HYDERABAD: Who was the first Telugu poet? Most Telugus believe it was Nannaya, the 11th century poet. But efforts are afoot in Telangana to prove that the roots of Telugu poetry predate Nannaya by several centuries. The effort to find a precursor to Nannaya is a bid to secure the 'classical status' tag for Telugu.
Some critics have been questioning the classical status for Telugu, stating that it is not in fact a 1,500-year-old language, which is a prerequisite for any language to get classical status. They say that if the first poet in the language wrote his work in the 11th century, as Nannaya did, the language could not have been old enough to earn the classical language status.
A petition was filed in a Chennai court challenging the Centre's decision to confer classical status to Telugu and Kannada. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are now fighting against the petition.
The Telangana government and several scholars are now trying to find basis to show that the first poet to write in Telugu was Pampadu, also known as Pampana, who is also the Adi Kavi of Kannada. The government is trying to gather historical evidence from historical inscriptions and literary sources dating back to Pampana's period.
"We want to prove that Telugu literature is much older than what we think," Telangana principal secretary (language & culture) Burra Venkatesham told the New Indian Express. According to him, Pampana lived between 902 AD and 975 AD in Vemulawada, and was the first Telugu poet.
"We are trying to gather evidence to prove that some other poets including Pampana wrote Telugu literary classics prior to Nannaya," Venkatesham further added. "Till the 15th century, Telugu and Kannada shared the same script. That is why some of the books written by Pampana are being considered as of Kannada origin. But now we are gathering evidence to prove that these literary pieces of Pamapana were indeed written in Telugu," he further said.
Interestingly, not many know that Pampana was born in Vangiparru in Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh and migrated to seek royal patronage under the Vemulavada Chalukya king Arikesari in Vemulavada, which is located in the present Telangana state. Pampana died near Bodhan in Nizamabad district. His samadhi is there at Basavatarakanagar of Bodhan.
