The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c13.s3.t2.1

v2.c13.s3.t2.1

Telugu verse makes its first appearance in the inscriptions of the time of Guṇaga Vijayāditya III in the latter half of the ninth century. But the rise and progress of Telugu literature cannot be traced with any certainty as all evidence relating to its beginnings seems to have disappeared. Nanne Chōḍa, the author of the Telugu *Kumārasambhava*, says in his introduction that at first poetry was composed only in the *mārga* or classical style, and that the Chālukya king and others caused poems to be written in the *dēśi* or popular style and encouraged the literary use of the Telugu language in the Andhra country.¹ Though he does not give the name of the Chālukya ruler in question, there can be no doubt that he must have long preceded Rājarāja Narendra, the patron of Nannaya Bhaṭṭa, whose *Mahābhārata* is the earliest extant work of Telugu literature. The birth of Telugu literature seems indeed to have been delayed and its growth hampered by the prevailing political conditions and literary tradition. The independence and integrity of Vengi were constantly threatened by foreign invasion and civil war; Telugu had not yet become the polished idiom that it was to be later, and next to Sanskrit, Kannada was the language that commanded prestige and position in the literary world. Three great Kannada poets, Ponna, Pampa, and Nāgavarma, were closely associated with Kammanāḍu and Vengipalu, i.e. Vangipuram in the Narasaraopet *tāluk* of the modern Guntur District; all three were Jainas. But surely Nannaya was not the first poet in the Telugu language, as his poetry shows a highly developed technique which presupposes a fairly long period of development. It is a fact, however, that with the exception of a few verses in the inscriptions, no work of the pre-Nannaya period has survived. Of Nannaya’s work, the conditions under which it was done, and the probable cause of its being broken off in the middle, something has been said in our account of the reign of his patron Rājarāja. We may add that Nannaya is said to have undertaken the Telugu version of the Great Epic in order to counteract the influence of Pampa’s *Bhārata*, a work conceived in the spirit of Jainism. Incomplete as it is, Nannaya’s work is universally regarded as a masterpiece of art. It has set the norm for epic poetry in Telugu. Graceful and dignified in its diction, the poem has a charm rarely met with elsewhere in Telugu literature. As a model of sweet, mellifluous, and elegant verse, it remains unrivalled.