Ba:lavya karanamu (children's grammar) of Cinnaya Suri (1809-1862) won the appreciation and admiration of Telugu scholars as a standard grammar of Old Telugu since its publication in 1858. As Cinnaya Suri himself has pointed out, the Telugu grammars that were available carlier were small in size and were mainly concerned with the modifications required by Sanskrit words to become fit for their use in Telugu. Cinnaya Suri, on the other hand, made his grammar an elaborate one by including in it not only the rules for conversion of Sanskrit words into Telugu but also an analysis of native nouns and verbs and also some interesting observations on syntax. All these topics were either cursorily treated or completely ignored in the earlier works. In composing his work, he, to be sure, has utilized the observations made in the earlier Telugu grammars and followed the Papinian tradition of Sanskrit grammar especially the one represented in the Siddha:ntakaumudi: of Bhatto:ji: Di:ksita. But he showed great originality in collecting additional materials from the Telugu classics and in presenting them by framing appropriate rules.
Cinnaya Suri tried to give the overall pattern for Old Telugu restricting himself mainly to the usages of the trio of poets (kavitrayamu, namely Nannaya [11th century, the first 2 parvas and the first half of the 3rd parva), Tikkana [13th century, from the 4th parva to the end] and Erra:preggada [14th century: the second half of the 3rd parva]) who together composed the first literary work in Telugu, a translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata. While it is true that he accounted for certain rare usages in the works of later poets, he did not do this in a systematic way probably because he did not want to overburden the beginners with all minor details. About a quarter century after the appearance of the Ba:lavya:karanamu, Cinnaya Su:ri's student, Bahujanapalli Si:ta:ra:ma:ca:ryulu (1827-1891) collected such occasional usages of poets and published his Trilingalaksanase:samu ('the remainder of Telugu grammar) also popularly known as Praudhavya:karanamu ('a grammar for advanced learners' [1885]) as a supplement to the former (the important modifications suggested in this work are incorporated in the notes of the present work). The two have become the standard works on Old Telugu grammar to be studied by generations of students in all educational institutions.
The present work contains the text of Ba:lavya:karanamu as established by Venkataramana Sa:stri (1964) in Roman transliteration. Each of the su:tras and the explanatory sentences given by the author himself are followed here by English translation. The examples are also provided with meanings in English. All material placed in parentheses along with examples (see, for example, §2.4 [forms before sandhi change), §3.32 [1" sg. forms), §3.45 [forms before sandhi change), and $3.52 [Sanskrit stems]) and with the members of a class (see, for example, §3.58 (alternant forms with them(b)u suffix], $3.66 [forms derived by the suitra), and §7.5 [forms derived by the su:tra]) is added here for the sake of clarity. Although no change has been made in the wording of the text, some punctuation marks are changed and symbols like / (between free variants), - (to separate suffixes from stems) and + (to separate words within a compound) are introduced to facilitate understanding. The notes at the end of each of the suitras contain additional explanatory material, the source for the suitra in the earlier Telugu grammars or in the Sanskrit grammar, the modifications suggested in the Praudhavya:karanamu and other relevant information. The meanings of individual words (including compounds) used by the author in the suitras and the explanatory sentences are also essential for the readers to comprehend the su:tras and the explanatory sentences. Therefore, the individual words are arranged in alphabetical order with their meanings and references to the sutras in Appendix -1. To my knowledge, no one has so far prepared such a word list for this work.
One important change that is made here is giving numbers to chapters and adding the chapter number to the number of the suitra. This makes reference to a particular sutra easier as, for example, §2.16 instead of the earlier practice of referring to it as sandhi(paricche: damu)-16.
This book was so far accessible only to native Telugu scholars. It is hoped that the present translation will make it accessible to a wider body of scholars interested in subjects like Dravidian studies, Indian languages and Indian grammatical tradition.
It was my friend and colleague, Professor N. Kumaraswami Raja, who suggested to me the idea of translating this work into English. He studied it with me and wrote a few articles on the basis of his newly acquired knowledge. I have benefited a great deal from his expertise on the Tamil language and Tamil grammar through long association with him from the 1960's first at Andhra University and later at Annamalai University. He even volunteered to help me in the translation but, unfortunately, I could not undertake this work before his sudden disappearance in July 1989. I am sure that his suggestions would have contributed for the improvement of the quality of this work. I dedicate this work to him as a token of my appreciation of his academic excellence and friendliness.
The present volume of English translation of Chinnaya Suri's Balavyakaranamu by P.S. Subrahmanyam, a mature and distinguished scholar in comparative linguistics and Paniyan grammar, marks another milestone in the study of traditional grammars in India. History and com-parison of languages in the early centuries of the Christian era or even before, largely depended on grammatical rules and their illustrative examples.
Foreign Models in Tamil Grammar by T.P. Meenakshisundaram, History of Grammatical Theories in Malayalam by K.N. Ezhuttaccan, Leelatilakam and its Word Index in two carefully-prepared volumes by A.R. Gopala Pillai, English Translation of Kerala Paniniyam by C.J. Roy. Study of Caldwell and A.R. Raja Raja Varma by K. Raghavan Pillai, Study of Kesiraja by J.S. Kully, Textual Variation of Tolkappiyam and its Word Index, both published by the ISDL, Grammatical Theories of Telugu by B. Purushottam and Study of Panini by J.D. Singh belong to this category. Its main purpose is to find out the grammatical functions of each language and its relationship with other related languages.
Critical English Translation of Tolkappiyam, Comparison of Mukta Bodh of Sanskrit written in Bengali Script with Panini's Ashtadhyayi are currently being undertaken and soon will see light of day.
India is rich in languages belonging to at least four major families. Grammatical literatures mostly based on the speech of the learned are comprehensive. They adopt methods of description and generation as known to the ancients who concentrated on segmentation of a sentence into phrases and clauses and again the phrases and clauses into words, and words into syllables which again are segmented into vowels and consonants and their differentiating features. Later grammarians have simply followed the early ones in the same language or in other languages. A few have improved upon the earlier grammarians. Panini is a telling example who improved upon his predecessors who were ten in number. Similarly, Tolkappiyam of Tamil followed the Aindira tradition. Grammarians of Malayalam have not explicitly mentioned Tamil and Sanskrit traditions adopted by them, but from the sutras, one can infer them. Similar is the case with Nrupatunga and Kesiraja, the Kannada grammarians.
In Balavyakaranamu, the Ashtadhyaya pattern is followed in several places but not rigorously. The other traditions of listing and descriptions are also adopted by Balavyakaranamu. The preliminary grouping, classification and symbolic representations of Panini were not attempted in Telugu. The Paninian mode of description and genera-tion are not strictly adopted in this grammar. The technique of Panini needs years of labour and grammatical scholarship. In Telugu, Kannada or in Malayalam, traditional grammatical literature cannot be dated back beyond ten centuries after Christ. The method followed by the gram-mars of Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam was mostly descriptive with lists which occasionally mention Panini sutras or signs adopted in that grammar. The commentator of Tolkappiyam, especially Teyvaccilayar, of 13th century A.D., mentions Panini. Another commentator, Cenaavariayar, was also familiar with Panini sutras. Patanjali, one of the well-quoted annotators of Panini is worshipped at Chidambaram in South Arcot district of Tamil Nadu. The study of Panini was very common in Kanchipuram. J.F. Stall notes about the king of Kashmir rewarding a scholar from Kanchipuram with gold coins, one each for explaining the sutras of Panini.
While reading through the English translation of P.S. Subrahmanyam, it is easy to locate the parallel rules of Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada in sandhi, morphology and other areas. Rigorous comparison of Dravidian languages through grammars is now possible. That is the gain of such translations.
For a short period, P.S. Subrahmanyam was a Senior Fellow in the ISDL to undertake this work. Soon, he opted for the Emeritus Professorship of the UGC in the P.S. Telugu University.
The expenses for this publication are met from the interest of the endowment created by the P.S. Telugu University, Hyderabad and the balance met from the funds of the ISDL The translation of Balavyakaranamu is now before the world of grammatical scholarship to evaluate and use for further academic work.
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