A history of Telugu literature; - Cristo Raul

HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND 21
book has not come down to us. There is also the tradition
that a Kanva composed a Telugu grammar, just as Agastya
is said to have composed the first Tamil grammar. When
we remember that the Andhras succeeded the Kanva
Dynasty, we may reasonably conjecture that this Kanva
was a member of the supplanted dynasty, and that his
grammar was in Prakrit.
The Andhras were Buddhists by religion, and it is possible
that the literature of the day existed in Prakrit, one form
of which is considered to be the immediate literary
ancestor of Telugu. The Pallavas, who conquered the
country, must have exterminated Buddhism and Buddhistic
literature, of which not a vestige has survived.
The immediate conquerors of the Andhras were the
Pallavas, who seem to have risen to power suddenly in the
south. Starting from Kanchi, their capital, they extended
their empire northwards till it included Vengi Nadu. Very
little is known of the Pallavas in general, or of their rule in
the Andhra country in particular. All that we can be
certain of is that, after the Andhras, they ruled the country
from A.D. 230-550 and were in turn ousted by the
Chalukyas. The early Pallavas were Jains and the country
adopted the Jain faith. The only fugitive glimpses
preserved for us of the Jain culture are Atharvana's
Bharata, (said to have been burnt by Nanniah), the name
of Padmakavi, and Kavi Janasrayam, a treatise on
poetics.
About the middle of the sixth century the Chalukyas,
a Rajput race from Ayodhya, imposed their power on the
Deccan tableland. There were two branches of the
Chalukyas the western, having its capital at Badami ; and
the eastern at Rajahmundry. We are directly concerned
with the eastern Chalukyas, who continued to be the rulers
of Vengi Nadu for nearly six centuries a period during
which they were engaged in ceaseless warfare with the
Pallavas, and afterwards with the Cholas on the south, and
the other branch of the Chalukyas on the west. The conflict
with the Cholas was eventually composed by the usual
expedient of royal marriages. Vimaladitya (A.D. 1005-22),
the twenty-fifth reigning sovereign of the Eastern Chalukyas,