TELUGU LITERATURE.
✓ Place names in inscriptions from the 2nd century CE suggest the antiquity of Telugu, while epigraphs of the 5th–6th centuries CE reflect the shaping of the classical form of the language.
✓The earliest surviving work of Telugu literature is Nannaya’s 11th century rendering of the first two-and-a-half books of the Mahabharata in mixed verse and prose.
✓Nannaya laid the foundations of Telugu poetic style, and Telugu tradition gave him the epithet Vaganushasanundu (maker of speech).
✓Tikkana, a minister associated with the court of Manumasiddhi, a ruler based in the Nellore area, added 15 Parvas to Nannaya’s Mahabharata and set new trends in narrative style. He also composed a work called the Uttararamayanamu.
✓ Telugu literature reached a level of maturity in the 14th century during the Kakatiya period and its highest point of achievement during the reign of the Vijayanagara king Krishnadevaraya (1509–29 CE).
