SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA 35 languages: Magadhi, PaisSci, Culika, Apabhramsa, and Telugu. Poets prided themselves as being capable of composing in these eight languages: asta-bhasa-kavi^vara,17 We know from SrinStha's descriptions that the ministers of his time were veritable polyglots. They knew a number of languages including Arabic, Persian and Turkish, Kannada, Gujarati and Malayalam.18 An interesting tidbit that might be noted here is that people who ridiculed other languages were supposed to be punished by the king with a fine of one hundred panas, and that arava is cited as a derogatory/word for Tamil!19 THE LATE-MEDIEVAL CRYSTALLIZATION There seems to be a significant shift in the status of Telugu and Sanskrit in works composed during the late-medieval period (especially the seventeenth century). During this time, when Telugu-speaking Nayakas ruled a predominantly Tamil-speaking area of South India, Telugu acquired a status almost similar to that of Sanskrit in the preceding centuries. Now Telugu assumes a position in the court as an intellectual language. Pur anas and Sastras, grammars and books on poetics were written in Telugu. Sanskrit was still used, but it was not necessarily the only means of elevating one's status. Telugu was good enough for that purpose. The contrast between Sanskrit and Telugu styles came to occupy less of the poets' attention, as did the contrast between marga and de^i. In a way, the distinction between these styles became less clear, and the court itself began patronizing de^i or c^'-like texts. The Nayaka kings themselves wrote yaksaganas, a genre of musical play derived from the de^i tradition. More important still, non-brahman poets became prominent. The court was full of them. While there was no great effort to reduce v ' importance of Sanskrit or to oppose it, and no visible attempt to oppose the Brahmins, there was an unmistakable importance given to Telugu poets —non-Brahmins at that. This important change expresses the self-confidence acquired by the non-Brahmin king and a new class of merchant-warriors who initiated far-reaching changes in the political and social order. We argued in our Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nay Oka-Period Tamilnadu (Narayana Rao et al. 1992) that the new order reflects a new set of values in poetry, historiography, and political and cultural institutions. One important change that this new order represented touches on is the status of the king in relation to the Brahmin. The king no longer needed the Brahmin to legitimize hi^ status. The king was god himself, and thus the Brahmin became the god-king's servant rather than his superior. This shift, only briefly stated here, is also reflected in the relative status of Sanskrit and Telugu. In the new royal court, Telugu was the language of the king. However, despite the fact that the king was equated with God, Telugu had not been elevated to the level of the language of gods. At roughly the same time, but further north, in the village of Kamepalli in the interior ofGuntur District, there emerged a very influential scholar-poet, Appakavi. His book, a grammar principally of metrics popularly known as Appakavlyamu, held sway over the literary tradition for about three hundred years, right until the rise of