Asaga

Asaga
Born	c. 800 CE
Occupation	poet
Period	Rashtrakuta literature
Genre	Jain literature
Notable works	Vardhaman Charitra (Sanskrit, c. 853); Karnataka Kumarasambhava Kavya (Kannada, about c.850)

Asaga was a 9th-centuryDigambara Jain poet who wrote in Sanskrit and Kannada language. He is most known for his extant work in Sanskrit, the Vardhaman Charitra (Life of Vardhamana). This epic poem which runs into eighteen cantos was written in 853 CE. It is the earliest available Sanskrit biography of the last tirthankara of Jainism, Mahavira. In all, he authored at least eight works in Sanskrit. In Kannada, none of his writings, including the Karnataka Kumarasambhava Kavya (an adaptation of Kalidas's epic poem Kumārasambhava) that have been referenced by later day poets (including Nagavarma II who seems to provide a few quotations from the epic poem in his Kavyavalokana) have survived.

His writings are known to have influenced Kannada poet Sri Ponna, the famous court poet of Rashtrakuta King Krishna III, and other writers who wrote on the lives of Jain Tirthankaras.Kesiraja, (authored Shabdamanidarpana in c. 1260 CE), a Kannada grammarian cites Asaga as an authoritative writer of his time and places him along with other masters of early Kannada poetry.

Asaga's name is considered an apbramsha form of the Sanskrit name Aśoka or Asanga. A contemporary of Rashtrakuta King Amoghavarsha I (800–878 CE), Asaga lived in modern Karnataka and made important contributions to the corpus of Rashtrakuta literature created during their rule in southern and central India between the 8th and 10th centuries. Like Kannada writer Gunavarma, Asaga earned fame despite having received no direct royal patronage.

...
Wikipedia