A history of Telugu literature; - Cristo Raul

42 A HISTORY OF TELUGU LITERATURE
The solid achievement of this period is the translation of
all these three epics into Telugu.
The Translation of the Mahabharata. This colossal
undertaking, rendered all the more onerous and sacred by
the circumstances which made the translation necessary,
took three centuries to accomplish. It was begun by
Nanniah in the eleventh century A.D., continued by
Tikkanna in the thirteenth century A.D., and concluded
by Errapragada in the fourteenth. A grateful posterity
enthroned them together in its memory and crowned them
'
with the title Kavitraya '
the Great Three. No subsequent
poet, down to our times, ever attempted to invoke
the muse without paying his tribute to the three great
masters.
Nanniah (Title/ Vaganu Sasana'). Nanniah, who began
the translation of the Mahabharata at the command of
the Chalukya king, Raja-Raja-Narendra (1022-63), was a
Vaidiki Brahmin of Mugdala Gotra, from Tanuku, in
Vengi Nadu. He was the family purohit or priest of
the reigning monarch, and had a reputation for great
piety and scholarship in Sanskrit. He relates, in the
prologue, the circumstances under which his royal master
desired him to translate the epic. Raja-Raja-Narendra,
like many monarchs of his day, claimed to be a descendant
of the lunar kings, whose progenitors, the Pandavas,
are celebrated in the Mahabharata. He was fond
of hearing the epic and emulating its heroes. Having
heard the story in many languages, probably in Tamil and
Kanarese, he was desirous to perpetuate it in the language
of the country of which he was the ruler. There was no
man of his day better qualified, by his learning and piety,
for this task than Nanniah ; so it was entrusted to him.
He composed the Adi and Sabha cantos, and a portion
of the Aranya Parva. Various stories are told to account
for the non-completion of this canto. One story is that
Atharvana wrote a Bhdrata and showed it to Nanniah
before he took it to the king. Nanniah, fearing that, if
Atharvana 's superior composition reached the king, his own
might not be accepted, set fire to the house in which Atharvana's
manuscript was deposited. Atharvana, seeing his