A history of Telugu literature; - Cristo Raul

50 A HISTORY OF TELUGU LITERATURE
Sanskrit original. This has been translated by Pillala Marri
Pinavira Bhadriah in the fifteenth century A.D. The epic
is continued under the name of Harivamsa, which relates
the fortunes of Krishna after the war. Errapragada
translated it into Telugu, and Nachana Soma versified
a portion of the story, under the name Uttara Harivamsa,
in 1380. There are any number of prose versions of the
story written by recent authors.
Eleventh Century Poets. The eleventh and twelfth
centuries are terra incognita in Telugu literary history.
The literature of the time is being slowly recovered by the
indefatigable energy of research scholars. We are sure,
from the references in subsequent poems, that these
centuries must have been most fertile, and yet tradition
has transmitted to us the names and works of only a few
of the poets.
The dominant poet of the eleventh century
is (as we have said) Nanniah, whose translation of the
Bharata inaugurates the era of translations. There is
only one other poet, who, though not his contemporary, yet
belongs to his century, and his name is Pavaluri Mallanna
(1060-70), a Niyogi Brahmin and the karnam (accountant)
of the village Pavalur, near Guntur in Kamma Nadu. He
translated into verse a mathematical treatise of Mahaviracharyalu
in Sanskrit. The author follows Nanniah's
example of placing a Sanskrit sloka at the beginning of his
book an example not generally followed by the poets after
him. Though the Sutras are taken from the Sanskrit
original, the mathematical calculations are his own. In
Sanskrit literature the names of Brahmagupta, Viracharya,
Bhaskaracharya and Jagannatha stand out as eminent
mathematicians. Of these, Viracharya's treatise has been
translated into Telugu by Mallana, and into Kanarese by
Rajaditya in the same century. Eluganti Peddanna
translated Lilavatl by Bhaskaracharya under the name
of Praklrna Ganita. There is a Sutra Ganita, composed,
during the reign of Prataparudra, by an unknown
author.
MahaViracharya's book contains chapters on mensuration,
the measurement of shadows, proper and mixed fractions