've read the sources or stop obfuscating the issue with bogus arguments. Sarvagnya 22:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
And save this - "Does not controversy make articles more interesting anyway. It brings history to life, showing how history morphs, and exposes the intricacies of issues. The mixing and meshing of cultures has been a continuous process in human history. Hence the richness of our collective history." cloying Vedanta for yourself. We dont need it. We only need to see your sources. Come back when you have some or when you're read some. Sarvagnya
I think you are being a little harsh. I have been following the article and the issues involved therein. I am a researcher by vocation in a somewhat similar field and thought that my scientific knowledge might apply. Do I have to be a physicist to read a physics article and be able to go backwards in the history of physics? What I meant is that I am not a specialist in the area. However, if you do not want input from others that those embroiled in the controversy, then please say so up front. If that is the view, the problem definitely should not be taken to the Village Pump or any outside group for input. –Mattisse (Talk) 00:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
"As to the issue here, why cannot the true state of the situation be explained — that there is controversy." - And how did you decide/conclude about the "true state of the situation"?! Have you read the sources? If you have axes to grind, take them elsewhere. Sarvagnya 01:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry Matisse, you are perfectly welcome to express you opinion here. That's what the RfC for; the opinion of people like you who are experts in their field is very welcome. At least that is why I had advertised the RfC in Language and Linguistics, History, and Literature groups. You make a valuable point about stating the situation in terms of a controversy. Let me think about it some more. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Sarvagnya you are being a bit too harsh here, kindly cool down. Use of idioms like "axe to grind" should be discouraged. Mattisse deserves appreciation for getting involved here and giving her views. user:KnowledgeHegemonyPart2(talk) 05:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Giano

I am at a loss to understand the problem here. The quotes mentioned in the quotation secton seem to clearly indicate a pre-existing tradition that there was literature prior to the Kavirajamarga (Sarvgnya's summary above seems accurate). Can someone show me the precise citations which supposedly rebut this? The initiator of this RfC should list his sources, complete with quotes. All I have see so far is his opinion of the author's sources. It seems somewhat presumptuous of the user to think that those commenting here need him to explain the sources on their behalf. So please let's have some concrete facts and proof to support the claims rather than a unsourced disparaging of the references used. This is a good page and it should be an FA. Giano (talk) 07:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think the leading contemporary literary scholars, linguists, and encyclopedias then say this?:
  • Zvelebil, Kamil V. (2008), "Dravidian Languages", Encyclopaedia Britannica, retrieved 2008-04-08.p.2. Quote:"The earliest inscriptions in Kannada may be dated at AD 450; Kannada literature begins with Nrpatunga's Kavirajamarga, about AD 850."
  • Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003), The Dravidian Languages (Cambridge Language Surveys), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 574., ISBN 0521771110 "Kannada: Official language of Karnataka State; the first inscription is dated 450 AD by Kadamba Kakutstha Varma from Halmidi, Belur Taluq, Mysore District; the first literary work Kavirajamarga, a treatise on poetics, belongs to the ninth century; (p. 23)"
  • Pollock, Sheldon (2007), "Literary Culture and Manuscript Culture in Precolonial India", in Simon Elliot et al (ed.) (ed.), Literary Cultures and the Material Book, London: British Library, pp. pp. 77–94, ISBN 0712306846 {{citation}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help); External link in |chapter= (help) Quote: "This development was characterized in most places in India by a time lag between what I have called literization, the committing of local language to documentary, non-literary, written form, and literarization, the development of literary expressivity in accordance with the norms of a dominant literary culture. The interval between these two moments is often substantial and dramatic. Three to four centuries, as in the case of Kannada and Marathi, is not uncommon (for the first, literization in the early sixth century, literarization in the late ninth"
  • Steever, S. B. (1998), "Kannada", in Steever, S. B. (ed.), The Dravidian Languages (Routledge Language Family Descriptions), London: Routledge. Pp. 436, pp. 129–157, ISBN 0415100232 Quote: "Kannada belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages. First attested in an inscription found near Halmidi village, in Hassan district dating to 450 CE, Kannada has a continuous literary tradition from the ninth century CE to the present. (p. 129)"
  • Editors (2008), "Kannada Literature", Encyclopaedia Britannica {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help) Quote: "The earliest records in Kannada are inscriptions dating from the 6th century AD onward. The earliest literary work is the Kavirajamarga (c. AD 850), a treatise on poetics based on a Sanskrit model."

And I mean contemporary internationally known scholars, not part-time scholars from the 19th century, or books published by Myunclesbackyard Press. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry for the delay, I have only just returned to this. Let me get this right and like DAB suggests, let's cut to the chase. Are you suggesting that your extracts above refute those here, here and here? If you are, I must insist that you've taken everybody here for a ride with this RfC. Refutation, by the way, is when one states the opponent's position (position, if not the opponent's name) and refutes it. Mere silence doesn't translate to a refutation and even if it did, I think that you're simply reading between lines here which is OR. Giano (talk) 19:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
DK Reply I dont see anything in these sources that "rebuts" or "refutes" my sources or Sarvagnya's sources. Fowler, you did not get Giano's point. I think you are under the impression that if Steever or Krishnamurthi do not mention earlier works, or if they do not mention earlier poets/writers (earlier than Kavirajamarga) in your sources, it simply means "They Did Not Exist". These persons are only looking from the point of view of "available" literature. This is not rocket science, Fowler. So far you have produced only one source (Sheldon) which refutes (needs verification if its Sheldons opinion or opinion of "some scholars" as you put it in the article) several of my sources which clearly mention earlier poets/writers. We need to scrutinize this claim Sheldon made and see if it is WP:UNDUE in which case I think it must be removed. We will bring this up at a suitable point.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 11:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
If that is the list, we have wasted our time with this stupid RfC. Except Sheldon (2006, p339), which curiously is missing in the above list, nobody else on the list says anything remotely worth of being considered a rebuttal of Dinesh's sources. Except Sheldon, none of the sources listed here even go into the issue of pre-KRM literature, Sheldon alone does and then even he speculates that the authors listed in the KRM may be contemporaries (of Amoghavarsha, c. 850). On the other hand, Dinesh's sources (who unlike Fowler's, are legends in the field and worked extensively with primary sources deciphering them) are categorical in their statement that the writers mentioned in KRM are "earlier writers"(E.P. Rice even emphasises that! - see quotations section below) and that there must have existed Kannada literature prior to the KRM. Sarvagnya 16:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Lahiru_k (talk · contribs)

After reading and re-reading this RfC and the issue here for the last two days, I must say that this RfC seems to have been filed in extraordinary bad faith. I do not see anything unreasonable or exaggerated in the paraphrasing provided by Dineshkannambadi(in the earlier versions of the article) or Sarvagnya(above) and further I would also like to ask Fowler&fowler to keep his comments short and to the point. Like Giano says above, it is presumptuous of you to think that we need you to walk us through the sources. I recommend that you greatly trim your comments and replace them with a list of your sources followed by a brief summary of your contention. Speak for yourself, don't speak for others - also don't try to poisoning the well by throwing in extracts from the article, for, the article has been cpedited several times and what you are quoting may not even be the author's own words or the author may not be as wedded to that wording as you are seem to imply. Also, in the interest of keeping the discussion here focussed, I'd like to request User:aadal to remove his comments about issues unrelated to this RfC (I'm talking about his 21:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC) comments). Thanks. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ walkie-talkie | tool box 18:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Amarrg (talk · contribs)

This RfC looks like a deliberate attempt to nitpick and stall the process over a non-issue. KRM did not land from outer-space all of a sudden. There should and would have been a literary tradition before KRM to be able to come up with a literature like KRM. KRM itself mentions about authors/literatures that pre-existed before the period KRM was written and that is what this article mentions all about. I fail to understand the issue here. If Fowler wants to ridicule authors who published books in the 19th century, then I am not sure what he wants to say about Plato, Aristotle and many others who wrote much before the 19th century... It is ridiculous to even compare the authors of 20th century to those in the 19th century or whatever, you cannot generalise that authors of a particular century were better... -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 04:34, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Relata refero (talk · contribs)

This is pointless. The difference between writing and literature is well-studied. To imply that all public documentary works are "literature" is something no modern scholar would do, and something we shouldn't either. Frankly, if Sheldon Pollock says it, it should be good enough for us. --Relata refero (disp.) 05:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Sheldon Pollock doesnt say what you're claiming he says(or Fowler would have you believe he says); infact, Nagraj (see quotations section) says quite the opposite. And secondly, who says we're merely talking about the inscriptions? KRM doesnt make references to earlier inscriptions - it makes refs to earlier literature. Says who? Say an overwhelming number of scholars (again, see the Quotations section below). And then there is the minor issue that Mr. Sheldon Pollock is overwhelmingly outnumbered in the scholarly world on this issue. Sarvagnya 06:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Nagraj is discussing a particular habit of thought that is, ironically, duplicated by some on this page. It is not the mainstream of thinking on the subject.
Again, KRM's concept of what literature is is irrelevant, as KRM, written in 850, is not a reliable secondary source. (Only marginally more outdated than Rice 1921, of course.:))
I have noted what I believe is an overstatement of what the scholars say in the section below. The only one who actually disagrees in a relevant manner with the foremost authority on the field is an "epigraphist" writing at an uncertain time. This does not surprise me. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
KRM is a primary source - why do you keep whining that it is being used as a secondary source? Scholars worth work with primary sources. And we report the scholars' conclusions after they have published them. Seriously, is that so difficult to understand? Sarvagnya 06:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not whining, I'm patiently and politely correcting your unfortunate inability to recognise the difference between outdated sources that fit your perspective of truth and current sources that don't
"KRM doesnt make references to earlier inscriptions - it makes refs to earlier literature." A direct quote from you. Your repeated claim that "scholars agree" with this simply doesn't hold up. Assertions of fact are no replacement for actually reading the quotes you present. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Minor correction, many of the extinct literatures are also referenced in other works. Not all are from KRM. So let us not be too hasty in crucifyng KRM.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 11:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Of course, I merely point out that the problem is the precise definition of 'literatizing', which we cannot expect modern scholarship to share with the primary sources. --Relata refero (disp.) 15:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
".. which we cannot expect modern scholarship to share with the primary sources..." Maybe. But then, I dont see where the KRM itself has been used as a source in this article. Can you point out? Look, writing articles on wikipedia is simply about paraphrasing sources. I leave it to the scholars' wisdom, methods and education to decide whether they want use the KRM or the Rig Veda or the Bible for their primary sources. We simply paraphrase and report their conclusions on wikipedia. Thanks. Sarvagnya 16:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but we don't pick and choose outdated scholars that suit our narrative. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I realise that some of these curt arguements that are going on have to do with prior interactons, but may I ask how you decided my sources are outdated? Because Fowler said so? because your interactions with Sarvagnya have not been the best in the past? Because you see a few 1921, 1897 dates there, or because my sources dont yet have wiki link pages. Did you know the B.L. Rice has single handedly deciphered thousands of old-Kannada inscriptions. Narasimhacharya did not write on Kannada literature sitting in a cafe in sunny Palo Alto, California. He is a hands on scholar, an authority on Old Kannada language. Do you think Sheldon, or the others quoted by Fowler can read and write in old-Kannada, have you botherd to look into Narasimhacharyas books, readership lectures? These are people who have read KRM in their study rooms. Did you know that Karmarkar, whom I have quoted a few times in the artile and Altekar (whom I have not quoted, yet) were largely resposible for proving the origin of some of the great empires of India like the Rashtrakutas, did you know Sahitya Akademi whose sources I have used in plenty in this article is perhaps the most recognised literary body in India, a sort of Pentagon for literatures and writers?Dineshkannambadi (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) You're quite right, and I've said my piece, aside from what follows: Sheldon Pollock is the single most respected academic figure today in the history of Indian intellectual and literary life in the early medieval period, and can, AFAIK, read old Kannada (as well as old Tamil and Sanskrit) and is skilled in close textual work. The origins of kavya traditions have of late been his particular interest. Even if he is isolated - and he is not, as I note the EB appears to agree with him - he is a notable enough opinion that any statement in the lead should be reworded so it meets all points of view. I note also that Rice, while a remarkable scholar, was writing in 1897 or thereabouts. Karmakar, I imagine, was a few decades later. I do know that if I wrote an article on English or Yiddish or German literature limiting myself to scholars whom I personally admire and respect, but who were writing before the 1960s at the earliest, I would not be doing the subject justice nor adhering strictly to our recommendations.

As you can see from User talk:Risker, I am personally interested in this page, as I would like to see high-quality pages on the major classical languages of the world. However, I am familiar with the tendency across cultures to prefer local, familiar sources, even if of some antiquity, to more recent sources that are deracinated and break with conventional wisdom (though not conventional academic wisdom). Please do think on this.

Again, you're quite right. It's quite clear that my presence on this page is not pleasing to everyone here, and I don't need the hassle. This is among our better articles even with this concern unaddressed, so I can go elsewhere; though I fear that the problem in sourcing might stand in the way of it being considered among our best. I urge you to seek a compromise wording with F&f. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

My desire and point is very similar to yours Relata refero. The article, after some revisions and excellent copyedits, is in much better shape in my view. All I am asking is to tone it down a bit, focus on more sustainable, less controversial points, leave out less critical and less proven claims. I hope you won't go elsewhere, because of the offensive and abrasive attitudes of just one user (Sarvagnya). I've requested politely twice in his user talkpage to be civil pointing out the policies, and he had chosen to erase my comments from his talk page. Instead of focusing on the points, he has this habit of throwing out unnecessary offensive language in edit summaries and in talk pages. I hope you wouldn't go away just because of this. Another persons perspective is always helpful. Instead of arriving at the much needed common consensus, which Abe. is seriously attempting to do, we are debating endlessly. I am not unwelcoming of Rice or other authors quoted, I'm simply asking the editors to weigh the matter in. Don't have to say all unnecessary details of questionable validity. I want DK to understand that I for one do respect Rice and others he had quoted, but that doesn't mean we have to uncritically accept and view their statements. --Aadal (talk) 20:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh.. and so we need to get clearance from you before we use sources? And I didnt see you pontificating about the age of sources on Tamil language or Chola dynasty or other Tamil related FAs which generously source from the likes of Pope and Caldwell and Kanakasabhe Pillai and Shastri - yes the same Shastri that you seem to be taking exception to. The bottomline is these authors have been used on plenty of FAs which have been reviewed by several seasoned reviewers on FACs. Nobody had any problems. If you have problems, too bad. Even if I were to consider your view that the sources here dont measure up to modern academic standards for a minute, I would still have to point out to you that Wikipedia is wikipedia. Not a peer-reviewed journal. We go by WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:RS. If you can show that the article violates these or any other policies and guidelines, do so before you dive headlong into your semantic pettifoggery. Having said that, I must also point out that even authors who publish in current peer-reviewed journals draw generously from these sources. Bh. Kr. for instance, points out that Kittel's dictionary for example, continues to be an authority to this day. I will be coming up with a revised paraphrase soon and then we'll get to deciding how popular or isolated Pollock's views are. Sarvagnya 20:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Maunus (talk · contribs)

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the arguments of Dinneshkanammabadi. A literary tradition necessarily exists before the earliest existing texts. A literary tradition when talking about non-western languages means a "tradition of writing" not a school of literature. A literary tradition exists when people write texts, and other people know how to read them. This means that the earliest stone inscriptions in my opinion should be counted as a sign of an already existing literary tradition. If reliable sources agree that inscriptions in stone dating to 450 CE exist then I would be perfectly comfortable writing that "The literary tradition of Kannada goes back at least 1500 centuries". As for the naming of the periods - the terms "ancient", "medieval" and "modern" may have very different uses in indology than in western historics. Just like the term "classical" is relative to the society about one is speaking. If reliable sources indicate that those periods are called by those names in an indian context then I would also be comfortable using this terminology, although I would probably add the period in a parenthesis after the name e.g. "ancient period (450 - 700 CE)" etc. The caveat to all this is that it depends on whether the sources used are reliable. And it seems that there has been expressed doubt about the given sources reliability. It goes without saying in my opinion that a language FA cannot cite online sources written by hobbyists or books about musical theory. It needs to refer to proper linguistic literature - preferably using the standard english language reference works about the language. However if reliable sources state a date of 450 CE for the first existing Kannada writing then that should be the "no later than" date for the beginning of a Kannada literary tradition. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Yes, all sources I have used are very reliable English language books written by experienced historians, many of whom have hands on experience in Indian history, archaeology and the art/science of deciphering ancient inscriptions and literature. The user who started this RFC (Fowler) has tried to throw mud on my sources, claiming they are outdated and unreliable, when he himself has time and again accepted that he has no knowledge of Kannada language and its history. How can someone who has no background in the topic judge whether the scholars I have cited are reliable or not. My sources cover an entire century (20th) of publications, all of which faithfully concur with each other. This attitude to de-mean historians has been an old practice in wiki when people cant disprove citations and content of their opponents. Yes, it is universally accepted that the earliest written inscription in Kannada dates to 450 CE. thanksDineshkannambadi (talk) 21:11, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Why is a "literary tradition," the same as a "tradition of writing" in a non-western language? Does that mean the first stone inscription is a "literary work?" If so, why do all three articles in Britannica date the first literary work to 850 CE? What then is the difference between Pollock's notions of literization and literarization? In fact, why did this article itself regard KRM as the earliest extant literary work, since the stone inscription is certainly extant?
As for Old, Middle, and Modern, why does India's National Academy of Letters have precisely this division in its Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature (1988)? Why do the two leading textbooks on Dravidian linguistics: 1) Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003), The Dravidian Languages (Cambridge Language Surveys), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 574., ISBN 0521771110, and 2) Steever, S. B. (1998), "Kannada", in Steever, S. B. (ed.) (ed.), The Dravidian Languages (Routledge Language Family Descriptions), London: Routledge. Pp. 436, pp. pp. 129–157, ISBN 0415100232 {{citation}}: |editor-first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help) (Steever Quote: "The language shows three historically distinct stages: Old Kannada dates from 450 CE to 1200, Middle Kannada from 1200 CE to 1700, and Modern Kannada from 1700 to the present. (p. 129)") have precisely this formulation? In fact, why did the original version of this article, even as edited by user:Sarvagnya in 2005 and allowed to stand for over two years, have the Old, Middle, and Modern division. In fact, why did user:Dineshkannambadi not tamper with it in hundreds of his own edits in December of 2007. If it is such a hot potato now, why did user:Dineshkannambadi innocuously, change it here without any discussion on the talk page?
As for user:Maunus's assertion that in a non-western society, a writing tradition is the same as a literary tradition, why does Steever (quoted above) then say, "Kannada has a continuous literary tradition from the ninth century CE to the present," since there are many extant stone inscriptions from the period 450—850 CE, and their "tradition" is anything but discontinuous? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
PS Since in his innocuous change, user:Dineshkannambadi cited Rice quoting Kettel that the division was Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, why then does Kettel himself in his Grammar of the Kannada Language use "Old Kannada" and "Modern Kannada?" Someone is unreliable here. Is it Rice (1921) or Kettel (1895) or both? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
"...In fact, why did the original version of this article, even as edited by user:Sarvagnya in 2005 and allowed to stand for over two years, have the Old, Middle, and Modern division.." - Its apalling that serious editors on wikipedia have to grapple with the ignorance of those who bite off more than they can chew. Where has anybody claimed that the classification on the lines of Old, Middle and Modern is fiction? The fact of the matter is, when it comes to Kannada literature, there are no hard and fast rules of classifying. Each author follows what he thinks is most intuitive or correct. The Old-Middle-Modern classification is best suited and almost universally used when dealing with Kannada language because they are distinct idioms. Old, Mi and Mo, btw are literal translations of halegannada, nadugannada and hosagannada. Pre-old is purvada halegannada (see Kannada language).
Each article evolves over time and it is disingenous dishonest to point to a three year old version and argue your case. Over time, the article evolved in a way such that it came to be categorised under ancient, medieval and modern - and this is greatly, due to the fact that the article delineates based on empires and political history.. which again is an educated and informed decision given that(among other things) royalty was the primary patron and driving force of the literary works of the medieval period.
One of the sources used in the article even deals with this problem of inconsistent classificatory models wrt to Kannada literature and concludes that the jury is out on the matter. As for Bh. Kr. for example, he uses the model he uses because he talking about "languages" as opposed to "Kannada literature". In any event, this issue is nothing to lose sleep over and I am not averse to reorganising the article (i already have something in mind) and will consider it once you get out of my(our) hair. Sarvagnya 23:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
If user:Dineshkannambadi really thought that by his edit of December 14, 2007, where he changed the sentence,

"The history of Kannada literature is usually studied under four phases: pre-old Kannada ... Old Kannada, ..., Middle Kannada and ... New Kannada"

to

"The history of Kannada literature is usually studied under three phases: Ancient, medieval and modern Kannada,"

he was changing a linguistic classification to a diachronic one, then he shouldn't have left the "Kannada" in there, for both statements are linguistic classifications; furthermore, if he thought there were "no hard and fast rules of classifying" literature, he shouldn't have left "usually" in there. Granted, the edit could have been a mistake, but it's very unlikely that the statement "The history of Kannada literature is usually studied under three phases: Ancient, medieval and modern Kannada," would then have survived the next 1500 edits, survived being moved around, and gone into the FAC in that form if it wasn't intended. More troublingly, when the "Kannada" was finally dropped, it was the work not of you or user:Dineshkannambadi, but that of a copy-editor who likely didn't know what he was doing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If I may answer Fowler&Fowlers questions: the reason I think that it is not useful to distinguish between a literization and literarization in the case of non western and early civilizations is that the idea of "literature" as a kind of text that conforms to specific stylistic criteria cannot be expected to be universal and many societies in history have had widespread literacy produced a large number of texts in a variety of genres non of which would be defineable as "literature" in a strict western sense. This is the reason that anthropologists and epigraphers working in my area of expertise, Mesoamerica, do not distinguish between "production of texts" and a "literary tradition". Simply because that would likely introducing a distinction that is only specific for our culture in to a culture that does not necessarily have this distinction. Basically it is in order to avoid ethnocentricity.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for replying and clarifying. My sense of Pollock's notion of literarization, though, is that it is specifically about the indigenous culture's own norms of what constitutes literature; however, I think there is merit in your position and I need to think more about it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:36, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Dbachmann (talk · contribs)

Jesus. The parties in the dispute need to learn two things:

  • be brief and cut to the chase
  • collaborate towards compromise phrasings.

Insisting on a fixed phrase like "spans 15 centuries" like Dineshkannambad does is not constructive. Burying a minor dispute of phrasing into an epic disputation like F&f does is not constructive. I understand that:

  • the documented history of written Kannada begins in the 5th century
  • the documented history of Kannada literature proper begins in the 9th century
  • there may have been earlier material that is not extant. If it's not extant, it isn't part of the "tradition", tough. The article can certainly discuss speculations on lost earlier works, but being lost, these supposed works cannot be treated on equal footing with surviving works.

So, just find some acceptable phrasing about the "documented history" of "written records" in Kannada beginning in the 5th century, and then discuss the history of Kannada literature from the 9th c. to present. Sheesh, it's not like there is even a factual dispute in this. dab (𒁳) 07:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

:) Guilty as charged. However, in fairness to my statement (which I grant is longer than some Wikipedia articles I've written), "if it is not extant, it isn't part of the 'tradition'" (backed up by the latest sources) is pretty much what I had initially said. Had there been even a hint of willingness to compromise, the RfC wouldn't have happened. Anyway, with user:Abecedare's input, and hopefully a new willingness to compromise, this issue might yet be resolved. What did I gain from the RfC? Very little really, perhaps bringing Historiography and nationalism out more into the open, although I'm not sure about that. What else? The beautiful papers and books of Sheldon Pollock, two of which I ended up ordering; my family, however, thought the money would have been better spent on a new robotic toy for cats. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Well said Dbachmann. Thats all I've been asking for as well. I have also raised some points outside of this RfC. --Aadal (talk) 13:40, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
"...there may have been earlier material that is not extant. If it's not extant, it isn't part of the "tradition", tough..." - and since when did editors on wikipedia get to decide such things? and if it is the "tradition" word that you find offending, it is something that alternative paraphrasing can take care of. wrt inscriptions though, Nagraj in Sheldon (2003) settles the issue - The first thing one notices about the emergence of Kannada literature is that the very notion of literature is linked to the practice of writing; atleast it is so according to the Kannada scholars who have considered the literary culture's beginnings. Invariably, every discussion of the formative period of Kannada literature starts with a reference to the Halmidi inscription (450 C.E). And like I tell refero below, if you want to replace literary tradition with "literary culture", be my guest. Or better still, get your pal out of our hair and we'll come up with something . And who is asking for the lost works to be treated the same as extant works(whatever that means)? All that is being attempted is to say that scholars postulate(on the basis of....) that there must have been a pre-KRM lit tradition. Sarvagnya 16:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I really dont think it is for Fowler, Aadal or anyone to decide what is part of tradition and what is not. No one can claim the extinct writings are getting undue space. They occupy 3 paras in a 73K article and in correct harmony with the rest of the article.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 01:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by RegentsPark (talk · contribs)

I know nothing about Kannada literature but do wish to point out a parallel with early Greek literature that may be useful here. A great deal of early Greek literature has not survived and tantalizing references to these works exists in contemporary bodies of work. However, it is customary to assume that verifiable lost work be referenced in several contemporary sources and (usually) be backed up with fragmentary evidence of some sort. Thus, if you look at the listing of the works of Sophocles, only works that are verifiable by these standards are listed. This may be tangential to the discussion on dating Kannada literature but scholarship in other areas would seem to suggest that the existence of literature prior to 850CE, while indicated by the early book in question, is not verifiable. Since it would also appear that this early work does not date other this other literature even the apparent commonsensical commonsensical conclusion in point 5 of User:Abecedare's excellent summary above is difficult to make because even if there was literature prior to the work in question, that literature may have been contemporaneous with the extant work. The existence of literatureprior to the work may very well be likely but that the earliest works were well before 850CE is not verifiable and, to this lay reader anyway, seems to lack the evidence necessary to make that claim. --RegentsPark (talk) 21:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That's funny, I was just re-reading Oedipus at Colonus the other day. I entirely agree with you. Although only seven of Sophocles works survive in their entirety, we have fragments of other plays, and other references (e.g. to his placing first twenty four times in various competitions in the Athenian theater etc.) Here, the problem is that KRM (with is vague dateless names) is pretty much the only source; there are a few other vague mentions later, but no contemporaneous mention in the stone inscription record that these authors composed in Kannada. Further, from what I have recently gathered, Kannada literature has not been studied that much. Not only Tamil literature (which has a vast secondary literature) but also Telugu literature (which is got its start later than Kannada) have been studied more. Whether this created a tendency to overstate the literature's antiquity in the few authors (early missionaries and British civil servants, nationalist historians of the mid-twentieth century, Kannada poets and writers of the same vintage) that did study it, I don't know. Here, for example, is the kind of reasoning employed by one of them, Govind Pai, from his biography (Sahitya Akademi):

"The antiquity of Kannada language or literature is a favourite subject of Govind Pai as he wrote a series of articles on it. His first article on this subject ... was published in 1928. On the basis of the Kannada work KRM of 9th century AD, especially on the basis of earlier poets mentioned there, GP guesses that Kannada literature must have been quite developed as early as the 6th or 7th century. Extending this thesis further he writes that in an inscription of the 5th century AD discovered in Tamatekallu in Chitradurga district he observed the extensive use of Sanskrit words in a Kannada stanza inscribed there and hazards a guess that prior to the adoption of Sanskrit words there must have been a fairly long period of literary composition when the native words were in vogue. He thus traces the literary development of Kannada to 300 or 400 years prior to this inscription. In a further section of this work he traces words of Kannada origin in an anthology of poems in Prakrit Gathasaptasati by Hala of Satavahana race of first or second century AD. This makes him extend the antiquity of Kannada literature even prior to the beginning of the Christian era.(p.102) ... In the last mentioned lecture and in the earlier essay, Govind Pai had argued that Vaddaradhane was written in the 6th century. Dr. D. L. Narasimhachar has however convincingly proved that this work was written about 920 AD and to this extent Govind Pai's arguments lose their strength ..." (p.103)

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Doldrums (talk · contribs)

"Until the twelfth or thirteenth century - that is, for the first four or five centuries of its existence - Kannada literature was dominated by a mixed prose-verse literary form called campu"[too lazy to hunt for diacritic -Doldrums (talk)]

-- Nagaraj (2003) p.344.

i read Nagaraj's "The first thing one notices..." statement as Relata refero does: as stating but not endorsing the literature-inscription linking claim. Doldrums (talk) 21:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

And per NPOV, NOR and UNDUE, we're only interested in his "statement".. not his editorial. And his "statement" about the common view of "Kannada scholars" is as unambiguous as it can get. and btw, what are you doing wasting your time here? I thought you were too busy handing out barnstars to the prof to be bothered about these things. Anyway, welcome to the party. Sarvagnya 17:29, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I know what you're doing here. Ensuring that everyone begins to worry that you're about to keel over from an aneurysm. Really, I haven't heard this much angry sputtering since the last antique car exhibition I attended. Do calm down.
More to the point, as I say above, given his statement about "Kannada scholars" then goes on to discuss how that statement is not valid in the light of mainstream theory, stating those opinions as fact is inappropriate. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
"..then goes on to discuss how that statement is not valid..." - he does nothing of that sort. If anything, he only uses that "statement" as a premise on which to build his narrative and to usher the reader along. He examines the role Kannada inscriptions played in the actively symbiotic relationship they shared with literature.
To be sure, he does give us his take on why "public narratives" (rich as they were in poetic content) arent seen as literature proper, even though the two would come to share a lot with each other on the level of "tropes and styles".
He points out that the the inscriptions, though literarily rich, had a different purpose to serve - that of a public document and therefore didnt afford a Bokimiah the required freedom to explore his skills.
At every step of the way, he only legitimizes the role and place of inscriptions in the history of Kannada literature which is perfectly in tune with his "statement" about "Kannada scholars". If anything, his thesis even more firmly establishes the rightful place of inscriptions in the history and evolution of Kannada literature which Kavirajamarga only consciously sought to and succeeded in 'institutionalising' - sort of what Purandara Dasa did with/to music.
Whatever it is that he does, he neither attempts nor invalidates anything he attributes to the "Kannada scholars" in his opening lines. And even if we assume for a moment that he did, that's just his opinion - which he is entitled to. Wouldnt be enough to trump WP:UNDUE. And thanks for the prognosis. Will see my doctor. You go see messrs WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Sarvagnya 00:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
My dear fellow, I will look in on those fine gentlemen the moment they turn up on this page. Tragically they seem to have been delayed. You have any idea where they went? Perhaps you could usher them back?
At every step of the way, he only legitimizes the role and place of inscriptions in the history of Kannada literature which is perfectly in tune with his "statement" about "Kannada scholars". What a wonderful piece of handwaving. I love the way that it runs directly into "arent seen as literature" and 'explains' it away in the most unanswerable possible manner.
And WP:UNDUE is all very well, but due weight depends on the due weightage of sources - and recent, peer-reviewed scholarship is weighted more, however much you may sputter in righteous ethnocentric anger at the thought. In particular, when the "majority view" is demonstrated as subscribing to an outmoded way of thinking about literature.... --Relata refero (disp.) 09:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
In particular, when the "majority view" is demonstrated as subscribing to an outmoded way of thinking about literature.... - Silken! Nagraj fortunately, speaks for himself and not through you.. so WP:UNDUE is moot here, but simply out of curiosity - where is it said that a century and more of scholarship can be waved away with a solitary paper in a journal? Sarvagnya 16:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I have no idea how you're interpreting Nagraj. That being said, a statement in a peer-reviewed journal or major book that specifically states that a particular set of assumptions historically common in a field is considered obsolescent is sufficient. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
"...specifically states that a particular set of assumptions historically common in a field is considered obsolescent is sufficient." - He says no such thing and even if he did, it wouldnt be enough to trump WP:UNDUE. One johnny-come-lately-in-2003 simply does not get to invalidate all scholarship until 2002 with a wave of his hand. And, you didnt answer my question. Sarvagnya 18:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid we state, in an encyclopaedia, currently prevailing assumptions about what literature is. If the field has turned away from public narratives being considered really "literary", then a often-cited recent paper is indeed enough to "invalidate" claims based on a contrary assumption. (Which policy? WP:UNDUE, together with WP:RS. A reliable source saying that older sources should not be given undue weight.) Relata refero (disp.) 19:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Sweet. Except that Nagraj only further legitimizes the role and place of inscriptions in the history of Kannada literature. wp:undue with wp:RS? Well, where's this fictitious RS which says that older sources should not be given undue weight? Sarvagnya 19:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Interesting interpretation of Nagraj. About your second question, Ctrl-F "recent". HTH. Relata refero (disp.) 19:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Vadakkan (talk · contribs)

Seriously, folks, this entire discussion is getting to be a little too much. In my opinion, it's way out of place to devote a quarter of the lede to discussing the issue of the age of Kannada literature - the age is surely not the most notable thing about Kannada literature. Similarly, I'm not sure I see the point to devoting an entire section to authors whose works don't exist any longer. It seems to me that what we need is a simple statement that native traditions describe a literary tradition before the Kavirajamarga, that the majority of early scholars accepted this tradition, but that more recent work by scholars such as Pollock and Nagaraj has called this into question. And while doing that, I'd think it'd be relevant to mention that Pollock sees the Kavirajamarga as the first work in world culture to present a theory of vernacular poetics (I think that's in his 1995 Social Scientist piece, but I'm not totally sure). This article spends too much time listing works and their dates, and too little to providing the context within which the works in question were composed (except in the section on modern literature, which is very good indeed), and gives very little idea about to what Kannada literature itself is like (a few examples, perhaps?). This entire debate seems to me to be a fallout of that, and would more or less become irrelevant if this were remedied.

Can I also add that in my view, this article is a good bit than most other articles we have that provide an overview of literature in a particular language - I don't seen any articles that provide as comprehensive an overview of a language's literature as this one does. Let's keep that in perspective while discussing where and to what extent this article falls short of the ideal. -- Arvind (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly there in Pollock's Cosmopolitan Vernacular article (p. 16), which is referenced in this article (and JSTOR link provided). Pollock says, "This singular work in the history of literary vernacularization is the Kavirajamarga (ca. 875), "The Way of the King of Poets," a text to place beside Dante's De vulgari eloquentid (1307)-or, rather, before it; it may in fact be the first work in world culture to constitute a vernacular poetics in direct confrontation with a cosmopolitan language." (there is also a footnote to the sentence: "14The Tamil Tolkappiyam is no doubt earlier (its dating is much disputed; for one sober assessment see Swamy 1975), but the dichotomy operative there is not cosmopolitan/local but standard/nonstandard, centamil (kotuntamil) (Zvelebil 1992, 134-36)."
Funny thing is that I mentioned this fact about KRM, as I did some of your other comments about providing examples long before the RfC began, but ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
That's more or less what I remembered him as saying, thanks for confirming.
Perhaps when all this is done, it may be worth trying to come up with a rough guide (as an essay or style guideline, not policy) to what an article about the literature of a South Asian language should contain, and how it should treat the scholarly literature (or, in some cases, the lack thereof). There've been a lot of good suggestions thrown up in the course of this discussion, and it would be a pity if they stayed buried away in the archive of a talk page. -- Arvind (talk) 22:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
"...what we need is a simple statement that native traditions describe a literary tradition before the Kavirajamarga,.." - fine so far...
"...that more recent work by scholars such as Pollock and Nagaraj has called this into question...." - Pollock has, albeit in a subtle way. Nagraj has NOT. To boot, every single book on "Kannada literature" we have seen so far, takes the pains to specifically mention the postulation that there must have been literature that pre-dated the KRM. We are wikipedia. We dont get to wish them away. Certainly not when they happen to be legends in the field and continue to be used as sources in peer reviewed journals today. RN, for example, is still recommended by the Mysore University -- arguably, the institution that can rightfully claim as having done the most research into Kannada language and literature -- to its students. Sarvagnya 23:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Three quick points: First, Nagaraj is pretty categorical in saying that the Kavirajamarga is "the beginning of a magisterial institution called literature." (p. 333) I think the point he's making should be quite clear if you look at the way he contrasts 'poetry as a "natural" activity' with the start of literature as an institution.
Second, do any of the books on Kannada literature actually postdate Pollock's theories? All the ones cited in the article (except for the ones dealing with music) are older, and obviously won't take into account theories that hadn't been formulated when they were written. This is precisely why Wikipedia's guidelines on reliable sources make a reference to more recent research.
Finally, note that I'm not suggesting we wish the older literature away - just that we add a qualification that recent research has questioned some of its conclusions. -- Arvind (talk) 22:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

NOTICE: Final segment of copy editing

At 0200 UTC, I plan to resume copy editing until I have finished the article. The main focus now is the lede. I hope that all editors will please refrain from editing when I put up the {{inuse}} template until I am finished. Your cooperation would be very much appreciated. By the way, could someone please archive at least half of this talk page? It is nearly 100 Kb and is making my computer very unhappy. Thanks. Risker (talk) 23:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Quotations regarding early poets mentioned in Kavirajamarga

All quotations requested will be provided tommorow, as Risker is busy with copy edits now.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 02:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

E.P.Rice: (page 25)

The middle of the 9th century is however, far from being the date of beginning of Kanarese literature, We have abundant information about large number of early writers. The Kavirajamarga itself mentions about 8 or 10 writers of prose and verse saying that they were but a few or many..... More over the character of the book which is a treatise of the methods of poets itself implies that political literature was already long standing..

Page 26-27: (regarding those early writers who wrote in Kanarese he discusses Srivaradadeva author of Chudamani and the writers mentioned in Kavirajamarga)

Other early writers whose works are mentioned in Kavirajamarga but whose works are lost are Vimala, Udaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabhandu, Durvinita, Srivijaya. For such fragmentary information of these as is available, the student of Kanarese language is referred to Karnataka Kavi Charitre.....

More quotes later tonight. enjoy.

Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Narasimhacharya (page 2)

Refering to Nripatunga Amoghavarsha, 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 further back. He mentions several Kannada authors that preceeded him: Vimala, Udaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabhandu and Durvinita as best writers of Kannada prose; and Srivijaya, Kavisvara, Pandita, Chandra and Lokapala as the best writers of Kannada poetry. Durvinita, mentioned as a Kannada prose writer was evidently the Ganga king.....

Dineshkannambadi (talk) 01:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

A.K. Warder (page 240)

The Kavirajamarga names a series of Kannada authors in prose (Durvinita, Vimalodaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabhodhi), and in verse (Srivijaya, Kavisvara, Chandra, Lokapala) whose works are apprenetly lost. Other Kannada authors are known from quotations in anthologies. Thus Gunavarma seems to have written Champus on Sudraka and on the matter of Harivamsa. Clearly there were versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata preceeding the classics of +10 century. Not much can be said about all this except that Kannada literature flourished in the +8 and +9 century and was enouraged by the Rashtrakutas.

The Rashtrakutas ruled from ~ 753-980 CE.

B.L.Rice (who is known to have deciphered thousands of old-Kannada inscriptions, published ancient Ballads, historicals) - Vol 2 page 496-497

In adddition to praising Srivaradadeva, author of Kannada writing Chudamani, of 6th century, Rice writes of the poets mentioned in Kavirajamarga, Then we have Ravi Kriti (634) whose fame equalled that of Kalidasa and Bharavi. Nripatunga also names as his predecessors in composition, Vimala, Udaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabhandu, Srivijaya, Chandra , Lokapala. Of these Vimala was probably Vimalachandra, whose desciple Vadiraja was the guru of Ganga King Rachamalla.....

Dineshkannambadi (talk) 20:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Dineshkannambadi (talk) 02:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC) Dineshkannambadi (talk) 20:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Copy editing notes - 9 April 2008

Could our subject-matter experts please comment on the following:

Timeline issues

I am having a slight problem with the timeline. In the lede, the "old" period is identified as 850-1200 CE, whereas in the "Classical" period there are dates going back to 9th century (therefore the "old" period) and the "Chalukya court" period starts in the late 10th century, moving into the Hoysala period in the 12th century. Not having read the source texts, I cannot tell which of these two options is better:

  • Change the lede to read that the "old" period is anything prior to 850 CE with the "medieval" period starting right after that, or
  • move the classical and Chalukya court periods into the "early works" section.

I propose to change the "old" period to the "early" period for consistency with the title of the section covering the earliest Kannada works.

Having read several books on the issue, I had what you propose in your last sentence, but it was changed by another user in the last 3 days. This is a issue that exists. Generally, according to modern Indian historians who write in English language, Ancient, middle and modern denote a style of writing (not to be confused with script or metres). This has nothing to do with western concept of ages, but purely based on the Kannada style. So based on this historians generally feel anything before 1150 as old or ancient or classical. 1150 CE to 1800CE is generally seen as medieval (using old-Kannada language, plenty of folk metres and themes), though there are exceptions to this also. Modern is surely from 1800 CE, with no exceptions.

There is some natural overlap in the old (classical/ancient)of Chalukya period with starting medieval of Hoysala period.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 03:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This issue once again stems from user:Fowler & fowler's uneducated edit. The problem of classification of Kannada literature has been dealt with implicitly and explicitly by a number of writers. There simply is no hard and fast way of classifying them. If we were to classify based on the language, it would be old, middle and modern; if based on historical periods - it would be ancient/pre-medieval)/classical, medieval and modern; if based on the content of the literature, it will be jaina, veerashaiva, brahminical(vaishnava) and modern/secular. And even with the periodisation of Kannada/Karnataka/India's history, the definitions of ancient, medieval etc., is not set in stone. Different authors use it differently. The clumsiness in the lead ought to be fixed and we should return to the stable version. If Fowler wants a change, he will have to argue it on the talk page first. Sarvagnya 19:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Rearrangement of text

I propose to move the "Content and genre" section immediately behind the lede and before the "Evidence of early Kannada writings" section. The Content & genre section contains information across the timeline and provides more of an introduction to the subject, and the "Early writings" seems to flow better into the next timeline segment.

--Risker (talk) 03:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

let me think about this a bit.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 03:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm pleased to see that this suggestion has been implemented, it's given the article a much better flow. If I may make a further suggestion - the "Content and genre" section would be even better with the addition of a couple of paragraphs on Kannada folk literature. Kannada - like the other southern languages - has an amazingly rich folk literary tradition, which one doesn't always focus on. There're a few scattered references to folk literature in the article, but there's no real discussion of what it's like, what its major forms are, and so on. If there's enough material, you could perhaps even consider a section on folk literature at the end of the article. The article on Turkish literature has a rather long section which could serve as a model (though, of course, it doesn't need to be nearly as long, since Kannada has a much longer tradition of "high" literature than Turkish, and thus a lot more ground to cover). You might also consider a couple of sentences on the relationship between folk literature, inscriptional "literature" and "high" literature. Kannada - again like the other southern languages - has always had a complex relationship with "desi" literature. There're already a few references to this in the relevant sections, but I think it's an important enough trend that it merits a mention in the overview section on content and genre. Similarly, it might be nice if the sentence which says that inscriptions provide a record of the development of Kannada literature provided a little more detail on the complex (but very interesting) relationship between the two.
It's this sort of depth that one usually doesn't see in accounts of South Asian literature designed for a popular audience, and in my view being able to make this sort of scholarship accessible to the common man is really one of the main strengths of Wikipedia, which is where this suggestion is coming from. -- Arvind (talk) 09:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Copy edit complete for now

I have finished (!) copy editing the article, and I believe the majority of prose issues have been addressed. Please feel free to ask for someone else to proofread my work, and make additional improvements. I have not addressed the points noted above, and will return to complete that work once the RfC has reached a conclusion and other participants have had an opportunity to express their opinions; please leave a message on my talk page and I will try to pop in within 24-36 hours. I have learned a great deal working on this article, and thank Dineshkannambadi for inviting me to participate. Best, Risker (talk) 05:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Other scholars who concur with point #5

Hi Abecedare. Thanks for stepping in to help out. I did not want to add more names of scholars to point #5 that you wrote, so I am putting it here. This list is the list of historians who accept the names of earlier poets/writers mentioned in Kavirajamarga as valid and hence propose an earlier literary tradition existed in Kannada before 850 CE.

  • A.P. Karmarkar (1947)- Cultural history of Karnataka
  • Narasimhacharya (1988)- History of Kannada literature
  • Warder (1988)- Indian Kavya literature but hastens to say definitely existed in 8th century.
  • E.P. Rice (1921)-History of Kannada literature
  • B.L. Rice (1897) - Mysore Gazatteer Compiled for Government-vol 1.
  • Sahitya Akademi (1988)- page (1474-5) vol 2 Mentions poets. Not sure why Fowler does not see it.

Here is the list who generally agree Kannada literature predates Kavirajamarga, each scholar makes his own inferences or just gives examples.

  • Sastri (1955) - mentions poets from 650 CE (cited in main article), accepts earlier literature existed.
  • E.P. Rice _ menations poets from 650 CE and their writings
  • B.L. Rice-Mentions poets from 650 CE or earlier and their writings.
  • Govinda Pai (in Bhat, 1993)-Govinda Pai- claims Kannada literature even before Halmidi inscription of 450 CE
  • R.S. Mugali (in Bhat 1993)- Govinda Pai- agrees generally about earlier poets and literature inferred from Kavirajamarga.
  • Sahitya Akademi (1988)- Encyclopaedia of Indian literature- Claims earlier writings existed, mentions Gajashtaka explicityly dated 800 CE. p.1474 and p. 1699-vol 2, p 248-vol 1.
  • Nagaraja in Sheldon - Tensions In Kannada Literary Culture - mentions earlier composition forms than used in Kavirajamarga. Agrees earlier works were lost.
  • Chopra P.N., Ravindran T.K., Subrahmanian N. (2003)- History of South India (Ancient, Medieval and Modern) - mentions 800 CE writing by Shivamara (cited in this article).
  • Raman Varadan -Glimses of Indian Heritage- Agrees that earlier literature existed.
  • C.M. Kulkarni -'Ancient Indian history and Culture' - mentions 6th-7th c poets directly (Durvinita, Srivarada).
  • Various authors- Sahitya Akademi Encyclopaedia of Indian literature vol. 2 (under Grammatical literature mentions earlier poets and writers whose works are lost.[1]
  • Joseph Twadell Shipley-Encyclopedia of literature [2]

This list can quickly grow, but I will stop here.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 03:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Dinesh! I have linked it from my post above and it will be very helpful in forming the eventual wording. To begin with lets see if we all can agree on the basic facts, without worrying about the nuances of the individual sources. The process may take a few days, but should end up in improving the article. Abecedare (talk) 03:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
One important issue to keep in mind: Fowler would have to produce reasonable number of sources that claim my sources are incorrect, even to be mentioned in the article. Produsing one source is not enough. Just because some scholars are silent the facts does not mean anything. One has to keep in mind that some of the scholars I have quoted are trained field experts, people who have deciphered inscriptions hands on etc. We cannot and should not allow elitism in choosing which scholar brings more value and who does not. Being a foreign author does not make his/her book more valuable to the article.Let us be fair to the many hardworking scholars from all over India also.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 11:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Heck.. its not even "elitism". Its just rank ignorance of scholarship and scholars. Sarvagnya 19:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Dashes

The article continues to intermix unspaced em dashes with spaced en(?) dashes as forms of punctuation. It probably shouldn't do that. For example, see Jain, Veerashaiva and Vaishnava heads – signifying the three dominant faiths versus English Geethagalu ("English Songs")—a collection of poems. Current FAC edits appear to favor unspaced em dash, although I've seen spaced en dashes in earlier FAs and recent changes to the MoS have returned spaced en dash to equal status with unspaced em dash. Either way, but not both, should work. -- Michael Devore (talk) 06:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Michael, where you find such issues, please feel free to correct it. I have made one correction.thanks.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 12:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I asked so as to have a standard from a primary author, because there have been back and forth changes on the dashes including notice by an FAC reviewer. Em dashes it is. -- Michael Devore (talk) 17:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
yes, some prefer one and the some the other. I am confued with it.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 17:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

What in heaven's name is going on with this article?

I am shocked, truly shocked, at what I am seeing in the edit history of this article. What is this nonsense about changing dates of reference sources? One adds the words "reprint of 19xx edition" to the reference and leaves the rest alone, one does not change the date of the reference—reprinted books often have revisions and the pages are almost always numbered differently. Why is the discussion about eras happening within the article instead of on the talk page, where I asked the question, and where the matter has not yet been resolved?

This is an academic and scholarly subject, and yet I am seeing behaviour more common to articles like Guitar Hero III or Celebrity sex tape. I did not spend an entire weekend and two evenings copy editing this article, apparently to the satisfaction of all commenting here, only to see it devolve into a shouting match. All of you, please bring your issues to the talk page and refrain from making controversial edits to the article unless the issue is resolved on this page first. I trust I can count on the cooperation of all editors collaborating on this article. Risker (talk) 00:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

It is trolling. Unbridled and unabated. On the one hand they're (Fowler and Aadal) pretending like there is a dispute with the article content with respect to the early literatures part and while everyone decides to step back and sort it out in the RfC which he's foisted on us, he goes ahead and not only tags the article as disputed but also makes undiscussed and unilateral changes to the referencing. As you say, the mention of the reprint year ought to go into the "References" section, not inline! I have no words to express my disgust. Sarvagnya 00:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Quotations

E. P. Rice - [T]he middle of the ninth century, is far from being the date of the beginning of Kanarese literature. We have abundant information of a large number of earlier writers, extending back into earlier centuries. The Kavirajamarga itself mentions by name eight or ten writers in prose and verse, saying these are but a few of many; and it quotes, discusses and criticises illustrative stanzas from other poets whose names are not mentioned. Moreover, the character of the book, which is a treatise on the methods of the poets (see p. 110), itself implies that poetical literature was already of long standing and widely known and appreciated. Th author testifies expressly (I, 38, 39), that "in the Kanarese country, not students only, but the people generally have natural quickness in the use and understanding of verse"

Note: Emphases above NOT mine.

B. L. Rice - "The oldest work of which manuscripts have actually been obtained is the Kavirdjamdrga of Nripatunga which was composed in the ninth century But we have references which enable us to place the rise of Kannada literature much farther back than this."

A. K. Warder (1987) - "The history of this literature really begins with Kavirajamarga, a work on poetics by the Rashtrakuta king Amoghavarsha (814-877 AD), though a few earlier texts are known to us."

R Narasimhacharya - "...This voluminous work of the 7th century presupposes the existence of an earlier literature and a widespread cultivation of the language."

Nagraj in Sheldon (2003) - "The first thing one notices about the emergence of Kannada literature is that the very notion of literature is linked to the practice of writing; atleast it is so according to the Kannada scholars who have considered the literary culture's beginnings. Invariably, every discussion of the formative period of Kannada literature starts with a reference to the Halmidi inscription (450 C.E)." -- This quote, I imagine should settle the issue of the RfC, ie., "when does the lit. tradition begin for Kannada?"

and further...

"As things stand now, any initiative to explore the beginings of Kannada litearature takes on the character of a search for missing authors and genres. The literary historian has to behave like a detective, for the missing works have vanished in a process of formalizing and privileging certain literary practices. The KRM lists authors and forms that have disappeared -- or have been removed -- from the formal discourse of literature, and hereby shows us that poetics is nothing if not an attempt to negotiate with the political..."

Varadaraja Raman (1989) - " Its earliest literary expressions date back to the 9th century AD A work entitled Kavirajamarga (sometimes translated as The Art of Poetry) is believed to have been composed in 825 A.D. The fact that such a work was written at all suggests that poetry had been quite popular in the language even before that time."

Shastri (courtesy:User:Aadal(on talk:fowler &fowler)) - "...Among South Indian Languages, after Tamil, Kannada possesses 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...

"...Durvinita, mentioned in the same book as one of the best writers of Kannada prose, might well have been the Ganga monarch of the sixth century. Another early writer was the celebrated Srivardhadeva, also called Tumubuluracarya from the place of his birth; his Cudamani, a commentgary on the Tattvaratha-mahasastra, in 96,000 verses, was known to the great Kananda grammarian Bhattakalanka (1604) who calls it the greatest work in the language. Another writer of this early period (c. 650) was Syamakundacarya. Both these acaryas, like most early Kannada writers, were Jains."

Jyotsna Kamat - updated Dec 22, 2007 - "Most of the works in literature and secular sciences mentioned in reference books like Kavirajamarga are still not to be traced. But works of later centuries mention now extinct works on various topics. Thus, Chudamani (a 96,000 verse-measures), a commentary on logic (Tatwarthamahashastra) by Tambulacharya belonged to the 7th century. Naturally, no shastra (science) treatise could be written so voluminously unless the language in vogue is not fully developed."

Enc. of Indian lit. Vol 2 - Sahitya Akademi (1988) - "...This work is of great historical importance, since it throws considerable light on pre-Kavirajamarga period of Kannada literature. It mentions names of recognised poets and prose-writers who existed before Kavirajamarga. Unfortunately their works seem to have been lost. But Kannada inscriptions dating back to the 5th century A.D (as evidenced by the Halmidi inscription of 450 A.D) have been discovered.

Further,

"...Similarly, Nagavarma II (1042) names Sankhavarma and another Nagavarma as 'path-makers'. Gunavarma Nagavarmara adhvanangal may mean either a literary tradition or grammatical tradition. It may not be off the mark if we state that a highly evolved grammatical tradition existed even prior to Kavirajamarga, since this work itself expatiates on certain 'do' and 'don't' and pertaining to grammatical rules...."

and on p. 1699 -

The first extant work in Kannada is Kavirajamarga... It not only refers to a number of Kannada works in prose and verse now unfortunately lost, but also mentions the examples of Sanskrit writers like Kalidasa, Bharavi, Banabhatta and Bhatta Narayana as deserving emulation by Kannada authors.

Romila Thapar (2004) - In the chapter The Peninsula: Emerging regional kingdoms (c. 500 - 900), she says - "...References were made to the existence of literature in Kannada at this time, but not too much has survived".

fwiw, some snippets from Google books,

Burton Stein (1984) - "...Between 500 and 850 AD Tamil and Kannada literature was dominated by Jaina writers."

Joseph Twadell Shipley (1946) - Kavirajamarga..., approved by Nrpatunga (808-880), the famous Rashtrakuta emporer, is the first extant work in Kannada. It is a work on politics. It names earlier authors of prose and poetry in Kannada..

Chidambara Martanda Kulkarni (1974) - "...the Kannada acquired all the features of a well developed language, such as script, grammar and prosody as well as a rich vocabulary by the 9th century. Therefore it must have been a spoken and literary language much earlier."

B. Sheikh Ali (1974), Prasaranga, Mysore Univ - "...namely Srivardhadeva or Tumbalacharya of mid seventh century. Shamakundacharya of almost the same period and Srivijaya of the tenth century. The former was a Jaina kavi who wrote the Kannada work the Chudamani which consists of 96000 verses. It is a philosophical work. In praise of this acharya, Dandin..."

Sarvagnya 01:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC) Updated - Sarvagnya 23:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid Kavirajamarga is not a reliable secondary source. The fact is that every single thing you quote says "literature dates back to 850, but there may/must/might have been beginnings earlier." We're an encyclopaedia. We don't overstate the references. --Relata refero (disp.) 05:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Slight correction - first of all, they say, KRM is the "earliest extant"/"oldest available" source and say there must have been earlier literature (based on the nature/sophistication of KRM itself, the references it makes, the reference later literature makes and other inscriptional/historical references). Also, where have I (or anybody) used the Kavirajamarga itself as a source? Or where did anybody say anything about overstating the sources? The only overstatement we've seen thus far has been from Fowler. Sarvagnya 05:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Because they say literature is known to start round 850, and then say that there are references to earlier works in that literature. They don't say so themselves, because they don't know. Other than the 'epigraphist' BL Rice, who somehow does. Under those circs, baldly stating "1500 years" or whatever is overstating refs. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you read before you reply? Let's try it once more. KRM is the earliest extant literature. Scholars tell us that it makes refs to earlier lit. Scholars also tell us that references to these earlier lits are also available in post-krm lit and inscriptions. Further, the scholars contend that given the KRM's sophistication and other references and their own methods and education, there must have existed literature before the KRM. And Nagraj says in his very opening lines in "Crit tensions..." that according to scholars who have "considered" kannada literary traditions, the literary tradition starts with the Halmidi inscription (c. 450 AD). So you do the math. Thanks. Sarvagnya 06:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll do the math if you do the reading. Scholars say the KRM refers to earlier literature. They do no say themselves that it composes literature. They specifically avoid doing so, because they don't know. OK? The only ones that claim as you do were written in the 1920s. This tendency to try and backdate things is so Eastern Europe. We state the mainstream view in the lead, and the complexities underlying it are stated neutrally, and if necessary the full quotes are provided in footnotes. We don't overstate references, or be impolite to the people we discuss things with on talkpages. Have a nice day! --Relata refero (disp.) 06:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Relata, I think you are wrong in assuming that KRM is the only source that discusses earlier writers/poets. I am adding citations to prove how wrong this conception is. You are right, we are an encyclopaedia and we dont overstate the references, but we also dont give prominence to a few "modern" writers just becase their names can be linked to wiki pages.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 12:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
We do consider peer-reviewed, recent scholarshop more valuable. This is stated quite clearly in the appropriate guidelines. --Relata refero (disp.) 15:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)They do no say themselves that it composes literature. - Some do call it literature. Others use the words "prose", "verse", "grammatical traditions" etc.,. If you can paraphrase that without using "literature", be my guest. Also, the fact that they do consider it literature is clear from Nagraj's opening lines in "Crit. tensions..". He says --

"The first thing one notices about the emergence of Kannada literature is thay the very notion of literature is linked to the practice of writing; atleast it is so according to the Kannada scholars who have considered the literary culture's beginnings. Invariably, every discussion of the formative period of Kannada literature starts with a reference to the Halmidi inscription (450 C.E)."

He thus summarises scholarly opinion and then goes on to present his thesis. He is entitled to his opinions (which anyway are quite far from what is being made out here) but on wikipedia, we go by majority scholarly consensus - and who better than a scholar to tell us what that majority consensus is! Sarvagnya 15:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the text is more polite even if the edit summary isn't.
Choosing to say "grammatical tradition", "prose" etc. doesn't give you a clue that they're avoiding use of a word? When you already know that there is a boundary between those things and the "literatizing" of a language?
And you're reading Nagraj wrong. What he's saying is that "the Kannada scholars" equate all writing to literature. (That's stronger than what he says, but I'm doing it for clarity of explanation.) That it is a majority view among Kannada scholars does not mean it is the consensus view of scholars. --Relata refero (disp.) 15:34, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Kannada scholars == "Scholars of Kannada"; it does not mean "Kannadiga scholars". Incidentally, this article is about Kannada literature (if you didnt notice) and it is their views that we shall report. Not anybody else. Irrespective of who you have in mind. Sarvagnya 16:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, Nagraj doesnt merely say "Kannada scholars", he qualifies it with "...who have considered the literary culture's beginnings". If you want to replace "literary tradition" with "literary culture", go ahead. Sarvagnya 16:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
So your point if that scholars of Kannada who choose to make statements that according to the best scholars available are not in keeping with mainstream thought, those statements must be reported as fact? --Relata refero (disp.) 18:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
First of all, I am sure Nagraj knows what he's talking about when the calls these scholars "scholars". The very word "scholar" presupposes authority and erudition in the given field. Secondly, neither you nor I can decide who the "best" source is. So lets keep such dubious, specious and futile exercises out of the equation. Thirdly, you are not a reviewer of a peer-reviewed journal and I am not submitting my paper to you for review. This is wikipedia and we go by WP:RS, NOR and NPOV - simply put, the "majority consensus of scholars". And like I said, who better to tell us what the majority consensus among scholars is than a scholar himself! Scholars in all fields, in all ages have always disagreed on one detail or the other. The mere mortal editors of wikipedia that we are, we are only expected to gather our sources together and paraphrase keeping WP:UNDUE in mind. As of now, of the more than dozen sources on display, all except Pollock (2006) postulate pre-KRM "prose", "verse", "grammatical traditions", "literature". The other sources which Fowler has listed do not go into the issue of pre-KRM lit., at all and simply start their discussion with extant literature. Show me a source which says something on the lines of.. "it was claimed by earlier scholarship (by the likes of EPR, BLR, RN, KANS et al) that there was a pre-KRM tradition blah blah blah.. but recent research has shown that it is not true." Show me something like that and then we'll talk. Until now, the only source that comes even close to postulating something like that is Pollock (2006).. and even that only speculates that the authors mentioned in KRM were Nrpatunga's contemporaries. He doesnt explicitly rebut any of the authors I've listed above nor does he say anything about the post-KRM extant works which refer to these pre-KRM works. Sarvagnya 22:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
See above about Polllock's standing. If we prioritise sources - which we do, explicitly, we prioritise them on the basis of their being contemporary, disinterested, peer-reviewed and widely cited. That is what I meant by "best". Have fun deciding why policy doesn't apply here, and snapping at me and the rest of the world in the process. See above for a statement you haven't yet responded to: "if scholars of Kannada who choose to make statements that according to the best scholars available are not in keeping with mainstream thought, those statements must be reported as fact"? If you're interested, reply. If not, it appears Poland needs me.
Dinesh, none of this is meant as a reflection on you. --Relata refero (disp.) 00:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Scholars are scholars. On wikipedia, we arent in the business of ranking scholars.. we are only concerned about their RSness. All scholars Dinesh has cited are WP:RS many times over and for many reasons more reliable than Pollock (I dont want to go into that here or now.. maybe another time). Also, age of sources has no bearing whatsoever unless you are able to demonstrate on specific issues that a B.L.Rice, for instance, is at odds with current scholarship. Until now, I havent seen a single source from you that rebuts B.L.Rice or eprice etc.. The Pollock (2006) makes a tenuous case and comes close.. but even that doesnt rebut any of Dinesh's sources. So we could do with a little less of the pretentious puffery you guys have thrown around to make up for a lack of sources. I couldnt care less what you think of me.. but it is amazing that you can delude yourself to think that someone like Dinesh, who's authored a dozen FAs on related subjects, and probably has "spent half his life reading and knowing all there is to know about", say Kannada literature and Karnataka history needs lessons from the likes of you or Fowler(who even confesses to his ignorance of the subject) about what sources to use and which scholars to believe. Sarvagnya 02:22, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
(deindent)
I thought I made it clear that nothing should reflect on Dinesh.
However, if you are unaware that our policies do in fact prioritise some scholarship, this is not the place to get worked up about it. WT:RS is. "Refutation" is not how we operate. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Questions about quotations

  • K.A.N. Sastri's quote says (3rd Ed. p. 393): Another early writer was the celebrated Srivardhadeva, also called Tumubuluracarya from the place of his birth; his Cudamani, a commentgary on the Tattvaratha-mahasastra, in 96,000 verses, was known to the great Kananda grammarian Bhattakalanka (1604) who calls it the greatest work in the language. (italics mine). Is this 96,000 versus quoted in KRM or first encountered in the 1604 CE work of Bhattakalanka ?
One of the sources that discusses Cudamani is Bhattakalanka's Sabdanusasana of 1604 CE. There may be other sources.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 14:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:RS states, "The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context, which is a matter of common sense and editorial judgment.". Also I would draw attention to the last two bullets in WP:RS under "scholarship".
  • I have raised a question to DK here about such claims as "an event without parallel" and "It is hard to come across a literary movement elsewhere which produced more than 300 poets, each with his/her own distinct voice" from a book by Shiva Prakash (page 167-168). If the quote there doesn't cite primary source of that information, that is not a reliable information. Many extravagant claims are made in this article without any editorial judgement or qualifications. I had earlier cited the 475,000 songs by Purandara Dasa. Considering that there are only less than 36,600 days in 100 years, these claims don't appear credible. Siddharama's "claimed" 68,000 poems is another example. Similarly there is no support evident for the 33 women poets in Kannada_literature#Mystic_literature. If the author had given any credible primary source, I will have no objection. It is possible to give citations to all kinds of incredible things and that is not Reliable source WP:RS. Editorial judgment and factual accuracy is lacking (the main contention of this RfC). I think User Fowler and fowler had drawn attention to the problems of factual accuracy in this article and I am still in support of his views. After much criticism and editorial contributions, the article now is a good article, but still plagued by extravagant and unreliable claims. Removing them or appropriately wording them will only improve the quality of the article. --Aadal (talk) 13:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Citations and statements dont become extravagent just because they dont suit your taste. Please disprove the citations or bring sources that provide additional information, then we can trim it down or change it accordingly. Untill then, good luck.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 13:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I understand your stand, DK. I again cite policy WP:RS, "The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context, which is a matter of common sense and editorial judgment.". It is not my taste. If someone makes an unreasonable claim, it is not always that somebody bothers to correct ot rebut it. Just because something had been stated somewhere, doesn't mean it is qualified enough to be cited. I would ask you to weigh in the RS. Is there an independent source that corroborates or confirms Shiv Prakash's 300 poets and 33 women poets? In RS it states, "In science, single studies are usually considered tentative evidence.." and I would suggest it is not even a 'study'. It is unproven statement in a book (if there is no primary source for the information is provided there). I seriously question it. I would be more than glad to correct my impressions if there is credible evidence for it (and other points in my statements above). I don't see references to 300 poets and 33 women poets in K.A.N. Sastri's work for example. If there is, would please point out. --Aadal (talk) 14:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
But on what grounds do you claim the source does not meet WP:RS I think you have an obligation to prove that the source is unreliable? Just because Sastri does not mention the exact number of writers, though he uses the term "numerous", it does not mean the claim is exaggerated.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 14:34, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:REDFLAG might be useful here. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Relato, flags and tags have to be used wisely in wiki. If Aadal has a source which says 30 writers, not 300, then he can tag it or falg it, ask for verification for other sources, untill I prove with several reliable sources that my statement in the article is valid, based on majority view point. Tagging frivolously is often counter productive.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Redflag my foot. The Karnataka Govt., itself on its site (vachanasahitya.org) host about 15-20,000 or works of nearly 200(if i remember correctly) vachanakaras. It does the same for haridasas. Sarvagnya 15:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
250. Is that a peer-reviewed work? --Relata refero (disp.) 15:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
In any case, that can usually be gotten around by attribution, if a controversial claim has some backing. --Relata refero (disp.) 15:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
And to show that there is a semblance of a controversy, you need to bring to the table at lteast one another WP:RS which rebuts or denies the claims being made in the article. So come back with your sources and we'll talk. Or you hold your peace. Deal? Sarvagnya 16:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
If you read this section, I am not the one claiming there's a problem, I set out to solve it. So you be civil about all those attempting to improve this article. Deal? --Relata refero (disp.) 18:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I wish to point out that if you make a claim it is up to you to prove (not some citation that does not have any pointers to original source of the information). If it is a fiction, one can say something and you do not have any obligation to point to sources of what is said. If it is a scholarly work, authentic, verifiable references should be present. I've been asking from the beginning about pointers to critical editions or work that refer to such editions. --Aadal (talk) 18:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Aadal, I think you are under some false impression that all you need to do is point at a citation, and its up to me to tun the world over and prove the credibility of the author. How long have you been on wiki? Do take the Rfc seriously or I will not bother to answer your questions that so far have not proven very useful to the the process. You first asked me for a quotation on the citation from Shiva Kumar. when I provided it, you asked me to prove the credibility of the author and the statement by the author. Tell you what, why dont you disprove the credibility of the author and the citation, or stay out of this process. Please behave in a mature and deliberate manner.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why you've to make ad hominem comments. Wish to point out WP:UNCIVIL policy. Focus on the points and debate the points and not the person. When you make a claim it is up to you to prove its veracity. When you provide quotations like - Narasimhacharya - "...This voluminous work of the 7th century presupposes the existence of an earlier literature and a widespread cultivation of the language.", is it not right to ask - when a body of literature is not available (the KRM being 850 CE), how can you say it is voluminous? Please understand that such questions are relevant and part of the process. You still have not answered about Ravikirti's Kannada contributions. I find that several of your sources are really untrustworthy, in the sense that they do not provide accepted scholarly sources as references and making comments beyond what is permitted based on their data. --Aadal (talk) 13:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Should we take E.P. Rice (1897, 1921) seriously?

He says (on p. 496-497): Then we have Ravi Kriti (634) whose fame equalled that of Kalidasa and Bharavi. Just ask any decent person, knowledgeable in Indology, whether they have heard of Kalidasa and then follow that up with Ravi Kirti. --Aadal (talk) 18:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Aadal, this is a really bad faith question on your part. You are an avowed fan of Devaneya Pavanar as you have indicated here despite all his unbelievable ideologies and you want to question E. P. Rice over one of his comments. I see that you have no qualms in accepting fairy tale history written by Tamil scholars but want to nitpick authors who have written about Kannada literature. This is an act of pure bad faith on your part. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 15:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Amarrg, I will gladly answer any questions you may have about other matters in appropriate pages. About Ravikirti, can someone confirm that he made literary contributions in Kannada. Is this self-proclaimed fame equal to Kalidasa related to his Sanskrit work or his Kannada work? I believe my question above is a valid one. DK had further confirmed that some Kannada scholars like Kamath consider that (Ravikirti's statement) to be not an exaggerated statement! --Aadal (talk) 17:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh! so now E.P. Rice is indecent for stating what the source said about Ravi Kirti. Next you will ask, do we take Ravi Kirti seriously? I ask, sould we take you seriously?Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
DK, K.A.N. Sastri (3rd edition p.344), when talking about Sanskrit literature, does not speak very confidently of Ravikirti. He says "In passing it may be observed that the inscriptions just mentioned comes from Aihole and records the achievements of Pulakesin II in a short poem of no mean literary quality; its author, Ravikirti, affirms that, by his composition, he deemed himself the peer of Bharavi and Kalidasa! " (the exclamation mark is in the original). DK, are you sure you're talking about Ravikirti's contributions in Kannada? Is this quote from KANS, relevant for raising my doubt? Do you believe Ravikirti is of the same fame as Kalidasa? Just wondering whether you have a different perspective. --Aadal (talk) 20:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Aadal, again you are showing your inexperience. It is not for me or you to decide what that "!" means. It is not for me or you to decipher why Ravi Kirti wrote that comment in his poetry. Even Sri Ponna compared himself to Kalidasa in 10th century. It means nothing to the credibility of the poet or this article. You are now, after judging the source (E.P. Rice), beginning to judge the poetic qualities of Ravi Kirti, the author of the famous Aihole Inscription of 634 CE (Sanskrit language/Kannada script). To quote Kamath (page 59)-Ravi Kirti calls himself equal to Kalidasa and Bahravi, and scholars say this is not an exagerrated statement.

Aadal, I really think you may not be able to contribute to this RfC very much. thank you.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 21:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

You probably are very tired, and I understand your frustration. Did Ravikirti contribute to Kananda literature? I am not implying he didn't. --Aadal (talk) 21:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Question about source

Is the Encyclopedia of Indian literature published by Sahitya Akademi considered a reliable and good source by other editors here ? If so I can look up its volume 3, which is not available on Google Books but contains topics from K to Navalram (and therefore should be relevant to KRM and Kannada literature in general). Ditto for the "International encyclopaedia of Indian literature", V4 (Kannada) I don't know yet which side of the debate these sources will support, but if they are not trusted sources anyway, I won't bother visiting the library. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Abecedare, I have sourced to quite an extent from Encyclopedia of Indian literature vol 1,2,5 wrtten by "various" authors. So it would make sense to source from vol 3 (By Amaresh Datta) as well. I dont see how it can be unreliable if it is from the same Akademi, though I suspect this volume could be more about individual poets/writers than general literature. Also, we will still have to weight it against the other existing sources. I have so far not commented negatively on any of the scholars, mine or Fowlers and dont intend to either on any source you bring in. It simply goes against my policy on wiki etiquette and fairness.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:24, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Further quotations on KRM and early history

Here is what a couple of hours in the library stacks yielded. I have tried not to duplicate any of the references already listed above. I am quoting what are relevant snippets, but if desired I can add adjoining text. Abecedare (talk) 22:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Numerous references in the work show that by the time it was composed there was a considerable body of literature in Kannada. A form called 'gadyakathe', which had a sprinkling of verse and had innumerable advantages, was in vogue and several poets had already employed it with success. Two verse forms, 'chattana' and 'bedende' had long been in use. ...

Kannada literature had already seen several major writers who could provide materials and illustrations for a work on poetics like Kavirajamarga. Vimalodaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabandhu and Durvinita are among the important prose writers mentioned here, and Srivijaya, Kavishwara, Pandita, Chandra and Lokapala are among the important poets. ... But not a single work of these masters has survived, and we are ignorant of even the titles of their works. Apart from Srivijaya and Durvinita, these writers have only been subjects of speculation. Durvinita was a ruler (600 A.D.) of the Ganga dynasty. Srivijaya composed, according to the recently found 'Vardhamana purana' a mahapurana, Raghuvamsha, in addition to Kavirajamarga; this was probably the Jain version of the story of Rama.

— N.S. Lakshminarayan Bhatta, Kavirajamarga in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 3, 1994, pp. 2033-2034

The earliest literary work available in Kannada is Kavirajamarga, a treatise on poetics, by Srivijaya, a court poet. This work (9th century) mentions several poets and earlier works but none of them is available to this date.

— K.P. Bhatt, Language (Kannada) in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 3, 1994, pp. 2255-2259

The first extant writing in Kannada with a literary flavour goes back to Halmidi Inscription of about 450 A.D. Judging by the language, it is likely that it had behind it the literature of a century or two. The metre and the poetical quality o the Tametkal Inscription (fifth century. A.D.) strengthens this conjecture.

...
The first extant work in Kannada is Kavirajamarga (9th century A.D.). Kavirajamarga is a work on poetics; such a work cannot appear without a considerable body of creative writing. The discussion of metre and grammatical questions, and the range of illustrations, and the references to the great masters of the past some of whom (like Vimala, Udaya, Nagarjuna, Jayabandhu and Duruvinita) are explicitl named, make it clear that a considerable body of literary writings has indeed been lost.
Kavirajamarga is a very important work, offering both evidence of the existence of literary writing before it, and glimpses of contemporary social and religious life.

— L.S. Seshagiri Rao, Literature (Kannada) in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 3, 1994, pp. 2278-2283

The earliest Kannada work available to us is Kaviraja Marga (850 A.D.). It is a work on poetics. Such a work is possible only when there are poetical works written prior to it. This work in fact mentions earlier poets like Vimatodaya, Nagarjuna, Gaya Gandhu, Durvinita, Srivijaya, Kaveeshwara, Pandita Chandra, Loka Pal, etc who composed their work both in prose and verse.

— Suddagga Puranik, Champu (Kannada) in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 1, 1987 pp. 618-621

Kavirajamarga, dating back to the ninth century, mentions a literary form called 'gadyakatha' (a narrative in prose) which presumably was a type of composition mostly in prose with an occasional sprinkling of verses. Although these narratives have not come down to us, the reference in Kavirajamarga bears testimony to the fact that Kannada prose was effectively used for literary expression much earlier than the ninth century.

— H.K. Ramahandra Murthy, Prose (Kannada) in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 4, pp. 3397-3400

The earliest specimen of Kannada poetry is found in the stone inscriptions o Karnataka, the first of them being the Halmidi inscription of about 450 A.D. Metres like the vritta and tripadi have been employed in the verses found in these inscriptions.

Kavirajamarga, the first extant literary work in Kannada, has references to poets and prose-writers of earlier times, but nothing more about them has been discovered so far.

— C.P. Krishnakumar, Poetry (Kannada) in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 4, pp. 3252-3256

The first work on poetics extant in Kannada is Kavirajamarga, which has claimed special attention from scholars on account of its historical importance, since it throws light on the 'dark age' of Kannada literature before the ninth century.

— M.V. Seetharamiah, Poetics (Kannada) in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 4, pp. 3219-3221

Durvinita. Poet, supposed to be identical with the king of the Ganga dynasty of the same namem, wo ruled in 550-600. Inscriptions praise him as a versatile scholar ... but none of his works in Sanskrit or Kannada is at present available. In the Kavirajamarga (q.v.) he is stated to be one of the best writers of Kannada prose

— Durvinita in International encyclopaedia of Indian literature, Vol. 4 (Kannada), 1987.

Kavirajamarga The earliest extant kannada work in verse ...

The character of the book implies that poetical literature was already of long standing, widely known and appreciated. It mentions clearly that in the Kannada country, not student only, but the people generally were skilled to speak in rhythmic tone, were quick to grasp a poet's thought and use and understand the strict poetic rules by instinct. The early period of Kannada literature before 850 A.D. s clearly indicated in the Kavirajamarga and in other early works of the 9th and 10th centuries. Moreover, the Kavirajamarga, as a work on poetics, presupposes the existence of a number of writers and some quality of writing for several centuries for whom a rhetorician would lay down the rules. Besides, it actually names several of these early writers. Of these, Durvinita (q.v.) the Ganga prince, lived in the 6th cent., was versatile scholar and author in Sanskrit and Kannada. The other writers of prose mentioned in the Kavirajamarga are Vimala, Udaya (or Vimalodaya ?), Jayabandhu, Nagarjuna and of verse: Srivijaya, Kavisvara, Pandita Chandra and Lokapala, but their works have not yet come to light. ...
The Kavirajamarga refers to a kind of composition styled as Gadyakatha, used by the renowned ancient masters, which was a mixture of prose and poetry, as also to Bedande and Chattana as indigenous forms of composition.

— Kavirajamarga in International encyclopaedia of Indian literature, Vol. 4 (Kannada), 1987.

It is clear from a close study of the references in Kavirajamarga to old poets and critics of high standing as also of the maturity of its thought and style that Kannada literature had been developing for some centuries and had come of age. The very fact that it was a work on poetics to serve as a guide to poets is testimony enough to the existence of earlier poetic creation in Kannada. Besides, there appear to be a few extracts from a Ramayana in Kannada then extant and possibly from Mahabharata in Kannada also, in the illustrative verses of the work. On the whole, one can infer on the basis of internal evidence in Kavirajamarga that Kannada had a considerable body of literature of some merit and had a continuing literary tradition of 4 to 5 centuries prior to that work. The antiquity of Kannada literature can be inferred from other works besides Kavirajamarga. Pampa of the 10th century, who is the first known great poet, avers that his work named Samastabharata and Adipurana eclipsed all previous poems. ... Such statements clearly suggest the existence of Kannada works earlier than Kavirajamarga. Added to this, are direct references to some of the earlier authors and works. It is known that one Tumbuluracarya wrote his extensive commentary called Cudamani on Jaina philosophy in the 7th century A.D. ... It is obvious that Jaina scholars had started writing elucidatory works in Kannada on Jaina philosophy and legend as early as the 7th century A.D. Secular writing had also made a start though on a small scale.

— Mugali, R.S., History of Kannada Literture, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1975, p. 13
Sorry for the longish quote from Mugali's book. He actually goes on for several pages on the topic. I quoted it at some length, since this book does not seem to have been used as a reference for the article yet. By the way, I have not rendered the IAST in some of the above quotations. Abecedare (talk) 23:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Congrats Abecedare! You've done in two hours what the authors of this article have sadly not been able to do in two years: provide evidence that some contemporary Indian scholars think that there was already a literary tradition in place before KRM. This will still need to be balanced with other views, but at least we have something to work with. More later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
oh.. now you want the high road out? Take it. Sarvagnya 00:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow. Is this a project for you or some sort of place to work out random spite? A dispute has been resolved by two intelligent, reasonable individuals looking at the kind of sources we're supposed to prioritise, and that's your response? Wow. --Relata refero (disp.) 00:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I see this all the time. people quoting half-baked truths from blogs and investing epic effort to edit war about them, and then when you actually do their research for them and come up with something that sounds vaguely similar to their version, they get all smug and believe they were right all along. They are not. To be "right" on Wikipedia is to go to the library and provide the relevant literature, as Abecedare has done. To be "wrong" is to waste people's time instead of doing the job, until one of the competent editors becomes exasperated enough to do your work for you. dab (𒁳) 07:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi again Abecedare, what was your sense of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature volumes? I ask because I had assumed when I first saw them here that they were a standard reference work; however, after I saw your quotes briefly and was mulling over them later, something didn't seem to fit. Some of them seemed too obviously partisan to be academic; it almost seemed that the authors of the pieces were more eager to believe KRM than KRM's author himself. Later, when I had some time, I looked in JSTOR and nothing turned up for the volumes; neither did anything for any author except Mugali, who I'll talk about in a minute. Almost any Indian academic who does good work will show up in JSTOR in some form. For example, the historian of East India Company army, Seema Alavi, at Jama Milia University had over two dozen JSTOR returns, including reviews of her books; the historian of the mutiny, Rudranghu Mukherjee had 45 returns; the historian of British India Rajat Kanta Ray at Calcutta University had over 40; the Bombay Natural History Society had 25 returns, and all their encyclopedias and handbooks were reviewed. I then tried to Google the authors of the KRM piecies and at least a couple were poets and lyricists rather than critical scholars.
Mugali, as I mentioned above, did show up in one review, but it was not that of his History of Kannada Literature (which actually was first published in 1953 as a part of a series published by the then newly established Sahitya Akademi), but an older book Heritage of Karnataka (1947) in the Bulletin of SOAS, University of London. The review was uneven; it started out by saying that Mugali was partisan, but not as partisan as others and didn't accept things unquestioningly. It also said, "In Chapter XII we find a brief survey of Kanarese literature. The author justly praises the work of Pampa, and it is a matter for regret that his Pampa-bharata (A.D. 941) has not yet been translated into English. It contains the earliest examples of literary prose with many passages of great charm and interest." If 941 was the earliest example of literary prose, I wonder what the reviewer thought of KRM (850).
Also, I'm a little troubled by A. K. Ramanujan's (who I knew and respected as a rigorous scholar) suggestions for further reading in his Britannica article: "Very little has been written on Kannada literature. Mention can be made of the older Edward P. Rice, A History of Kanarese Literature, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (1921); and of H. Thipperuda Swamy, The Virasaiva Saints (1968)" Certainly Mugali's book had been around for quite some time at the time of Ramanujan's piece (1979). Anyway, I just wanted to get your take on the quality of these contributions. Regardless, you've done a stalwart job since you finally made some literary sources available that we can work with. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Awaiting Final wording

So now it seems that we are proceeding towards an acceptable wording of the lead which would be best done either by user:Abecedare or by me, the original author of the article. Either way, it will be watched closely by user:Abecedare who has done an excellent job in enlightening some individuals here on the Rfc. All the info he has brought in are ofcourse old news to me, but does provide me with the names of some new Kannada language scholars whose works I can avail to better improve other Karnataka/Kannada related articles. Thank you Abacedare. I await further guidance from you. Also, thank you Fowler for taking the high road out, a second time in 3 months.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 22:04, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I haven't taken any high road whether for the second time or first. The RfC is by no means ended yet; it ends when there is some consensus. When user:Abecedare suggests his version of the lead, we will all discuss it. Besides there are others who still haven't weighed in. All that the quotations mean is that there are some Indian scholars who think that there was a tradition in place earlier. Of course, there are many scholars, who also think there wasn't. In addition, we have the powerful example of other standard tertiary sources like Encyclopedia Britannica, all of whose three articles, say nothing about an earlier tradition. In addition, A. K. Ramanujan, a Kannada expert, in his Britannica article on Dravidian literature, mentions nothing about the Sahitya Akademi scholars, and only half-heartedly mentions the "older Rice": "Very little has been written on Kannada literature. Mention can be made of the older Edward P. Rice, A History of Kanarese Literature, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (1921); and of H. Thipperuda Swamy, The Virasaiva Saints (1968)"
As for your expertise and claim this is old news to you, all I can do is to echo user:Dbachmann's words above:

"I see this all the time. people quoting half-baked truths from blogs and investing epic effort to edit war about them, and then when you actually do their research for them and come up with something that sounds vaguely similar to their version, they get all smug and believe they were right all along. They are not. To be "right" on Wikipedia is to go to the library and provide the relevant literature, as Abecedare has done. To be "wrong" is to waste people's time instead of doing the job, until one of the competent editors becomes exasperated enough to do your work for you."

That after over two thousands edits on this article, all you could come up with a citation for your claim was this shabby website for an on-line language course, and then were insisting that it had the imprimatur of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, is about as pathetic a defense of a poor source as I have heard. Speaking of insistence, weren't you also insisting that Narasimhacharya's 1934 book was written in 1988 (Your defense: "I own the book by Narasimhacharya the date of which is 1988." FAC review). Apparently, you were unaware that it was a facsimile copy, unaware that the print-type was ages old, unaware that "Readership Lectures" are no longer held in Indian universities, and then arrogant enough to argue with me until I produced a link for the 1934 edition, which, to boot, showed that the author died in 1936. Why is it that I'm able to see this off the bat and all the "expert" contributors of this article, after two thousand edits, were not?
And why is it that in a couple of days user:Abecedare and I (who knew nothing about Kannada literature) can come up with real sources: Sahitya Akademi quotes, Nagaraj (2003), Sheldon Pollock (1998, 2006, 2007), the Britannica articles of A. K. Ramanujan and Kamil Zvelebil, the books of Bhadriraju Krishnamurti and S. B. Steever, while you and all the other "experts" after two thousand edits and two failed FACs are still quoting books on music for a language/literature article. Please, all this is enough to make my cats laugh, and we have five. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Points not made clear

  • K.A.N. Sastri's quote says (3rd Ed. p. 393): Another early writer was the celebrated Srivardhadeva, also called Tumubuluracarya from the place of his birth; his Cudamani, a commentgary on the Tattvaratha-mahasastra, in 96,000 verses, was known to the great Kananda grammarian Bhattakalanka (1604) who calls it the greatest work in the language. (italics mine). Is this 96,000 versus quoted in KRM or first encountered in the 1604 CE work of Bhattakalanka ?
One of the sources that discusses Cudamani is Bhattakalanka's Sabdanusasana of 1604 CE. There may be other sources.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 14:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
So, the extant work that talks about the "lengthy commentary on logic" of the pre-850 CE work ,is the more modern (1604 CE) work of Bhattakalanka?
Sabdanusasana is a available work on grammar by Bhattakalanaka.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
So, it is a claim made in a work in a relatively more modern 1604 CE timeframe. When a work is not available until today, but suddenly 750 years after the appearance of KRM, someone claims that there were 96,000 versus on logic, it is something that needs to be questioned and not a dependable fact.--Aadal (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I think you are going in circles.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • While so much is talked about KRM, so little is said of this very work except some details about earlier authors cited there. How large a work is KRM itself (how many pages of text or how many songs? is there a pointer to critical editions? etc.). Although there is a separate article on KRM, no such details are provided there either.
Not relevant to this article. perhaps nice to add in the article created for KRM. Dineshkannambadi (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree, but such paucity of information is a bit troubling (or is it because it is not a 100,000 verse work?!). What is the Kannada word he uses for "language" in this work. Is it a Sanskrit loan? The purpose of asking this question is to find out whether it was a translation of a Sanskrit work, or an adaptation of a Sanskrit work, or a completely new creative work. This is relevant here, because if it is Sanskrit-based, some of the authors mentioned there may be authors of Sanskrit works. What is the proof, that they were authors of Kannada works, especially Ravikirti. I realize that there are different claims about KRM's indebtedness to Sanskrit. --Aadal (talk) 18:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to do more research about KRM. Your efforts will be appreciated.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Is pre-KRM work of Ravikirti in Kannada? What is the evidence for it? The discussion in KANS seems to indicate it is about Ravikirti's Sanskrit compositions.
Ask the scholars who quoted his name.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
K.A.N.Sastri does not say it is in Kannada. --Aadal (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
KAN is not the sole scholar referenced. Do more reading.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
    • In, "The Chalukyas of Badami: Seminar Papers - Page 254 by M. S. Nagaraja Rao" it says, "The earlier inscriptional poets like Ravikirti chose to compose his text of the Aihole inscription (634 AD) not in Kannada, but in Sanskrit"


Aihole inscription has nothing to do with the appearence of the poet's name in this article. Did you get that?Dineshkannambadi (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

--Aadal (talk) 14:18, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Unless there are seriously verifiable quotes to believe that Ravikirti's works are indeed in Kannada, I think we should delete his name from the list.

--Aadal (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I dont think so. Disprove Ravi Kirti was a Kannada poet, then we can consider removing it. Just because he wrote in Sanskrit also, it does not "not" make him a Kannada poet. Anyone who knows a little of Kannada literature from the early period will know that they were quite a few bi-lingual poets.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
No DK, He is not known to have written in Kannada. Show me his Kannada writing. Even more modern Tamil authors like the famous Subramania Bharathi were multi-lingual, but they did not write in all the languages. You have to prove that Ravikirti wrote in (nay authored literary works in) Kannada. Please don't remove tags and stop saying it is frivolous in your edit summaries. I added the tag only after discussing it here and not getting any satisfactory answers.--Aadal (talk) 20:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
You are wrong. I have to show that "scholars say" he wrote in Kannada. I dont have to scan/fax Ravi Kirti's work you. Sorry.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 20:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, you can't anyway, since you don't have anything to show. Do you mean to say you have Ravi Kirti's work, Kannada literature?!! --Aadal (talk) 21:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
DK, B.L Rice (pp.496-497)you cited in the edit summary diff, shows no reference to Ravi Kirti on page 496-497 See.

--Aadal (talk) 21:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you get the volume right? Duh!Dineshkannambadi (talk) 22:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
In your edit summary, you've not provided the volume number and the set references listed in the article does not point to volume 2 at all. The citation you pointed to is already here in this talk page. DK, you've not shown that Ravi Kirti composed in Kannada. Many authors reporting on Kannada Literature do not include Ravi Kirti. As Nagaraj points out some of the people often cited as predecessors are actually who have contributed in Sanskrit. So, unless there is an explicit reference that Ravi Kirti actually created literature in Kannada, his name should not appear there.--Aadal (talk) 22:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
The volume number is provided in the reference list. Bl Rice specifically says Ravi Kirti wrote in Kannada. The volume is #1. I will provide the link. Sorry, but Ravi Kirti cant be removed because Rice specifically says so.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 00:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

B.L. Rice (under Early Kannda authors) we nest have mention of Ravi Kirti of 634 whose fame equalled that of Kalidasa and Bharavi, Nripatunga names as his predecessors in Kannada composition, besides those given above, Vimala, Udaya, Nagarjuna.....Dineshkannambadi (talk) 00:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

For user:Abecedare

Here is my version of section 1, which only states what is known. I have clearly dated the later works (such as Indranandi's Srutavatara in the late 10th-century CE, Devachandra's Rajavalikathe in 1838 CE, Bhattakalanka's Sabdanusasana in 1604 CE, and the writings of Jayakirthi of the 11th century) where mention of some pre-KRM material is made. Note 1838 is less than 50 years older than the oldest secondary source used in this article. I have added the more accurate date range for Halmidi, but till have to do it for the Kappe Arabhatta. Speaking of which, the Wikipedia page seems to imply it has only three lines, which in the translation certainly sound poetic. Is this true? If not, where is the rest of the inscription? Personally, I would give the example of that 3-liner in the section without claiming that it is the earliest example of Kannada poetry (really a 3-liner?). However, it is poetic enough that the reader can make up their own mind. Besides this article sorely needs some examples!! Here it is:

"Kind man to the kind,

Very cruel to the cruel

He was nothing but God Vishnu in this regard"

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:18, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Your alternate date for Halmidi fails WP:UNDUE. It is accepted by 99% of sources that Halmidi is from 450CE. Have you heard of WP:UNDUE. I have done a google search and 79/80 book sources refer to Halmidi from 450 CE or just 5th century. I can quote two sources dating Vaddaradhane to before 6th century. Either you remove the 6th c. dating of Halmidi, or accept the "extant" Vaddaradhane's alternate dating prior to 6th century.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 00:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
And Fowler, you did not discover that poetry. I put it in the Kappe Arabhatta page. Also tripadi means poems in three liners, not always a three line poem only.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 01:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
The EB article on "Kannada literature" only reads - " The earliest records in Kannada are inscriptions dating from the 6th century AD onward." (doesnt mention Halmidi specifically) atleast on this page. The same EB on the "Drav langs" page reads - "the earliest inscriptions in Kannada may be dated at AD 450; Kannada literature begins with Nrpatunga's Kavirajamarga, about AD 850." (culled from Fowler's own extracts above). Except for bloomers like this, Halmidi is universally dated to 450 AD. This 6th CE date is way UNDUE, not to mention uninformed. Sarvagnya 04:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Really? 79/80 Google sources? What might they be? All clones of the Wikipedia site when they are not blog sites or Hindu newspaper links. Amazing how that same sentence seems to appear in most of them. As for Britannica, the editors make a reasoned judgment based on the best sources available. The 450 CE date goes back to MAR 1936 and even then, as far as I am aware, there were other views. Anyway, why don't I get some better sources. Standby. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Unlike you, I dont refer to web sources for such details. You will have to prove convincingly with reasonable number of valid sources (not Childrens Brittanica) about the 6th century dating to bring it into the article. But then remember, the quote "oldest inscription" that you see for Halmidi everywhere is based on the 450 CE date, not 6th century, because there are other inscriptions, the Tametekallu (5th cen), Uttanur, Basavanapura (496 CE) and the Chikkamagalur inscriptions also from 5th century. So you will have to work very hard to prove the 6th cen date for Halmdi and still contend with the other inscriptions i have mentioned.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
BTW, Even if you bring in a few sources, it is still relative. The comparison is very important, unless you are going to do a "Sheldon Pollock" here again. BTW, have you given up on Sheldon Pollock? Is he no more reliable to you. Come on, you are the "generalist", not the "particularist".Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

user:Fowler&fowler's sources for Halmidi dates

General information: "The Halmidi inscription was discovered in the year 1936 by M. H. Krishna, the then Director Archaeology of the erstwhile Government of Mysore, at Halmidi, a village in the Belur taluk of the Hassan district in Karnataka.The inscription, which is engraved on a stone slab, is now kept in the Office of the Director of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of Karnataka, at Mysore. The record has been published by Krishna in in Mysore Archaeological Report (MAR) for the year 1936, pp. 72 ff. The same scholar has published the Kannada version of this article in the Journal Prabuddha Karnataka (Pr. Kar.), Vol. XX, pp. 30 (Gai, 1992, p. 297)" (M. A. R. 1936 (1937), Mysore Archaeological Department, Annual Report-1936, Bangalore: Government Press, pp. pp. 73–80 {{citation}}: |pages= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)) Halmidi was assigned the date c. 450 on epigraphical (palaeographical) grounds by Krishna. However, the leaders in the field of Indian epigraphy have tended to assign later dates.

  • Salomon, Richard. 1998. Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 378. ISBN 0195099842. Quote: "The earliest Kannada epigraphs, such as Halmidi (S. Srikantha Sastri, Sources of Karnataka History, 20) and Badami Vaisnava cave (IA 10, 59-69) inscriptions, date from around the late sixth or early seventh century A.D. (p. 106)"
    • From the review of the book in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 59, No. 2 (May, 2000), pp. 478-480: "Richard Salomon appropriately dedicates his book to the great Indian epigraphist and historian Dinesh Chandra Sircar. As a comprehensive overview of the field of Indian inscriptional studies and guide to the use of inscriptions, this work belongs on a very short shelf along with Sircar's Indian Epigraphy (1965) and Indian Epigraphical Glossary (1966)."
  • D. C. Sircar (Chief Epigraphist, Archaeological Survey of India 1949-1962; Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History, University of Calcutta, 1962-1972). Sircar, D. C. (1965) Indian Epigraphy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications. Pp. 475. ISBN 0120811666 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum. Quote: “The Halmidi inscription of about the end of the 6th century is also written in Kannada …”
  • Govind Swamirao Gai (Chief Epigraphist, Archaeological Survey of India 1962-1976 and author of Historical Grammar of Old Kannada) in his reassessment of Halmidi: G. S. Gai 1992. Studies in Indian History, Epigraphy, and Culture, Shrihari Prakashana, Karnataka (India), 346 pages. (Section: Halmidi Inscription of Kakustha-Battora - A Fresh Study pp. 297-306) Quote: "Now, both the present Halmidi inscription and the Talagunda record may be referred to, on palaeo-graphical grounds, to the end of the fifth century A. D. or the beginning of the 6th century A.D.8 (pp 300-301), footnote 8. D. C. Sircar thinks that the date of the Halmidi inscription would be the end of the 6th century A. D. Cf Ind. Ep. p. 49 (p. 306)" See third snippet in each of the links: A, B, C (notice footnote 8), and D (for footnote), and notice page numbers on the right.
  • K. V. Ramesh (Chief Epigraphist, Archaeological Survey of India, 1981-93) agrees with the mid 5th-century date Ramesh, K. V. (1984), Indian Epigraphy, Humanities Press, ISBN 0391032844 Quote1: "And I attribute the origin of this doubt in their minds to the fact that scholars, even the reputed ones, have held differing views, mostly to prop up their preconceived notions, on the palaeographical dating of any given undated or insufficiently dated inscriptions. ... The undated Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) inscription, allegedly written during the reign of Kadamba Kakusthavarman, is taken by some scholars to belong, on palaeographical grounds, to the middle of the 5th century AD, while a few other scholars have held, on the same grounds of palaeography, that it is as late as the second half of the 6th century A.D. (p. 55)" Quote2: "... are all in Sanskrit, while the Hamidi inscription has cornered the credit of being the earliest so far known Kannada record. Though all these undated Kadamba epigraphs are, as per my careful consideration, contemporaneous, the Halmidi inscription alone among them has become a subject of controversy as far as its date is concerned. This is essentially because, though it is also a Kadamba record, it is in a class by itself, or, rather, it does not fall into the same class as the Talagunda, Banavasi and Gudnapura inscriptions. From the point of writing, the Sanskrit Kadamba records, even the mutilated ones from Talagunda and Banavasi, belong to the class of settled and stylised writing, while the Halmidi inscription has letters which are unsettled and and uncultivated, no doubt giving an impression, or rather an illusion, even to the trained eye, that it is, in date, later than the period to which it really belongs, namely the fifth century A.D. (p. 58)"
  • T. V. Venkatachala Sastry (Professor Emeritus, Institute of Kannada Study, University of Mysore and "greatest living scholar of Old Kannada" according to Pollock) as also done a reassessment in Ventatachala Sastry, TV (1999/1972) “Halmidi Sasanada Artha.” In Sastriya vol. 1. Bangalore: Sapna Book House.
  • Pollock worked closely with Sastry during his 94/95 sabbatical year. Based on Gai (91) (which is a slightly different work: Gai, G. S. 1991. “Halmidi Inscription of Kakustha Bhattara: A Fresh Study,” JESI 17:111-16.) and Sastry (1999), Pollock now assigns the date c. 500 in Pollock (2006) and early 6th century in Pollock (2007). Language of Gods in the World of Men Quote: "Aside from a four-line document found at the village of Halmidi, undated but assigned now to about 500 and thus representing the first extant instance of inscribed Kannada ... (p. 331-332)" Also, Quote: "(IA 10:60. The Halmidi inscription (MAR 1936: 72 ff.) has been reconsidered in Venkatachala Sastry 1999 and Gai 1991. (p. 332)"
  • Even at the time of the original date assignment (MAR, 1936) on paleo-graphical grounds, there were other views: Alfred Master Source. (1944) "Indo-Aryan and Dravidian", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 11, No. 2, (1944) pp. 297-307. Quote: " In (MAR, 1936) on paleo-B for initial v is found in the earliest Kanarese: bal “sword”, in the Halmidi inscription, c. AD 470."

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

These sources are for user:Abecedare and other's consideration; not for user:Dineshkannambadi and user:Sarvagnya, who after two thousand edits in this article couldn't find any of these sources, while on a busy day, in between meetings and lectures, in half and hour, I can find the dates given by two of the leading epigraphists in India, the dates in the most widely used textbook in Indian Epigraphy, etc. etc. (and except for the last, I didn't use any academic databases) And all they can do is make irrelevant remarks (whether Pollock can read Old Kannada etc.) The Halmidi or Halmidi inscription pages still don't have a reference of the original date assignment, don't say anything about how it was assigned. Examine the pathetic references there. Good day! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Please provide link. Sheldon Pollock again. wow!. Not verifyable.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Woops!Says later half of 5th century.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Pollock calls T. V. Venkatachala Sastry the "greatest living scholar of Old Kannada". OK. And Pollock dates Halmidi to 450 CE. I havent read TVVS' book, but arent we sure Sheldon Pollock has? To be sure, there are different dates azcribed to any inscription worth its salt and the one at Halmidi is no exception. But we go by the most widely used date and varying dates, if any, will be dealt in the appropriate articles. This article is no place to wrestle with Halmidi's dates. Sarvagnya 19:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

We have taken enough of this Sheldon Pollock stuff. The majority sources calim 450 ce/5th cen. Dont try to stall proceedings by creating more controversies. Oh! Who ever has worked with Pollock become great too.!! Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:47, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
So we have two sources after an exhaustive search that claim Hamidi is from 6th century, as against hundreds of sources that assert 5th century (mostly 450 CE).Dineshkannambadi (talk) 20:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Out of the four snippets (from when did we start suing snippets!) one snippet is the same as point #2 (D.C. Sircar) and the other three provide no context to Halmidi inscription. Fowler, the dating of Halmidi to 5th century is almost 100%. You are wasting your time. There is nothing for gained here.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 02:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Summarizing the sources, we have:

  • Govt of Mysore Report MAR 1936/7: 450 AD
  • Alfred Master BSOAS 1944: 470 AD
  • S Srikantha Sastri, Sources of Karnataka History, 1940: late 6th/early 7th AD
  • DC Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, 1965: end of 6th AD
  • GS Gai, Studies in Indian History, Epigraphy, and Culture, 1992: end 5th/early 6th AD
  • TV Venkatachala Sastry, Sastriya Vol. 1, 1999/1972: early 6th AD

It's pretty clear that 450AD was an early estimate that was repeatedly reconsidered, all the way up to early 7th (Srikantha Sastri) and then back down again, to about the early 6th (TVV Sastry). rudra (talk) 14:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Rudra, you have just taken Fowler's citations and made history of it. Try doing a google book search, find the appropriate scholars, historians, encyclopaedias and you will see where the majority is. The fact is, Fowler, after an exhaustive search came up with only these. moreover, can you prove your statement pretty clear that 450AD was an early estimate...Dineshkannambadi (talk) 14:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Just look at the dates of the publications. rudra (talk) 14:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Please do the research I asked you to do.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 14:52, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting finds, F&f. Can you clarify a couple of things for me:

  1. From your quotes, it appears that Sircar is the original source for the late 6th century dating. Solomon apparently bases his estimate on Sircar and Gai quotes Sircar in a footnote. Pollock cites Gai (and Sastry) but still sticks with the about 500AD date. Do you know what Sastry says exactly ? Are there any other sources, besides Sircar and Soloman, that date the Halmidi inscription to the late 6th century estimate in their own voice ?
  2. What do you think of taking the approach adopted by Gai, i.e., quoting the conventional "late 5th century/circa 450AD/or whatever" estimate in the main-text, and adding a footnote "Epigraphist, D.C. Sircar, dates the Halmidi inscription to late 6th century (reference)" Also do you know what the best reference for such a footnote would be? Sircar's Indian Epigraphy contains only one line with a footnote referencing the 1936 report, which you say dates the inscription to 450AD. So I assume Sircar, wrote about his differing estimate in detail somewhere else. (This "best" reference is only for my own curiosity, and not really necessary for the article)
  3. Are these all the sources that you found regarding the dating of Halmidi script, or are these mainly the ones that support the late 6th century dating ? If it's the former it will save the effort of doing an independent literature survey (:-) )

Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 16:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. I don't have a lot of time right now (and I'm sick—I mean really—to boot), but let me see what I can do. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

(Tentative answers to Abecedare) 1. Well Salomon is the leading Buddhist epigraphist in the world today. I'm sure, if he has assigned the date late 6th/early 7th, it is because he has thought about it himself. He may have been influenced by Sircar, but his judgment is obviously independent.

2. Gai says, "to the end of the fifth century A. D. or the beginning of the 6th century A.D." however, there are still people like K. V. Ramesh who agree with the 450 CE date, although they quibble about other details. I will soon provide some info on Ramesh. I'll suggest phrasing after I've added the Ramesh material.

3. Well, I guess I just answered question 3. I guess between the three big names in recent Indian epigraphy, Ramesh agrees with 450, Gai goes for end of 5th or early 6th, and Sircar goes for late 6th. In addition, Salomon, dates it even a little later than Sircar. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Dr. K.V. Ramesh, is Director of ASI.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 20:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
The Government Epigraphist of India was later changed to Chief Epigraphist, ASI, which in turn was later upgraded to Director of Epigraphy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
One important thing to keep in mind is that we should not be sold the "new blue eyed boys" of Fowler (D.C. Sircar and Saloman) with their 6th century dating of Halmidi. Majority dating still counts on wikipedia, for wikipedia is not the place to decide which epigraphist is more famous and who is not so famous . Sigh! Sheldon Pollock is all but forgotten.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 20:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If this Hindu article is to be believed, we have only scratched the surface of the scholarly writings on the Halmidi inscription. In my opinion, the nuances should be left for that article, while we offer the broad views here, while making sure that we don't proclaim any of them to be "true". Abecedare (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. We should keep out any and every fringe theory, just focussing on popular acceptance. Once we agree on Halmidi sentence we should deal with the next contention in the lead. I think we have enough quotations up here in the discussion to work with, more can be pulled up if necessary. The sentence in the lead being some of these suggest the existance of popular contemporary "folk literary practice" in Kannada.[12].Dineshkannambadi (talk) 22:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

PS to Abecedare: Of the three Indian epigraphists, Sircar and Gai have by far the bigger international (and Indian) reputation. Especially Gai, since he is the only one who is an expert both in archaeology and Old Kannada. I propose the following phrasing in keeping with Ramesh's formulation but with Gai's dates included: "The inscription has been dated by some scholars from the mid 5th-century to the early 6th-century and by a few other scholars to the late 6th-century." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we essentially agree. However, in my reading all authors including Gai, Pollock and Ramesh (but with the notable exception of Solomon), seem to give much greater credibility to the "mid 5th-century to the early 6th-century" dating than Sircar's late 6th century dates. So I would prefer something along the lines of the maintext-footnote idea as I proposed in the section below (time-stamped 18:41, 15 April 2008). That will also allow us to add specific references for each claimed date/period without making the main-text too messy to read. What do you think ? Abecedare (talk) 22:49, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I think my only objection in the (time-stamped 18:41, 15 April 2008) version is with "to the fifth-century." No one assigns it to the period 400-450 AD. The period is mid 5th to early 6th. So the following version would be acceptable to me: "Halmidi script, usually dated from the mid 5th-century to the early 6th-century,[1] ..." with the a footnote, "[1] Epigraphists D.C. Sarcar and R. Salomon date it to the late 6th century" (with appropriate references added). We also have the important example of the main tertiary source, Encyclpaedia Britannica. Its article on "Kannada literature," begins with "The earliest records in Kannada are inscriptions dating from the 6th century AD onward. The earliest literary work is the Kavirajamarga (c. AD 850), a treatise on poetics based on a Sanskrit model." I know that the Britannica editorial decisions (for short articles) are made after a lot of questioning of experts. Also, since Britannica has for the last 50 years been associated with the University of Chicago, the latter's well-known South Asia department was likely consulted for the date. In other words, we can't ignore that date without discussion. It is not, as someone suggested, a children's encyclopedia, even if that particular article is short. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Your version ("mid fifth to early sixth") is fine with me although I'll prefer the longer footnote so that we can hang the other references there; I'll let other editors chime in too. Also see the revised Halmidi inscription article, where I have tried to add a summary of the above information that you gathered. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 00:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually the Britanica link is a bad choice (recalling what sarvagnya said) because the same encyclo page for "dravidian languages" dates Halmidi to 450 CE.Correct me if I am wrong Sarvagnya, I cant seem to open up that page.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 00:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes. The Britannica-450 date is from Fowler's own RfC extracts. Also talking of Britannica and tertiary sources, I must point out that in secondary and tertiary sources including peer reviewd journals, 450 CE/5th century is the overwhelming favourite. Zvelebil himself in his books dates Halmidi to 450 CE. I am sure scholars (even non-epigraphers) know what they're talking about when they use 450 CE. 450 CE also seems to be the official line of the ASI (that is what the ASI plaque states in those pictures on the Halmidi inscription article) If 450 CE is such an overwhelming favourite with scholars of all hues, then it should be good enough for us. We dont need to pander to fallacious "epigraphers vs historian" dichotomies here. If 450 CE without qualifications is good enough for most scholars and peer reviewed journals, it should be good enough for us on wikipedia. Sarvagnya 00:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
No, the Ramanujan and Zvelebil articles (which are signed articles) were written for the 1985 edition (Ramanujan died in 1993)and are older. The "Kannada literature" article was written for the on-line version and is from the late 90s (or even newer). It is definitely more up to date. Given that the both the Dravidian language and literature articles from the 1985 edition had the usual date of 450, there must have been a good reason for the the editors to change it to the sixth century. After all they didn't change the date of the KRM to the 10th century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, the whole Britannica issue aside, are you opposed to "usually dated to the mid-fifth or early sixth centurn" ? Such a statement would cover all the sources (except Sircar and Solomon) including the 450 dating (which can be specifically mentioned in the footnote), Pollock, Gai, Keshav, and the ASI website ("about the 5th century A.D."). Abecedare (talk) 01:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Abecedare, first of all thank you for your efforts. This discussion has progressed much, from where it started.
While you are in the process of paraphrasing the sentence in the article and sentences in foot note, just wanted to reiterate whatever you said a while ago, on broad view which is the most essential thing that is required at the moment, to this article on this issue. This is not Halmidi inscription article to go over different dates per various sources, historians, epigraphists, famous, not-so-famous etc. This is a summary style article, and should have have the most widely accepted fact.
With reference to your question above to Sarvagnya, I am finding it difficult to understand the logic behind not mentioning "about 5th century" and instead going for "mid-5th to early 6th" based on very few sources against extremely broad view of 5th century. How does it matter if it implies 400-449 CE, when there are literally so many reliable sources to support that statement on 5th century? On the other hand, the EB source which is produced to claim 6th CE, contradicts itself by stating 450 in one article, and 6th CE in another article!
Just a few quick example quotes.
  • Kannada is used in the inscriptions dating from about the 5th century A.D. and the Halmidi inscription is considered to be the earliest epigraph written in Kannada language. – ASI website (from the link you have given above).
  • The first extant writing in Kannada with a literary flavour goes back to Halmidi Inscription of about 450 A.D. Judging by the language, it is likely that it had behind it the literature of a century or two. The metre and the poetical quality o the Tametkal Inscription (fifth century. A.D.) strengthens this conjecture. – L.S. Seshagiri Rao, Literature (Kannada) in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 3, 1994, pp. 2278-2283.
  • Kannada inscriptions make their appearance from about the 5th century which indicate an older stage of the language. – Narasimhacharya (History of Kannada).
  • The purest Kannada inscriptions are the Halmidi (Mysore) inscription of the fifth century. – Karmarkar, A.P. (Cultural History of Karnataka)
  • The Halmidi inscription of Kakustavarma, belonging to the 5th century AD is the first record to be written entirely in Kannada language. - Pandurang Bhimarao Desai, (Book: A History of Karnataka: From Pre-history to Unification)
Thanks, - KNM Talk 02:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually it surprises me that we are going thru this exercise when we already have the Tamatekallu inscription from the 5th century (Sheshagiri Rao, Govinda Pai, R.S. Mugali), Chikkamagaluru inscription from 5th century (Rice (1921), p13). what does it prove whether Halmidi is 450 CE or 5th century.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 02:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

PS to Abcedare: The inscription has been dated by most historians to 5th century. That is the popular theory we have to stick to. The fringe theories dating to later dates should be in the footnote and dont deserve mention on the main article. Wiki rules are wiki rules, we should not bend them based on presumptions of who is important and who is not.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 22:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I am sure every single scholar who has used the 450 CE/5th century date for Halmidi has considered the issue in greater detail than any of us have or are capable of. We cannot wish away the fact that 450/5th CE happens to have the widest currency. Paleographical dating is only one way of dating inscriptions. It is never the final word. Dating always has to and is vetted by scholars across disciplines. Also, we have concocted a non-issue to debate over here. There simply is no vehement or wide disagreement in the dating of this inscription. Barring the late 6th dating, all other datings span within less than 75-100 years. That is a non-issue for this article. Dating controversies are when there's wide and fantastic disagreements like they have with Tamil literature, the Tolkappiyam being a good example - where dates range from 10th BC to 10th AD if you included notable crackpots or 0 to 10th AD if you only considered bona fide scholarship. imo, it should simply read "...commonly dated to the 5th century.." with a pipelink to the Dating section on the Halmidi article. "commonly" is enough to indicate that other dates have been proposed. Or.. if not a pipelink, then all dates should be squeezed into the footnotes. And then, we may have a hard time keeping the list trim, given the overwhelming number of scholars who go with 450/5th CE. Having said all this, I'll go with anything you and dinesh come up with. Sarvagnya 01:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Who are these people? Why don't you provide a list of your epigraphists with their papers like I have? No bogus stuff from Hindu nationalist historians who believe that Copernicus was incarnated a thousand years earlier in the form of Aryabhatta. The epigraphists or experts in Old Kannada, or both (like Gai) are the people who assign dates. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Once again, the the same pompousness and self importantce--"The scholars I quote are more wise than those you quote". What happened to Pollock? Why did you drop him? Why do you use scholars on a particular basis, and drop them when they have served your puropose.?Dineshkannambadi (talk) 01:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I haven't dropped Pollock. His dates are around 500 or early 6th century. I'm simply saying that epigraphists are the people who assign the dates, so it is better to focus on them. I apologize for taking it out on S. U. Kamath; I have nothing against the gentleman, for all I know he assigns Halmidi to the 6th century as well. I'm just frustrated that you talk a lot, but in two years haven't produced half the sources I have; even ones that support you like K. V. Ramesh. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I have not bothered to produce K.V. Ramesh because I felt no need to. 450 CE or 5th century in general was a "no brainer" to me. I fail to understand why you dashed off to create this whole confusion in the last 2 days, when there should be none.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 02:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I liked your earlier version Abecedare with a small change, where we could just say "mid-fifth century" and shove everything else upto D.C. Sircar's date into foot notes. If Fowler does not like "5th century" (because it presupposes the first half of 5th century also) there is no reason why an uncommon "early 6th century" should tag along in the main article. I believe Rudra has also suggested this method. thanks.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 01:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Quick survey

I think we are very close to resolution, and can basically decide between one of these options for the main-text, which would state, "commonly dated to ..."

  1. mid-fifth century
  2. fifth century
  3. mid-fifth to early sixth century
  4. about the fifth century

I have ordered the choices in (approximately) expanding order, i.e., each option is a subset of the next (except for 2 and 3). Also I have excluded the two "extreme" options, 450 A.D. and "mid-fifth to late sixth century". To me any of the options are acceptable, since they all are true, verifiable and justifiable. Also, IMO hardly any wikipedia reader will even notice the difference (and anyone who does, will be intelligent enough to take wikipedia info. with a grain of salt :-)). Of course, the various datings and references will be included in a footnote, or if editors prefer, by pipelinking to Halmidi inscription#Discovery and dating. So, my question is if there are any strong feelings against any of the above options ? Please don't simply list your preferred choice, but rathar the option you could not bear to accept! Abecedare (talk) 02:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be fifth century, for the reasons I explained in my previous post. Option that is unacceptable is mid-fifth to early sixth century which is highly WP:UNDUE and imbalanced for this article. - KNM Talk 02:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi Abecedare. The strangest thing just happened. In my last edit I apologized for making fun of author Suryanath U. Kamath (in a previous edit) and I said before signing off, "for all I know he assigns Halmidi to the 6th century." Well, I was next trying to figure out how epigraphic dates are assigned and if the original assigner's date somehow continues for a while without people challenging it ... and in some uncanny fluke of chance, my Google search ended up on the page of Suryanath U. Kamath's book, A Concise History of Karnataka from Prehistoric Times ... That in itself was strange, since I had tried to access that book many times before without luck. But what was stranger still was that it landed me on a page and snippet which said:

We have an inscription of the 6th century, written in the Kannada language and the Kannada script. This is the famous Halmidi Record of the Kadambas (for long scholars were of the view that it belonged to c. 450 A.D. and opinion is still divided over its date.)

You can't believe what a whopper this is! Kamath's book is the single-most cited source in this article; it is cited twice as much as any thing else. That Kamath on page 4 of his book, says he believes that Halmidi is from the sixth century is a shock to me. What is more of a shock is that user:Dineshkannambadi owns the book, has quoted it extensively not just in this article but in all the Karnataka related articles. I think his failure to mention that Kamath (of all people) disagrees with the 450 CE date is a singular act of disingenuousness. In light of this, I am now comfortable saying that of your four options above, the only one I can live with is: mid 5th century to early 6th century. Sorry, but I am very perturbed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
PS More troublingly, Kamath is used as a reference for the c. 450 date. I sincerely hope I've made some mistake. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes you made a mistake on two accounts. first, Kamath is not the single most sourced book on the Kannada literature page. Rather, it is sparecely sourced. Secondly, Kamath does say, On page 6 we have an inscription of the 6th century, written in Kannada language and Kannda script. This is the famous Halmidi record of the Kadambas (for long scholars were of the view it belonged to c.450 AD and opinion is still divided...) but Kamath clarifies on page 10 and says The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave record of Mangalesha which are of the 5th and 6th centuries respectively. I have this book with me.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 04:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid the text is different. It says here:

"The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave record of the Mangalesha which are of the 6th century."

Why would an author say 5th and 6th, if he is saying 6th at the outset. And how would that be a clarification? Can you make a jpeg of your page ten and upload it on this page? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Here is my version of the quote; it returns the Kamath book. However, your version of the quote, doesn't return anything. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure, Can you wait till morning. Its 1.11 AM here and I need to get some sleep. In the mean time try some more googling, you may find the page. BTW, my book is a later reprint. So Kamath may have changed his mind.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 05:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Doesn't make any sense. Why would he make such a bold statement about Halmidi being from the 6th century on page 4 and say, in addition, that for a long time scholars use to believe the c. 450 date, and then a few pages later change the date to the 5th century? I'm sure I can easily call someone up and ask them to look at the 2001 reprint. Reprints are not new editions. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The point is that Kamath has reported a scholarly debate. Unless he gives specifics of the debate (e.g. who notably said what, etc) with a resolution (perhaps his own), the 450 AD date is clearly identified as an outdated estimate, pending further scholarly review. That settles it: we can't use WP's voice to suggest that the 450 AD date is favored or privileged, because it is not, popular literature on the subject notwithstanding. We also have an obligation to summarize the information that will eventually be on the Halmidi inscription page, based on all the research so far. I think that makes Abecedare's option #3 the only viable one. rudra (talk) 06:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I can change that citation to the K.V. Ramesh citation if it makes you feel better. Remember, this is not about Kamath and Halmidi (though now a mute point after my above explanation and your short lived celebration). It is the overall opinion of sholars that matters.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 04:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I dont think that scan has anything to do with this debate so let us not be led in a tangential path here. So please vote correctly.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I would go with "mid fifth to early sixth" in your choice. But a simpler sentence like in Britanica would be sufficient: The earliest records in Kannada are inscriptions dating from the 6th century AD onward. I can't believe there is even debate about these. Archaeological dates are not that precise. Considering Sircar's, and even the oft-quoted Kamath's dates seem to coincide with a well-known encyclopedia (Britanica's) summary. All other choices, in my view, are not reflective of the overall statements made by many scholars. --Aadal (talk) 04:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I am against the "mid fifth to early sixth century" option because it is UNDUE. I am happy with "Mid fifth" or "fifth" century options.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 04:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think neither Fowler or Rudra or Aadal have really answered Abecedare's question. Abecedare wants to know which one option you are most "against" to seeing in the article, not just what you "want" to see in the article. Try again please.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 05:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Dineshkannambadi (talk) 12:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Options 1 or 2 is just fine. Option 3 no-no. Option 4 - not sure what it means is also fine but 1 and 2 are better. btw, Kannada (S. N. Sridhar, Routledge, 1990) uses "450 AD" - thought that I should throw it in since, we havent used that source yet. "Heavens! why?!"? - because it is about Kannada grammar and not Kannada literature. I/we will/may source generously from that book when we get to Kannada Grammar. Sarvagnya 06:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
To user:Dineshkannambadi: Please upload the jpeg of the Kamath quote here. Please scan the entire paragraph. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
In fact, please scan the entire page, so that we can see the page numbers etc. Our discussion will be helped as well. Thanks very much. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, we may a slight impasse here :-) What about going with the "about the 5th century" statement ? It subsumes all the options and is used at least by the ASI website and Narasimhacharya . Yes, it is somewhat more vague than we need to be, but the interested reader can look at the footnote or wikilink to see the exact interpretation. I know this is no ones first choice, but maybe that's what would make it acceptable to all. Any objections ? Abecedare (talk) 13:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Abecedare. I know you've made a stalwart effort here, but "About the 5th century" is incorrect. The ASI website is likely put together by web designers. I'm not even sure if ASI takes an official position on these dates. Different people from ASI write papers or reports in their publications. Two of the biggest names in ASI epigraphy date it to late 6th (Sircar) and end of 5th/early 6th (Gai). I for one believe that "from the mid 5th-century to the early 6th century" is the most flexible Wikipedia can get. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Abecedare, I believe this is an attempt to foil the process of coming to consensus on the issue at hand. Kamath's citation has nothing to do with the issue. I certianly have the book and will only fax the page to you if you so request. But if Fowler, Aadal and Rudra want to see that page, they have to cast valid votes. I believe their votes sidestep what you requested. I request that Fowler's outburst be removed because it is an attempt to stall the proceedings and prevent consensus. If he really feels I have fudged that citation, he can bring it up at the next FAC and I will prove him wrong. In the mean time, if he doubts the veracity of my citation, we can change it to the K.V. Ramesh citation and move on. Does that soudn reasonable.?Dineshkannambadi (talk) 14:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear Abecedare, I greatly appreciate your superb efforts to arrive at a consensus. I voted choice three that you gave precisely because it captures much of the differences. In (/ about) the sixth century or in (/about) the fifth century would be partial to one group or the other. The manner in which DK and his supporters are insisting is simply wasting everyone's time. They want nothing less than 450 CE or 5th century CE. It is not a fair reflection of the scholarship on this point. Britanica need not be the standard, but when considering all other quotations here, stating 6th century is not in any violation of norms or by any huge margin anyways. I chose choice 3 as a compromise. I would prefer Britanica type of statement putting it in the 6th century. Is this a productive discussion here!!--Aadal (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Aadal, your answer is still not precise, you are still stating what you want to see, not what you "dont" want to see in the article. Myself, KNM and Sarvagnya have clearly stated what we dont want and what we are ok with, which gives Abecedare a breadth of choices to work with.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 15:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I am ok with this choice since it help us move along, avoids specific controversies and is non-commital to the casual reader.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 15:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Seems like KNM an Sarvagnya are ok with your last option ('about 5th century'). Though you have clearly requested all the users here to choose which option they are "not accepting", Fowler, Aadal and Rudra have not responded accurately and have prefered to state what only they "want". They have to choose which option they "dont want" or abstain, so we can move on.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 16:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
To DK and Abecedare: K. V. Ramesh says, "The undated Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) inscription, allegedly written during the reign of Kadamba Kakusthavarman, is taken by some scholars to belong, on palaeographical grounds, to the middle of the 5th century AD, while a few other scholars have held, on the same grounds of palaeography, that it is as late as the second half of the 6th century A.D. (p. 55)" Notice that he says "allegedly written during the reign of Kadamba Kakusthavarman." He's not even sure of that; in contrast, this article says, "Halmidi, a Kadamba royal edict, ..." Ramesh's book was written in 1984, when Gai was still going along with the 450 CE date, seven years before Gai made his reassessment of Halmidi and pushed it forward by half a century. If you agree that pretty much no one (other than some Karnataka fantasists who would have Halmidi date back to 9 AM on the Saturday before the human and chimpanzee lineages split apart) dates it to the range 400 to 450 CE (even Ramesh doesn't) and that Gai has now moved over the turn of the 6th century, how about: "The undated Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) inscription, allegedly written during the reign of Kadamba Kakusthavarman, is taken by some scholars to belong, on palaeographical grounds, to the middle of the 5th century AD, by some others to the turn of the 6th century, while a few other scholars have held, on the same grounds of palaeography, that it is as late as the second half of the 6th century A.D." Of course, we might not have the luxury of so many words, but you get the idea. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I am even agreeable to change it to: "The undated Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) inscription, allegedly written during the reign of Kadamba Kakusthavarman, is taken by some scholars to belong, on palaeographical grounds, to the middle of the 5th century AD, by a few to the turn of the 6th century, while a few other scholars have held, on the same grounds of palaeography, that it is as late as the second half of the 6th century A.D." on the condition that the 450 AD dates in the Halmidi, Halmidi inscription, and Extinct Kannada literature pages be replaced by this statement as well. Plus, something suitably similar but compact in the photo captions. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I also propose that the footnotes in the statement above be limited to the epigraphists. So, M. G. Krishna (the discoverer) and K. V. Ramesh for mid-5th, Gai for turn of 6th, and Sircar and Salomon for late 6th. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Any mention of minority views should be in the footnotes and preferably the way Abecedare mentioned earlier. I dont see any reason to go into details such as "allegedly during the rule of Kakusthavarma..." etc in the main article because that "allegation" word is again one scholar's opinion (Ramesh). This is an encyclo, not a K V Ramesh book. Fowler, you still have not cast a valid vote per the moderators requirement but are playing around with concessions. We dont do concessions on an encyclopaedia which is meant to be a generalist source of info.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 16:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
That's fine. We can leave the reference to Kadamba out. How about: The undated Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) inscription, is dated by some epigraphists to the middle of the 5th century AD, by a few to the turn of the 6th century, and by a few others to the second half of the 6th century A.D.?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Abecedare, I am quite against choices 1,2 and 4. The evidence is not quite firm. the least I think is fair to state and not mislead the public is choice 3. A conservative and less controversial view (I fully understand it will be controversial from interested parties who may perhaps want to show that Kannada literature influenced Greek literature and Ashoka's edicts etc.). I've earlier looked at Ramesh's book for some other work (Kadambas) but I don't have the books with me now, but if he says "undated Halmidi", it would make perfect sense to be a little less firm about the date and say something like it is in the Britanica - say like perhaps in the 6th century. DK, I've specified what I'm against. Once again Fowler&fowler had brought in so much solid material in such short time. I can't understand what is unreasonable in F&f's statements! --Aadal (talk) 16:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I described #3 as the "only viable" option because I find 1, 2 and 4 unacceptable (respectively: not reflective of up-to-date scholarship; wrong range; and misleadingly vague). rudra (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

For me too, #3 is the only viable short option. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I think Fowler and co. did not understand Abecedare's question. When he abecedare wrote "any of the above options " he meant the "the one you are most against". You cant come to the table with "my way or the highway" attitude. It does not work here and Fowler, stop dictating your idea of what the sentence should look like and what it should not. You are not the moderator here, you are the one opened the Rfc requesting for comment.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 17:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong or misleading in 1,2 or 4. If 450 CE is good enough for Sridhar and Bh.Kr and Pollock and Zvelebil, it should be good enough for us. Scholarly debates can rage on but we maintain status quo and go with the most widely used date. I am sure all the scholars I mentioned above and several more who go with 450 CE are aware of the different dates that have been proposed. And yet, most of them use 450 CE quite matter of factly. Even Pollock who indicates that he has taken cognizance of the different dates, still chooses to go with 450 and 500 - it has to be for a reason. We simply cannot wish away the currency 450 CE(just do a google book search) has and foist a non-existant "dispute" on the reader - definitely not in this article! I have absolutely no problems mentioning all dates in the inscription's own article (or even in the footnotes here), but not here. WP:UNDUE is quite clear about this. For that matter, even the Vedas have differing date ranges proposed too, but that does not go into the body of Sanskrit literature! Even on Rig Veda's own article, all that is afforded to it is some space in the footnotes. If we were to nitpick, almost anything and everything that's been dated to more than 300 or 500 years back can be debated. Panini's date is "debated", Kalidasa's is Shankarcharya's even more.. the list is endless. Doesnt mean all these debates get to go into Sanskrit literature even though all three I just mentioned surely will. Different dates are even ascribed to Ashoka's edicts (even if the difference is of the order of few decades).. but we cant let articles get consumed by these pointless debates which can go on for several decades (maybe centuries). "..commonly dated to.." "the fifth century" or "..about the fifth century" is as reasonable as it can get. Sarvagnya 18:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear user:Dineshkannambadi, Abecedare asked, "So, my question is if there are any strong feelings against any of the above options?" And we have answered: We are equally and irrevocably opposed to options 1, 2, and 4. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Dear user:Dineshkannambadi, Since you had agreed above to K. V. Ramesh's formulation, I ask you again if you will agree to:

"The undated Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) inscription, is dated by some epigraphists to the middle of the 5th century AD, by a few to the turn of the 6th century, and by a few others to the second half of the 6th century A.D."

Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

And since when have epigraphists become the last word on a dating debate? They've drawn differing conclusions based on the same methods. Clearly, one of them or all of them are wrong. Or in all likelihood, their dates give us the most accurate range mere paleographical dating can give us. Vetting it across disciplines(historians, linguists,...) gives us a better idea.. and 450/5th CE clearly has the widest currency. This is an article about Kannada literature - we cannot afford an entire half paragraph to a dating "dispute" even scholars dont seem to take so seriously. "..commonly dated to/to about fifth century.." with a pipelink to the Halmidi article where all the dates and their proponents can be mentioned is appropriate. Sarvagnya 18:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I have not agreed to any formulation you put out, but only to the formulation Abecedare wrote. I am not interested in your sentences or wordings.thanks. Cast a flexible vote that is condusive to the Rfc 'you started' and we can proceed from there.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 18:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


I am probably making a mistake commenting on this storm in the teapot, but if the historians are using the same techniques (or guesswork) to date the script, then ignore the fringe numbers (6th century) and stick with consensus (450CE) as there is no basis to justify the numbers anyway. If it turns out that all these historians are using the same techniques to come up with the dates, then again, ignore the fringe numbers and stick to the consensus (450CE) as there is again no basis to justify the fringe numbers. The only time you need to give weight to the fringe numbers is IF and ONLY IF the small number of historians who came up with these dates actually used a more accurate technique to come to a date and it is proven that this technique is more accurate. No need to go in with complicated wording, just say The inscription is generally dated to 450CE. Desione (talk) 19:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

More Quotations

Abecedare: Desione's comments above make more sense and raises a question on why 450 date is an "extreme" option. Some quick research produced an exhaustive consensus on that date, rather than anything else. I am here producing some of those references. Note: None of these quotes are from any pro-Kannada bias (as I have explicitly excluded books by Kannada authors, who have provided similar quotes), and also note, there are several which are post-2000 published (so as to keep "out-dated theory" kind of arguments away).

  • The earliest documented inscription is from Halmidi inscription dated 450 AD - David R. Olson and Insup Taylor (Book: Language Arts and Descriptions)
  • first record of written Kannada is the Halmidi inscription of C. 450 AD - Arun Kumar Biswas (Book: Indic literature)
  • (Kannada language) .... has a literary history of about 1,500 years. The oldest writing in Kannada is the Halmidi inscription of 450 AD. - South Asian folklore: An Encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, by Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann
  • The earliest Kannada record is in the form of inscriptions. The first inscription is Halmidi inscription of 450 AD. The language of inscription is known as pre-old Kannada. - R. Śrīhari, B. Ramakrishna Reddy, Dravidian University (Word-structure in Dravidian, 2003)
  • The origin of Kannada, for example, had been traced back to the Halmidi inscription of the fifth century. - A History of Indian Literature, 500-1399': From Courtly to the Popular By Sisir Kumar Das, various - Published in 2005 by Sahitya Akademi.

May I request you to perform a research yourself, which, I'm sure would produce an overwhelming consensus on 450 CE date. If you are convinced, please include that as an option too in the above survey. This option cannot be ruled out, just to rule out some other option. Thanks, - KNM Talk 22:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

KNM, I agree that there are large number of sources for the 450 A.D. dating. I used the word extreme (in quotes!) in the above section only to indicate that it was one end of the spectrum of options and that we are unlikely to see a consensus to present that viewpoint without qualifications. I was hoping that all the interested editors would find at least one of the other "less extreme" options palatable, but that doesn't seem to be the case at present.
By the way, can you add some of these references to the 450 A.D. dating in the Halmidi inscription#Discovery and dating section ? I had left that date unreferenced so far since I could not decide which of the available references to pick. Regards. Abecedare (talk) 00:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure, I will add those to Halmidi inscription article. Thanks for the inputs on what you meant by "extreme". However, my request to you on adding 450 CE as an option still holds good, and more so now, as you see some people selecting multiple options as "most extreme" (whichever they dont want). I hoped your intention was to get interested editors to point out "one most extreme" option, which would provide you a more room to decide on exact paraphrasing. Thanks - KNM Talk 01:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Request to Fowler

user:Abecedare who has agreed to help us resolve issues is working hard. We are supposed to await his inputs anytime now. Please refrain from making edits/controversial changes and making up your own rules about epigrphists vs historians. I request that no more edits should be done untill Abecedaare becomes available.thanks.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 14:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to pretend to be an arbiter for content on the subject that I myself am just learning. But I am reminded of the saying, "disputes in academia are so fierce because the stakes are so low."
Seriously people! Do we need to indulge in name-calling and edit warring over whether Halmidi inscriptions date to fifth or sixth century; or if early Kannada prose/poetry really represented a true "literary tradition" ? I think we are losing sight of the forest for the trees and if we all step back, I think we will realize that common-sensical compromises are staring us in the face. Forgive the mixed metaphors and the spiel. Abecedare (talk) 17:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It may help to know that there is a movement afoot to have Kannada officially recognized/declared as a third "classical language" (alongside Sanskrit and Tamil). Hence an obvious interest to push dates for things like "literature" as far back into the past as possible (the WP:FRINGE is now at 2nd BCE or thereabouts, more "research" surely to come.) Epigraphists aren't thick on the ground, so I think we already have a fair sampling of what the first stratum of experts say. The second stratum are the linguists and historians, e.g. Salomon, Pollock, et al who evaluate (critically) and summarize. I get the impression that informed expert opinion is presently hovering at end 5th/early 6th for the Halmidi inscription, but this is being swamped by popular treatments and "encyclopedias" of various stripes that haven't caught up. Moreover, since there is a lobby here prepared to wikilawyer for what is actually a POV to everyone except them, I think we're forced to compromise. My straw proposal would be to use the 450 AD date, cast in a way that emphasizes the early (== not fully considered) character of the dating, and move the more current expert opinion/debate to a footnote. rudra (talk) 18:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
So would something like this be agreeable:
"Halmidi script, usually dated to fifth century,[1] ..." with the a footnote, "[1] The inscriptions have been variously dated to ca. 450AD, around 500 A.D. or late fifth or early sixth century. Epigraphist D.C. Sarcar dates them to the late 6th century" (with appropriate references added)
Note that I use the passive voice dated to indicate that these are the various dates assigned by epigraphists/historians etc; rather than "Halimid inscription dates to X", which would suggest that "X" is the TRUTH! Also, AFAIK D. C. Sircar's late sixth century dating is somewhat singular, so it will be a good idea to attribute it to him by name. Detailed discussion of the dating, of course, belongs in the Halmidi inscription article. Abecedare (talk) 18:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec)WP:FRINGE is in 2nd BCE? Did you just resurrect Pavanar from the dead and get him start writing about Kannada lit? If 6th, 7th or 10th CE dates for Halmidi is in the labs, wait for it to come out and we will change it here. Until then, 450 CE will remain the "scholarly consensus". And "scholarly consensus" is what we are in the business of reporting, especially in a WP:SS article. Sarvagnya 18:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Pavanar? Heaven forfend! I don't remember where I saw that. I think it may have been something about the legends around Sravana Belgola, viz. Chandragupta Maurya coming with the Jains, etc., whence the leap to the idea that they must all have been speaking some form of Kannada back then. The inscriptions, of course, are dated to much later, but a little Kannada chauvinism never hurt anyone, eh? rudra (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
unless you want to label the likes of Bh.Kr and Andronov and Zvelebil etc "fringe", it is a given that Kannada had almost certainly come into independent existance (branched off from its proto) as a spoken language much earlier than 3rd BC. Whether Mr. C. Maurya spoke it or not, I have no information. What does any of that have to do with any of this, anyway? Or do you figure that a little off topic banter never hurt anyone? Sarvagnya 19:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
The beguiling conflation of language and literature, of course. I'm sure the partisans of the classical language movement have plenty of interesting stuff for you to read.:-) rudra (talk) 06:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Scholarly consensus is even less a head count than wikipedia consensus. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:49, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
tsk tsk. Sircar's dating has been around for decades and it obviously has found none-to-very few takers in the scholarly world. why dont we let the scholars do the peeking around the labs and we will just "report reports" relata refero? Sarvagnya 19:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
That would be an excellent idea. You may be unaware of it, but I proselytize it through my choice of username. (An odd coincidence!) As long as you don't think that scholarly consensus involves addition. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I am fine with Abecedare's idea. I would, out of academic interest, someday like to know how Sarcar arrived at the singular dating of late 6th century (I know he is a well known historian/epigraphist and respect that) considering that Kadambas were out of commission by 540 or so, and the Badami Chalukyas were already the masters of Karnataka region by 543 CE. Is it by any chance a print mistake?Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Tangential proposal

Since so many editors are making such an effort to find references and information (pro and con) about the quoted scholars, it would be a good idea to make such information available to the general reader, by creating (at least) stub articles on the notable historians. Hopefully by the end of the discussion (whenever that may be) none of the following will be red-links:

Happy editing. Abecedare (talk) 19:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be elitist, but I don't know that either Rice or Narashimhachar belong to the list. Unreliable historians at best. Nowhere near the international reputation of the first two or the scholarly acumen of the third. The two big names in the field that do belong are: Ferdinand Kittel (author of A Grammar of the Kannada Language) and A. N. Narasimhia (author of A grammar of the oldest Kanarese Inscriptions (Studies in Dravidian Philology, No. 1.) University of Mysore, 1941 and, I gather, a landmark.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, an encyclopedia is supposed to be elitist! But the appropriate criterion to judge Rice and Narasimhacharya is wikipedia's notability guidelines, and not whether they measure up to, say, Sircar or Gai. We can create articles on the people listed above if (and only if) we can find secondary sources talking about them. Ferdinand Kittel already has a wikibio, but I am happy to add A. N. Narasimhia to the potential article list. Abecedare (talk) 22:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Good point! I keep forgetting that there are Wikpedia rules, which actually are quite reasonable. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules broken?

I am very troubled by user:Dineshkannambadi's use of Kamath's book for this article's claim of the Halmidi inscription's date of 450 CE. What is more troubling is that he has stated (see discussion following my first post here),

"... but Kamath clarifies on page 10 and says 'The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave record of Mangalesha which are of the 5th and 6th centuries respectively.' I have this book with me."

As I've indicated above, the actual text is quite different. It says here:

"The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave record of the Mangalesha which are of the 6th century."

As I've also indicated before, when I search for my version of the quote; the Kamath book is returned. However, user:Dineshkannambadi's version of the quote, doesn't return anything. I've have now twice asked him to scan the page from his book and upload it on this page, for us to examine; if he has any GFDL concerns, I'm sure we can find an admin from the arbitration committee and have the page emailed to him. user:Dineshkannambadi is now saying, "I dont think that scan has anything to do with this debate so let us not be led in a tangential path here. So please vote correctly."

I'm afraid, he doesn't seem to understand. The implication now is that he has not only used false citations in a potential Featured Article, but has prevaricated more blatantly in his defense of the citation. Some very basic Wikipedia rules have likely been broken here. It is in his best interests to clear the air. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I am beginning to be convinced that Dineshkannambadi (talk · contribs) is part of the problem here, and unlikely to become part of a solution. Wikipedia:Anti-elitism can only be taken so far before progress grinds to a halt because one party decides to replace honest collaboration by filibustering and stalling tactics. I am willing, as an uninvolved admin, to warn Dineshkannambadi to improve his record or stand down. So, Dineshkannambadi, please get your act together. dab (𒁳) 18:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
You come to this page on Fowler's invitation, support him in the raging RfC and then now claim that you're uninvolved! Nice try. And a threat to the single biggest FA contributor(possibly) on the WP:INDIA project is just what we need to solve this issue. Shameful! Sarvagnya 18:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
FA or not, the problem right now is that user:Dineshkannambadi has potentially made a false citation and potentially lied blatantly in claiming what it was he cited. That is serious. As I observed above, it is in his best interests to clear the air and provide the evidence. Just a high-res scan of the page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Unilateral action against Dineshkannambadi is not a good idea. There is a longer history between combatants here than perhaps you may know of, stretching back over past FAC reviews. Regardless, I think Fowler&fowler's recent public comment on his talk page stating the following:

My guess is that after the copy-edit, the article, in its half-revived but yet half-comatose state, will be hurriedly put back in the FAC mill, a victim yet again of a relentless drive. The usual suspects—with their ever-ready supports—will then for the third time reappear out of thin air, and, lo and behold, KL will clamber its wobbly way into Featureland. I will try to make sure that nothing too ludicrous is said in the lead, but beyond that (as Ronald Reagan said to someone in some debate), "I can't pick on an invalid."

oozes contempt for the work of all the article's significant contributors and falls short of appropriate Wikipedia conduct, particularly as the remarks were made before the start of his RfC and the subsequent snarkfest. The remarks certainly suggest that a party in opposition is "part of the problem here, and unlikely to become part of a solution". The rest of the back and forth here, while unpleasant, seems to be attributable to both camps. It's all very unfortunate, but singling out one individual for warning and possible official action is a wrong-headed approach, and would likely hinder rather than help a neutral resolution.

However, it would be a great idea if agitated parties involved in the RfC, on any side, would declare a truce and try to get the article's disputed items cleared up without further personal remarks. Presumably all of us are interested in the common goal of a quality article. -- Michael Devore (talk) 19:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I dont think anyone can be banned in wiki just because one disgruntled user "jumped the gun" and accused his Rfc opponent of false citation. Let us not forget that the initiator of this Rfc had levelled the same charge on me in the previous FAC of this article but was proven wrong on that account. I have already asserted, I am more than willing to send a scan copy to a mediator to look at the citation under contest, though it really has nothing to do with this Rfc, but rather an attempt to haggle me and divert attention from the real issue, the RFC.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
To user:Michael Devore, I think the problem right now (regardless of whether I think poorly of user:DK's past work, which I do and said so humorously on my talk page) is entirely of his own making. I didn't ask him to cite something that is potentially not there. I certainly didn't then encourage him to potentially make up content in the defense of his potential misdeed. As for praising people, I've certainly praised you on this talk page for both weighing and saying things carefully in the lead. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, I'm afraid, my post (please let people read the entire post to see the context) was made the night before user:Dineshkannambadi complained about me to an admin, and said (to me) "Remember, you are the one, with all your wisdom, with a problem regarding pre-existing literature. So you go find the channels for mediation. Then we talk." Even so, I first, made an effort to discuss things amiably on his talk page. It was only when he didn't reply (while busily editing other pages) that I reluctantly considered the possibility of an RfC more than 24 hours after the post you quoted. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
PS. At the time I made the talk page post, I was resigned to the FAC taking place and said so, "I will try to make sure that nothing too ludicrous is said in the lead, ..." It was only the next morning when I saw user:Dineshkannambadi's complaint on the admin's talk page (complaints, which apparently have a history; see here for another and read the admin's response) that things began to change ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Personally, the remarks have little effect on me. I work with too many editors of disparate views, and I'm too old and tired, to become greatly affronted when someone says something mean, whether or not it was meant seriously. In fact, few would dispute that you are educated, intelligent, and dedicated in your Wikipedia tasks, as is your opposition here, but that also is tangential to the point of my post.
What is my point is that there is quite a history of conflict here, and your remarks serve well as a measure of that acrimony. I think it wrong for a well-meaning administrator acting in an official role to step into this discussion, point to one individual—the primary author of the article no less—and warn him alone on being a cause of the problem and an impediment to its resolution. I disagree with that action and worry that it can easily backfire and exacerbate the situation. AN/I is full of examples of that.
If this were a competition, both camps by now have ample justification to continue insulting each other for a long time. But this isn't a competition; it is, or should be, a cooperative effort. Contention points can be supported or discredited using dispassionate facts and logic. Properly presented, they act well enough on their own to serve an editor's purpose, no matter what the editor's need or intention. -- Michael Devore (talk) 04:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I don't really disagree with you. However, I note that what user:Dineshkannambadi is potentially accused of doing here, is, in my book at least, a form of scholarly deceit, one that goes against the grain of the scholarly enterprise, and one that even high-school kids, let alone undergraduates, are warned about. I note that user:Dineshkannambadi has been in no hurry to provide the evidence and clear the air. On that entire issue, you have been notably silent.
Although I am willing to grant good faith to everyone, the picture here doesn't look good. For me, scholarly integrity is non-negotiable; it has to survive every form of the discourse be it of competition, collaboration, or both. When the discourse itself is in doubt, as it is here, there is no reason why I should be a part of it. Accordingly, I shall soon be withdrawing from the RfC. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Assuming good faith here, is it possible that you two have different editions of the book? While it may be momentous to you, this is not a big change to make if e.g. some new artifact is dated, or a genealogy is re-aligned after the first printing. Please both check the full publication info - typically on the back side of one of the first pages. If they differ, the later edition should probably prevail, although in any case it would be better to find additional source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Dinesh has already (about 20 kb of trash ago) pointed out that he has a later edition. And also the fact that the citation in question is moot as any number (like dozens) of sources can be brought in to cite the same claim. I can only ask you to treat the holier than thou squealing here with the contempt it deserves. Sarvagnya 18:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
"Holier-than-thou squeaking" is OK, but my use of "sputtering" caused a regurgitation of WP:Alphabet soup a little bit earlier? Very well. I will merely point out here that people have been banned in the past for knowing violations of WP:CITE, so the point is not 'moot'. I will say nothing on my personal opinion, which is irrelevant, merely that WP as a whole does not ignore this issue or trivialise it. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Well. We dont take kindly to violations of wp:cite and we dont take kindly to malicious and extraordinary violations of wp:npa either. Deal? Sarvagnya 20:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
When we discover malicious and extraordinary violations of wp:npa, we'll let you know so you can be suitably outraged. Till then, calmness should be your watchword. Deal? --Relata refero (disp.) 22:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
If that is the case, why doesn't he provide a hig-res scan of the page 10 to user:Stephan Schulz by email? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Fowler, I'm afraid you don't seem to get what User:Stephan Schulz is suggesting. He is suggesting assume good faith with whatever Dinesh is claiming to have on the 10th page in that book. (The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave record of Mangalesha which are of the 5th and 6th centuries respectively. – as claimed by Dinesh in "Quick Survey" section above). But you are again demanding the same scanned page. My question to you: Have you looked into 2001 book, page number 10? If you have looked into it, and if it does not match with what Dinesh said above, then it makes sense to ask for the scanned page. Thanks - KNM Talk 19:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I now have the phone number of the press that publishes the book and that of a bookseller who is selling that edition. Would you like me to call them and ask? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Shall I take that answer to my question as "No, I have not looked into 2001 book" ?
Also, to answer your question: You don't need my permission. Its upto you. - KNM Talk 19:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. Here's the deal - again something Dinesh had offered even before you vent your spleen here - I will impress on dinesh to send the scanned copy to abece on the condition that --

If abece confirms that the scan indeed reads like Dinesh has claimed it does, you will have the grace to --

a) Strike off what you've written here.
b) Tender an unconditional public apology to Dinesh on this page
c) Tender a personal apology to Dinesh on his talk page
d) Leave a note in the Village Pump thread you started stating that you were wrong.
e) Bow out of this page in all its manifestations (article, talk, fac,...) -- something you already seem to pledged to do.
f) Promise the community that you will never again cast aspersions on the honesty and integrity of others and smear them without being sure of it.

Deal? Except the "grace" part, I am sure none of the above are unreasonable demands to make of someone who has called into question the honesty and integrity of one of our best. Sarvagnya 19:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but WHAT? If you can settle this, please do so. If the other party then has the grace to acknowledge this, maybe even with an apology, great. But saying "I'll show you mine if you show yours to the teacher" is not a particularly constructive attitude. Isn't it enough to prove your side right in the eyes of all the uninvolved Wikipedia public? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry. How is this supposed to work? I go to an article, pick a cite at random, ask for a scan, get ignored and then go I get to go to town with a smear job? And just when I couldnt think things could get any better, an admin friend comes along and 'warns' my opponent! Wow!
Nothing could be more ludicruous than Dinesh having to "prove himself in the eyes of uninvolved public"!! Dinesh does NOT need to prove anything to anybody. Dinesh does NOT need to send anybody any scans, but F&f is obliged to not make personal attacks. Casting apersions on another's integrity and honesty is lower than name calling and for someone who claims to be a professor and has the cheek to lecture us about the "non-negotiable" nature of scholarly integrity, the continuing silence is deafening. Sarvagnya 22:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • You may have misunderstood: an copy of a book has been found, and is visible to all of us, that has completely different wording for a phrase that supports a contentious point from that which Dinesh provided. It is possible that the text has been changed between editions; indeed, given Dinesh's history, that may even be considered likely, however improbably in the normal course of things. Nevertheless, that is not something that we can assume has happened. A prima facie violation of WP:CITE needs to be addressed. Once its done, or while its being done, we can move on to other issues. However, this sort of irritability on the part of an uninjured party doesn't help. --Relata refero (disp.) 23:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
that's about as novel as a defense of a personal attack can get. keep it up. Where's the 'injuring' party? Sarvagnya 23:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
If you believe its a personal attack, report it on a noticeboard. Otherwise hold your peace. You're not doing anyone any good. --Relata refero (disp.) 23:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • May I remind you that you offered proof if the other side is sufficiently groveling? I don't insist on the proof, I point out that your conditions are not constructive. If you can end this drama, I suggest you do so. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

A scanned copy is no longer necessary, as there is no urgency. If F&f doesn't want to call the publisher, he can mail me the numbers, and I'll take the hit for the international phone call(s). rudra (talk) 19:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Chickening out already? Can we hear that from the professor himself? Sarvagnya 20:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
No need. The fact of the matter is that you are in no position to impose conditions of any kind, bluster all you want. rudra (talk) 20:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Did the professor just contract laryngitis or something? I saw him mention to abece yesterday that he was sick. Can we hear from him please? Sarvagnya 20:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I think you need to take a step back. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

This should settle it

Dinesh, just emailed me scans of few pages from the 2002 Jupiter Books reprint of the 2001 "Revised and enlarged" edition of Kamath's, Concise history of Karnataka and page 10 includes the text Dinesh cited earlier, viz.

The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi Record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave Record of Mangalesha which are of the 5th and 6th centuries respectively.

He got the capitalizations of "Record" incorrect earlier, but I suggest we forgive him his sins†, mark the issue resolved and move on. Abecedare (talk) 23:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC) (†: that is a joke, for anyone planning to sic me over it )

It doesn't explain to me as mentioned in user:DK's post:

"Kamath does say, On page 6 'we have an inscription of the 6th century, written in Kannada language and Kannda script. This is the famous Halmidi record of the Kadambas (for long scholars were of the view it belonged to c.450 AD and opinion is still divided...)' but Kamath clarifies on page 10 and says 'The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave record of Mangalesha which are of the 5th and 6th centuries respectively.' I have this book with me."

I asked him a number of times how the second quote constituted a clarification of the first, but never received a reply. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

PS In other words, according to user:DK, the 2001 edition that he has does say on page 6 that the Halmidi record is from the 6th century; however, on page 10, the 2001 edition also says, "The earliest lithic documents in Kannada are the Halmidi record of the Kadambas and the Badami cave record of Mangalesha which are of the 5th and 6th centuries respectively." All I asked at first, and still do, is how is the page 10 a clarification of the statement on page 6? And what is that chain of reasoning that connects 6 to 10? Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
May I remind you that you wrote "The implication now is that he has not only used false citations in a potential Featured Article, but has prevaricated more blatantly in his defense of the citation" (emphasis added)? I have no opinion on the content issue, but I think the suggestion of "false citations" is off the table. I think it would be good if you could explicitly agree to so much, in whatever form you deem appropriate. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
That's fine. I take the false citation off the table. But you do understand, I didn't at first mention any such thing. Simply asked for a clarification of the above contradiction. It was only when he didn't reply, that I was driven to check Google Books which said that in the 1980 edition , the second quote didn't have "5th century" in it. It was only after I asked a few more times for him to clarify, and he didn't reply, that I made my post. But I agree, in light of what the scan user:Abecedare has received, says, "false citation" is off the table. I have ordered the 2001 edition by express mail. When it arrives, I will address this question again. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:11, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
PS And I apologize unequivocally for implying that. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I appreciate this! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
It is gracious of F&f; it goes to show how candid he is. At least one point is clear that Kamath's 2001 edition had that statement that DK claimed. But can someone answer how that statement on p.10 is a clarification of what is said in p.6. ? The confusion started from there. --Aadal (talk) 03:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Withdrawing from the RfC

I am withdrawing from the RfC for some of the reasons explicated in my last post in the section above. I would sincerely like to thank user:Abecedare for the calm presence he has brought to the page and for the progress that he has made possible. Since I will not be returning to the RfC, it goes without saying that I will abide by all decisions user:Abecedare makes about the content. I will also not be returning either to the article page, the talk page, or any potential FAC review. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I truly regret that you've decided to withdraw! It is certainly a great loss! Even at this stage, I give the benefit of doubt to DK, just as you would do - perhaps his "edition" of Kamath's book does have what he claims, but it should be presented here openly in any case. If decent discourse can not be held with integrity and fairness, what is the point in spending so much of energy and effort? I too wish to withdraw from participating in this discussion here, but if it goes to the FAC without corrections and removal of POV, and if I'm around here, I will certainly vote against it - whatever be its worth. I want to thank user:Abecedare and all others who have shared their thoughts here in a constructive way. It is good to see Users like Arvind here and they can hopefully help to shape it for the better. It is a good article in my view but there is so much of fluff and dust around here. --Aadal (talk) 14:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Aadal for letting everyone know your true intentions that you dont want to contribute to improving this article (no matter what you had said previously) but are hell bent to make sure that this article is not made an FA. Happy stalling!!! - ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 04:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
{{huh}}? How do you translate "It is a good article in my view but there is so much of fluff and dust around here." into "I dont want to contribute to improving this article"? He just said it's good but needs some more cleanup. So let us clean it up. Don't let the 450 CE thing hold this article hostage. It is more than good enough for the purposes of this article to state the inscription is dated to between 450 and 600, period. It's really not important, since Kannada literature proper doesn't begin until more than another century later. It's offtopic. dab (𒁳) 08:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
duh?? "I too wish to withdraw from participating in this discussion here, but if it goes to the FAC without corrections and removal of POV, and if I'm around here, I will certainly vote against it - - whatever be its worth", shows his intentions plain and clear. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 08:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
As does the phrase you left out (bolded here) "if it goes to the FAC without corrections and removal of POV... I will certainly vote against it - whatever be its worth". Note that he's explained on this page exactly what he thinks the POV problems are.
Life on wikipedia would be a lot less frustrating if people actually stopped for a minute to think about what assuming good faith really means, and tried to implement it - instead of assuming that editors are deliberately pursuing a cunning agenda to subvert Wikipedia in accordance with the demands of Kannada nationalism or Tamil-Dravidocentrism or Humboldtian elitism or whatever. We all have our prejudices which we don't always see, and which affect what we think the "correct" position is, but we're all genuinely trying to improve the encyclopaedia, and it would be nice if our starting point could be respecting each other for that. I'm not directing this against you in particular, Amar - nobody's been covering themselves in glory in this utterly needlessly escalated dispute. Now, let's get back to giving Abecedare the support he needs in order to figure out how best to word the section on early attestations, and then let's move on to ironing out the other problems with this article, which as it stands has the potential to be the one of the best freely-available overviews of the literature in any language available on the web. -- Arvind (talk) 09:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry, Arvind. I dont quite buy your take on Aadal's comment. Walking off at this moment instead of ironing out the differences, giving a subtle warning that I am going to get even at the FAC, is in a very poor taste. If there is a time to iron out things, this is the time to do it and not wait for the FAC. We cannot have Aadal coming back again during FAC and stalling the process with his prejudices. That is not game. Looking at the comments that Aadal has made in this RfC, I fail to understand what is it that he is trying to convey as wrong in the article. All his comments till now have been more or less addressed, but he still feels that there is something wrong. May I request him to list the things that he feels should be addressed and discuss it out. Else he should keep himself out of the FAC. We are here to collaborate and write an FA, not to wait for an opportunity to oppose and stall the FA process. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 10:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Amarrg, please read it in context. My comment was in relation to F&f's statement: I will also not be returning either to the article page, the talk page, or any potential FAC review.. I was indicating - unlike him - I intend to participate in FAC with my concerns, if they were to remain. Remember that FAC is not just a vote count. If I or someone else were to vote against in FAC, those votes by themselves would not mean much unless there are weighty considerations behind them. I would be among the first to support it, if it were to rise up to FA level, in my view anyways. Had the statement about Halmidi in the article been as it is today [450 CE is the date usually given, though some scholars give the inscription a later date, with a few making it as late as 600 CE. ], thanks to User:Moreschi2 and User:Dbachmann, there would not have been such problem on this topic. It is a fairly a simple point to record and move on. However, due to the questions and concerns raised by User:F&f and the ensuing discussion, there is now greater "light" on this point. It is perfectly alright to discuss and contest the points for-and-against, but the discourse should be civil. I entirely agree with Arvind on this point. I've mentioned my concerns earlier here, but I can collect them again here.--Aadal (talk) 19:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

And about the "whatever be its worth": It is my vote's worth and not the article's worth. I agree there is room for confusion there. --Aadal (talk) 20:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


I too wish to withdraw from participating in this discussion here, but if it goes to the FAC after diluting established facts, such as 450AD date to satisfy the fringe personal opinions here, and if I'm around here, I will certainly vote against it - whatever be its worth. Desione (talk) 02:55, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Since user:Dineshkannambadi and user:Sarvagnya are not waiting for user:Abecedare to weigh in, and adding text willy-nilly to the article, I have returned temporarily to provide balance. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence for the writer Srinatha's description of his Telugu, "Kannada"?

Is this an accurate quote? Did Srinatha indeed call his Telugu, "Kannada" or something else? What is the meaning of "Kannada" in Telugu, if that was indeed used in his Telugu? If the word is indeed "Kannada" and not anything else, is it referring to the language or language of the region ? I'm prompted to ask these questions based on something I read in Arvind's reply to one of my questions to the User:Ncmvocalist here.--Aadal (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I waited for a good answer. But since nothings is said on this matter, I wish to ask whether the word used is Kannada or Karnata? Is this a simple mistake (incorrect spelling), a false claim, or a misrepresentation? Could someone clarify? Thanks. --Aadal (talk) 19:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Per Arvind's comments, I believe we can safely change the word Kannada to Karnata Bhasha in this sentence. - KNM Talk 03:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
My source specifically says "Kannada", not "Karnata Bhasha". However, if the context is the same, then I am willing to examine Arvind's leads.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 11:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Arvind's RfC comment

  • "...do any of the books on Kannada literature actually postdate Pollock's theories?"

Hmm. As you can see (have you checked?) from the absurd number of quotes and extracts above, the postulation that there must have been pre-KRM literature finds support continually for more than a century all the way down to a brief mention(understandable, given that her book is about all of Early Indian history and not just Kannada literature) Romila Thapar (2004). Shastri, Mugali, Sahitya Akademi, even Nagaraj (will come to that in a min) echo the views of kittel, bl rice, ep rice and RN. Nothing in WP:RS or anywhere else suggests that a Pollock(2006) is enough to overrule an entire century and more of scholarship from the who's who in the field. There's always a professor you can find who will claim the opposite of anything. That is precisely what we have WP:UNDUE for.

  • First, Nagaraj is pretty categorical in saying that the Kavirajamarga is "the beginning of a magisterial institution called literature." (p. 333) I think the point he's making should be quite clear if you look at the way he contrasts 'poetry as a "natural" activity' with the start of literature as an institution.

You're reading between lines. Nagaraj if anything, is quite clear when he says (emphases mine) --

""As things stand now, any initiative to explore the beginings of Kannada literature takes on the character of a search for missing authors and genres. The literary historian has to behave like a detective, for the missing works have vanished in a process of formalizing and privileging certain literary practices. The KRM lists authors and forms that have disappeared -- or have been removed -- from the formal discourse of literature, and hereby shows us that poetics is nothing if not an attempt to negotiate with the political..."

In essence he is concurring, quite matter-of-factly, with the position that there must have been literature which pre-dated KRM. Whether or not this earlier corpus was of the same quality or it belonged to a tradition which can be termed a "magesterial institution" or whether it shared its tastes with that which followed the KRM, is an entirely different matter. Nagraj for one, even seems to suggest that the tastes KRM engendered and subscribed to (and equally disapproved of) may itself have had a role in the "disappearance or removal" of this early literature.
Also, while KRM certainly has a role in the postulation, it would be inconceivable to suppose that this postulation was arrived at by scholars by merely taking the KRM's words at face value. And even if that was the case, it must have been for very good reasons and we on wikipedia, have no option but to defer to their judgement and scholarship.

It would be even more inconceivable that scholars for over a 100 years would not have examined the possibility that the authors named in the KRM may have been Amoghavarsha's contemporaries. Atleast, I havent been shown any evidence of that. What I have seen, on the contrary, is that all scholars who posit a pre-KRM corpus do so in an exceptionally confident tone, almost matter-of-fact. E. P. Rice, for example even emphasises "earlier writers..".

And, for all the hoopla about Pollock, let us see what he really says. Pollock only seems averse to taking the KRM's words about earlier authors and works at face value. He DOES NOT take issue with other scholars' postulations about earlier literature and it is not for us on wikipedia to distill it out of his comments on another matter far more specific in scope.

  • Finally, note that I'm not suggesting we wish the older literature away - just that we add a qualification that recent research has questioned some of its conclusions.

You are not suggesting that, because you know better. But who is to reason with an Aadal or a Fowler, ignorant as they are, of Kannada, its history and literature. And talking of adding qualifications, I would be wary of adding anything which would simply wave away scholarship which has stood the test of time. Remember, Pollock only tells us that "there is no reason not to..."... he doesnt give us his reasons why "there is no reason not to.." nor does he discredit or tell us why authors who dont subscribe to his view, dont subscribe to his view. It is not as if he has unearthed some new archeological or literary evidence which has completely and decisively disproved a hundred years of scholarship. Sarvagnya 00:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

True neither Adal nor I know Kannada, but we do know the English language. Mr. Sarvagnya, on the other hand, is a master of Old Kannada. Among his lasting contributions to Old Kannada prose is the sentence: "In terms of literary character, it is rationalised under the Jaina, Veerashaiva and Vaishnava heads - reflective of the three dominant faiths which informed and fostered Kannada literature until the advent of the modern era." Until this literary Colossus of Rhodes was desecrated by users Abecedare and Fowler&fowler, and reduced to a sad heap of submerged English, it stood head and shoulders above all else, beckoning lovers of Old Kannada into this haven of Kannada literature. Now Mr. Sarvagnya is also laying claim to be the last interpreter of Sheldon Pollock on earth. Would he then like to translate this paragraph of Pollock's prosaic English into Old Kannada?

The evidence is thus unequivocal, and the implications significant. All authors of Kannada praise-poems viewed the commencement of Kannada literary chronology the same way that Sanskrit writers regarded the commencement of Sanskrit: as a rupture in time, a moment of discontinuity, when something new began. Although no one would be awarded the title of "primal poet" (adikavi) in Kannada until the fourteenth century, when Pampa was so consecrated (and he remained primal poet from that point on), there is little question that in the minds of writers like Durgasimha and Nagavarma, the Margam (i.e. Kavirajamarga) and its redactor (or author), Srivijaya, occupied a comparable position. What is especially important is that in none of these lists, from as early as 1031, can we perceive any literary-historical memory reaching back before the ninth century. And this starting point finds further confirmation in the actual practices of reading and quoting. What constitute the historically significant texts of Kannada literature in the praise-poems of Nagavarma's literary work are the same that are meaningful to him in his works on grammar and rhetoric. Here he names no poet earlier than Pampa (942) and cites none, so far as we are able to tell, earlier than Gunavarma (900). Whether or not workly uses of the Kannada language that were textually inscribed—that is, Kannada literature—had in fact existed before the time of the Margam, they made no history, since later poets had no memory whatever of them. If we are to take the representation of the working writers in the early second millennium seriously, as a true index of effective literary history, then we must conclude that to their minds their vernacular tradition was an astonishingly recent invention."

And, by the way, don't try to remove this post, as you are wont to do when the balloon of your pretense is punctured. The point I'm trying to make is that you have no clue what Pollock is talking about. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
PS I will address the topic of Mr. Sarvagnya's mastery of D. R. Nagaraj in a later post. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:47, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I did see the quote from Romila Thapar, but I'd asked about histories of literature, not of the country. General history and literary history are at least as distinct as musicological history and literarary history, and historians aren't always particularly concerned with the niceties of the distinction between "verse" and "poetry" or "literature" and "the written word". But anyway, since I've tried twice - and failed both times - to convey why I think the distinction which Pollock and Nagaraj draw between natural poetic expression and a literary tradition is relevant to this article, I'm not sure there's much point in continuing this discussion (there're no hard feelings on this end - I simply don't think I can express myself any better). You can have the last word if you like, or we can leave it at this. -- Arvind (talk) 13:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

ISBN for Kamath 2001

user:Dineshkannambadi, please provide the ISBN for Kamath 2001. If it is indeed a new edition (as you say) it should have a different ISBN; however, in all Wikipedia pages where you have used the book, you have only provide Library of Congress or World Cat Catalog information, which connects to the 1980 edition of the book, not the 2001 edition. (Kamath, Suryanath U. (2001) [1980], A concise history of Karnataka : from pre-historic times to the present, Bangalore: Jupiter books, LCCN 8095179, OCLC 7796041 {{citation}}: Check |lccn= value (help)) Please provide the new ISBN. If there is no ISBN, please provide updated catalog links for the new edition. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Fowler , From WP guidlines [WP]

-- "Never address other users in a heading: A heading should invite all editors to respond to the subject addressed. " Bharatveer (talk) 11:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks ever so much Bharatveer! One lives and learns. Had no idea. Been fixed. Sincerely, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:35, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

I wasn't following the article closely for a couple of days and noticed that several changes have been made in the meantime. Some of them are certain improvements (such as moving the "evidence" section to medieval section), but the second paragraph of the lede and some parts of the Pre-Classical section are now a mess. I presume that the main remaining dispute is regarding how to discuss the pre-KRM, literature/writing, right ? My broad suggestion on writing the pre-Classical section are as follows:

  1. Begin with a short paragraph on the pre-KRM inscriptions, including Halmidi (as we discussed above at great length!).
  2. Introduce KRM, its dating (850c), its nature (text on poetics), and content (i.e., it mentions poets, poetic works and styles). Note, AFAIK, all this is completely undisputed!
  3. Briefly outline how some of the poets mentioned in KRM have been associated with historical figures; and how its content is taken as evidence of pre-existing Kannada literature.
  4. Mention the other works that are though to be pre-KRM, but which are evidenced from sources other than KRM (such as Syamakundacharya).
  5. Briefly outline Pollock's view that (1) the poets mentioned in KRM are probably his contemporaries; (2) pre-KRM works, even if they existed, did not influence later writing and therefore are not part of the stream of Kannada "literary tradition." Space permitting. we can mention the distinct he draws between literization and literarization (excuse my spellings).

Does that sound reasonable ?
I think we should work out the exact phrasing and references here on the talk page. This may take some time, but is better than edit-warring in the main page (edit-summaries are not a substitute for discussion!).

The lede will need to be amended to summarize all of the above details in two sentences (at most), and should not be the place for laying out the arguments themselves. Abecedare (talk) 00:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Abecedare. Sounds good to me. The addition to the lead (on my part) was a deliberate effort to "balance" other additions that had begun to be made there in your absence. I agree though that the lead is not the best place to do this, and many apologies. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec) No problem. Some turbulence is tolerable as long as we manage to land this behemoth. :-)
I saw references to "Pai" in some of the edit summaries. Can someone point out the exact work being referred to ? Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 00:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what the Wikipedia policy for multiple footnotes is, but can't we coalesce all the citations at a certain point in the text into one footnote? I mean five, six, or seven footnotes at a single point in a sentence is a bit excessive (and ugly). I don't know if this is an indirect visual means of showcasing the strength of the evidence, but the footnotes could easily be combined into one footnote: <ref> Kamath (1980), p. 22; Sahitya Akademi (1988), p. 334; Pollock (1998), p. 81; Ramesh (1984), p. 35. </ref> Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we can combine them into one footnote. These stylistic matters should be easy to handle once we have the content and references finalized. Abecedare (talk) 00:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
If you meant my reference to Pai, here it is: Bhat, M. Thirumaleshwara. (1993) Goving Pai, Sahitya Akademi. Pp. 117. ISBN 8172015402.

"The antiquity of Kannada language or literature is a favourite subject of Govind Pai as he wrote a series of articles on it. His first article on this subject ... was published in 1928. On the basis of the Kannada work KRM of 9th century AD, especially on the basis of earlier poets mentioned there, GP guesses that Kannada literature must have been quite developed as early as the 6th or 7th century. Extending this thesis further he writes that in an inscription of the 5th century AD discovered in Tamatekallu in Chitradurga district he observed the extensive use of Sanskrit words in a Kannada stanza inscribed there and hazards a guess that prior to the adoption of Sanskrit words there must have been a fairly long period of literary composition when the native words were in vogue. He thus traces the literary development of Kannada to 300 or 400 years prior to this inscription. In a further section of this work he traces words of Kannada origin in an anthology of poems in Prakrit Gathasaptasati by Hala of Satavahana race of first or second century AD. This makes him extend the antiquity of Kannada literature even prior to the beginning of the Christian era. (p. 102) .... More recent writers on the topic like Dr. R. S. Mugali have accepted the general tenor of Govind Pai's argument with reference to KRM but have reservations about his view that there were works in Kannada on grammar and prosody even prior to the age of KRM. In the last mentioned lecture and in the earlier essay, Govind Pai had argued that Vaddaradhane was written in the 6th century. Dr. D. L. Narasimhachar has however convincingly proved that this work was written about 920 AD and to this extent Govind Pai's argument lose their strength ..." (p. 103)

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Abecedare, much of it seems reasonable. Just a few more things. The current Halmidi dating has been altered (mentioning majority and minority dating in the main article) from the earlier sentence you had provided, which mentions only the majority view point and any minority view points to be in footnotes, if at all or in sub-article. Secondly, I also request that Sheldon alone should not be given sole, singular importance and mentioned explicitly on the main article. He may be an expert, but so are others. A foot note is best for him. The Rfc withdraw candidate, contrary to his word (not surprisingly) has tried reverts even on sub-articles such as Halmidi inscription of late. I am here to help you and provide any assistance in what ever form you find necessary.thank you. Please proceed.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 01:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I have taken the initiative to implement the "usual dating" + footnote + pipelinking solution that seemed to have broad support among both involved and uninvolved editors. I have used K.V. Ramesh as the citation, since he discusses the dates in greater detail than anyone else I have seen and specifically discusses the two estimates. Hopefully this won't set off another edit war!
  • Perhaps, we can craft the language of the section first, before deciding whether Pollock's views should be in the maintext or the footnotes. Currently I am leaning towards the former, since (1) Pollock is an acknowledged and contemporary scholar on the topic (as are others to varying degrees); and (2) he writes about the topic in some detail (in contrast to say, Soloman's mentioning KRM dating casually in a work where Kannada inscriptions is not the subject) so the reader will benefit from learning of his alternate thesis - but all that can be discussed down the line.
Any suggestions on how to proceed ? I can make an initial proposal for the language (with help from other editors, since I don't have all the references with me), but that may take 3-4 days. Regards. Abecedare (talk) 01:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Please do make the initial proposal.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 01:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Abecedare, one of my concerns both on the Halmidi inscription page and the pre-classical section, are some strange qualifications that always accompany mention of Halmidi: "The Halmidi inscription is the earliest evidence of usage of Kannada as an administrative language." (on Halmidi inscription page) It is the earliest evidence of written Kannada. Period. Similarly "The earliest full length Kannada inscription is the Halmidi inscription" (pre-classical). Is there an earlier half-length Kannada manuscript? "The poetic Tamatekallu inscription has been identified by some scholars to be from the 5th century." (pre-classical) "Poetic?" I thought Kappe Arabhatta c. 700 was the earliest example of poetry? Speaking of Kappe Arabhatta, does it have more than the three lines supplied in the Kappe Arabhatta page? If so, what are they? If not, is a three-liner really the first example of poetry? Especially, if it is a likely direct translation of earlier Sanskrit work. Just because some Indian scholar misuses the word "poetry" for "poetic content," doesn't mean that Wikipedia has to go along with it. "... the Siragunda inscription from 500 CE." Are we going to play this game of gathering the crumbs, however stale, for one more sign of Kannada's antiquity. I can't seem to find any modern confirmation of Siragunda. Anyway, these are just some general concerns ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
For people who have been reading about Kannada inscriptions for some time and have genuine interest in the subject, it is well understood that bilingual inscriptions (Kannada-Sanskrit) have existed long beofre Halmidi (The Tumbula inscritptions of 444CE being an example). So Halmidi is perhaps the first full length inscription in Kannada language and script (assuming the 450 date). Just because a few scholars quote it a later date does not wish away other inscriptions such as Tamatekallu, Siragunda etc. Also very very few scholars give Halmidi a date later than 5th century. Secondly, The Kappe Arabhatta inscription whose poetry appears in its link page is perhaps part of the poem. I will be visiting Badami this July to photograph this inscription. Even the Sahtiya Akademi Encyclopaedia mentions it. It is poetry in Tripadi metre, one of the oldest native metres in Kannada (Sahitya Akademi).Dineshkannambadi (talk) 02:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
And what about people, who have been pushing their POV on other Wikipedia pages like Indian copper plate inscriptions and calling Sanskrit inscriptions with a few Kannada words thrown in, "bilingual inscriptions?" Apparently user:Dineshkannambadi, is happy to combine a report from the Hindu newspaper and a description of "bilingual" from Romila Thapar to do some rough and ready OR. This antique frenzy is much worse than I had thought. user:Dineshkannambadi, please list all the other pages here (that link to this page) so that we can take care of them in one fell swoop. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

PS. Well, why don't I start the list? List of pages that are linked in this article and need to be reconsidered (for dating and other content inaccuracies) in light of this RfC and the article's ambition to appear as an FAC soon for the third time:

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

(reply to F&f after ec)
  • AFAIK, the "administrative language" was used on the Halmidi inscription, because that is what the particular cited source said. I think that qualifier can be eliminated/weakened based on other reliable sources, but that may be a discussion relevant to that article's talk page.
  • As for your questions about the other inscriptions: Unfortunately I don't have enough knowledge about the topic yet to even have an opinion, let alone an answer - but I intend to educate myself over the next few days. I'll probably have questions for Dinesh, you and others on your talk pages as I try to draft the language for the pre-Classical section. As I said before, it will take a few days for me to devote enough time to it and get up to speed, and I'll appreciate yawl help (and patience!) Regards. Abecedare (talk) 02:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts Abecedare. K.V. Ramesh specifically mentions it as "administrative language" from the Halmidi time onwards in 'Chalukyas of Vatapi' - pages 1-10).Dineshkannambadi (talk) 02:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I think it's more than a little absurd if an article on Kannada literature devotes as much space to works that are not extant as it does to the vast corpus of literature produced in the Mysore period or the Hoysala period. Surely we don't need more than a sentence or two on that in the entire article, forget the lede? I agree the KRM deserves a serious mention because of the place it occupies, but seriously, spending so much time discussing works that no longer exist? I understand that you're just trying to reflect consensus in your proposal, Abecedare, so this isn't directed at you. -- Arvind (talk) 13:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Bizarre?

I'm sorry, the content inaccuracies of the prehistory of Kannada literature have been reproduced on too many other pages, and I fear that something very bizarre is going on here:

  • The whopper! In the lead of the Indian literature page, user:Dineshkannambdi has added, replete with tell-tale multiple footnotes, the extinct Kannada works in the same paragraph as Kalidasa etc. Check out the Notes in the Indian literature page (especially the last one). Familiar? Notice that the extinct 96,000-verse commentary of Chudamani, which user:DK has tactfully changed to "long" or something similar in this article, is mentioned. Really, 96,000 verses, and not a single survived? At ten verses a page, this is an approx. 10,000 page book. I note, the Mahabharata has only 74,000 verses.
  • Medieval Kannada literature (Early history section) Same inaccuracies (all work of DK)
  • Badami
  • Kannada language (same OR about bilingual)
  • Political history of medieval Karnataka, a featured article, (see last few paragraphs in the Badami Chalukya section) for repetition of all the extinct stuff.
  • I can probably find more, but I'm exhausted. Whatever, choice of language is arrived at, at the end of this RfC, will need to be reproduced in all these pages. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:19, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Extinct works are not "noteworthy". They could even be pure legend, which could make them noteworthy in a somewhat different sense. rudra (talk) 14:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Pages created/rewritten

I have rewritten the Kappe Arabhatta page and also created a page on the Tripadi meter. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Earliest Kannada Inscriptions

Instead of focusing on Halmidi, if you examine what scholars are saying about the earliest Kannada inscriptions, a slightly different picture emerges. To be sure there are still many who assign the date c. 450 and cite Halmidi, but there are a number of heavy-hitters, who are choosing not to mention Halmidi and who simply talk about the earliest Kannada inscriptions, and assign the 6th or even 7th century. Among these are the historian Irfan Habib, the historian of Karnataka Burton Stein, the linguists David Crystal and Andrew Dalby. This, in addition to the epigraphists D. C. Sircar, G. S. Gai, Richard Salomon, and the literary scholars Sheldon Pollock and T. V. Venkatachala Sastry. It may be that if you simply add the numbers, the "c. 450" camp still has the majority, but assigning the earliest Kannada inscriptions to the sixth century, now cannot be regarded as a minority view, worthy only of being footnoted. I have collected some sources on my subpage: Early inscriptions. I also explain there why Britannica has made a change to the later date (in contrast to some earlier articles published in it). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that it took so much effort to pull up marginal information speaks for itself. For every popular theory in history, there will be a few fringe theories which if we get carried away with, would be making a mockery of wiki rules on "popular opinion. Even with all these "heavy hitters" you claim, the 5th century dating for Halmidi probably wins 50:1. BTW, this is the first time in all my years of being interested in history that I am seeing a scholar claim that Telugu inscriptions are from 5th century. The earliest Telugu inscription is from 575 (Renati Cholas) or later. Just because some of the "heavy hitters" have their own wiki pages means nothing. I could write up pages for Narasimhacharya, K.A.N. Sastri and the likes in a weekend.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 00:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
You can claim whatever you want, but sadly you don't have any modern scholars on your side, only Karnataka fantasists like Govind Pai were trying to roll the Halmidi stone back into history—before the birth of Christ, before the death of Homer—into the stone age, or the numerous "authors" in the Sahitya Akademi book who apparently weren't quite aware which version of the tripadi they were quoting, but were quick nonetheless to claim something or the other was the oldest tripadi. Oh, and I forgot to mention that your main man S. U. Kamath, in his book History of Karnataka from Prehistoric Times to ... a book that has been referenced 17 times in this article, 61 times in the Kingdom of Mysore article, and 31 times in the Vijayanagara Empire, says this in the introduction of his 1980 edition, the 2001 edition, the 2006 edition and the (soon to be printed) 2008 edition:

"We have an inscription of the 6th century, written in the Kannada language and the Kannada script. This is the famous Halmidi record of the Kadambas. (For long, scholars were of the view that it belonged to c. 450 AD and opinion is still divided over its date. (Introduction, p. 6)

How come—if he can give such pride of place to the "6th century" in the introduction of a history book that is so widely used in Karnataka colleges that it's price has dropped to Rs. 65 ($1.50)—you only want to footnote it? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
And speaking of Narasimhacharya and K. N. Sastry, I said "modern," not people who died in 1936 (Narasimhacharya), or published their magnum opus (Sastry) in 1955, that according to D. R. Nagraj has long been overtaken by the work of Stein and others. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
PS I only created the page for G. S. Gai. The one for Irfan Habib was created in 2005, Burton Stein in 2007 (by user:Blnguyen), David Crystal in 2004, Andrew Dalby in 2006, Sheldon Pollock in early 2007. They are heavy hitters not because they have pages, but because they've done great work. The pages came afterwards. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

You make excellent points F&f. I hope DK and a few other editors with similar thinking should examine what F&f is saying. There will be scholarly impact if the research and documentation are done well. I do not imply that everything Sircar or Pollock or Burton Stein et al. have done will hold for ever. What F&f had shown is that there is considerable scholarship (it is not number count as DK sadly implies) to show that the Halmidi is probably of 6th century (like Britanica says). WP article should reflect what F&f had assiduously shown evidence for. --Aadal (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Other problems with Halmidi

It is not only epigraphist K. V. Ramesh, who in his book Indian Epigraphy (1984), uses the words "allegedly written during reign of (King) Kadamba Kakusthavarman ..." in describing Halmidi, epigraphist G. S. Gai identifies "Kadambapan Kakustha-Bhaṭṭōran," referred to in Halmidi, with another ruler, Kakustha of the Bhaṭāri family, who lived later. I have explained some of Gai's reasons in an expanded version of the "Halmidi inscription" article on my subpage: Halmidi Record. Consequently, the Halmidi record is not included in the volume Inscriptions of the early Kadambas (1996), authored by Gai, in the new series on inscriptions published by the Indian Council of Historical Research. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Earliest inscriptions and administrative language

I had asked earlier why the qualification "administrative language" was applied to the language of the Halmidi inscription, and I was referred to page 10 of K. V. Ramesh's book, Chalukyas of Vatapi (1984). This in fact is the page number cited in the Halmidi inscription page as well, where the sentence says: "The Halmidi inscription is the earliest evidence of usage of Kannada as an administrative language." Unfortunately, I can't seem to find Ramesh saying that in his book. What I can find Ramesh saying on pages 10 and 11 is:

It is in the field of language that we find the Kadamba-Ganga era covering a very significant period. Starting their careers at the end of the Prakrit era, the Kadambas and Gangas stepped into the age of classical Sanskrit having fully imbibed the love and fervour of the Guptas for that immortal yet presently moribund speech. While the diction and style of their insciptions fully reflect the advancement of that language, the best among them, the Talagunda inscription, written by the poet Kubja, captures that language in all its classical excellence and intricacies. Yet, for the Kannadiga, the Kadamba-Ganga era is of momentous importance not because of the heights scaled by Sanskrit but because that period saw the elevation, hesitant though, of his own mother tongue Kannada as an official language.... Of all the historical vestiges of the Kadamba-Ganga era that have come down to us, none stirs the heart of a Kannadiga as much as the Halmidi Kannada inscription of Kadamba Kakusthavarman does. Though more than ten decades rolled by before the next Kannada inscription got written, the Halmidi epigraph proves beyong doubt that Kannada had come to be recognised as the language of the soil by at least the middle of the 5th century A. D.

— K. V. Ramesh, Chalukya's of Vatapi, 1984, pp. 10-11
  • Notice the careful language: "... that period saw the elevation, hesitant though, of his own mother tongue Kannada as an official language." The period is mid-4th to late 6th centuries A.D. (both in Gai's book, Inscriptions of the early Kadambas and in Ramesh's book Inscriptions of the Western Gangas published by the Indian Council of Historical Research). However, neither on page 10, nor page 11, can I find any reference to Halmidi as an example of this. Sure, it says, "language of the soil," but that is quite different. But, maybe, I have missed something. Could someone explain to me how "administrative usage" was arrived at.
  • Notice also, that even though Ramesh disagrees with Gai, Sircar, and Salomon, on the dating of the Halmidi inscription, he is agreed with them on "Though more than ten decades rolled by before the next Kannada inscription got written, ..." This means that all four prominent epigraphists of early-medieval India are agreed that nothing else was written in Kannada at least until the c. 550 A.D. I make this point, because I see another (rear-guard) move afoot (in case Halmidi doesn't quite pan out) by the addition of the sentence "The poetic Tamatekallu inscription has been identified by some scholars to be from the 5th century[1][2] and the Siragunda inscription from 500 CE.[3]" in the Pre-classical period section. I want to make the point that even the most prominent defender of the c. 450 CE date for Halmidi agrees that nothing else was written in Kannada (anywhere) until at least 550 CE. This point was driven home to me, when I picked up Gai's Inscriptions of the early Kadambas (1996) and to my surprise found that all the inscriptions were in Sanskrit (Halmidi having been discarded for reasons mentioned in the previous section).
  • Finally, for the people who cite the number of citations, please note that in Google Scholar, when you search for "earliest Kannada inscriptions" or "halmidi inscription" at the bottom of the page, the "key authors" that show up are usually: S. Pollock, D. Sircar, R. Salomon, B. Stein, not E. P. Rice or R. Narasimhacharya. Since Google determines its key authors by the numbers of times they are cited by other authors, that is an important indication of how they are regarded in the world of scholarship. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference loka was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Pai in Bhat , (1993), p. 102
  3. ^ Rice E.P. (1921), p. 13
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