Indian Antiquary Vol 27

SR No.: 032519
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 404
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 305

NOVEMBER, 1898.]
THE TELUGU LITERATURE
299
karnarasdyana, on the model of Peddapa's Man charitra, and wished to dedicate it to Krishnarâys. He therefore took it to Vijayanagara, shewed it to Peddana, and requested him to show it to the king. Peddana having read it carefully, thought that by shewing it to the king he would lose his position in the king's court, and therefore devised means for shutting out the new poet from the presence of the king. Meanwhile, the new poet starved, and at last in despair, as he did not know what to do under the circumstances, he wrote four stanzas from his poem on a cadjan, gave it to his servant, and told him to effect a sale for it at the market-place. The servant perambulated the city, and coming to the palace, said in a big manly voice that he offered for sale four stanzas at a thousand rupees each, when the king's daughter, who was sauntering in the verandah adjoining her room on the topmost story, heard this, she called on one of her female attendants to fetch her the stanzas. They were accordingly brought. She read them, was exceedingly pleased, paid the servant the amount demanded, and got them off by heart.
Meanwhile, the author of the Karikarņarasáyana, still unsuccessful in seeing the king, finally went to Srirangam, the island in the Kârêrifamous for its Vaishṇava temple and in the early annals of the English in South India, dedicated his work to the god Ranganatha, and became “double-lived in regions new."
Afterwards, while at a game of chess with her father, the king's daughter chanced to make some remarks on the play, and quoted a line of the poetry she had learnt. This attracted the king's attention, and he requested her to quote the whole stanza. She did so, and the king was exceedingly pleased, and asked her for some details of the anthor, when she narrated to him the circumstances in which she got possession of the stanzas, but said that she knew nothing of the author. The king immediately rose op, went to his court, read the stanza before the assembly, and asked them whence it was, when one of the assembly informed him that it was from such and such a work, of the author's advent hither, how he had remained a long while in order to see the king, how he was frustrated in his attempt, and how in utter disgust he left the place. The king was very grieved, and immediately sent word to the poet to come to see him. But by that time the poet had dedicated the work to the god Ranganatha, and he sent word to the king to that effect. The king thereupon requested the poet to allow him an opportunity to go through the book, which request was complied with. The king then, it is said, compensated himself by the writing of Vishnuchittiya, though some maintain that the work of writing the new poem was entrusted to Peddana by the king as a sort of punishment. But considering the importance of the position Peddana held at the court, and the amount of respect be commanded, one is bound to say that this was highly improbable in the very nature of the circumstances.
Although Vaishnava, Krishnarảya ghewed no hatred towards the Saiva, and the various grants of land he made to 'Saiva temples speak very well of him. At his court were members of other sects also.
There were Saivas of the type of Nandi Timmana, extreme Saivas of the type of Dhor. jati, Madanagari Mallayye, etc. Of the learned men of his court, eight are distinguished as the ashta-diggajas, or eight elephants who uphold the world of letters, in allasion to the eight elephants that support the universe at the cardinal and intermediate points of the compass. Allasani Peddana, Nandi Timmana, Iyalardju Ramabhadra, Dhurjati, Madayyagari Mallana, Pingali Surana, Ramarajabhashana and Tenali Ramakrishna are their reputed names. We have our own doubts as to the three last being contemporaries of Krishộaraya, but we can learn from some of the works of these authors that the first five flourished in his time. We have already seen that the first two have dedicated their works to the king. The third must have been very young at the time, but he began to write, under the orders of the king, the Kathdsarasarngraha, which was afterwards completed. It is not half so chaste and elegant as his later work the Ramabhyudaya. Dhurjati in his Krishnardjavijaya states certain facts about