Bhagavata writings in Sanskrit by well-known (gurus) were solely meant to have a proselytising effect on the masses, encouraging them to a theistic way of life and belief in the god Krishna. Chatu Vitthalanatha, who flourished as a court poet of King Krishnadeva Raya and his successor King Achyuta Raya, was the first to translate the into Kannada in a voluminous writing comprising 12,247 stanzas divided into 280 sections. The work covered the entire original version in metre. Two other names appear in the colophons, Sadananda Yati and Nityatma Sukayogi, prompting some scholars to attribute the work to the group while others consider them alternate names of the same writer. The work covers all ten avatars of the god Vishnu, though it is essentially centred on the depiction of Krishna as the supreme Lord. The purana covers stories of Vishnu's famous devotees such as Prahlad and Dhruva in detail, as well as stories of demons Vritasura, Hiranyakashipu and others who sought to attain salvation by dying at the hands of Vishnu. Most noteworthy is the epic's influence on the compositions of the Haridasas. Though the writing is not considered as important as the other two epics of the period, its significance to religiously minded people is well accepted. Chatu Vitthalanatha wrote a fuller version of portions of the epic Mahabharata as well. Other notable writers of the 16th century were Tirumala Bhatta () and Ramendra (, using metre). Veerashaiva writings The Veerashaiva writers were devotees of the Hindu god Shiva, his 25 forms, and the expositions of Shaivism. An important development in their literature during this period was the recasting the saints of the 12th century Veerashaiva movement (Basavanna, Allama Prabhu and others) as the protagonists of their writings. Bhima Kavi paved the way for the metre tradition in his work (c.1369), a form first experimented with by the 12th century Hoysala poet Raghavanka. Bhima Kavi's work, a biography of Basavanna, is an important Veerashaiva . It was inspired by earlier biographies of Basavanna by the Hoysala poet Harihara (the author of the first biographical narrative poem of the protagonist's life called ) and the Telugu writings of Palkuriki Somanatha of the 13th century. Bhima Kavi humbly acknowledges and eulogises his predecessors in a writing full of well-known personalities. The author starts with Basavanna's birth and weaves episodes of other famous (devotees of Hindu god Shiva)—such as Allama Prabhu—into his