Cite
MLA
“Kannada.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/lipi/kannada-language/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Kannada. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/lipi/kannada-language/
01The Halmidi stone
In 1936 a stone was found at Halmidi village in Hassan district recording a land grant made in the time of the Kadamba king Kakusthavarma. Dated by its script to about 450 CE, it is the earliest full inscription in the Kannada language; the original is now in a museum in Mysuru and a replica stands at the village. Over the next centuries the Badami Chalukyas, the Rashtrakutas and the Hoysalas left tens of thousands of Kannada inscriptions, more than for almost any other Indian language.
02Kavirajamarga to the Haridasas
The Kavirajamarga, a work on poetics from the court of the Rashtrakuta king Amoghavarsha I in the 9th century, describes the Kannada land as stretching from the Kaveri to the Godavari. Pampa, the adikavi, wrote the Vikramarjuna Vijaya in 941; Ponna and Ranna followed. In the 12th century Basavanna and the Sharanas wrote vachanas, short prose poems to Shiva in everyday speech. Purandara Dasa and Kanakadasa sang of Vitthala and Krishna in Kannada, and Purandara Dasa’s lessons are still the first a Carnatic music student learns.
03Today
Kannada was declared a classical language in 2008. It is the official language of Karnataka, and its writers have won eight Jnanpith awards, from Kuvempu in 1967 onward. The 2011 Census counted 4,37,06,512 Kannada speakers, and the language is also the second tongue of millions of Tulu, Kodava, Konkani and Beary speakers in the state. Rajyotsava Day, 1 November, marks the creation of the Kannada-speaking state in 1956.
