27. Commentaries on Books

27. Commentaries on Books
The Prosody of the Telugu and Sanskrit languages explained

References to authors
In this book CPB referred to 55 authors. The Editor G.N. Reddy, and Bangorey regret not having included the whole list. Even a cursory glance at the list of the fourteen authors (out of the 55) included shows how utterly unconnected these people are with the subject matter of the book. This reference is a clear proof of the pedantry of CPB, besides an unthinking editorship. The aim of CPB is to impress his readers that he has studied all these authors at one time or other, a cheap way of impressing the British students for whom the book was meant. We have seen the type of riff raff who used to come, with very little scholastic background. This is the sure way of gaining some upper hand over them because, CPB is certain that none of them would have had a glimpse of these books. The pity is our editors, who have with them the comments by Caldwell, have succumbed to this childish way of CPB of impressing people.

The rejection by the College Board of this book has not been brought out by the editors. The College Board obviously knows the shallowness of CPB and the useless ness of the book. It was eventually published decades later.
“Although he devoted all his life, energy and money to the study of Telugu and virtually rescued from oblivion almost all the major as well as minor classics of Telugu literature, we paid little attention to his work.” The above sentence is one of the most obnoxious lies and contains so many elements each one of which is a vicious untruth. I have pointed out such lies at various places, but I shall deal with them again briefly.

1. Firstly there were no signs of Telugu literature facing oblivion. Please see chapter 17.
2. Secondly that the Mss were all illegible and faulty is not true. I have checked from 14 GOML catalogues, and find that more than 50 % are in acceptable readable condition even in 1932, not to speak of in 1832.
3. The editors do not want to analyse and find the real truth behind this perfidious game of Mss collection. Please see chapter 13. Palm Leaf Manuscripts.
As per CPB the Telugu standard in Madras College was deplorable, and yet he hardly scraped through. He himself said he did not read or own a single Telugu book for seven years, till 1828. He also said that he learnt nothing in the college in 3years. These being the facts, it should be researched as to who wrote this book. We must keep in mind his own statements of using amanuensis in Cuddapah showing his inability in writing in Telugu script.
Incidentally is there single a book, even a page written by him in Telugu script in his own hand? If so why is it the researchers did not put a sample facsimile, as they have done with the English writing and even the first posting letter to Cuddapah?
After the publication of the first edition of the book, Prof. Dr. SALVA KRISHNAMURTY, M.A., M. Litt, Ph. D. wrote me on this point on follows: “Early in my career (1952-53), before I entered Collegiate Teaching Service, I did a stint of service at GOML, Madras – 5 describing Col. Mackenzie’s collection of Mss. When I had the opportunity of seeing many, if not all ‘the CPB’s collection of Mss. With his occasional remark / comment in English. But I have not seen even a single page of his Telugu writing. I have never considered CPB as any kind of a scholar in Telugu”.
“I believe, with the honourable exceptions of Orientalists, the results of the exertions of these civil servants have been motivated by their career / administrative exigencies or their desire to propagate Christianity. The benefits of their work have been marginal and secondary”.
“Your book has pricked the bubble. Whatever may be the averments of CPB – enthusiasts I believe it was the poor pundits who did almost all the work”?
It was easy for him to make someone write the whole book using one of his beneficiaries. This was a practice adopted by Campbell, as well as the genius Morris, according to CPB who castigates them for using the natives to write and usurping the credit. So why do we think he is above this practice? If his movements from station to station, Vs the dates of Mss parishkarana are all tallied any one can see that he did NOTHING, except write a page or two of COMMENTS on the book.
This trick of blaming others of stealing authorship is as old as Adam. The thief joining the crowd shouting loudest of all,” Catch the Thief, Catch the Thief” is an old joke in the Hindi movies. CPB is exactly that type who put his name to whatever book he got hold of. So many were already available as can be seen below:
1. Benjamin Schultz was the first European to bring out printed books in Telugu.
2. Carey of Serampur published a Telugu grammar; on this was grounded Pritchett’s… printed in 1819.
3. Teloogoo Grammar. A.D. Campbell in 1816 Reward 15000/-
4. Lexicon Dictionary – Andhra Dipika… M. Venkayya – (3500Rs. reward)
5. Translated the above as Dictionary – WILSON – 1821 15000/-
6. Based also on Reeves E. Kannada Dictionaries.
7. Gentoo Vocabulary and Grammar – William Brown 1818.

‘Since my grammar was written in 1840, two or three works have been written to supersede it.’ CPB condemns them and states that his own second edition though amended at nearly every page was the best. If it was so good how come that every page had to be amended? Doesn’t it show some thing wrong with a grammar that needed amendments of every page? On top of it he states that he reincorporated some parts, which he removed in the first edition. That is the grammarian for you one, who removes rules as redundant and reinstates after a few years. What happens to the generations of students who studied the earlier versions? But our biographer doesn’t ask these questions; he doesn’t even deal with the issue.
All the same let us take the underlined sentence. A grammar is written of a language, which has more than 1000years of known literature, and for which there are at this point of time over 15 or more grammars to refer to; and he has over 10 Pundits working. Yet he finds that in about 12years every page of his own grammar had to be amended or added to. What do you make of the First Version? Do grammars get modified / amended every decade?
Stretch your imagination and think of Panini’s Sutras getting modified – even every century!! Such is the person who is projected as the saviour of our literature. Simply, and to put it bluntly, he has no clue of what he was doing to the language, which his mind could not grasp and out of sheer frustration and dejection he went about maligning every one and every issue connected with the language.

Look at the preposterous statement: -
“As I proceeded I had to make my own tools to write my own Grammar and Dictionary”. This is a misleading assertion. As brought out there were enough grammars and dictionaries already and he used all of them as bases. THERE IS NOTHING ORIGINAL either in concept or execution except that he messed up so much that they are no longer of any use for man or beast. They are on the dung heap of forgotten history already.