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THE TELUGU LITERATURE.
297
NOVEMBER, 1898.]
He conducted bis affairs both in peace and war in person, and was very much benefited by the aid and council of the minister of his father, who had preserved his life, and who continued to be his minister until his death, three years preceding that of the Râja. This person known as Timmarasu, Timmaraja, Appaji, and so on, is evidently the same as the Heemraj of Scott, who makes so great a figure in the Muhammadan annals. The account given by Farishta of the various princes successively elevated and deposed by Heemraj, originates probably in the circumstances attending the death of Viranrisimha and the accession of Krishnaraya, but the particulars are evidently confused and inaccurate. E. g., the inscriptions prove that Krishnaraya reigned for above twenty years, although the Muhammadan account would leave it to be concluded that he came to the throne an infant, and died without reaching maturity. He belonged to the Tuluva family. Sâļuva is his house nanie. He is also known as belonging to the Sampeta and Selagola families named after the villages in which his ancestors flourished. We learn the two latter names from the Kondavit Kavula Charitra written by certain Karnains or village accountants.
As regards Krishnaraya's literary attainments. He was called Andhra Bhoja on account of his occupying the same place in Telugu literature as king Bhôja in the Sanskrit. He was not only a patron of learning, but was also a man of letters himself, but none of his Sanskrit writings are available at present. Whatever may have been his work in the field of Sanskrit literature, there can be no gainsaying the fact that he did an incalculable amount of good for Telugu literature. The Prabandha had its origin under him. Up to this work the local poets merely translated into Telugu from Sanskrit Itihasas and Puránas. Among them Kêtana and Srinatha translated into Telugu metre Yajnavalkyasmṛiti and Harsha's Naishadha respectively. Allasani Peddana, the Laureate of Krishnadevaraya's court, was the pioneer of original poetical composition in Telugn. His first work is Svarêchisha Manucharitra. The plot of the story was taken from the Markandeya Purána. As he was the pioneer in this respect he was called "Andhrakavitapitâmaha, the Grandsire of Telugu poets."
That Krishnaraya had an extraordinary command of both Sanskrit and Telugu is shewn by his Amuktamalyada. Some are of opinion that this work was not his, but was the work of Allasani Peddana, who out of courtesy published it in his name. The king, it is said, wanted Allasani Peddana and Ramarajabhushana to prepare and bring him each a Prabandha. When the works were brought, it is said that the king expressed an opinion that the Manucharitra, the work of the former poet, was not as elegant as the Vasucharitra, the work of the latter, and therefore it was that Peddana afterwards prepared the story of Vishnuchitta under the appellation of the Amuktamalyada. We do not know if Râmarâjabhûshaṇa, the author of the Vasucharitra, was alive at the time of Krishnadevaraya or not. Even if he was, he must have been very young, for he prepared his Vasucharitra not earlier than half a century after the date of the Amuktamalyada. We can also with certainty say that the Manucharitra and the Amuktamalyada are not the compositions of a single poet, as there are differences in style between the two works, and while the one is free from grammatical errors, the other for a major portion abounds in them. In the latter work are found certain samd his (viz., e-kárasandhis, a-karasasidhis in Tatsama sabdás, Kvârthaka sasidhis) which are urgrammatical, and are not found in the former work. Certain of these sandhis are exemplified and discussed by Chinnayasûri in his Bala-Vyakarana, p. 12, which is more or less a Telugu rendering of Atharvana-Karikalu, a treatise on Telugu Grammar in Sanskrit, written by Atharvanacharya who may be taken to be more or less a contemporary of Nannaya Bhatta. We can infer therefore that the Amuktamalyada, which can be said to be more or less flooded with ungrammatical sandhis is not the work of that "Grandsire of Telugu Poetry." Moreover, it is not so soft and flowing as is the work of Peddana..
Others are of opinion that the work should be ascribed to Peddana on account of the similarity of diction in the opening stanzas of both poems. In the description of the family of
