1263-The Telugu navala

My recent item on the early Tamil novel (Miscellany, August 12) had reader Saraswathi Rao wondering whether or not Sri Ranga Raja Charitra by Narahari Gopala Krishnamma Chetty was the first Telugu novel. No authority on the subject, I did some checking around and discovered that it had been written in 1872, was dedicated to Lord Mayo, and had been described by the Fort St. George Gazette as being “ apparently the first attempt ever made… at novel writing in Telugu prose.” The author was at the time the Deputy Collector of Kurnool District and undertook the work in response to a notice by Lord Mayo, the then Governor-General, that had appeared in the Bengal Gazette .

The notice had stated that a work of fiction featuring the customs and rituals of the Bengalis would be rewarded. Lord Mayo saw this as a means of getting the British administrators, who till then had only to learn the language, better acquainted with the customs of the people. Krishnamma Chetty decided to do this on behalf of the Telugu people of Madras Province. He called it a “navina prabandham”, emphasising that it was an original story — not a translation — and re-emphasising that it was ‘new’. Set in the 15th Century, it tells the story of Sri Ranga Raju of the Vijayanagar dynasty and describes the customs and rituals prevalent at the time. These customs have not changed at all, Chetty points out in criticism. Was this then an attempt to urge society to change as well as break caste taboos, wonders a later commentator.

What intrigued me in this commentary, however, was the use of the term navala , the word used in Telugu today, I’m told, for ‘novel’. Kasibhatta Brahmayya Sastry, a scholar, is quoted as saying, “In English, the word ‘novel’ has come out of ‘nav’ which means ‘new’. It is not clear that this ‘nav’ is related to ‘nava’ of Sanskrit. Therefore, ‘navala’ means that (literary form) which has new features — navan visesan lati grihnati iti navala. In English too the word bears the same meaning. Therefore, I am using here the word ‘navala’ for this (literary form) instead of attempting to coin another Sanskrit word.”

Sastry’s use of ‘navala’ came in a commentary he wrote c.1900 on the second Telugu novel, Raja Sekhara Charitra by Kandukuri Veeresha Lingam, which was serialised in 1878 in the author’s own journal, Viveka Vardhani . The word has apparently stuck since then.

No doubt, there’ll be more on this, one of these days, from readers.

(S.Muthiah, Madras Miscellany, Metroplus, Chennai, The Hindu, 26:08:2013)

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