16 The Southern and Northern Schools in Kanna da. Some scholars have written at length about the so-called southern and northern schools in Kannada and expressed the opinion that they owe their existence mainly to the influence of Tamil and Telugu respectively There do not, however, seem to be sufficient grounds for this opinion. It is true that the expressions Southern and northern schools do occur in the Kavirajamarga of Nripatunga, the Kavyavalokuna of Nagavarma II and the Subdanusasana of Bhattak alanka Thus in the second chapter of the havirajanai ga these expresSions are used when treating of the ten mcrits of composition, But this part of the chapter is mostly a translatiol of the first chapter of the Kavyadarsa of Dandi in which the expressions are used in the sense of the Vaidarbha and Gauda schools or styles in Sanskrit Consequently whatever Nrı patunga has written with regard to the merits of composition refers as in the original to the Vaidarbha and Gauda schools, and not to the southern and northern schools in Kannada For examples of Nripatunga's translation of Dandi's verses the reader is referred to the Kannada Introduction Nripatunga, however, gives in another placel what he considers to be the distinguishing characteristics of the Southern and northein schools in Kannada, which consist merely in the use of one of the recognised duplicate forms of certain verbs in preference to the other Whatever may have been the case during or previous to the time of Nripatunga, we find no such distinction observed by authors who came after him. Let us see what Nagavarma II says about the southern and northern schools. He has adopted the title of the first chapter of Dandı’s work, namely, Marga-vibhaga, for the first section, which treats of the same subject, of the third chapter of his Kavyavalokana and has closely followed Dandı, like Nripatunga, in the treatment of the ten merits of composition. 1. II, 100—104.
