40 



VEMANA. BY 



Cavelly Venkata Ramaswanii, the greater part of whose 

 life was spent in collecting manuscripts for Colonel John 

 Mackenzie, and who published a small work entitled Biogra- 

 phical sketches of the Deccan poets, makes no mention what- 

 ever of Vemana, although he gives some account of no less 

 than 108 poets. 



Having recently had occasion to make a tour through the 

 Ceded Districts, I made enquiries about Yemana at various 

 places, but obtained no information which seemed to me 

 of any value, except at Proddatur in the Cuddapah District. 

 The Tahsildar of this place, who happened to be a Reddi, 

 stated that Yemana was an inhabitant of Kondavid, a place 

 near Guntoor, and that he had himself described his birth- 

 place in the following stanza. 



I shall make some remarks hereafter on this verse, but 

 will at present content myself with observing that there 

 is no such passage in the published edition. 



" It is not easy," says Mr. Brown, "to ascertain anything 

 regarding the history of Yemana, which is the personal 

 name of the author and sometimes occurs, though rarely, 

 among the Telugus of the present da}^. His family name 

 he never discloses ; and I hence imagine him to have been a 

 Zungum. The sect of Sudras known by this name are sece- 

 ders from the common religion ; they worship Siva alone, 

 and on embracing the Zungum sect they give up their family 

 appellation, and are then usually called by the name of 

 the sect alone. This creed also corresponds with that taught 



