Bharati (Telugu monthly)

The Telugu literary monthly started by Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao from the Andhra Patrika office at Madras in January 1924. Its first issue promised coloured pictures and illustrated articles on Andhra's sculpture, and offered to study old unprinted works sent in by readers. Writers of the 1920s called it a high-class literary magazine and the most popular Telugu monthly, and it was still coming out in the 1980s.

Bharati was a Telugu monthly magazine of literature, history and the arts. Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao, owner of the Andhra Patrika, started it at Madras in January 1924.¹² It printed the work of many leading Telugu writers and scholars for more than half a century.³⁴ It belongs to the story told in Telugu newspapers and journals.

The first issue, 1924

The Who’s Who of Freedom Struggle (1980) says Nageswara Rao started Bharati in 1924 to encourage writers and to meet the wishes of scholars.¹ It adds that his journals earned him little money, but his medicine, Amrutanjan, made large profits.¹ The 1961 census handbook of Krishna district says the monthly was meant to spread knowledge of the old culture.⁵

The first issue, dated January 1924, calls Bharati an illustrated monthly, to come out on each new-moon day.² It made these promises to readers:²

three or four coloured pictures in every issue²
a reward for readers who sent photographs of festivals, famous places and well-known people²
illustrated articles on the sculpture and stupas of the Andhra country²
criticism, songs, poems, stories, novels and plays²
to have old unprinted works sent in by readers copied or studied, and returned²

Its contents show who wrote for it. The first issue opens with a poem on Gandhi by Mangipudi Venkata Sarma.³ It also has pieces by Veturi Prabhakara Sastri, Chilukuri Veerabhadra Rao, Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham and Kuruganti Sitaramayya.³

A magazine for scholars and writers

In 1928 P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao called Bharati “a high-class literary magazine”.⁶ They said it was mainly interested in research, and in helping new trends in Telugu writing.⁶ P. T. Raju wrote in 1944 that it was the most popular Telugu monthly.⁷

Historians used it to publish their finds. N. Venkataramanayya noted in 1953 that M. Somasekhara Sarma had edited the Kollipara copper plates of the Vemulavada king Arikesari I in Volume VII of Bharati.⁸

Later years

The magazine lasted long after its founder’s death in 1938.¹ Issues were still coming out in August 1983, almost sixty years after the first.⁴

Where the sources disagree

No disagreement was found among the sources used for this page.

Sarojini Regani (ed.), Who’s Who of Freedom Struggle in Andhra Pradesh, Vol. II (1980), p. 214 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Bharati, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1924), notice of the magazine’s plan, PDF p. 5 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Bharati, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1924), table of contents, PDF p. 3 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Bharati (August 1983), table of contents, PDF p. 3 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only. ↩ ↩²
Census of India 1961, Andhra Pradesh: District Census Handbook, Krishna District (1966), p. xviii. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 119 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
P. T. Raju, Telugu Literature (1944), p. 87 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 73, introduction to the Kollipara plates (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩