Two rare and unpublished commentaries on the Amuktamalyada, the epic Telugu literary work of the legendary emperor Srikrishna Devaraya of Vijayanagar, will be published.
The two works, which are nearly 200 years old, are in the form of palm leaf manuscripts and the painstaking efforts of the Oriental Research Institute (ORI) at Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati to bring them out in print are likely to bear fruit soon, perhaps in a month.
The ORI has taken up the task of digitising palm-leaf manuscripts and other manuscripts of Telugu literature under the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) and is one of its Manuscript Conservation Centres (MCC). For several decades it has been striving for the conservation of manuscripts and occasionally publishes some rare works that have not seen the light of the day.
‘’These two unpublished commentaries _ Tatparya Bodhini and Maha Teeka Vyakhya _ are with us along with parts of two other unpublished commentaries _ Budha Manasthoshini and Laghu Teeka. After much effort we could get them,’’ ORI director V Venkataramana Reddy told Express.
Tatparya Bodhini was authored by Gudipati Venkata Kavi in 1800 and Maha Teeka Vyakhya by Gattupalli Srinivasa Kavi in 1846. Both the works will be published in about a month’s time. ‘’We are making efforts to get the lost parts of other two commentaries _ Budha Manasthoshini written by Uppalapati Jogi Jagannatha Raju in 1813 and Laghu Teeka by Gotali Suranna Kavi around the same time,’’ he said.
Of the seven or eight commentaries on the Amuktamalyada, only three have been published so far. These are Sanjivani Vyakhya by Vedam Venkataraya Sastry, Ruchi Vyakhyanam by Vavilla Ramaswamy Sastrulu and Amuktamalyada Soundaryamu by Tummapudi Koteswara Rao.
‘’It is unfortunate that those commentaries on one of the great works of literature in Telugu have remained unpublished so far. We are happy that we are now able to publish at least two commentaries which were almost lost to the world,’’ the ORI director said.
The two commentaries are being published as part of the ten books that are being brought out by the ORI at the request of the state government during the World Telugu Conference held at Tirupati in December 2012.
Some of the other books being brought out by the ORI include Pattabhirama Vilasam, Nrusingha Puranam, Kalyanaraja Charitra and Ramakatha Sudharnavam.