Culture Revealed Through Literature - Kavisamrat Viswanadha Satyanarayana

Culture is a word that sometimes baffles ones understanding. We understand something but we are not definite about it. Social culture, culture of the race, culture of the soul are some expressions wherein this word is used and yet what we understand is more or less hazy and yet we see expressions wherein this word is used and yet we seem to understand the meaning of the word. It is something other than the rules of society or ones conception about politics, literature and other things. It is something that deals with the past impressions that are recorded in hearts of men. We speak of the cultures of past civilizations. Every system of thought and every institution leaves some impression upon the minds or souls of men who live in them. That impression may be said to be a culture. If it is so, when one reads Telugu Literature, ones heart gets a peculiar bent to revel in the beauties of thought and expression. You live in that and you are elated by the grace, the elegance and the beauty of that in which you have. Telugu Literature is a store-house of these qualities; elegance and melody are the most predominant features of the Telugu language, and literature always enhances the qualities of the language in which it is written. From Nannaya till now Telugu Literature traveled from Rajahmundry to, let us say, Hyderabad. No poet can escape the environment, the impressions of the society in which he lives or the impact of political thought. During the period of Eastern Chalukyas, Telugu literature began. Historians say that the nucleus of Telugu literature was in Kannada literature. There were great poets in the Kannada language even before Nannaya who with Narayanabhattu is said to have copiously borrowed from Pampa, the Kannada poet. Even the metres Nannaya used had been previously used by other Poets in Telugu who never attempted a Kavya. Either Pampa or Nannaya did not invent their metrical forms. They were handed down to them from the Sanskrit language and the Desi traditions. Nannaya, as the great masters of other languages of India, followed in the foot-steps of the Sanskritic tradition. The eastern Chalukyan Emperors were Sanskritic in culture and their State language was Sanskrit. Roots in Music If is often said that Valmikis Ramayana was more sung than read. Veda is a Sruti-that which is heard and so the beginning of every literature must be said to have its roots in music. It must have been read in a sing-song tune. Laya, which is the soul of the scientific music, also must have crept in with the recitations of literature. All the meters either in Sanskrit or in any literature have a cadence and rhythm and literature is never divorced from the fundamentals of music. And as such, literature always attempted to make its language musical. Some modern critics have gone to the extent of saying that harsh consonants should not be used in poetry. They care little for the tenets laid down by the ancient Sanskrit rhetoricians and assert that the language of poetry must be like honey, the song of the cuckoo and the whispering of the loving bride. But music is not only in these things. It lies elsewhere also. Music is not only the soft murmurings of the meandering stream and rustling of leaves. There is also music in things which are grand. In expressing the music of the spheres, the word music means harmony. The order of things is music. The ancient classics in Telugu Literature produced this harmony and not the effeminate tender murmurings, the modern critics advocate.

There are not less than a dozen masters in Telugu Literature and everyone has his own style and everyone is grand. Some people like Milton of English Literature produced something like Cathedral Music as Carlyle put it. Classical authors lived and rose to the level of classicism because of this grand style they sang in. Nannaya has the grandest style, there is an inimitable style in him. He is always unapproachable. His music sustained the Telugu race. Tikkana took up another lyre. He is the next greatest poet of the Telugus. Tikkana came down from that high pedestal of celestial music and sang in a strain that is within the reach of the common man. He made the Telugu metre twist, bend and contort. He innovated numberless possibilities in Telugu metrical composition. Excepting one or two other masters all the Telugu poets have followed closely in the foot-steps of these two great masters. The Telugus in the 17th century became masters of almost the whole of the South. At Tanjore and Madura the capitals of Telugu Kingdoms were set up and the tide of Telugu literature ran high in the farther South. The Naik kings of Tanjore and Madura were great poets by themselves and it must be said that literature took a new vein under their rule. As far as the music and melody of the Telugu language are concerned it can be said without doubt that this southern school reached the maximum level of fineness and elegance. It is not only in literature but also in other sister arts; the south under the rule of these Naik kings affected the most refined excellence. New Melody The roots of all cultures that exist from the Himalayas to the Cape Comorin, were laid in the great Sanskritic tradition. No literature could grow in this land independently. Telugu literature is but a fond child of Sanskrit literature. The first masters of Telugu literature accepted the Sanskrit literature as the base of Telugu language. Other languages in the other parts of India seemed to have been less affected by the impact of the Sanskrit language but Telugu literature accepted the Sanskrit literary forms as they are. When we say that literature mainly deals with the musical side of the expression and when music is said to be a hand-maid of cadence and rhythm, one cannot find fault with Telugu literature for having closely following the footsteps of Sanskrit literature. The Classic Sanskrit literature had accepted certain metrical forms like SIKHARINI, PRITHVI, etc. as the main meters. Telugu literature has deviated from this path and accepted Mattebha, Champaka and Utpalamala as the main metres. The Cadence in these metres is different from the cadence of metres in Sanskrit. When long compounds were the feature in Sanskrit metres and when Telugu literature accepted the long compounds, a new type of melody and cadence came into it. Like this many new beauties have formed themselves when this new Telugu literature came into existence. Another thing must not be overlooked. Any literature is nothing but the expression of the life, the customs, the proclivities of the people who speak that language. The cadence, the stops in a verse, the length of the sentence, and such small things are nothing but the expressions of the soul of the race. Humanity lives at different places on the globe. Different rivers flow, the soil is different at every place. The climatic conditions differ. All these things affect the human existence in a different way. Here in the main Telugu country, the great rivers, the Krishna and the Godavari, flow. The waters of these great riveres have their own individualistic characteristics modified by the nature of the soil over which they flow. The rice and the other food products imbibe a certain quality which runs through the veins of the people who live upon them. The physical and the vocal

organs of that particular human race are changed to the tune of the effects of the food they eat. In this way the people that inhabit that part of the land in India which is called the Andhra country have some distinct features of their own. Their customs and habits slightly differ from those of others. He vocal chords have become very fine and they express all sounds most clearly. When Sanskrit is read by the Telugu people, the inhabitants of the other parts of India admire them. Vowels and consonants are uttered by the Telugu people in clear cut and well defined sounds. People with such vocal chords can make the music of their literature reach the maximum level in clarity and cadence. Telugu literature is a mirror of this fineness of sounds and rhythms. Composers Role Leaving literature, and coming to the other arts, the individualistic features of Telugu culture are equally high. Excepting sculpture and painting all other arts like Dancing, Music and the Desi Drama are not divorced from the linguistic expression. Language always is a hand-maid of these arts. At the present times particularly the great music composers like Tyagaraja, Annamayya and Kshetrayya are celebrated as great Poets. Music has contributed greatly to the culture of this land. Sometimes it is said that these composers of music have done much towards the enrichment of Telugu literature and culture. Their compositions borrowed the real expressions of the common man, the idioms, the adages and the twists of expression that have taken root in the real everyday life of the common are the things that made the compositions of these great artists brilliant. They bring them nearer to the heart of the common man. If Tyagaraja exploited the nobler and spiritual instincts of the Telugu race, Kshetrayya showed the fine tendencies of the Telugu race in their esoteric and aesthetic phases. The high watermark Tamilnad has reached at present in the fields of Music and Dance is but an outcome of the impact of Telugu culture. The Telugu people ruled the Tamil country two centuries ago and the Telugu culture has left a longstanding impression upon their arts. Tyagaraja was a Telugu national and his mother tongue was Telugu. He was a descendant of a Telugu Brahmin family. Throughout India all these arts have the same sources for music. Samagana was the beginning. It was based on five strains (Panchavibhaktika). Later on even in the Veda it became Saptavibhaktika, the seven swaras on which the whole music of India was built. But these swaras were uttered in different ways or, to put it more correctly, they assumed different forms in the mouths of musicians belonging to different provinces. The food the man eats, the slang he uses, the dialects and cockneys have effected the expression of the consonants and vowels uttered by people of different places, and swaras in the north have been divided into some Tivraswaras. The North was more affected by the Muslim contact while there was less impact of the Muslim culture in the South. The two schools of music, the Hindustani and the Carnatic, appear to be different but they have grown from the same root. Their authority is the same. Their Swaras are the same, but they sing differently. If Tansen was the first great exponent of the Hindustani Music, Tyagaraja is the same for the Carnatic music. There may be many variations of the same type but all of them hover around on musician, here Sri Tyagaraja. So also a number of systems of dance have taken their birth in Bharatamunis Natyasastra and it is accepted on all hands that Bharata Dance has reached its peak in the Kuchipudy style. There are some dance centers in Tamilnad which may now claim to

be of independent growth. But the street drama and some other parts of Tamilnad go to prove that they are the blossoming of seeds sown by the impact of Telugu culture. Devotional Approach The main concern of this article, however, is about the language and poetical expression that are there in music compositions; the compositions of the dance deal mainly with the Sringararasa side of it. Bhanumisra is the author of Rasamanjari in which the different heroines are almost cata this dance-literature has grown. Almost all of these dance compositions deal with the esoteric phase of the human mind and heart. It exploits the deeper and subtler sentiments of love. Many are the ideas and sentiments and extravagant is the treatment of this love phase in the dance compositions. There is a tendency in the Telugu country as also elsewhere, to interpret this love phase as belonging to a peculiar devotional strain. Many of the composers even wrote those songs addressing some God, as Kshetrayya did addressing Gopala of Movva, small village in Krishna district. Sometimes it is obscene or even repelling. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that there is a subterranean current of devotional approach to God. The same thing may be said of Gitagovinda written in Sanskrit by Jayadeva. The ideology has its nucleus in the philosophical and theological explanations of Creation, or rather in Sankhya Philosophy. This Sankhya Philosophy was modified by the Vedic touch and inanimate Prakriti was made animate and the great cult of Shakti is the noblest child of their confluence. The dance compositions mainly deal with the physical side of love between man and woman, the man being always Lord Vishnu in his Krishna form and the woman like Gopika. The woman need not be a real woman; a male bhakta is often the Gopika but the exposition deals with the different phases of sexual life, its happiness of union and its sorrow of separation. Telugu literature may be said to be the richest in the grand, subtle and beautiful exposition of this love sentiment. Here the Telugu poet dug out heavens from the common mud. With Lord Sri Krishna as the Central figure of this and other types of poetry abundance of pastoral themes crept into this literature. Krishna is the Lord of the Shepherd class. He roamed the fields and forests, took care of the cowherd, drove them home in the evening; perhaps saw that every cow in the herd reached its maters home. With the dust raised by the hooves of the cows in their roaming the Lords body was besmeared. He looked a new God, a new person. He, in every position, was dear to the poets and to the Bhaktas that sang of him and this kind of poetry is enriched with various sentiments of Gopis. There is tendency in foreigners to interpret this love of Gopis towards the Lord as sensual and sexual. Sri Krishna is said to be immoral and that such an individual is raised to the level of a supreme Deity is nefarious, they say. It is not true. The secret of it lies elsewhere. Sri Krishna when he was tending these herds of cows was a boy of not more than 10. The Gopis were housewives much older than he. They were in the prime of life whereas Sri Krishna was a young child. To speak of sex between them is not only a travesty of truth but also of common sense. It is completely and undoubtedly a sentiment of devotion of Gopis towards Sri Krishna in whom they recognized the Lord because of the super intelligence they were invested with. The Sataka This pastoral strain is very rich in Telugu literature not only of the songs but also of the Sataka, another form of Telugu literary expression. A Sataka is a small book of one hundred verses. These verses are always addressed to some Deity. This form of

literature is to be found in no other literature of any part either in India or elsewhere. It is an indigenous product of the Telugu language and is completely Telugu in its genius. Booklets written about other themes comprising small material may exist in other literatures but this sort of literary expression is not to be found anywhere else. This Sataka is mainly devotional and often lyrical. Lyricism which seems to capture the heart of the reader very easily is said to pervade not only in the small Kavyas but even in the great classics. You cannot always harp upon the grand sentiment. You are always obliged to come down and revel in the smooth, tender, cordial and personal elements. The great Bhagavata written by Potana is full of long passages of lyrical beauty, the main cause being the 10th Skandha (Canto) of Bhagavata which is the story of Sri Krishna. Pastoral and lyrical themes cannot be avoided when it is a matter of dealing with the life of Sri Krishna and Sri Krishna is the main theme for all poets in Telugu literature. All great poets in India began their poetry with the praise of Sri Krishna because the very theme is replete with poetic ideas and you need not supply or contribute the poetic ideas and you need not supply or contribute the poetic thought borrowed from your imagination. The Sataka is a very facile vehicle for the expression of all kinds of sentiments, devotional thought, lyrical thought, and pastoral thought. Criticising society, enumerating the morals of man, lampooning the defects both in men and society are the themes dealt in Satakas. In certain Satakas invocations to God to give relief to a particular group of men found in the clutches of a tyrant are done and it is said that instant relief was obtained. Certain Satakas have become very famous because of such miraculous happenings. Though this Sataka literature comprises of hundreds of volumes, there are in Telugu literature two or three top ranking Satakas. One by a poet named Dhurjati, famous for the melody of his voice and the other by Kasula Purushottam Kalahastiswara Satakam and Andhranayaka Satakam respectively. This latter work reaches a high water-mark in a particular way of expression of ideas which seems to be the real genius of Telugu language. No language can be said to be deprived of the capacity of slinging hits against other, cutting sly jokes, making slang remarks. It is part of human nature to speak ill of others and find fault with others doings it is to this nature perhaps Christ referred when he asked people not to speak of the mole in others eyes without knowing the beam in your eyes. The greatness of Kasula Puroshottam lies in diverting this drawback in human nature to express the devotion towards the Lord, a thing that was never attempted by anybody; and the attempt he made is superb. He seems to be the master of twists of such expressions in Telugu literature, and the Telugu language is the riches in this kind of verbal profundity. Tikkana, one of the three greatest poets of Andhra and Nachana Somana another poet spoken of as even a great artist than Tikkana in some circles, have a richness of expression regarding the slinging bent, that is inherent in the Telugu language. Telugus are a peculiar race, agile in their physical form; capable of moving every limb and making contortions of the face frequently and when walking they flourish their hands as if they are performing some dance. All these outward physical qualities are nothing but the expressions of the nature of their agile soul, and agility made their language rich in this kind of sly slinging at others and the poets, in whose works this phase of Telugu literature runs high, are the real Telugu Poets, and so Tikkana is accepted on all hands as the greatest poet in Telugu literature. The very making of his verse is a mirror to this sort of nature of the Telugu race. A Harmonious Blend

The Telugu people from this analysis appear to be not composed in their natures. It may be supposed that they are given to frivolity but it is not so. They are a curious mixture of the high and the low bringing them both to a harmonious blend. Another branch of the Telugu literary form which is called Udaharana goes to prove this fact. This Udaharana in volume is a much smaller one than the Sataka. It is completely devotional in its strain. The poet addresses the Lord, whoever he may be, Vishnu or Siva and there are innumerable manifestations of these two inflections these are called Vibhaktipratyayas. What other non-inflectional languages are obliged to express with the aid of prepositions etc., these languages, can express with the simple art of adding inflections to the substantives. And now why these inflections? They belong to the domain of syntax and syntax is a very important feature in non-inflectional languages. It is called Karaka in these languages. Karaka is the process of grammatical construction of a sentence which makes the sentence understood in the relation in which a noun stands to the verb. Every noun with some inflection added to it modifies the meaning of the verb and these inflections are seven in number and there is no eighth relationship between the noun and the verb. The whole bulk of human expression and human action must be expressed in these seven forms only. The Udaharana Kavya addressed the Lord in these seven inflectional forms. Sabuddhdhi (address) that is the word in the vocative case is the only form in which another person can be addressed. The other six inflectional forms have nothing to do with this kind of addressing another person. One treats of the subject and another of the object, the third speaks of the tool with which we do a thing, the fourth is to make mention of Him for whom you do the thing and with all these inflections God is addressed. The Telugu writers with originality of genius who invented this literature were seers who saw the truth of the whole build of human expression and thought merging into the great formless, speechless energy that is Goda literature which invented such a literary form cannot be said to be frivolous. They realized God and lived a careful life appearing outwardly as if caring for nothing. This nature of the Telugu race can be traced from the beginning of its history. It is a heroic race but fundamentally peace-loving. Behind all these vagaries, there is a fundamental stratum of understanding of the real values of Creation. Blend of Dance and Literature Times have changed and the face of the country appears to be something different. Concepts differed, society, education, politics, literature all these seem to have undergone a metamorphosis. Education now-a-days has become completely scholastic and is made systematic. In ancient India it was not so. To say that majority of people in ancient India were uneducated is a misreading of facts. Education was imparted to the masses not through the current means, but by the itinerant groups of beggars and exhibitors of dramas, and such sister arts. These were the media of Mass Communication in ancient days. When this kind of civilization was in vogue a great Dance-Drama came into existence wherein the art of dancing and literature were given a beautiful blend. Its name is Yakshagana. There are many other such institutions in ancient India but Yakshagana assumed the largest importance because it is the fullest expression of these two arts. It is a curious yet harmonious mixture of the secrets of the secrets hidden in ancient Sanskrit works on Rhetorics and also of the great scientific work of Bharatamuni. The great innovation was made by Siddappa, the father of Kuchipudi dance. Its beginnings were in the 16th Century. The different intricacies of the talas; the lore that is in the Puranas, Vedas and Upanishads; and the different ragas; were all blended into this Yakshagana. Yakshagana is such a consummate art wherein the highest importance is given to the Rasa theory. A raga that might be sung by a

scientific musician in a particular way is changed in Yakshagana to suit the common sentiment of the common man. It is given such a shape to go direct to the abhinaya () They are one single expression of that idea which is formless, which has no form before it is expressed. This great truth is the basis on which our ancient arts were built. The Kuchipudi School of Art had carried this mission to the ends of Bharata Desa and it struck hard in Tamilnad, though very recently some musicians rebelled against it in Tamilnad since its songs are in Telugu language. The Telugu culture has left its indelible impression upon the whole of the South (Dakshinapatha) because the people saw a replica of the real sweetness and mellifluity that is imbedded in their hearts in the music of the Telugu country and in the Telugu country and in the Telugu songs on their tongues. This Telugu Yakshagana was made to reach its height during the regime of the Madura and Tanjore Naik Kings. Every one of the kings was a litterateur and their courts abounded in great scholars and poets. They wrote in Sanskrit and composed works in Sanskrit and composed works in classical Telugu but none left this phase untouched. Some Yakshagana Prabandha oozed out from the pen of every poet, and the greatest exponent of this branch of Telugu literature in those days was Rangajamma, the consort of Sri Vijayaraghava Nayaka, a lady of illimitable intellectual resources with numerous accomplishments. The art of dancing was at her finger tips. She was the greatest exponent of that art in the court Vijayaraghava Nayaka. She is an authoress of a very high order, which can be understood by the honor of Kanakabhisheka done to her by the King. Kanakabhisheka is a high honour done to the Goddess Saraswati herself. There are only two poets in the span of one thousand years of Telugu Literature to whom this Kanakabhisheka was done. One is Srinatha, the melody of whose verse may be compared to the lyre Orpheus., and the second Rangajamma. Rangajamma is decidedly superior to Srinatha in the sense that she is scholar, a poetess, a dramatist, a dancer and a confluence where all these different streams of art met. This, however, is not to lessen the greatness of Srinatha who stands like a radiant constellation in the firmament of Telugu literature. If we take only classical Telugu literature into consideration Rangajamma cannot stand beside him. For the matter of that none can stand beside him. The melody of his voice is unique; a melody that was instilled into the chordial receptacles of the Telugu race. Its beauties, subtleties, manifold twists and expressions, its new introduction to the classical dance and its many varied type of Desi Dance go to make this Yakshaganaa a new creation. It change the life of the nation, and made the people live a life of deeper sentiments and artistic habits. They spoke in the language of Yakshaganas. Their imagination took the path of the Yakshagana. Yakshaganas made the illiterate people literate, unscholarly people scholarly. Through it the Nighantus, the Shastras, the secrets of spiritual lore came to the common man. They were saved from the trouble of going in search of these invaluable treasures. Goddess Saraswati through these Yakshaganas visited almost every home and the dark recesses of their small huts were illuminated by Her luster. The heart of the common man became a repository of the fundamental culture. There were no sciences that were not dealt with in Yakshagana. It is not only the great truth of the scripture that is brought to the common man but also physical sciences. Dissertations on maternity, physiology, zoology, botany, physics and chemistry, politics and military craft in small measures were handed over to the common man. It is a pity that this great institution is fast disappearing from the face of the country. If at all there is any attempt to resuscitate the fast disappearing arts of this land the first preference must be given to Yakshagana. The modern literary critic of Telugu drunk deep in English literature has a tendency to view the ancient indigenous institutions in

comparison to those found in England. Any history of the development of the English Drama speaks of mystery plays, miracle plays etc., and these modern critics sometimes speak of Yakshagana as the beginning of modern drama. Modern drama is two-fold; the traditional type of the Sanskrit drama and the new Shakespearean type. Ibsen and other European dramatists have entirely changed the ancient mould of drama. Modern dramas are sisters of the modern short stories. Either way Yakshagana cannot be said to be the nucleus of this dramatic form. It has an independent, indigenous birth and growth. That this Yakshagana is the ruling planet of the life of the ancient Telugu race is evidenced by the fact that the great classic poets of this land had borrowed immensely from the themes and sentiments of this Yakshagana. Yakshagana dealt with the actual life of the Telugu people and the classic authors also could not escape its impact. More and more lyricism, pastoralism and circumstances that happened in actual life crept into the monumental works of the classic poets. Srinatha and Pingali Surana borrowed profusely from this great source. Andhra Pradesh October 1963.