1839] 



Essay on Telirgu Literature, 



53 



syntax is scarcely noticed. Now in a grammar formed on European 

 principles, the Telugu syntax would fill much more room, than here is 

 given to the entire grammar even including the Telugu commentary. 

 And even in this brief treatise more than half is devoted to questions of 

 etymology, which according to European arrangements ought to be 

 placed not in a grammar but in a dictionary, or in a separate treatise. 



37. The next philological work, in point of age, is the Telugu pro- 

 sody composed by Bhimana (Andhra Chhandam) or rather in his name 

 by his son Mallaya Re^a. This is a pedantic treatise full of magic and 

 mysticism. 



38. We may here advert to the Adharvana Carica ; a work which is 

 mentioned by Nannaya Bh ttta. Of this work,entitled Vaicriti* Viveeam, 

 only fragments remain which are found scattered through the writings of 

 Ahobala Paudit and other critics. They are so obscure that the most 

 sagacious grammarians of modern days look upon them as unintelligible 

 without the aid of a commentary. 



39. Some ages after these critics there lived Appa Cavi ; whose 

 writings, otherwise very valuable, are infected with the pedantry of his 

 day. He undertook to frame a commentf in metre (in eight books) on 

 the writings of Nannaya — but his style was voluminous, and he finished 

 little more than five books ; wherein he treated only of etymology and 

 prosody. These two subjects he has entirely exhausted, but unhappily 

 has superadded a farrago of unprofitable rules regarding magic and omens 

 which fill more than half his work. 



40. Appa Cavi is the first author who mentions the strange notion 

 that the name "Telugu" is corrupted from " Trilinga. "J If Nannaya, 

 Ranga Natha, Ticcana Somayazi, and other leading poets, were ignor- 



* Vaicriti signifies Peculiar (vicaram) or secondary: a phrase used by some philologists 

 for Telugu; distinguishing it from Sanscrit, or the perfected language, and Pracrit or 

 the uncultivated dialects.— See Wilson's remarks on the Vayu Puran, in Asiatic Journal, 

 1834, page 206. 



ft The title is Andhra Prayoga Ratnacaram, or Ocean of Instances. The various 

 words for " sea" are used in the titles of books just as we use the word system, or trieW. 



% I am well aware that the word Trilinga occurs in the Amara Cosha, regarding gender, 

 as also in the B ramhottara Khandam chapter xvi : but there it is applied not to lan {U I | I 

 or country, but to the tripundracam, or triple line drawn by Saivites across the fore* 

 head. The citation from Adharvana Chad in support of the word Trilinga, as a name of 

 the language, possibly is apocryphal : fortius writer preceded Nannaya who does not 

 ^mention the word Trilinga. In the citation from the Dipica (See Ellis's note in Camp- 

 Mi's Grammar Introduction, page 2, and also page 13) I observe that Trilinga is given as 

 the root of Telugu and Tenugu : but to these is added Telungu : a reading that does not 

 appear in the Dipica. 



