A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s4.4

c19.s4.4

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.