Scholars were divided about Ponna's protagonist in "Bhuvanaika-Ramabhyudaya". The scholar D.L. Narasimhachar had opined that Ponna had eulogised Shankaraganda, a vassal king under emperor Krishna III. This opinion was based on the fact that Shankaraganda held the honorific "Bhuvanaikarama". However, modern Kannada poet Govinda Pai argued in his 1936 article, "Ponnana Bhuvanaikaramanu yaru" ("Who was Ponna's Bhuvanaikarama"?), that king Shankaraganda being a Jain by faith could not have been the central figure in a secular writing and that emperor Krishna III also held the same title. Later, the scholar D.L. Narasimhachar confirmed the validity of Govinda Pai's findings.