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A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s4: Telugu

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s4

Language
English

Telugu

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In ancient times the Telugu country was often called Trilinga, the country which contained or was bounded by the three lingas of Kālahasti, Śrīśailam and Dākṣārāma, and Telinga-Telugu as the name of the country and language may well be traced to this word. It is also suggested that Tel(n)ugu comes from tene, ‘honey’ or tennu, ‘way’. The beginnings of the language can be traced from stone inscriptions of the fifth and sixth century A.D., and its basic elements have unmistakable affinities with Tamil and Kannada. But, from the beginning, the literary idiom depended very largely upon Sanskrit and the Janāśrayachandas, an early work on prosody, fragments of which have recently come to light, though it includes some metres peculiar to Telugu and unknown to Sanskrit, is itself written in Sanskrit throughout; the author was most probably the Vishnukundin monarch Mādhavavarman II (580-620), who had this title Janāśraya. The inscriptions of the dynasty are in Sanskrit with an admixture of Prākrit and Telugu words.

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In the beginning Telugu had much in common with Kannada and this affinity persisted to a relatively late stage in the development of the two languages. Pampa and Ponna, two of the greatest Kannada poets, came from the Telugu country, and the great Telugu poet Śrinātha styles himself a poet in Karnāta-bhāshā. Early Telugu prose and verse can now be traced only in inscriptions like those of the Telugu-Chodas and the Eastern Chālukyas; a well-developed verse in sīsa metre adorns the grant of General Pānduranga (845-6). Beyond doubt there must have existed much unwritten literature of a popular character which enlivened the daily life of the common folk; such dēśi compositions may have included lālipāṭalu (songs of the cradle), mēlukolupulu (songs of the dawn), mangala hāratulu (songs of festivity), kīrtanalu (devotional songs) and ūḍupu pāṭalu (songs of the harvest).

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Higher literature strongly influenced by Sanskrit was said to be in the mārga style. Of this class no work earlier than the eleventh century has survived. The beginnings and early history of this type of writing can no longer be traced. Some are inclined to doubt the existence of a separate mārga style altogether.

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Telugu literature as we know it begins with Nannaya's translation of the Mahābhārata undertaken in the reign of Rājarāja Narendra (1019-61). Nannaya undertook the great work at the king's instance and had for his assistant a certain Nārāyana Bhaṭṭa, also a talented poet, who was rewarded richly by the monarch. Rājarāja's reign was a troubled time, and it is not known if the political troubles hampered the work of Nannaya. He was able to complete the translation of only two parvas (Ādi and Sabhā) and of a part of the third (Vana). The translation was not literal, and the poet allowed himself free scope for the exercise of his powers of imaginative creation; he set the model for later translators. Nannaya's vocabulary is dominated by Sanskrit, but he is never obscure; and the majesty of his diction induced Yerrāpragaḍa, another translator of the Mahābhārata, to compare it to a noble elephant (*bhadragaja*). Nannaya was perhaps also author of *Andhra-śabda-cintāmaṇi*, the first Telugu grammar which systematized the language by standardizing words and their usage and earned for the author the title *Vāganuśāsana*, law-giver of the language.

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An eminent younger contemporary of Nannaya was Vēmulavāḍa Bhīma Kavi, associated by tradition with the Eastern Ganga emperor Anantavarman Choḍaganga (1078-1148). He was the author of *Kavijanāśraya*, a Telugu grammar, and *Bhīmēśvara Purāṇa* relating legends of the shrine of Bhīmēśvara at Dākṣhārāma. He seems to have written also *Rāghava-Pāṇḍavīya*, giving the story of both the *Rāmāyaṇa* and *Mahābhārata* together, the whole book being a sustained *double entendre*; it is no longer extant. There is much uncertainty about the life and works of Bhīma Kavi who has become a centre of many myths and miracles.

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From the twelfth century Vīra-śaivism became an important factor in the religious life of the Telugus and a sectarian outlook became more and more common. The poets of the period were generally supporters and propagandists of this faith. Famous among them was Mallikārjuna Paṇḍita, *guru* of Nanne Choḍa; his *Śiva-tattva-sāram* is an exposition of Vīra-śaivism in about five hundred verses. Nanne Choḍa, a Telugu-Choḍa prince, son of Choḍaballi of Pākanāḍu, was the author of *Kumārasambhava*, a *Mahākāvya* which has recently come to light; it is based on the Sanskrit works on the same theme by Kālidāsa and Udbhaṭa, and draws also upon the Śaiva literature known to the author. Nanne Choḍa employed Kannada and Tamil words in his poetry, and he had a partiality for Kannada metres. The author's style has not commanded universal praise. Atharvaṇa, the grammarian, considered Nanne Choḍa as a poet who courted death by using inauspicious metres. Pālkuriki Sōmanātha was a contemporary of Kākatīya Pratāparudra II (1291-1330). Sōmanātha was a staunch Lingāyat and a prolific writer in Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu. He was an active pamphleteer and disputant in the cause of Vīra-śaivism. His major works in Telugu are *Paṇḍitārādhya Carita*, *Dvipada Basava Purāṇa* and *Anubhava Sāra*. The first was used by Śrīnātha when he wrote a work of the same name. Another *Basava Purāṇa* in Telugu verse was that of Piḍuparti Sōmanātha (1510). Pālkuriki Sōmanātha's *Vṛṣādhipa Śatakam*, a centum of verses addressed to Basava, became very popular.

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The translation of the *Mahābhārata* was resumed by Tikkana (1220-1300), perhaps the greatest Telugu poet. He was a *niyogi* Brahmin of the court of Manumasiddhi, chief of Nellore and subordinate of Kākatīya Ganapati. The poet's grandfather was a minister and poet, and his father and cousin were renowned warriors. Tikkana himself was a successful courtier and diplomat, and on one occasion he secured Ganapati's aid for Manumasiddhi in regaining his throne. He performed a sacrifice and earned the title Somayāji. He commenced his translation with the *Virāṭa parva*, evidently because he did not wish to start where Nannaya's work had been so unhappily interrupted. Tikkana's translation is complete for the rest of the *Bhārata*. Many legends have grown up about Tikkana's prodigious learning and to account for his unfailing inspiration. His prologue was marked by originality, and it gave currency to certain conventions which have generally been adopted by his successors. He condemned incompetent poets and lavished praise on the true ones; he introduced a dream in which his grandfather delivered to him a message from Harihara-nātha asking that Tikkana's work should be dedicated to him; lastly he put in a hymn of praise with every word ending in the possessive case (*shashṭhyantamulu*). The first and last features are found in Nanne Choda's *Kumārasambhava* also. Tikkana's compact diction and his marvellous capacity for vivid portraiture and characterization earned for him the title Kavi Brahma. Before undertaking the translation of the *Bhārata*, Tikkana composed *Nirvacaṇottara Rāmāyaṇa*, an all-verse work on the story of Rāma after his coronation; for some reason or other he left the last canto of this work to be completed later by another hand.

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The gap in the *Vana parva* between Nannaya's and Tikkana's works was filled by Yerrāpragaḍa (1280-1350). He was a *niyogi* Brahmin from Gudlur in the Nellore district, and his father, Śrī Sūrya, was a poet in Sanskrit and Telugu, and a *yogi*. Yerrāpragaḍa himself was a great devotee of Śiva and bore the title Śambhu-dāsa. He was attached to the court of Prolaya Vema Reddi. For fear of the possible evil consequences of continuing the ill-fated translation of Nannaya, he made it appear that his work was that of Nannaya himself by dedicating it to Rājarāja Narendra, Nannaya's patron. He says also that Tikkana appeared to him in a dream and urged him to complete the *Bhārata*. His ability as a poet is manifest from the fact that he begins his work in the style of Nannaya and, imperceptibly, passes into that of Tikkana.' He was called Prabandha Parameśvara. He also translated the Harivamśa, the epilogue to the Bhārata which traces the occurrences after the war. His other works are: Rāmāyaṇa (not extant), and Lakshmī Nrisimha Purāṇa also known as Ahobala Māhātmya.

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The three translators of the Mahābhārata have always been held in the highest esteem as the ‘Kavitraya’—the three poets of Telugu, and subsequent authors generally began their writings by making obeisance to them.

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A contemporary of Yerrāpragaḍa was Nachana Soma (1355-77) who wrote the Uttara Harivamśa as he was dissatisfied with Yerrāpragaḍa's achievement and wanted to produce a work worthy of the theme, and competent critics have held that the poet achieved his object.

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The Rāmāyaṇa was translated by two poets of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Kona Buddharāja, a feudatory of Kākatīya Pratāparudra II, produced the Ranganātha Rāmāyaṇa in dvipada metre, a work of great simplicity and sweetness and full of apt similes. Ranganātha's relation to the poem is by no means clear; either he was a court poet or possibly the guru of the king who dedicated the poem to him. Buddharāja's sons are said to have completed it by adding the Uttara-Rāmāyaṇa. The other translation is a Campū by Hullakki Bhāskara and his pupils dedicated to a Sāhinimāra, whose identity is not settled beyond dispute.

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Among the contemporaries of Tikkana must be noticed Ketana, author of Daśakumāracarita, a translation of Dandin's work which got him the title ‘Abhinava Dandi’, of a grammar called Andhra-bhāshā-bhūshaṇa, and of a translation of Vijñāneśvara's Mitāksharā; Mārana, a pupil of Tikkana, whose Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa became the basis of Peddana's Manucaritra; and Mañcana of Rajahmundry, author of Kēyūrabāhucaritra. Baddena, a Chola feudatory of Rudramadevi in the Shaṭsahasra country, wrote the Nitiśāstra-muktāvali, a treatise on politics in fifteen chapters, and probably also Sumati Śataka, a popular work of moral maxims.

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Before proceeding to the next period, we must notice two works on mathematics, also translations from Sanskrit, which are are the earliest scientific works in Telugu. Mallana (1060-70), a niyogi Brahmin karṇam of Pavalūr near Guntur, translated into verse a mathematical treatise of Mahāvīrācāryulu which contained chapters on mensuration, fractions and theory of numbers, among others. Eluganti Peddana translated the Līlāvatī of Bhāskara and called the work Prakīrṇa Gaṇita.

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The century and a half that followed 1350 may well be designated the age of Śrīnātha (1365-1440), held by some to be the greatest poet in the language. His great talents secured for him early in life the patronage of many chiefs and kings—the Reddis of Kondavidu, the Velamas of Rājakonda, and Devarāya II of Vijayanagar. He moved on equal terms with them and their ministers, and enjoyed a full taste of the pleasures of life though in the end he died a poor man. His command over Sanskrit and Telugu was unrivalled, and he says that he wrote the Marutrāṭ-caritra as a boy and translated Śālivāhana-sapta-śati while yet in his teens; unfortunately neither has survived. His masterpiece was the translation of Śrī Harsha's Naishadhakāvya called Śṛingāra Naishadha, a majestic and stately poem in which all the great qualities of Śrīnātha's genius found full play. His other works were Paṇḍitārādhya-carita, Śivarātrimāhātmya, Haravilāsa, Bhīma-khaṇḍa and Kāśikhaṇḍa. Only the last four are available now and these show what a staunch Śaiva he was. Another work attributed to him is Krīḍābhirāmam, a drama which marked a new departure in Telugu and started the genre known as vīthināṭaka in which one person narrates his experiences in the streets of Wārangal to another who is only a listener. Śṛingāra-dīpika a work of poetics, purports to be the composition of Kumāragiri Reddi but is held by some to be the work of Śrīnātha. A heroic ballad of a very popular type, the earliest available work of its kind, Palnāṭivīra-caritram, which commemorates the achievements of the warriors of Palnad (Guntur district) in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is also considered to be his work. Many Cāṭus or stray verses on miscellaneous subjects are reputed to be his and command great popularity to this day.

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A striking contrast in almost every way to Śrīnātha was his brother-in-law and junior contemporary Bammera Potana (1400-75), a niyogi from Oṇṭimiṭṭa in Cuddapah district and translator of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Potana lived and died a poor man; he had no scholarly education, and his poetry, the result of inspiration born of an intense devotion, often overlooked the niceties of grammar. Potana is said to have met a yogi called Jitānanda whose grace converted him into a devotee with the gift of poesy. The *Bhāgavata* of Potana is more voluminous than the original, and its easy diction, vivid descriptions, and narrative power together with the intense spiritual experience conveyed by almost every verse have made the work much more popular than the translations of the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata*. The story goes that when Rao Singa wanted Potana to dedicate the poem to him, the Goddess of Learning appeared in a dream and begged Potana to guard her chastity by not casting her into the arms of Singabhūpāla, and there is a notable verse purporting to be Potana's answer to the goddess. In any event, Potana did not publish his great work in his life-time and left it as a legacy to his son Mallana. Parts of the poem were found later to have suffered damage from insects, and the gaps had to be filled in by other hands. The sections of the poem on the release of the Gajendra (elephant lord) by Vishnu and the marriage of Rukmini carry an appeal even to the unlettered. Potana perhaps also wrote *Virabhadra Vijaya* in praise of Śiva, it is said, as an expiation for his having penned the words of abuse which the enemies of Śiva uttered against him on the occasion of Daksha's sacrifice.

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The philosophical moralist Vemana, whose *Śataka* (centum) of verses has been well known to both young and old and has been translated into many other languages, most probably lived in the early fifteenth century.

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Pillalmarri Pina Virabhadra Kavi is counted by tradition as a much younger contemporary of Śrīnātha than Potana. Virabhadra translated the *Jaimini Bhārata* which treats of the story of the Aśvamedha parva of the original *Bhārata*, and dedicated the work to Sāluva Narasimha. The poet is said to have claimed that Sarasvati, the Goddess of Learning, was his Queen and to have sustained the claim to the satisfaction of Narasimha's court. His *Śṛingāra Śākuntala*, a rendering of Kālidāsa's great drama, is his only other work now available, the rest of his writings being known only by their names. The subtle musical character of his verse has gained the appreciation of critics.

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Of the other poets of this period, Nandi Mallaya and Ghaṇṭam Singaya (*c.* 1480) are important; they were joint authors of *Varāha Purāṇa* and *Prabodhacandrodaya*. The latter, in Prabandha form, is far more faithful to its Sanskrit original than either Śrīnātha's *Naishadha* or Pina Virabhadra's *Śākuntala*. The *Varāha Purāṇa*, also a translation from Sanskrit, is dedicated to Tuluva Narasānāyaka. Peram Rāju Jakkana (1450) was the author of Vikramārka-carita narrating the stories centring round the legendary monarch of Ujjain. Other notable names are: Duggupalli Duggaya (1480), author of Naciketopākhyāna, Dūbaguṇṭa Nārāyaṇa (1470), author of Pañcatantra, Vennalakaṇṭi Sūranna (1460), author of Viṣṇupurāṇa, and Gaurana, author of Hariścandropākhyāna.

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The reign of Krishnadeva Rāya was a glorious epoch in literature as in politics, war and art. The monarch was himself no mean scholar and poet, and the impetus he gave to Telugu literature lasted far beyond his time. Under his lead the practice of translating from Sanskrit originals was generally given up and independent Prabandhas which handled a purāṇic story or some invented theme after the manner of a Mahākāvya in Sanskrit came more into vogue. The earlier Prabandhas were marked by originality, variety, freedom and grace of matter and style; but in course of time in the hands of lesser poets the Prabandha tended to degenerate into stereotyped and monotonous forms which observed the formal rules of rhetoric, but fell far short of true literature.

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Krishnadeva Rāya’s Āmuktamālyada or Viṣṇucittīya, one of the five great Kāvyas in Telugu, is among the first fruits of the new movement; it also marks the beginning of the influence of Vaishnavism on Telugu literature. It deals with the life of the ālvār Viṣṇucitta (Periyālvār), his exposition of Vaishnava philosophy and the love between his foster-daughter Godā and God Ranganātha. The style is involved and complex, the similes are sometimes far-fetched, but all the same the effect achieved is majestic and sublime. ‘There is hardly a book in Telugu where there is such a continued flow of ideas, seeking an impetuous outlet in language which, though rich, is yet scarcely equal to the task of full and adequate expression. For insight into human nature, and for facility in depicting elusive moods by some striking phrase, Krishnadeva Rāya has no superior, and scarcely an equal.’ He was the author of a number of Sanskrit works also.

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Like the Nine Gems of Vikramāditya’s court the Aṣṭadiggajas (the Eight Elephants of the Quarters) of Krishnadeva Rāya’s court are famous in legend. In either case, popular imagination has sought to glorify an intrinsically great name at the cost of historical truth. But there were doubtless many great poets who did adorn the court of Krishnadeva Rāya, and among them Allasāni Peddana, on whom the emperor conferred the title *Andhrakavitāpitāmaha* (Grandfather of Telugu poetry), stands out foremost. He was the son of Chokkanāmātya and had his literary training under Saṭhakopayati, a Vaishnava patriarch of the age. His chief work is the *Svārocisha-sambhava* or *Manucarita*. The story is taken from the *Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa*. An orthodox Brahmin by name Pravara refuses the love offered to him by the divine courtesan Varūthinī. A gandharva comes to know of this, assumes the guise of Pravara and lives with her. Their son was Svārocisha from whom the second Manu was born. As in Kālidāsa’s *Kumāra-sambhava*, interest centres round the parents of the hero whose name the work bears, and Peddana’s fame rests on his delineation of Pravara and Varūthinī. He borrowed from his predecessors like Śrīnātha some features in the development of the theme and in the use of Kannada words. *Manucarita* was dedicated to Krishnadeva Rāya who marked his appreciation of the poem by being a pole-bearer of Peddana’s palanquin. Peddana survived his royal patron and bemoaned the years of desolation that followed. *Harikathā-sāra* attributed to him is no longer extant.

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Nandi Timmana, the second great poet of Krishnadeva Rāya’s court, was the author of *Pārijātāpaharaṇa*, which elaborates in beautiful verse a well-known episode in Śrī Krishna’s life. The poem is said to have been composed to reconcile the emperor to one of his queens, who, he thought, had insulted him by sleeping with her legs stretched towards his portrait; Krishna’s efforts to appease Satyabhāma, particularly the scene of his falling at her feet and being spurned by her with a kick, was calculated to hint to the emperor the extent of liberties permitted between lovers, and served its purpose. A pretty story, but most probably apocryphal.

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Bhaṭṭumūrti, who came to be known later as Rāma Rāja Bhūshaṇa, had a long and distinguished literary career. His *Narasabhūpāliyam* is a work on rhetoric written in imitation of Vidyānātha’s *Pratāparudrīya* and dedicated to Toragaṇṭi Narasarāju. His *Hariścandra-Nalopākhyānam* is a poem in which each verse has two meanings and tells the story of Nala as well as that of Hariścandra. But he is best known for his *Vasucaritra* which elaborates a simple story with great art. The theme is the marriage of prince Vasu with princess Girika, the daughter of the river Śuktimati and the mountain Kolāhala—a minor episode in the *Mahābhārata*. The musical cadence of his verse and the high imagination characteristic of his often over-elaborated descriptions have been highly esteemed by critics. The poem was written in the reign of Tirumala I, the brother of Rāma Rāya, and dedicated to him. It was translated into Sanskrit.

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Dhūrjaṭi, a Śaiva poet from Kālahasti, evoked the admiration of Krishnadeva Rāya by his *Kālahasti Māhātmya* and a *Śataka* on the same shrine. His grandson, Kumāra Dhūrjaṭi, chronicled the conquests of the emperor in his *Krishnadēvarāya-vijaya*. Mādayyagari Mallana was another court poet of the time whose *Rājaśekharacarita* is dedicated to Nadendla Appa, a nephew of Sāluva Timma and governor of Kondavidu. The work is a typical Prabandha dealing with the wars and loves of Rājaśekhara, king of Avanti. Ayyalarāju Rāmabhadra, known as Pillala (of many children) Rāmabhadra, is believed to have gained the patronage of Krishnadeva Rāya by the good offices of Rāma Rāya Bhūshaṇa. He wrote the *Sakalakathāsāra-sangraha*, an abridgement of many purāṇic stories, at the instance of the emperor, and later the *Rāmābhyudayam*, on the story of Rāma, under the patronage of Gobbūri Narasarāju.

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Pingali Sūranna, (Pingali is a village in the Krishna district), though counted among the *Ashṭadiggajas*, came later than the reign of Krishnadeva Rāya. His *Rāghava-Pāṇḍavīya*, as the name indicates, tells the story of the *Rāmāyaṇa* and *Mahābhārata* simultaneously. It commands a grace and simplicity hard to attain in this type of forced composition, and it is believed that Bhaṭṭumūrti (already mentioned) found his model in this work. Sūranna's *Kalāpūrṇodayam* is more a novel in poetry than a Prabandha, the only work of its type. The plot is a veritable comedy of errors and grips the attention of the reader. In the centre of the plot are Krishna and his seraglio, and in the background are Kāli worshippers with dark hints of human sacrifices, and Malayāli magicians with mystic garlands and strange spells. A noticeable feature of this work is that the writer altogether discards *ślesha*. The *Prabhāvati Pradyumna* was esteemed by the author himself as the best of his works. It deals with a purāṇic theme in an original dramatic manner. The subject is the fall of the powerful Daitya king Vajranābha at the hands of Pradyumna, the son of Krishna, followed by the marriage of Prabhāvati, the daughter of the fallen Daitya, with Pradyumna. In this work Sūranna's ‘characters are lifelike, their movements spontaneous, their conversations natural and the situations tense and vivid’.

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In some ways the most interesting figure of the time was Tenāli Rāmakrishna who started his career under Krishnadeva Rāya but lived on to the reign of Venkata. Posterity remembers him more as a court jester who played many practical jokes on high-placed men, the monarch himself not excepted; but he was also a poet of talent, and his *Pānduranga Māhātmya*, counted among the five great Kāvyas in Telugu, is a work of high merit which narrates the story of a dissipated Brahmin's soul being successfully rescued from the servants of Yama by those of Vishnu, because he happened to die in Pandarpur. Rāmakrishna also wrote the *Udbhatācārya-carita* and dedicated it to an officer of Krishnadeva Rāya.

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Though not counted among the ‘great eight’, Śankusāla Nrisimha Kavi was a distinguished poet of the time. Peddana, it is said, out of jealousy, obstructed his approach to the emperor, and the poor poet had to sell his poem, *Kavikarna Rasāyana*, in the market-place; one of its verses reached the emperor through his daughter Mohanāngi and, struck with its beauty, Krishnadeva Rāya sent for the poet, but he had left for Śrīrangam where he dedicated his work to the goddess of the shrine. It treats of the life of the mythical emperor Māndhātā, and in its prologue Nrisimha Kavi roundly denounces bad poets and kings.

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Chintalapūdi Ellaya was the author of *Rādhā-mādhava-vilāsa* and *Vishnumāyāvilāsa*; the first work was so much appreciated that the poet came to be known by its name. Molla, a poetess of the time, born of a low caste, was the author of the most popular version of the *Rāmāyana*, in chaste and simple Telugu. Kamsāli Rudraya was the author of *Nirankuśōpākhyāna*, a fascinating story of a gifted gambler defeating the god Śiva, the stake being Rambhā, the divine dancer; Nirankuśa, the victor, lives with Rambhā though Indra tries to break up their companionship. Addanki Gangādhara (1570) wrote the *Tapatīsamvaranōpākhyāna* and Ponnaganti Telaganna the *Yayāticaritra*; they are both dedicated to Ibrahim Qutb Shah (1550-83), ruler of Golconda—called by the poets Ibha-rāma-sauri in their dedication. Venkatanātha translated *Pañcatantra* into a Prabandha, instead of a collection of stories as in the original. Pīduparti Somanātha's *Basava Purāna* is the only Śaiva work of the time; the author was a fanatical Vira-śaiva and his intolerance of Vaishnavism which breaks out everywhere in his work is out of place in the tolerant age of Krishnadeva Rāya. Sārangu Tammayya and Chadaluvāda Mallaya were authors of two Vipranārāyaṇa-caritas.

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Among the scientific works of the time may be noted Manumañci Bhaṭṭa's Hayalakṣaṇa Śāstra and Līlāvatī-gaṇita by Vallabhācārya. The first is an original work on horses and their training dedicated to Oba Kamparāya, a daṇḍanāyaka of Krishnadeva Rāya; it is now available only in parts. The second is a translation of Līlāvatī-gaṇita in verse form dedicated to an officer of Achyuta Rāya.

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In the seventeenth century Vijayanagar lost its importance and its place was taken by the feudatory courts such as Gandikōta, Siddhavatam, Nellore, Gingee, Tanjore and Madura. Matli Ananta (1590-1610) of Siddhavatam (Cuddapah district) and his grandson were both poets and composed respectively the Kākusthavijayam and the Kumudvatī-kalyāṇam. About the same time Tarigoppula Mallana wrote a Prabandha—Candrabhānu caritra—at the instance of Pemmasāni Timmānāyudu. Interesting in its own way, this Prabandha ranks far below the masterpieces of the age of Krishnadeva Rāya. Nellore was made famous by the work of Pushpagiri Timmana who rendered Bhartrihari's Nītiśataka into Telugu and described the exploits of Hanumān in a poem called Samirakumāravijayam. He gathered round him a circle of talented friends including the Kankanti brothers—Pāparāja and Narasimha. Pāparāja's Uttararāmāyaṇa challenges comparison with the best works in Telugu; he also wrote a yakṣagāna Viṣṇumāyāvilāsa. His less celebrated brother Narasimha was the author of a mechanical rendering into dvipada metre of the Viṣṇumāyāvilāsa Nāṭaka of Rādhāmādhava Ellaya. The Daśāvatāracarita of Dharaṇidevula Rāmamantri is another notable poem of the period though the author's tendency to parade his learning makes his composition rather heavy. At Tanjore Raghunātha Nāyaka himself became the author of two delightful poems—the Vālmīki-caritram and Rāmāyaṇam. The former is the first important prose work in the language; the latter, though incomplete, shows Raghunātha's art at its best. Less talented than his father, Vijayarāghava, the son of Raghunātha, also composed poems and yakṣagānas but his fame rests more securely on the poets patronized by him. Among them was the celebrated Chēmakūri Venkatakavi whose poems Sārangadhara-caritram and Vijayavilāsa handle respectively the themes of Chitrāngi's love for her step-son and Arjuna's pilgrimage to the sacred tirthas and his marriages with the nāga princess Ulūci and with Subhadrā, the sister of Śrī Krishna. The Vijayavilāsa is rightly counted as one of the great Kāvyas in Telugu. One of the queens of Vijayarāghava, Rangājamma, contributed to the development of the yakshagāna in her Mannārudāsavilāsa where she employs more characters than usual and frequently uses prose in conversations instead of song. Savaram Chinna Nārāyaṇarāju who lived in South Arcot and wrote an excellent Kāvya Kuvalayāśvacaritra was another poet nòtable for the grace of his manner and his wit. Lastly Kadiripati, a cousin of Rāmarāja, the commander-in-chief of Śrīranga III, composed the Śukasaptati, a work of great literary excellence in which he perfected the art of story-telling.

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