A history of Telugu literature; - Cristo Raul

THE PERIOD OF STAGNATION 89
This type of literature is not easy to write ; it demands infinite
resource, phenomenal command of language, and extraordinary ingenuity.
But the very restrictions under which the author had to work
forbade any poetic quality of a high order. Though looked upon at
the time as high-class literature, it does not appeal to modern tastes.
2. Pure Telugu Poetry. There is in the modern Telugu language
only a residuum of original Telugu. This Dravidian basis is so
little that it is not adequate for the composition of even a few verses. If
only Sanskrit equivalents are excluded and the rest regarded as pure
an all-
Telugu, it may be possible, with some difficulty, to compose
Telugu kavya. Poets of the first period, as a curiosity, used to
introduce an occasional stanza or two containing pure Telugu words
a feat much appreciated by the readers.
Ponnikanti Telaganarya (1578) made an attempt at opening
a new field, by composing his Yayati Charitra, a kavya of five cantos,
in pure Telugu, avoiding Sanskritisms as far as possible. Curiously
enough, he was able to produce a very readable book of considerable
merit. Others followed, but not with the same amount of success.
Adidamu Bala Bhaskara's Ramayana (not now available), Kuchimanchi
Timmanna's Ramayana and Nllasundara Parinaya belong
to this order.
These works are more or less of the nature of a tour de force.
The language, involving tiresome circumlocution, is unintelligible even
to the pandit. They are like letters written in cypher, unmeaning
without a key. In Tamil and in English, the desire to exclude foreign
words came in the wake of a purist tendency and was partly the outcome
of genuine patriotism. It was not so in Telugu. These writings
owe their origin to a frantic effort, on the part of the poet, to hold the
flickering attention of his audience by doing something out of the way.
These laborious products of misplaced zeal, never read (in fact, not
even readable), may be consigned to the literary museum as momentoes
of an antiquarian age.
3. Chitra and Bhanda Kavitva. Slesha kavyas and
' Accha Telugu ' works may be considered as literature, though not of
a high order. The same cannot be said of developments in other
called '
directions, euphemistically fancy poetry,' but really a of freak literature.
type
Some poets have composed kavyas excluding labials. Kottalanka
Mrutyumjaya Kavi's Nala Charitra and Marimganti Simgaracharlu's
Dasaratha Raja Nandana Charitra are instances. Others
attempted fantastic combinations and produced pure Telugu, nonlabial
and '
all- verse '
kavyas. Poets are not wanting who carried their
self-denial further still and eschewed gutturals along with labials.
Extremists of this school discarded the first twenty letters of the
alphabet and used only the apanchavargiya, i.e., the last five letters.
Kanada Peddana Somayaji perpetuated this monstrosity in his Sesha
Sailesa Llla. The climax of this form of lunacy was reached when
stanzas were written in a single letter. Ganapavarapu Venkatakavi
and Gudaru Venkatadasakavi are said to have scaled the heights
of perfection in this art.