Leaders and Landmarks of Telugu Literature

Leaders and Landmarks of Telugu

Literature

(The Osmania University, Hyderabad)

THE GROUND

"Literature is a statement of the experience of a race or an expression of its genius, and it is always produced in response to a demand," said Lafcadio Hearn, the poet of Japan. The urge behind this expression may be religious, cultural or political. Nine hundred years have rolled by since Nannaya Bhattaraka used Telugu as the vehicle of such expression for the first time. His great work, the earlier portion of the Andhra Mahabharata, is, therefore, the earliest literary production available in Telugu.

There is a difference of opinion as to the existence of a well-developed Telugu literature before Nannaya. The question is often raised and seldom answered: Could literary work of the type of the Andhra Mahabharata have been produced without the existence before it of a literature of a fairly high standard of excellence? The nature of this question is not peculiar to the growth of Telugu literature alone. It is common to all matters, Hindu and purely Indian. The same question is raised in the case of the Vedas, and also of Sanskrit literature. The Ramayana is acknowledged to be the first standard poetical composition in Sanskrit. Evidence is wanting to show that the Ramayana was preceded by any literary production deserving consideration. The story is told that the sage Valmiki, the composer of the first sloka, is also the author of the first kavya. After the Ramayana and the Mahabharata period, we pass over a wide expanse of uncertainty and infertility and come to Kalidasa, the prince of poets. It can be suggested that Kalidasa had a number of predecessors of a lesser order, but there is no sure evidence to prove the hypothesis. Perhaps the evolution of literatures was not so systematic and regular as it is often imagined to be.

In the absence of useful evidence to show the existence of pre-Kalidasa or pre-Nannaya literature, an explanation has to be found for these remarkable gaps and the sudden emergence of authors and their works. It is known that aesthetic activities, especially in poetry, were almost banned in the early eras of Hindu life. This as well as many other religious injunctions had their effects, and one of them was the absence of formal literary production. Secondly, life was pastoral and spiritual, where sensuousness, which in early days seems to have been the motif of poetry, was not encouraged. For a strict and simple folk, living in gotrams and ashrams, poetry was not necessary to make life happy. The growth of secular life gave rise to poetry, and pure poetry has mostly been the product of the luxurious and leisurely abodes of royalty or the aristocracy. It was just about the time of Kalidasa’s birth that India was witnessing a settled political and social life in the historical sense. Kings and ministers came into being; and, for a while, their function was not merely the expansion but the consolidation of their empires. The hero was not merely the king or the conqueror but also the poet and the sculptor. Under the protective wing of able rulers, a highly cultured and powerful aristocracy came to be, whose activities spread wider than the preservation of the race, and under whose patronage and for whose pleasure bards sang and poets composed. The peaceful and prosperous Gupta Period created an environment congenial to literary work. The age needed a poet, and Kalidasa arrived.

The same may be said to have been the case with Telugu literature. After a prolonged period of unsettled existence, the Andhras who spoke Telugu were consolidated under the strong hand of the Eastern Chalukyas who had their capital at Rajahmundry on the banks of the Godavari. Among the Chalukyan Rulers, the most powerful was Raja Raja Narendra and he was a patron of letters, who sowed the seed of Telugu literature. The harvest was the Andhra Mahabharata, the first Telugu kavya. It is not strange, therefore, that the Telugu-speaking people had to wait till the eleventh century A. D. to produce a great poet, and the poet was Nannaya Bhattaraka.

Leaving aside the Upanishads and the pre-historic period, we find that the Andhras were paying tribute to Asoka in 256 B.C. One of the Andhra kings revolted against the central power and recovered Kalinga in or about 171 B.C., and another Andhra ruler was responsible for the annihilation of the Kanva dynasty. Hala, an Andhra king, wrote Sapta Sati in 100 A.D. It was at this time that Prakrit literature flourished under the patronage of the Andhra kings. It is indicated that Prakrit was then the State language. Vincent Smith writes, In the time and territory of the Andhras, Sanskrit apparently was not in use as the language of polite literature." The Andhras, engaged in wars and conquests for over 200 years, finally disappeared from history by the third century A.D. The existence or otherwise of these early Andhras is not of much importance to Telugu literature, for Telugu as such was not in existence at that time, and the language of the day was Prakrit. Prakrit was the language used on early Andhra coins and for inscriptions. It is the sixth century that saw the emergence of more Indian languages like Telugu and her sister languages. The period before this, for about two or three centuries, seems to have been associated with the waning of Prakrit, the evolution of Apabhramsas and the definite set-to Sanskrit in the territory of the Andhras. The earliest inscriptional evidence of Telugu dates from the seventh century A.D.

The state of Sanskrit during this period is interesting. There is no doubt that the Aryans of the North and the Dravidians of the South came into mutual contact in remote antiquity. The Aryan culture and the Aryan religious institutions were established in the South through Brahmins. But, for long, the Brahminic influence was not such as to affect the Dravidian culture or social order. Sanskrit did not become a popular language and it was confined to priestly circles. It was like a foreign language reverently studied and sacredly kept up by a select minority of the race. While thus the confluence or the conflict of these two cultures was in a fluid state, there came the onslaught of Buddhism and Jainism with their simple message and all-too-simple ritual. The Buddhists and the Jainas preached in Prakrit, a language decidedly easier than Sanskrit. Aryan culture and Sanskrit were in danger in the South and would have been lost but for an important event in the history of India. This event was the birth of Sri Sankaracharya.

Acharya Sankara waged a relentless war against Buddhistic thought. Through the revival of the old Aryan religion Sankara revived the study of Sanskrit. It was only after him that Sanskrit learning was systematised and expanded, end for this the name of religion was invoked. Mutts were established in all the four corners of the country and Swamis or Hindu pontiffs were created. The phenomenal success of Sankara in religious discussions was responsible for the rally of many a powerful king to his cult. The Sanskrit revival as a planned movement was conceived and conducted by the brilliant intellect of Sankara, supported by the temporal power of kings and the influence of the higher classes and was helped by the time-spirit. The assimilation of a language, being always an intellectual process, is necessarily slow. It was nearly two or three centuries before the Sanskrit movement gathered momentum and spread all over the south of India. It seems to have been an age of classical revival in the Orient, not merely in India. Firdausi was shaping classical Persian, and Mummata was standardising Sanskrit rhetoric in Aryavarta. Nannaya Bhattaraka was building the shrine of Telugu literature. The renaissance naturally manifested itself in literary and artistic expression. Sanskrit had come to exercise a definite influence on South Indian thought from the eleventh century onwards.

The contention that Aryan culture and Sanskrit had not materially influenced South India till after the advent of Sankara in the eleventh century is strengthened by the fact that the South Indian contribution to Sanskrit literature before that period was negligible. There were very few South Indian Sanskrit authors before that time. After Sankara the number of South Indian authors in Sanskrit has not only been formidable but their writings achieved recognition and undisputed authority in Aryavarta, the home of Sanskrit. While Sankara, a young man from Malabar, was responsible for the revival of Sanskrit, Sayanacharya, another South Indian, wrote his immortal commentary on the Vedas. His son compiled Sarva Darsana Sara Sangraha, a compendium of the subtlest scientific discussions. Viswanatha, yet another Southerner, was the author of Sahitya Darpana, a masterly treatise on rhetoric. In music, Sangita Ratnakara of Devanna Bhatta and Tala Deepika of Timmanna are unrivalled authorities. The list is by no means complete.

The long interval between the time of Sankara and the eleventh century was doubtless necessary for the assimilation of a new language and culture, the essential pre-requisite of any creative movement. Sanskrit, which originally militated against the growth of the indigenous languages of South India, nevertheless gave rise to the ‘vernacular’ renaissance. This dawn of the South Indian languages was certainly preceded by a long, dark night. The votaries of Sanskrit, the language of the gods and of the Vedas, apprehended a set-, and fought fiercely against the pollution of this divine tongue. It was a hard battle that was fought on both sides, and Nannaya Bhattaraka refers to this bitter struggle in the opening verses of his work and compares it to the Mahabharata War. Nannaya doubtless belonged to the ‘vernacular’ school. He says:

"As Narayana, the Lord, helped Arjuna in the mighty battle of Mahabharata, so hath Narayana (Bhatta), master of many languages, a kindred soul and associate-worker, assisted me in this Telugu work, the Mahabharata."

Pioneer work is always hard, and Nannaya was a pioneer. His was the solitary voice of a true poet against a host of strong protagonists of the Sanskrit movement. Like a rock amidst the waters, the first great Telugu poet stood at his post and poured forth his soul in the language of the soil. The strength of the Sanskrit movement and the courage of Nannaya can be judged by instances of migration of scholars recorded correctly. The persecution of ‘vernacular’ advocates was so keen that, just a hundred years before Nannaya, two great Andhras had to leave their motherland and their mother-tongue, migrate to Karnataka and compose in Kannada. Pampa and Ponna, the two Andhras, are authors of standard works in Kannada. These two Brahmin scholars felt their home in Vengi to be too difficult and found a congenial soil in Karnataka, towards the middle of the tenth century. A thousand years ago a journey from the banks of the Godavari to the foot of the Western Ghats was not an easy one. What was it that forced these two men, who were not in need in their home-land, to abandon the fertile land of their birth and their sweet mother-tongue? The causes are not far to seek, In Andhra, Brahminic religion and culture were extensive and powerful. Sanskrit was the language of the learned and the well-to-do. The religion of the Brahmins drove out the Jaina religion, and the language of the Brahmins offered irritating opposition to the language of the soil, Telugu. The atmosphere in Karnataka was free from such disturbing elements to these patriots, and perhaps the Jaina kings of Karnataka offered them the necessary inducement for a peaceful life in their territory. As good administrators, the Andhras secured comfortable places in the courts of the Jaina kings. Pampa, the Andhra, was not only a great poet in Kannada but also an important figure in the court of a Karnataka ruler. That Karnataka was free from this classical tyranny is proved by the fact of the rise of Basava, founder of the Lingayat faith, in that area. He used his temporal power to spread his spiritual message. Similar has been the case with most religious movements.

NANNAYA AS MAN AND WRITER

Of the personal history of the great poet Nannaya, not many details are available, but his personality and the direction of his vision can be indicated by an examination of his writings. Nannaya was a Brahmin attached to the court of Raja Raja Narendra (1022-63), a Chalukyan king, who ruled at Rajahmundry. This eleventh century Andhra Brahmin was intensely religious in his outlook. He was a great scholar and a well-known grammarian. His memory was remarkable and he was known to be a poet in two languages. The man was well-equipped for the task he undertook. The introductory verses give a clue for understanding the man and his times. In one of them he says:

"Let poets, who have a good taste, examine the theme and the poetic form and admire; let others (presumably opponents) respect it for the beautiful words. Nannaya is a mine of beautiful words that can convey any idea or meaning. He has resolved to mould the Mahabharata in Telugu."

The kind of self-confidence found in these lines was rare before Nannaya. Critics have often contended that there is great disparity between the text of the original Sanskrit Mahabharata and Nannaya’s Telugu rendering. Nannaya himself never meant his work to be a regular translation. The opening verses make the point clear. It was at the behest of the king that the poet undertook this arduous task. The opening stanzas reveal two things, the king’s direction to the poet as to what was desired, and the poet’s reply stating how the subject will be treated in Telugu. The king wanted the substance and the essential features of the Mahabharata in Telugu and not the original in its entirety. At any rate the royal direction carries with it a sense of selection if not of actual limitation. Nannaya replies that he would render the story in the form of kavya.

The word kavya has a significance. According to Sanskrit poetics, the Mahabharata is an Itihasa while the Ramayana is a kavya. The difference between the two is a real one. An Itihasa is partly historical and a kavya is purely poetical. Nannaya knew his mind well when he said he would make a kavya of the story of the Mahabharata and he kept his promise. Notwithstanding the historical nature of the subject, Nannaya recreated the Mahabharata as a first class poem in Telugu, and the work was so continued by the other writers who completed the Andhra Mahabharata after Nannaya.

It is interesting to note that among the Telugu speaking people the most popular work is the Mahabharata and not the Ramayana as is the case with regard to the other peoples throughout India. In Bengal and Upper India, in Maharashtra and Tamil-nad, it is the Ramayana that is popular. Even in Sanskrit, the Ramayana is considered more sacred. Of course, it was older than the Mahabharata. But in Telugu, the Mahabharata usurped the throne of the Ramayana. It is partly due to the rich poetry that Nannaya and his successors have woven round the story, and partly to racial temperament. The innate impulses of the Andhras accord very well with the life of the warring characters of the Mahabharata. In the Ramayana the whole action centres round a single hero who always feels humble before the high-pitched traditions of his ancestors. His life is an example of supreme self-abnegation, and its fulfillment lay more in passive submission rather than in active resistance to the force of circumstances. The Ramayana glimpses the divinity in man, while the Mahabharata acquaints us with superior types of men who yet are common mortals. The spirit to resist and the will to win are prominent among the heroes of the Mahabharata, of which there are many. The most powerful men in the Ramayana are but passive subjects of tradition, while in the Mahabharata the most sacred of the traditions were set aside for the achievement of a human purpose. It is this plurality of heroes, this complexity of action and this indifference to dogma and ritual that appeals to the Andhra temperament. More than the path of the strict traditional ideal of the Ramayana the play of emotions in the Mahabharata appeals to the characteristically emotional temperament of the Andhras whose tastes are artistic to a fault. Nannaya knew his people, and his choice of a subject was correct. Hence the unique popularity of the Mahabharata among the Andhras.

Nannaya wrote about 16,000 lines of verse and 3,000 lines of prose. He was also the author of a Telugu grammar in Sanskrit. Nannaya’s rendering of the Mahabharata ends abruptly in Vana Parva or the canto in which the life of the Pandava princes in exile is described. It is said that, while narrating the woes of the Pandavas in their exile, Nannaya was so overpowered by feeling that he became insane and fled to the forest never to return. That is how the abrupt end is explained. Whatever the cause, Nannaya did not live to complete the stupendous task that he undertook at the direction of his royal patron.

As a poet, Nannaya’s status is very high. With the disciplined mind of a grammarian, wide in range and deep in knowledge, puritanic by temperament and training, venerated for his learning, he was the poet-laureate of his day. His powerful personality is completely reflected in his immortal work. A master of harmonies, with an unerring choice of the sound in tune with the sense, he is both a designer and a builder. His verses are lofty in conception and have a rare finish. The grandeur of his stanzas is brought out when they are read aloud or recited in the characteristic Andhra way. The music of the words spreads out like the ever-widening ripples on still water. Sublimity is the key-note of his style even when it is simple and plain. Great or small, the events in his theme move in order and with dignity. There is a deliberate attempt not to lower the ideal he has set to himself in the selection of the matter and of the manner of the narration. If the sentiments to be expressed are of a lower order the expression is heightened to keep up the standard. He is polished even in portraying anger. He is a master-hand at description and he excels himself when he gives an account of the Maya Sabha or the Palace of Wonders which the architect of the gods built for Yudhishtira, or when he speaks of the great arena where the princes exhibited their skill and valour. The noble display and colour-scheme of the picture is brought home to the reader in a marvellous manner.

Nannaya’s delineation of his women characters is a fine piece of literary workmanship. It is not the physical beauty of his heroines that obsesses the reader so much as the grace and dignity with which he creates a halo round some of them. Damayanti, Draupadi, Sakuntala have all a personal charm peculiar to themselves. An artless simplicity, an unconventional directness of speech, and an ennobling purity are the features of Nannaya’s women. It should be remembered that by the eleventh century great poets like Kalidasa, Sri Harsha, and Bhairavi have treated these characters in their masterpieces, replete with distinct poetic merit and individuality and scholarly perfection. The most notable factor with Nannaya is that he keeps close to his design and is ever faithful to his ideal; never borrows from or exploits any of his great predecessors to embellish his work. Born and bred up in the region of the Godavari, one of the most majestic of Indian rivers, Nannaya has a great fascination for painting landscapes in inimitable words. The regular and normal succession of the seasons with their special characteristics in that land enabled Nannaya to describe them with great splendour.

With this great Andhra poet the Telugu Muse deserts the banks of the Godavari, and we find thereafter neither leaders nor landmarks in literature for some time in that territory.

(To be continued)