Nannechoda

Nannechoda was a Telugu Choda prince of Pakanadu, in today’s Kadapa district.¹ He wrote the Kumarasambhavamu (the birth of Kumara), a long Telugu poem on the birth of Shiva’s son, the war-god.¹ The poem was lost for centuries and printed only in the 20th century.² Its date is one of the great disputes of Telugu literature, because some scholars claim it is older than Nannaya’s Mahabharata.¹³

The prince of Pakanadu

P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao wrote the first history of Telugu literature in English, in 1928.¹ They called Nannechoda “an Andhra Choda of Pakanadu”.¹ His titles were Kavirajasikhamani (crest-jewel of royal poets) and Tenkanamatya.¹ In another chapter they make him the son of a king of “Pottipi Nadu”, which they place in Pakanadu.⁴ See Pottapi and the Telugu Chodas of Pottapi and Nellore.

In the opening of his poem, Nannechoda calls himself the son of Chodaballi, lord of Pakanadu.¹ He also names Orayur on the Kaveri, in the Tiruchirappalli (then Trichy) district, as the capital of his kingdom.¹ Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao did not believe this.¹ In their view the family had once come from the Kaveri country, and kept up the old capital’s name only as a family memory.¹

They counted him among the royal poets, with Krishnadeva Raya, “with pen in one hand and sword in the other”.⁵ According to them he “lost his life shortly after” the poem, “in the internecine wars of the period”.⁶ They do not name the war or the year.⁶

The Kumarasambhavamu

The Kumarasambhavamu is a mahakavya (great poem in many cantos).¹ Its story had been told in Sanskrit by Kalidasa and by Udbhata.¹ Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao wrote that Nannechoda followed neither alone, but used them both.¹ He dedicated the poem to Jangama Mallikarjuna, a famous teacher of the Lingayat (Virashaiva) faith.¹ He is also said to have written a Kalavilasa, which is lost.¹

The same historians list the special features of the poem:¹⁶

• he was the first poet to use Kannada and Tamil words in Telugu verse
• he joined words in ways that later grammarians did not accept
• he preferred Kannada metres
• he opened his poem with praise of good poets and with a set of verses dedicating it, customs later credited to Tikkana¹⁶

They judged that he used foreign words without care.¹ But they had “hardly any doubt of his extensive and massive learning in Sanskrit and Kanarese”.¹ C. R. Reddy, in his foreword to their book, named Nannechoda among the Telugu poets famous for their skill in Kannada.⁷

A story about his death

The grammarian Atharvana told a warning story about Nannechoda, as Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao report it.⁶ He said that Nannechoda began his poem in the sragdhara metre with a pattern of syllables thought to bring bad luck.⁶ In this telling, the poet “courted death” by the choice.⁶ The story rests on an old belief about lucky and unlucky metres.⁶

How the poem was found

The Kumarasambhavamu was found by Manavalli Ramakrishnayya, also known as M. Ramakrishna Kavi.²⁸ He searched the country for old Telugu manuscripts.² Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao called his discovery and printing of the poem “a literary event of capital importance”.² K. Sitaramaiya, writing in Hyderabad in 1943, said the poem had started “a big controversy”.³ In his view the argument had brought many hidden facts of Telugu literature to light.³

Where the sources disagree

The poet’s date is disputed.

• Before Nannaya. The editor, Ramakrishna Kavi, placed the poet in the 10th century, before Nannaya.¹ Sitaramaiya summed up his reasons.³ The poem uses many Tamil and Kannada words and some forms that later fell out of use.³ It names an older poet, “Ramesa”, known from no other work.³ Sitaramaiya first found these arguments convincing.³
• After Nannaya. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao put the poet about 1150, and wrote that the early date was “not confirmed by critical examination”.¹ By 1928, they added, “an increasing number of competent critics” thought the poem later than Nannaya.⁹ In a note to his 1943 book, Sitaramaiya said that he too had changed his mind.³ He pointed readers to later studies, among them one by S. Lakshmipathy Sastry published by the University of Madras.³

This page follows Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao in listing Nannechoda after Nannaya.

Footnotes

1. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 52 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹

2. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 110 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), pp. 22–24 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

4. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 23 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

5. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 29 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

6. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 53 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

7. C. R. Reddy, foreword to P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 6 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 18 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

9. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 37 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩