Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao · Telugu History

Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao was a lawyer of Bellary who wrote plays for the Telugu stage.¹² With his rival in the same town, Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu, he stands at the start of modern Telugu drama.³ He is remembered above all as the father of the Telugu historical play.⁴⁵

Early life

Y. Sitarama Sarma wrote an account of his life in the monthly Bharati in 1964. According to him, Kolachalam was born on 13 March 1854 at Kamalapuram, near the Virupaksha temple at Hampi.¹ His family was said to descend from Kolachalam Mallinatha Suri, the famous writer of commentaries on Sanskrit poems.¹ His father worked at the court of the chief of Anegondi.¹

The family met with hard times before he was nine, and his studies stopped.¹ His brother-in-law Kuppuswamayya then took him to Bellary. There he learned Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada and English.¹ He worked for a time in a government office at Gooty, but did not like it.¹ He went back to Bellary, where his elder brother Kolachalam Venkata Rao was a leading lawyer, passed the pleader’s examination, and soon did well at the bar.¹

The Sumanorama Sabha

By then Dharmavaram had founded the Sarasavinodini Sabha at Bellary.¹ Kolachalam and his friends founded a drama company of their own, the Sumanorama Sabha, and made him its president.⁴ N. Gangappa describes the two lawyers as rivals, and says Kolachalam was only a few months younger than Dharmavaram.²⁶

Kolachalam began with social plays. His first was Sunandini Parinayam, also called Durasabhangam. He also wrote plays such as Yuvati Vivahamu, meant to help social reform.⁴ When two Marathi companies from Poona played at Bellary, he learned Marathi in two months and put two of their social plays into Telugu.⁴⁷

Later the Sumanorama Sabha pressed him for stories from the Puranas, to match its rival.⁴ He wrote Madalasa Charitra, and then Rukmangada and Satya Harischandriyam. Sitarama Sarma says these two brought him lasting fame.⁴⁸ He went on to write many plays from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.⁸ In all, Sitarama Sarma counts twenty-eight plays.⁴

The fall of Vijayanagara

Kamalapuram and Bellary had once been part of the Vijayanagara empire. So Kolachalam wrote a play on its fall, which Sitarama Sarma calls Ramaraju Charitramu.⁴ It was the play that spread his fame, and it won him the title Andhra Charitra Nataka Pitamaha, “father of Telugu historical drama”.⁴ Because the story showed a conflict between Hindus and Muslims, the British government banned it from the stage.⁴

P. Chenchiah described the plot in 1928. Rama Raya brings up his son by a Muslim woman and gives him command of his army at Talikota.⁹ The son loves a Muslim captive, who urges him to go over to the enemy.⁹ Torn between his love and his duty, he goes mad on the battlefield, kills his father and then himself.⁹ Chenchiah called Kolachalam “the leader of the historic drama”, and noted that his plays were tragedies, a kind rare in Indian drama.⁹ Sitarama Sarma lists other historical plays: Sultana Chand Bibi, Prataparudriyam, Mysore Rajyam and Chandragiryabhyudayam.⁴

Scholar and builder

Kolachalam also wrote in English. His Dramatic History of the World discussed the drama of many countries and the old Indian rules of drama.⁸¹⁰ Sitarama Sarma says he wrote about sixteen books on the Rig Veda and early Indian society. In 1913 he was on the board of a Bellary monthly, Vedartha Chandrika.¹⁰ He built a theatre of his own at Bellary, the Vani Vilasa.¹⁰⁶

Raghava and the last years

The actor Bellary Raghava took the lead roles in Kolachalam’s plays. Among them were Hiranyakasipu, Harischandra, Duryodhana and the Pathan of the Vijayanagara play.¹⁰ Sitarama Sarma thought that these plays made Raghava’s name, and gave Kolachalam his fame as a playwright.¹⁰ Kolachalam died of a carbuncle on 23 June 1919.¹⁰

For the stage of his time, see Telugu theatre and early cinema.

Where the sources disagree

The Vijayanagara play. Sitarama Sarma calls it Ramaraju Charitramu.⁴ Raju calls it Vizianagararajya Patanam, and Chenchiah “The Fall of Vijayanagar”.⁵⁹ Raju says it was the only play for which Kolachalam was famous. Chenchiah names Prithivi Raja as just as popular.⁵⁹

How many plays. Sitarama Sarma and Gangappa count twenty-eight plays.⁴⁶ P. Raghunadha Rao gives thirty.¹¹

Y. Sitarama Sarma, “Ki. Se. Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao”, Bharati, Vol. 41, No. 10 (October 1964), p. 57 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Gangappa, Bharati (March 1968), p. 40 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
P. T. Raju, Telugu Literature (Andhra Literature) (Bombay: International Book House, 1944), p. 72 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Sitarama Sarma, Bharati (October 1964), p. 58 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
Raju, Telugu Literature (1944), p. 73 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Gangappa, Bharati (March 1968), p. 41 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
N. Gangappa, “Andhra Nataka Rangasthalamupai Paschatyulayu, Parsilayu Prabhavamu”, Bharati, Vol. 45, No. 3 (March 1968), p. 39 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Sitarama Sarma, Bharati (October 1964), p. 59 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 115 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Sitarama Sarma, Bharati (October 1964), p. 60 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
P. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (New Delhi: Sterling, 1997), p. 331 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩