Indian Antiquary Vol 54

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 254

224
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
DECEMBER, 1925
originally dwelt) of the Telagândulu (Telanga-nadulu) and also of the Telagas (Telangas) may help us to give the precise limits of the region called Telanga or Telinga.
This inquiry also helps us to establish the correct spelling and pronunciation of the name of the region. This name is said to have been a corruption of Trilinga. Vinnakota Peddana, a grammarian of the fourteenth century, gives the derivation in his Kavyalan kárachudamasis gee | Tat-Trilinga-padamu tat-bhava-maguta-che Telugu desa-managa déta padiye
Venuka desamu nandru gondara-bbisha sancha gatula baragu chundu ! "That (word) Triliiga being corrupted, it became clearly applied to the country, afterwards some understand it to mean the country, and some the language. Thus it is applied to both."
Here we may add that the language is said to have got its name from the country.
Appa Kavi, a grammarian of the seventeenth century, explains the origin of the word thus :tell geel Tatra nivdaamai tanari katana-nandhra desam-bu da-drilinga-khya-mayye
delwaguchu-dadbhavamu danivalana bodamé venuka kondaru danine tenugu
nandru | "As it has been the abode of the lingus, the Andhra country became known as Trilinga; Telugu is derived from it, and afterwards it came to what some call Tenugu."
All the grammarians who investigated the origin of Telugu or Tenugu, seem to have worked on the theory that the region got that name by being bounded by the three lingas of Sri Saila, DakshArama and Kalêsa. Vidyadhara, a poet of the time of Pratapa Rudra of the Kakatiya Dynasty, was the first to invent this argument for the origin of the name. In his Pratápa-Rudriyam, & work on Sanskrit Rhetoric, he wrote thur in praise of his patron king :
स्वामिन् । त्रिलिजन्देश परमेश्वर ! यै देश निमि रेष याति महतीम् । ख्याति त्रिलिंख्यया । येषां काकति रान कीर्ति विभवः Gare dest: Far: 1 ते देवाः प्रसरत्प्रसादमधुना श्री शैल काळेश्वर दाक्षाराम निवासिनः प्रतिदिनम्
त्वच्छ्रेयसे नाप्रतु ॥ "O lord I the prime ruler of the country of Triliiga ! By which the region attains the great glory of being called Trilinga, and which by the splendour of the fame of the Kakati kings has been made into the Kailasa mountains, may those gods of Sri Saila, DAksharama and Kalesa shower their blessings now and be every day vigilant for thy prosperity."
It is only a poetic conception to say that the region got its name from having the three lingas on its confines. The Telugu country, or rather the way of the kings of Warangal, did not confine itself within these three place. The Brahmanda Purana includes Mahendragiri, and says that Triliiga lay within the four sacred places. Mahendra mountain being situated in the country of Kalinga, to say that this hill was on the frontier of the Telugu country, is to askert that the people of Kalinga also spoke Telugu ; or rather, the country as far as the Mahendra hill was also called Telanga. But from the copper-plate grants of the early Ganga kings, the country up to that hill was called Kalinga. Therefore the statement in the Brahmdnda Purana must have been inserted at a later time.
7 Historical Geography of Kalinga, Mythic Journal, July 1924.