2I my notice has been left out. As stated before, the accounts of some of the poets are very meagre owing to the want of fuller information. In the absence of any other evidence the period of some of the poets has been inferred from the state of the manuscript, the mode of writing, the date of transcription, the style &c. If those who are in possession of the requisite materials help in the removal of these defects hey will be doing a gieat favour to students of Kannada, literature Some one may ask the question-“ Why are you in such a hurry to publish a work which is admittedly defective ?", and my reply is this “ Man is mortal; it is not right that the materials laboriously gathered during a period of nearly a quarter of a century should be allowed to perish with the gatherer , if on the other hand they are published and laid before the public, there is a likelihood, at some time or other, of their being corrected and improved upon" I therefore offer this volume as a further tribute to the Kannadigas nuth a full knowledge of its defects I may however be permitted to state that it was my intense love for the language that impelled me to this difficult task and not any desire for gain If the volume will conduce in however small a degree to the advancement of the Kannada language, I shall deem my labours amply rewarde d * I am deeply grateful to His Highness the Maharaja of Mysore for having graciously permitted me to dedicate this volume to him
- With regard to the antiquity of the Kannada language, the following may be of some interest - According to Jaund tradition Brahmı, the daughter ot Rishabhadeva, the first Jaina who flourished in the Dushama-Dushshama period of the present cycle (avasarpını), invented 18 alphabeta, including: among others, Kannada Recently a curious inscription of about the 9th century was found in a Jauna Tenıple in the Deogarh Fort, containing specimens of different alphabets mostly Dravidian Report on the Hindu and Bud. dhust Mounments, Northern Circle, for 1918, p 10
