The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Scholar's account of Adilabad visit rich in detail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 04, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Scholar's account of Adilabad visit rich in detail

By S. Harpal Singh

ADILABAD, AUG. 3. August 4, 2004, will mark 174 years of the famous visit of Enugula Veeraswamaiah, chief interpreter at the Madras High Court, in 1830 to Adilabad.

Veeraswamaiah, a Telugu scholar (1780-1836) employed at the Madras High Court, had chronicled his passage through Adilabad while travelling to Varanasi (Kashi) in 1830. These chronicles were published as `Enugula Veeraswamaiah Kashi Yatra Charitra' by the Telugu Akademi in 1992. His diary was first published in Marathi in 1836, just before his death. The manuscript is available at the State Archives in Chennai.

Journey on foot

The itinerant scholar had embarked on his journey on foot with a retinue of 100 people, including family members from Chennai on May 18, 1830. He crossed the river Godavari to enter present day Adilabad district at Soan village near Nirmal on July 31. He reached Wadoor village in Neredigonda mandal on August 2.

He says Wadoor was a big centre having houses of scholarly Brahmins. He crossed the river Kadam (present day Kupti) to reach Ichoda on August 3 where he was put up for the night. At 6 am on August 4, Veeraswamaiah's retinue left Ichoda to reach Adilabad town at 2 pm. The caravan passed through Mekala Gandi area near Gudihatnoor and the scholar mentions about the danger posed by a large number of tigers in these jungles.

The traveller and his retinue stayed in Edulabad (Adilabad) till August 5 at the present day Gopala Krishna Mutt then known as Bramhachari Baba Matam. He says "Edulabad lo sakala soukaryalu unnayi mariyu sakala pani vallu unnaru" (Adilabad has all amenities and people of all trades and calling).

Colloquial Telugu

According to the chronicler, the area between Ichoda and Wani in Maharashtra was then ruled by Musore Mulk Dewanji and his representative called Amaldar by name Naib, who lived in Adilabad. On August 5, the entourage crossed the Penganga to reach Wani where they exchanged their currency at the mint. For the 100-person entourage to cross the Penganga river, the boatmen were paid Rs.2, writes Veeraswamaiah.

Veeraswamaiah was a scholar of Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, etc. which he could recite by rote. Being a Telugu, he wrote the diary in his mother tongue. "However, the Telugu used by the writer was more colloquial than scholarly. "Those were perhaps the beginnings of `vyavaharika' Telugu," opined local writer B. Muralidhar.

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