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18. Appakavi

Mid–seventeenth century

Perhaps the most influential grammarian in Telugu, KākunŪri Appakavi tells us in extraordinary detail, in the introduction to his Appakavīyamu, how he came to compose his book in 1656. He was living in the village of Kāměpalli in Palnādu when, one night, Visnu appeared in his dream and prepared him for the arrival the next morning of a Brahmin from Matanga Hill, who would be carrying a written copy of the grammatical sŪtras attributed to Nannaya and known as āndhra-śabda-cintāmani Like other important books, this grammar is said to have been lost and miraculously recovered. Appakavi tells us that he made his own copy of the Brahmin's text; Appakavi's work then takes the form of a commentary on the original sŪtras. Although some of the sŪtra material may go back as far as Nannaya, the story seems to preserve the memory of a moment of creative synthesis in Telugu linguistics and poetics, in the mid–seventeenth century, retrospectively linked with an imagined original text that can be attributed to the first poet. Moreover, despite the self-description of the Appakavīyamu as a commentary, it is really a highly original book that uses the sŪtras as little more than a hook on which to hang new ideas.

Unfortunately, only two chapters of Appakavi's text have survived: the sections on phonology and metrics. The latter subject clearly engaged the attention of Andhra poets and scholars in this period and earlier,

[1] The earliest we have is Kavi-janâśrayamu by Malliya Recana (perhaps eleventh century), though attributed to Bhīmakavi. Appakavi cites this work (3.260) and also finds it necessary to defend its author from "mistakes" that he classes as later interpolations—since, by definition, the first grammar of metrics should have no faults.

as dozens of surviving metrical treatises can attest. This fascination with metrical rules is part of a wider and more fundamental interest in the potent properties of

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sound and syllables. Correctly used, in a metrical sense, poetic syllables have the power to change, and to create, reality—to kill a person, or to bring him or her back to life. The true poet—vaśya-vākku—is capable of controlling and using this inherent energy; by contrast, someone who uses language unawares, without this dimension of control, could unwittingly cause harm to himself, to others, or to the world. For language is autonomous in its power, a living and active reality. Appakavi's grammar, like earlier metrical works, is rooted in this conception. He aims to teach the aspiring poet how to use the syllables properly and how to achieve the fruitful inner relation to language that comes into play in poetic speech. Thus Appakavi tells us which deity presides over which syllable, which of the natural elements is associated with a given sound (agni-bīja, vāyu-bija, etc.)—and all this, in contrast to the use of mantras, for example, in relation to the semantic expressivity of poetic language.

Although other works attributed to Appakavi have been lost, we can see from the surviving portions of the Appakavīyamu that he had a wide-ranging erudition in Vedic sciences, astrology, āgamas, poetics, linguistics, and the systems of philosophy. Both his father and his grandfather were great scholars; his father, Věnganna, was known as mārata brahma, "a second Creator." The family, apparently independently wealthy, stemmed from Tělangāna (KakunŪri in present-day Mahbubnagar District). Unlike other Telugu authors, Appakavi has no patron—except for the god himself, who appeared in his dream.

ON POETRY AND GRAMMAR

[2] Appakavi Appakavīyamu, pīthika (Madras: Vavilla Ramasvamisastrulu and Sons, 1966), 40–68, 87, 93–95.

[One evening in the śāka year 1578,

[3] 1656 A.D.

in the village of Kāměpalli, Appakavi, who had declared his intention to compose a book, worshiped Krsna conversed with scholars about the purānas, and then went to sleep. That night appeared to him in his dream. The dreamer recognized the god by the weapons and other attributes he held in his hands, and bowed to him (in the dream). Visnu said:

	"I am delighted at your awakening.
	Let me introduce my two wives, Wealth and Earth,
	and myself—the god with lotus eyes.
	have come to you, good Brahmin, in affection,
	to bring you certain fortune.

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	Make Nannaya's book into Telugu, with my help,
	to the poets' astonishment and praise.

	Don't ask me how you are to turn into Telugu
	a book you've never heard or seen. I'll tell you
	all about that book, and how it will come to you.

	Nannaya Bhatta first composed the grammar called
	āndhra-śabda-cintāmani, the "Magic Jewel of Telugu Words."
	Then, following those rules, he wrote three books
	from the Mahābhārata, the first poem in the language.

While he was busy with the Bhārata, Nannaya suppressed his rival Bhīmana's book, Rāghava-Pāndavīya. Nannaya's grammar was also a potential rival to Bhīmana's treatise on meter, so the jealous Bhīmana stole Nannaya's book and destroyed it.

	Later a mighty poet in Daksavāti made a rule:
	Telugu poets must never use a single word unless it is attested
	in the Bhārata of Nannaya, the lawmaker of language,
	since no rules of grammar survived.

	From that time on, great poets of the past, Tikkana and the rest,
	composed their works following the words and ways of Nannaya,
	in his three volumes.

	But Sārangadhara, the son of King Rājarājanarendra, had memorized this
	Telugu grammar of Nannaya's in his childhood, even as Nannaya was
	composing it. No one else ever knew it.

	Sārangadhara's feet and arms were amputated
	by the order of his senseless father, but they grew back
	with the help of the Siddha Matsyendra. [4] Rājarājanarendra's wife became enamored of Sārangadhara and tried to seduce him. When he rejected her advances, she slandered him to his father, who ordered his arms and legs cut off. The great Siddha Matsyendranātha found him lying in this state in the forest and healed him. For a discussion of this story, see Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, Court and State in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), 125–43. Then Sārangadhara
	himself joined the ranks of the Siddhas.

	That worthy man gave the book of grammar
	to Bālasarasvati, near Matanga Hill, in the last Kilaka year. [5] One of the year names in the sixty-year cycle. Matanga Hill is located at Vijayanagara; the story thus ties itself to the great kingdom.
	The latter wrote a Telugu gloss on it.

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	That is how it happened that Bhīmakavi, with evil intent,
	threw Nannaya's grammar into the Godāvarī River,
	and that later King Rājarājanarendra's son saved it
	for the world.

	That book, with eighty-two ārya verses and five chapters,
	will be delivered at your door by a Brahmin
	from Matanga Hill.

	The lawmaker of language [6] Nannaya. composed that Sanskrit grammar
	with the help of Nārāyanabhatta. [7] See the selection from Nannaya on pp. 56 and 60. I will assist you
	in making it Telugu.
	In the language of the gods, one can pack dense meaning
	into sŪtras of minimal syllables. If you do not elaborate
	in Telugu, will anyone understand?

	Nannaya composed the rules of word-making
	in the impenetrable coconut mode. [8] That is, one has to chop his way into the kernel and its milk.
	Mere Telugu speakers won't find their way through them.
	You must write them in a style soft as grapes.

	Also, since the lawmaker of language was composing in Sanskrit,
	where no Telugu can be used, he gave the rules alone
	without even one example. That's why some rules
	were unintelligible.

	Can anyone—even the Creator, even his lovely wife,
	the Goddess of Words—count the words generated
	out of a single sŪtra? Still, you can show a few.

	It is impossible to make into Telugu any works of the poets and sages—
	the purānas, itihāsas, or kāvyas—from the past, from the present,
	or yet to be composed, without following these rules of grammar.
	If you translate them ably into Telugu, you will have the merit
	of creating all those books.

	Tātana [9] Věllānki Tātam Bhattu, the author of a work on prosody titled Sulaksana-sāramu. and NŪtna-Dandi [10] Ketana, the author of āndhra-bhāsan;ā-bhŪsanamu. covered a little
	of Telugu grammar. Good scholars though they were,
	their works are not comparable to this.

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	Those poets who agonize over words
	lest they be incorrect will be guided by this book
	to good paths through the wilderness
	of Telugu language.

	Because your book will be helpful to poets,
	you will store up merit and true fame that will lead you
	to heaven. What could be more wonderful
	than making it into Telugu?

	Visnu in Kāměpalle is your own god.
	Dedicate the book to him. We ask nothing more
	from you than this."

	With this command, he went away,
	and I woke up. I looked everywhere, and my heart
	was flooded. I was ecstatic, since I knew
	that a dream in the early morning
	is never untrue. At that very moment,
	a Brahmin came from Matanga Hill with a bundle of books in his arms.

	I welcomed him as a guest and fed him.
	As we were talking, he quoted the phrase
	"Viśva-śreyah kāvyam"—"Poetry is for the good
	of the world." "Where is that from?" I asked,
	and he replied: "Don't you know that it's the first
	verse of Nannaya's book? Here is the text,
	with all eighty-two verses." [11] Note that Matanga Hill is apparently the site where an unnamed Yogi—Sārangadhara?—gave YělakŪci Bālasarasvati a surviving version of Nannaya's grammar, according to Bālasarasvatīyamu 1.3–4. This Telugu gloss onāndhra-śabda-cintāmani ed. Vajjhala Cina Sitaramasvami Sastri (Madras: Vavilla Ramasvamisastrulu and Sons, 1963) thus appears to support, in essence, Appakavi's story of the loss and recovery of this text. Appakavi himself refers to the Bālasarasvatīyamu (verse 50, above); in verse 96 he states that it was the ādhāramu, that is, the basis, for his own commentary. This implies that the text the Brahmin from Matanga Hill brought to Appakavi included Bālasarasvati's commentary. More likely, Appakavi either embellished the laconic statement in Bālasarasvatīyamu or offered a fuller version of an existing story about the lost grammar. A later retelling of this story in the Sanskrit Ahobalapanditīya (Kavi-śiro-bhŪsana)—a Sanskrit commentary on the āndhra-śabda-cintāmani—notes the discrepancies in the text of the sŪtras as found in Appakavi and Bālasarasvati; here, too, Appakavi receives the grammar from a Brahmin who comes from Matanga Hill. I was amazed,

called everybody around, and told them my dream. Hearing it, all were delighted. Among them were some relatives on my mother's side, luminaries

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in the family, authors themselves, versed in the arts of worldly success. They said to me:

	"Because you saw God, you will attain final freedom.
	Because the goddess Wealth was with him,
	you'll be rich. Because Earth came too, you will have lands.
	The conch and wheel point toward victory.
	Because he told you to write the book,
	learning will be yours.

	Visnu himself said you will be blessed. Why even wonder
	if it was a good dream? The book God asked you to write
	has already turned up with this Brahmin. This is proof
	enough for us."

	So I eagerly made a copy of the book Nannaya composed,
	sent the Brahmin off to Benares, and, with the permission
	of my elders and senior scholars, began to write.
	I was thinking, my heart alive with happiness:

	"This Telugu grammar lay hidden all these years,
	unavailable to great poets like Tikkana and others,
	and hence was never made into Telugu.
	This is my great good fortune, the result of my discipline
	in many previous births.

	Moreover, that God who came to me last night in a dream
	and told me to make this book
	will be there for me whenever there is a word
	I don't know. There is no reason to hesitate
	any more."

ON GOOD BOOKS

[12] Appakavi Appakavīyamu (Madras: Vavilla Ramasvamisastrulu and Sons, 1966), 1.8–11, 14–19, 21, 23–26, 42–50, 53, 55–58.

	Just as many mountains can be reflected
	in one small mirror, all the marks of good poetry
	can easily be seen in my book.

	This book is as basic to Telugu
	as the Science of Language is for Sanskrit.
	If you study my book before writing poetry,
	your work will become famous. Otherwise,
	it's no use.

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	Wise men say that one should carefully look
	for good marks when you buy gems,
	receive poetry, acquire horses, or get a woman.

	Only one who knows the marks
	can turn a king of kings into a beggar,
	or make a beggar into a banker.

	Of all good things, poetry is best.
	Anyone who has it lives in heaven
	for endless eons.

	A son, a water tank, a poem, an endowment,
	a temple, a grove, and a Brahmin settlement—
	these are the seven modes of life after death.

	One who creates even one of them,
	however badly he has lived,
	will release 101 generations from hell
	and lead them to freedom.

	Six of the seven—temples, groves, and others—
	fall into ruin in the course of time.
	Poetry is the exception. That's why King Bhoja
	wrote a poem.

	And if you think about it,
	Brahmin villages and the like
	just stand still where you put them.
	Only if you describe them in a book
	can they move through the world. Poetry enhances all.

	Just as drainage water from the city
	flows into the Godāvarī River and becomes pure,
	even a person who has lived a bad life
	is purified by entering
	a poem.

	For a poet, poetry always offers good advice,
	cleanses of evil, brings money, luck, and fame,
	and makes the gods visible.

	Millions of good people were born, lived, and died
	in all four eons, in all seven worlds.
	We've never heard of even one of them
	except for those sung by poets
	in books ancient and new.

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	Vālmīki tells us in the Rāma story
	that monkeys built a bridge over the ocean
	to Lanka. But for his poem, people would think
	this bridge was just another long island.

	The Yajur Veda says that a Brahmin who is a poet
	is pure, and his poem is as pure as milk
	from a tawny cow.

	A poem made by a śŪdra, however rich
	in similes and texture, is not to be received.
	Even a well-cooked rice pudding
	cannot be offered to the gods, if it is touched
	by a crow.

	Just as a gem enhances a bracelet, and the bracelet
	enhances the gem, so a poet and his patron
	make each other famous.

	It was Vālmīki who made Rāma known,
	as Vyāsa did the Pāndavas,
	and Kālidāsa did for Bhoja—
	by making their lives into story.

	Earlier, in this world, sages made poetry.
	That's why it is said, nânrsih kurute kāvyam,
	"Only one who has a vision can make a poem."
	But in the present age, good poets are our sages.

	Who is a real poet?
	A Brahmin of peaceful mind, faithful to his teacher,
	pure, imaginative,
	skilled in the ways of great poets of the past,
	with a gentle heart.

	There are seven kinds of poets: the selective, the wordsmith,
	the mellifluous, the minimalist, the craftsman, the ornate,
	and the delicately lucid.

	The selective poet examines every letter, meaning, quality, and defect.
	The wordsmith constantly seeks out words that sound alike.
	The mellifluous fills his poem with sweetness and softness.
	The minimalist packs elaborate meanings into a few syllables.
	The craftsman alliterates anywhere.
	The ornate poet works with tropes and figures.
	The delicately lucid evokes feeling with sparse but fluid touches.
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	Someone who uses filler words,
	who substitutes short syllables for long,
	who can't fit his phrases around the metrical breaks
	and chooses meaningless sounds—
	can you call him a poet?

	Like a fly that settles on an ulcer and ignores the healthy limbs,
	a bad poet, when he reads others' works, is drawn only
	to the lapses and overlooks what is good.
	Like the goose that can separate milk from water,
	a good poet gravitates to the best.

	A bad poet dismisses what he fails to understand
	as wrong and scorns it. A good poet stops
	and thinks until he understands. If still it isn't clear,
	he consults the elders.

	The wise say that poetry is the only form of knowledge.
	Is there any doubt? Poetry is the ultimate
	learning. To know it is to know the world.

	A king is honored in his own kingdom. If he crosses the border,
	he's not worth a cowry shell. A scholar, though, is respected
	everywhere. A poet is better still. As the saying goes,
	"If you have poetry, who needs a kingdom?" This is true.
	That's why poets write.

	It's a joy when a woman or a poem
	comes naturally to you.
	If you force them, they bring you grief.

	All the labor you invest in learning metrics and poetics
	is a waste—if you are not driven to create
	well-wrought poems in pleasing words.

	The learning of a man with no ability to compose
	never comes to life, like the shape of things at night
	in a house without lamps.