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Translation Practices in Pre-colonial India:86 Interrogating StereotypesBut at a later stage they also add that the vernacular beginsto emulate the hegemonic structure/language.From the above quoted passages it is clear that two themesare identified in the context of translations in medieval India 3 . One isthat translations which were hitherto not permitted in the direction ofSanskrit into Indian vernaculars did take place. And the other is thatthis challenged the hegemonic order/language, and was a democraticmove.A look at the translation practices in Kannada literaturearound 10 th century onwards will warrant a reformulation of thesetwo arguments.There are certain assumptions that work behind thesearguments, and the aim of this article is to critically examine theseassumptions and articulate doubts before laying out some futurelines for research. To begin with, the emergence of Bhakti literatureand the emergence of Indian language literatures don’t coalesce inthe context of the emergence of Kannada and Tamil literatures. 4Scholars such as S. Nagaraju and Sheldon Pollock, whohave worked on the socio-political context of the emergence ofTelugu and Kannada literature, point out that a certain kind ofagrarian economy led to formation of states, and emergence ofchieftains. These developments in turn enabled vernacularlanguages, making them capable of expressing complex issues. Italso gave rise to literary production. Pollock characterizes theemergence of the language of Kannada literature in such a context asgiving rise to a cosmopolitanism in the vernacular because theselanguages emulated the cosmopolitan vernacular (Nagaraju 1995 andPollock 1998). These scholars have laid emphasis on state and classformations. I argue here that the role of religion cannot beundermined in the emergence of literature in Kannada and bothstate-formation and religion have to be taken into consideration.