In the earliest period, Telugu literature existed in the form of inscriptions, precisely from 575 AD on-wards. Such titles are examples of what would become the most common subject matter of poetry. Literary works are drawn from episodes of the Puranas under the name Akhyana or Khanda became popular along with depictions of the fortune of a single hero under the title of Charitra, Vijaya, Vilasa and Abhyudaya. Poets and scholars drew most of their material from, and spent most of their time translating epics, such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata and the Puranas, all of which are considered to be storehouses of Indian culture.įrom the sixteenth century onwards, rarely known episodes from the Puranas would form the basis for the tradition of Telugu-language kavya. In addition, historical information is available from inscriptions that can be correlated with the poems there are several grammars, treatises, and anthologies that provide illustrative stanzas and there is also information available from the lives of the poets and the traditions that they followed.Įarly Telugu literature is predominantly religious in subject matter. Among these are the prologues to their poems, which followed the Sanskrit model by customarily giving a brief description of the writer, a history of the king to whom the book is dedicated, and a chronological list of the books he published. There are various sources available for information on early Telugu writers.

Telugu became a distinct language by the time any literary activity began to appear in the Tamil land, along with Parji, Kolami, Nayaki and Gadaba languages. Telugu split from Proto-Dravidian between 1500-1000 BC. It flourished under the rule of the Vijayanagara Empire, where Telugu was one of the empire’s official languages. Telugu literature can be traced back to the early 10th century period (Prabandha Ratnavali (1918) talk about the existence of Jain Telugu literature during 850-1000AD) followed by 11th century period when Mahabharata was first translated to Telugu from Sanskrit by Nannaya. It consists of poems, novels, short stories, dramas and puranas.

Telugu literature or Telugu Sahityam is the body of works written in the Telugu language.

Nannaya andhra mahabharatam poems pdf