Telugu Literature under Kutub Shahis

(secretary, The Andhra Historical Research Society)

Three centuries after the fall of the Kakatiyas of Warangal, the whole of Andhra was once again brought together as a united kingdom under the Kutub Shahis of Golconda. The Kutub Shahi dynasty reigned for about 175 years, from circa 1512 to 1688, when it was uprooted by Emperor Aurangazib. And the greatest of this house was Sultan Ibrahim Kutub Shah. He was also known as Ibrahim Padshah, Ibrahim Kutub-un-Mulk, and Malik Ibrahim. He was well known to Te1ugu literature by the last name, and in poetry his name became Malkibharamu. He reigned for thirty years, from about the middle of 1550 to June 1580, and died at 51 or 52 in the prime of manhood. He was succeeded by his son Mohamed Kutub Shah who was known to the poets of his reign as Mahammadu Sahi. During the reign of this monarch which lasted thirty-one years, the whole of Andhra except few outlying Districts like Bellary and Chittoor, came under the Kutub Shahi rule. The patronage which the Telugu language and literature received during these two reigns is the subject of this article.

The reign of Malik Ibrahim is a neglected chapter in the history of Telugu language and literature. Malik Ibrahim ascended the throne roughly two decades after the death of the great emperor-poet Sri Krishnadeva Raya, and it looked as though Golconda emulated the example of the imperial court of Vijayanagara and even vied with it in the matter of acquring literary glory during the reign of this king.

In September 1543 Jamsheed assassinated his father Kuli Kutub Shah and ascended the throne. He was a cruel and vindictive prince. He feared that his brothers might rise against him and seize the throne. He therefore ordered his elder brother Kutub-ud-deen, the heir-apparent, to be blinded; and sent for his younger brother Ibrahim, who had been stationed at Devaraconda by his father. Ibrahim was then thirteen years old; he scented danger and fled to the court of Nizam Band Shah of Ahmednagar for protection. That king behaved treacherously, but before any harm could follow, Prince Ibrahim made good his escape to Vijayanagara. There he was graciously received by Rama Raya and treated with great affection and respect. Rama Raya bestowed upon the prince an estate and even treated him as his own son. Ibrahim stayed in Vijayanagara for eight years, from 1543 to 1550. On the death of Jumsheed, the nobles of the court, and the army, invited Ibrahim to ascend the throne. Ibrahim crowned himself in Golconda about the middle of 1550, when he was barely twenty years old.

During the period of his exile Ibrahim received a good training and acquired a taste for Telugu and Sanskrit poetry; possibly he studied those two languages under scholars of the imperial court. After he returned to Golconda, he retained the love and taste for Telugu poetry and encouraged it like many of his illustrious contemporaries. He adopted many of the manners and customs and even traditions of the imperial court of Vijayanagara, and thus endeared himself to his Hindu subjects.

On account of the inspiring literary influences of his early life, Malik Ibrahim longed that his name might be perpetuated in song and verse like that of the great Hindu monarch of his time. It will be remembered that at this period flourished famous literary giants like Allasani Peddana, Mukku (Nandi) Timmana, Ayyalaraja Ramabhadra, Tenali Ramakrishna, Tallapaka Chinnanna, Tallapaka Tiruvengalanatha alias Peddanna, Dhurjati, Bhattumurthi alias Ramarajabhushana and others. The traditions of the period of Krishnadeva Raya were still cherished under the fostering patronage of Rama Raya. Ibrahim, like Krishnadeva Raya and Rama Raya, lived in stirring and spacious times. He was himself a great hero, and won many a victory on the field. And it is said that there was not a single occasion when his army was defeated while he commanded in person. Like Krishnadeva Raya, Ibrahim too loved the battle of wits and the sweet cadences of Telugu poetry and music, as much as the glory of arms. Though Turkoman by origin, Malik Ibrahim loved the land of Andhra which came under his rule.

Many a wandering minstrel received encouragement in his court. His court and camp often resounded with the debates of learned men and poets. The favourite pastime of learned princes of those times was to indulge in literary repartees. The king or the new comer would challenge the poets assembled to exhibit their wit and genius by offering a samasya and demanding it to be woven into a verse of exquisite beauty extempore; the king rewarded munificently the poet whose verse was the best.

It was the age of the ‘prabandha’, a new type of kavya in Telugu literature. Telugu poets of that epoch freed themselves from the trammels of the preceding epoch of translation and adaptation from Sanskrit and Prakrit, and inaugurated the era of ‘prabandha’, as it was called Krishnadeva Raya and Allasani Peddana were the pioneers of this freedom movement. The ‘prabandha’ is a form of literary expression of a high order, and different from the ‘purana’ or epic. It is mainly descriptive, characterised by wealth and variety of imagination (‘kalpana’), ornamentation (‘alankara’), and graceful diction (‘padagumbhana’), along with the individual self-expression of the poet. The ‘prabandha’ gives considerable freedom, within the limits set by its technique, for the display of powerful imagination and cultured taste. Usually a puranic episode is selected and woven elaborately into a kavya (‘prabandha’) with development of characters, descriptions and portrayal of rasa and emotion. And Malik Ibrahim's age is noteworthy in this age of ‘prabandha’.

A poet describes this monarch as follows:

"If he goes into an ecstasy of joy while listening to the exquisite strains of music of the artistes who revealed their talents in ‘sangita’, ‘nadabheda’ and ‘tala’, he gives always in tens of hundreds; if he invites poets and learned men to his court and camp, he gives them in tens of thousands; if he was pleased to offer a seat in the assembly to the learned men, learned in sastras, poetics, etc., he showered gold in lakhs and if he exclaimed, shahbash in appreciation, he offers crores; Oh! such is Emperor Ibharamu (Ibrahim)!".

It is no wonder that the whole of Andhra was stricken with grief over the death of Malik Ibrahim.

Another poet describes the military exploits of the Sultan. It states that Malkibharamu (Malik Ibrahim) marched against Udayagiri, attacked Venkataraju, and took the fort by storm. It states that he captured quickly the impregnable forts of Ballamkonda, Vinukonda and Tangeda, and took the great citadel of Kondavidu by escalade. Kondavidu and Udayagiri were at that time the seats of the provincial governors under the Vijayanagara Empire, and the capture of these two forts meant the conquest and annexation of the eastern seaboard of Andhra, from the mouths of the Pennar to the Krishna.

It is said that once the Sultan invited to his court several chieftains with their retinues of poets, to give him the pleasure of a display of their poetical gifts. The chieftains were Pemmasani China Timma Nayadu, Anantapurapu Handeppa, Matla Anantaraja, Banga Rechama Nayadu and Pera Malla Reddi.^l Malik Ibrahim requested the poets to compose, off-hand, eulogistic verses praising their respective patrons. And each poet accordingly tried to excel the previous one. Malla Reddi’s poet sang last and his poem offended the other chieftains. Thereupon the offended chieftains drew their swords to fight a duel, forgetting for the moment that they were the honoured guests of a distinguished Sovereign. The noble Malik Ibrahim treated the affair with good humour; he said that the eulogistic verses did not really matter, and that such cultured and brave princes should not take offence at the privileged utterances of poets.

Of the poets of Malik Ibrahim’s court, the names of only three have come down to us. They were Addanki Gangadhara, Kandukuri Rudrakavi and Ponneganti Telaganarya. Gangadharakavi Was the poet-laureate. He was a Brahmin of the Aruvela-Niyogi sect, and possibly an inhabitant of Addanki near Ongole in Guntur District. He was the author of ‘Tapatisamvaranamu’, a poem of great elegance in five cantos. Some scholars are of the opinon that ‘Tapatisamvaranamu’ was only an imitation of ‘Vasucharitramu’ of Bhattu murti, because it resembles ‘Vasucharitramu’ in many respects and even compares favourably with it. But the truth seems to be the other way about. It seems to me that ‘Tapatisamvaranamu’ was an earlier work and possibly Gangadhara never heard or read a single verse of ‘Vasucharitramu’ when he wrote his own poem. ‘Vasucharitramu’ was dedicated to Emperor Tirumala Raya (1565-1578 or 1574), though its composition was commenced even during the life-time of Rama Raya. Therefore there does not seem to have been any possibility of Gangadhara’s knowing Bhattumurti’s classical work. ‘Tapatisamvaranamu’ as dedicated to Malik Ibrahim about 1560, long before the death of Emperor Rama Raya and the battle of Talikota.

The poet describes his patron's court thus:

"It was adorned with learned men, learned in Vedas, Sastras, Purana, Grammar and the like; with poets who could sing in eight languages; with royal ambassadors from the courts of Narapati and Gajapati and other kings; with powerful Naiks and Manne chieftains who were renowned for their valour, and commanders and nobles."

Gangadhara apparently held the most prominent position among the learned men of Golconda, somewhat analogous to that of Allasani Peddana in the court of Krishnadeva Raya and of Bhattumurti in the court of Rama Raya. One day the Sultan summoned Gangadhara to his presence in the open assembly and requested him to compose a singularly beautiful kavya. Malik Ibrahim was a virtuous and cultured prince; he had received many poems from other poets but none had been really pleasing to him. He remarked that he wanted a kavya written in chaste language and diction, with beautiful imagery and the ornamentation of innuendo which resembled the charms of a coy maiden. The Sultan drew a comparison and said that, just as Lord Krishna had greater attachment for Radha even though he enjoyed the company of numerous gopis, he would still regard a poem written by Gangadhara kavi to be more pleasing than the poems of all other poets. He had therefore cherished a desire for a long time to induce the poet to write a beautiful poem. He also expressed the wish that a kavya, with sringara as the predominating rasa, of the story of the love of Tapati and Samvarana found in the Mahabharata should be written. All this shows that Gangadharakavi was the most honoured and distinguished poet of the court and Malik Ibrahim held him in greater esteem than the rest. And ‘Tapatisamvarnamu’ fully justifies the high esteem in which the Sultan held the poet.

Gangadharakavi develops the story of Tapati and Samvarana on the lines of the episode of Nala and Damayanti. He slightly alters the story in the Mahabharata and thereby gives greater charm to the kavya. The manner in which the poet has embellished the story really makes this ‘prabandha’ one of the finest in the Telugu language. Without indulging in the low type of sringara, Gangadhara carries the theme aloft in a severely chaste and elegant style. In fact he set up the model of a sringara kavya patronised in the court of Ibrahim and his nobles and successors.

The story of the poem is briefly this. King Samvarana goes into his pleasure garden and sits underneath a mango tree. There he hears the voice of a celestial parrot. He invites the bird and treats it with utmost regard and affection. Pleased with the hospitality of the king, the parrot promises to help him secure the hand of Tapati, the beautiful daughter of the Sun. The parrot then goes to Tapati and describes to her the qualities of Samvarana, his majesty and grace and handsome features, and thus plants the seed of love in her heart. Samvarana and Tapati fall in love with each other through the mediation of the parrot; and time passes in great longing in their youthful hearts, for union. At last one day Tapati descends into the mortal world to see her hero. Just then, Samvarana, hunting in the forest, is fatigued, walks along the avenues, and sees the beautiful maiden Tapati. Both the king and the princess recognise each other through the recollection of description given by the celestial parrot. Their love is now sealed. Tapati says that she is not quite free to marry Samvarana then, but that her father’s permission should be first obtained. After Tapati’s departure Samvarana yearns for the love of his beloved and prays to the Sun for bestowing the hand of Tapati in marriage. Seeing Samvarana’s distress and penance, Sage Vasishtha intervenes and persuades the Sun to marry his daughter to the king. Tapati's intentions also are discovered by the Sun-God; and the story ends with the marriage of Tapati and Samvarana.

The poem is brilliantly conceived with the central rasa as sringara and its complementary rasa as santa. The poet has also employed with considerable skill innuendo, suggestion or Covert expression, along with other embellishments. In the flow of imagination (‘kalpana’), inspiration and ideas, in faultless diction and sweet and charming language, ‘Tapatisamvaranamu’ seems to be a forerunner of the ‘Vasucharitramu’ and ‘Prabhavatipradyumnamu’. It may be said here that, in Gangadhara’s work, the influence of Jakkana, Pillalamarri Pina Viranna and above all of Srinatha, is discernible rather than that of either Peddana or Bhattumurti.

Kandukuri Rudrakavi was another poet who flourished at the court of Malik Ibrahim. unfortunately no kavya or prabandha of this poet which was dedicated to, or written under the patronage of, Malik Ibrahim has come down to us. His descendants are to this day living in a village called Chintalapalem near Kandukuru in Nellore District, and their family archives supply us with an account of Rudrakavi and his times. It is said that Rudrakavi pleased the Sultan, Malik Ibrahim, by his gift of poetry and obtained from him the village of Chintalapalem as an ‘agrahara’, which the descendants of the famous poet enjoy to the present day.

Rudrakavi was the author of many works but only one has come down to us. ‘Nirankusopakhyanamu’ is the story of a Brahmin youth who led a dissipated life, neglecting his beautiful, cultured and devoted wife at home and spending all his time in the company of lewd courtesans. After sometime, through the grace of God, he turned over a new leaf and in the end attained salvation. It is a story with a moral. It reflects the age,–the society, its manners, its virtues and vices–in which the author lived. The poem is sweet and renowned for its elegance and charm. The other poems of Rudrakavi are ‘sugrivavijayamu’, a yakshagana, a type of melodrama that was popular in the Andhra country during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and ‘sujanamanoranjanamu’, a sringara prabandha. The last mentioned work, it is said, was dedicated to Malik Ibrahim. The poem is lost and only two verses are extant.

In the court of Sultan Ibrahim Kutub Shah, there was an Arab nobleman, Amin Khan by name, who loved and patronised Telugu poetry. Amin Khan was lord of Kasala-nadu, which corresponds to the modern Districts of Karimnagar and Asifabad and a part of Bastar. His residence was Satyachintamani potlacherla which would appear to have been renamed as Aminpura. The place cannot be identified now. There lived in Amin Khan’s time a Brahmin Sri Vaishnava poet named ponneganti Telaganna or Telaganarya, son of Bhavanamatya. He was the author of ‘Yayaticharitramu’ the first achcha-Tenugu (pure Telugu) poem. It is extremely difficult to compose a whole kavya in achcha-Tenugu, without allowing even a single Sanskrit word to creep in. One Maringarrti Appalarya, an officer or friend of the nobleman, persuaded Telaganna to dedicate the poem to Amin Khan. Amin Khan listened to the poem with interest and rewarded the poet in a manner worthy of the unique composition.

‘Yayaticharitramu’ is based on an episode from the Mahabharata and describes Yayati's marriage with Sarmishta and Devayani. The poem is faultless in technique. In the selection of the theme and in the freedom with which he developed his descriptions of the emotion of love, the cultured poet did not transgress the limits of elegance or propriety. Poetic taste in the royal courts had not yet descended into vulgarity in Amin Khan's time.

In Telaganarya’s poem we get a vivid glimpse of Sultan Malik Ibrahim's court and times, and of the history of the family of Amin Khan. Amin Khan planted extensive pleasure and fruit gardens for the benefit of his subjects, and constructed alms-houses and satralayas for all. Amin Khan’s eldest son Gatat Khan was, it is said, sent as an envoy successively to the courts of the Emperor Akbar at Delhi, King Visvanatha Deva of Orissa at Jajanagar, Sultan Adil Shah at Bijapur and Midan Mulk Marid of Ahmednagar and others. He could speak and write with ease Arabic, Persian, Gujarati, Arem, Telugu and Kanauji. His brother Fazl Khan was also sent on important missions to the court of Emperor Sri Ranga Raya at Penukonda. This fact incidentally enables us to fix the date of the poem about 1570. Abdul Ali, another son of Amin Khan, occupied the post of chief scribe in Malik Ibrahim’s court. He was well versed in Arabic, Persian, Rumi, Kannada, Kanauji, Telugu and other languages.

Love and patronage of Telugu literature did not long survive the death of Ibrahim Shah, in Golconda. For want of encouragement Telugu poets of the Mohammedan court migrated to Chandragiri, Penukonda, Tanjore and Madura, and to the capitals of smaller chieftains in the country. Ibrahim’s successor was Mohammed Kutub Shah (1580-1611) who was a contemporary of the Emperor Akbar of Delhi. Though he was not a learned prince like his illustrious father, the fame of Golconda as a centre of culture lingered for a time. Mohammed Shah changed the capital to Bhagyanagar, which was afterwards called Hyderabad, in 1588, and that date marks the decline of patronage in the Kutub Shahi court for Telugu language and literature.

During the reign of Mohammed Shah there lived in Golconda a distinguished Vaishnava poet known as Sarangu Tammayya. He was the Karnam of Golconda. Originally a Smartha, Sarangu Tammayya seems to have been converted to Vaishnavism by the celebrated. Vaishnava teacher Kandala Appalacharya, who was well known in all the royal courts of South India. He was also the religious preceptor of Viruri Vedadri-mantri, the patron of Tenali Ramakrishna. Incidentally this fact enables us to fix the age of Sarangu Tammayya and Tenali Ramakrishna from independent evidence.

Sarangu Tammayya was the author of a beautiful kavya in Telugu known as ‘Vaijayantivilasamu’. The poem deals with the life of a Vaishnava saint, Vipra Narayana, one of the famous Alwars according to Vaishnava tradition.² This charminig verse-tale of five cantos is unrivalled in the Telugu literature of that epoch. Apart from the religious value or moral significance of the episode, the poem portrays the society, dress, manners, fashions, religious customs and beliefs of a bygone age in a vivid and picturesque style. Here and there the poet indulges in mild satire against the saint, who was induced to become, for a time, the devoted lover of a courtesan of Srirangam. Here is a famous verse of the poem which is often quoted:

"His adamantine, immovable, steady, fixed, godly mental dispostion which was locked in a cage of diamond hardness, became, on account of his association with the fairy-like damsel, quickly turned into metallic hardness, then into stone, then quickly into solid seasoned wood, then into the hard trunk of a living tree, then successively into its fruit, its flower, then into its honey, and lo! then it melted away, becoming even thinner than water!"

The reign of Malik Ibrahim Shah represents the Mohammedan counterpart of the literary glory witnessed during the reigns of Krishnadeva Raya and Rama Raya (1510-1570). That period was the golden age of Telugu literature. Though Ibhrahim's successors reigned over a much larger territory, practically covering the whole of Andhradesa, they could never rival the literary excellence attained in his time.

Shah Khoorsha, the historian of the Kutub Shahis, sums up the reign of Malik Ibrahim in the following words:

"During the just reign of Ibrahim Kutub Shah, Telingana (i.e., Andhradesa), like Egypt, became the mart of the whole world. Merchants from Turkistan, Arabia and Persia resorted to it and they met with such encouragement that they found in it inducements to return frequently. The greatest luxuries from foreign parts daily abounded at the king’s hospitable board; and praise be to God that the virtuous habits of this illustrious house may still increase; and may they continue to do so until the end of time!"

1 There are a number of verses extant in the Telugu language in praise of China Timma Nayadu, who was a feudatory of Vijayanagara. He was a warrior of great repute, and a patron of Telugu literature. Matla Anantaraja Was also a vassal of the emperor of Vijayanagara, related to the imperial family. He was a Kshatriya prince and his Capital was Siddhavatam, in the present Cuddapah District. Matla Ananta was himself a poet of distinction and the author of ‘Kakusthavijayamu’ an elegant poem comparable to ‘Prabhavatipradyumnamu’ of Pingali Suranna. Nothing is known about the rest. Scholars have confused themselves about Pera Malla Reddi and identified him with another Malla Reddi, of Biccavole, who was the author of a poem called ‘Shatchakravartulacharitramu’. Poet Mana Reddi was not a ruling chieftain. Malik Ibrahim must have cultivated the friendship of Pemmasani China Timma and Matla Ananta and others during his sojourn at Vijayanagara in the early part of his life.

2 Vipra Narayana is also known as Tondarippodi Alwar among the Tamils.