Telugu writings. There were rare interactions with Tamil literature, as well. Though religious literature was prominent, literary genres including romance, fiction, erotica, satire, folk songs, fables and parables, musical treatises and musical compositions were popular. The topics of Kannada literature included grammar, philosophy, prosody, rhetoric, chronicles, biography, history, drama and cuisine, as well as dictionaries and encyclopedias. According to critic Joseph T. Shipley, over fifty works on scientific subjects including medicine, mathematics and astrology have been written in the Kannada language. Kannada literature of this period was mainly written on palm leaves. However, more than 30,000 more durable inscriptions on stone (known as shilashasana) and copper plates (known as tamrashasana) have survived to inform modern students of the historical development of Kannada literature. The Shravanabelagola inscription of Nandisena (7th century), Kappe Arabhatta inscription (c. 700), and the Hummacha and Soraba inscriptions (c. 800) are good examples of poetry in tripadi metre, and the Jura (Jabalpur) inscription of King Krishna III (964) is regarded as an epigraphical landmark of classical Kannada composition, containing poetic diction in kanda metre, a form consisting of a group of stanzas or chapters. Elegiac poetry on hundreds of veeragallu and maastigallu (hero stones) written by unknown poets in the kanda and the vritta (commentary) metre mourn the death of heroes who sacrificed their lives and the bravery of women who performed sati. According to the scholar T. V. Venkatachala Sastry, the book Karnataka Kavicharitre compiled by Kannada scholar R. Narasimhachar lists over one thousand anonymous pieces of Kannada literature that cover an array of topics under religious and secular categories. Some fifty Vachana poets are known only by the pen names (ankita) used in their poems. Most Jain writings included in the list are from the period 1200–1450 CE, while Lingayat and Vaishnava writings are from later periods. Secular topics include mathematics, medicine, science of horses and elephants, architecture, geography and hydrology. The pace of change towards more modern literary styles gained momentum in the early 19th century. Kannada writers were initially influenced by the modern literature of other languages, especially English. Modern English education and liberal democratic values inspired social changes, intertwined with the desire to retain the best of traditional ways. New genres including short stories, novels, literary criticism, and essays, were embraced as Kannada prose moved toward modernisation. Classical period Rashtrakuta court The reign of the imperial Rashtrakutas and their powerful feudatory, the