commander Janna wrote Yashodhara Charite, a unique set of stories dealing with perversion. In one of the stories, a king intended to perform a ritual sacrifice of two young boys to Mariamma, a local deity. After hearing the boys' tale, the king is moved to release them and renounce the practice of human sacrifice. In honour of this work, Janna received the title Kavichakravarthi ("Emperor among poets") from King Veera Ballala II. His other classic, Anathanatha Purana (1230), deals with the life of the 14th Tirthankar Ananthanatha. Vijayanagara period The 14th century saw major upheavals in geo-politics of southern India with Muslim empires invading from the north. The Vijayanagara Empire stood as a bulwark against these invasions and created an atmosphere conducive to the development of the fine arts. In a golden age of Kannada literature, competition between Vaishnava and Veerashaiva writers was fierce and literary disputations between the two sects were common, especially in the court of King Deva Raya II. Acute rivalry led to "organised processions" in honour of the classics written by poets of the respective sects. The king himself was no less a writer, the romantic stories Sobagina Sone (lit "The Drizzle of Beauty") and Amaruka are assigned to him. To this period belonged Kumara Vyasa (the pen name of Naranappa), a doyen of medieval epic poets and one of the most influential Vaishnava poets of the time. He was particularly known for his sophisticated use of metaphors and had even earned the title Rupaka Samrajya Chakravarti ("Emperor of the land of Metaphors"). In 1430, he wrote the Gadugina Bharata, popularly known as Karnata Bharata Kathamanjari or Kumaravyasa Bharata in the Vyasa tradition. The work is a translation of the first ten chapters of the epic Mahabharata and emphasises the divinity and grace of the Lord Krishna, portraying all characters with the exception of Krishna to suffer from human foibles. An interesting aspect of the work is the sense of humour exhibited by the poet and his hero, Krishna. This work marked a transition of Kannada literature to a more modern genre and heralded a new age combining poetic perfection with religious inspiration. The remaining parvas (chapters) of Mahabharata were translated by Timmanna Kavi (1510) in the court of King Krishnadevaraya. The poet named his work Krishnaraya Bharata after his patron king. Kumara Valmiki (1500) wrote the first complete brahminical adaptation of the epic Ramayana, called