Person · Telugu poet
Nannaya
Also known as Nannayya, Nannaya Bhattaraka, Adikavi Nannaya
The first poet of Telugu, who began the Āndhra Mahābhāratamu at the court of Rājarāja Narendra at Rājahmundry and carried it through two and a half books before stopping. He is also credited with the Āndhra Śabda Chintāmani, the first grammar of the language, so Telugu gets its literature and its rules from one man.
- Date
- eleventh century
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Tradition
- Āndhra Mahābhāratamu
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
Why he stopped is unexplained; Tikkana resumed at book four two centuries later and Errana filled the gap, so the Telugu Mahābhārata has three authors and a seam. The Drākshārāmam inscriptions are the epigraphic counterpart — Telugu becoming a written language on temple walls in the same century.
Connections (2)
- Epigraphic record atBhīmeśvara, Drākshārāmam
Drākshārāmam's walls carry some eight hundred inscriptions, the largest early Telugu epigraphic archive there is, cut in the same century Nannaya was writing the first Telugu literature at Rājahmundry sixty kilometres away. Temple wall and palm leaf are the two places the language becomes visible, at the same moment. His Mahābhāratamu breaks off partway through the third book for reasons nobody has explained, and Tikkana resumed at the fourth two centuries later, leaving a visible seam in Telugu's founding text.
- Court associationRajamahendravaram / Rajahmundry
Nannaya began the Āndhra Mahābhāratamu at the court of Rājarāja Narendra here, and got two and a half books into it before stopping; Tikkana and Errana finished it over the next three centuries. The city is named after that king, so the place-name and the first book in the language date from the same reign — which is about as close as a literature comes to having an address.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Nannayya”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.
Open Nannaya in the repository →