Nannaya

Nannaya Bhattaraka, also known as Nannaya Bhatta, is traditionally regarded as the first poet of Telugu literature, earning the honorific Adikavi (first poet). He is believed to have lived in the 11th century and served as a court poet in the Eastern Chalukya domain of Vengi. Details of his life are scarce and mostly known through traditional Telugu literary histories.

Nannaya’s most enduring achievement is the initiation of the Telugu translation of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata. He began rendering the Adi Parva (and portions of the Sabha Parva) into Telugu, introducing the epic to the Telugu-speaking world. His work laid the foundation for what would become the Andhra Mahabharatamu. The project was later continued and completed by Tikkana and Errana, who finished the remaining cantos, creating a collaborative medieval Telugu rendering of the Mahabharata.

In literary terms, Nannaya’s undertaking established Telugu as a language capable of epic narrative and high poetic diction. His verses helped shape early Telugu prosody, style, and idiom, influencing subsequent generations of poets. Though only fragments of his original composition survive in later anthologies, his role as the pioneering translator and interpreter of a major Sanskrit epic secures his place in Telugu literary history.

Nannaya is remembered as a foundational figure in Telugu literature, whose work initiated a tradition of epic translation and set the stage for later poets who expanded and completed the Andhra Mahabharatamu.