Charles Phillip Brown

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Charles Philip Brown (1798-1884) was a Telugu writer and an Englishman by descent. He worked as official in Cuddapah and Rajahmundry during the British rule in India. He was also referred as C. P. Brown.

Telugu Literature was in dormant phase and declined in 18th century because of many social and political reasons including lack of creative Telugu poets, prevailing illiteracy and decline of empires like Vijayanagara Empire, who patroned the literature. Brown being an official in the region collected the works, printed them and saved the heritage of Telugu language and heritage. In his own words, "Telugu literature was dying out; the flame was flickering in the socket in 1825, I found Telugu literature dead. In 30 years I raised it to life".

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[edit] Biography

Charles Brown was born in Calcutta on November 10, 1798. His father, David Brown was a manager of an orphanage and a missionary and scholar in many languages including Sanskrit. Charles Brown moved back to England in 1812 after his fathers' death and returned to Chennai on 4 August 1817 again to get training from Haileybury College for a civil service job in India.

In 1820 Sir Thomas Monroe, governor of Chennai had ordered that every official should learn a local language. As part of the curriculum he had to learn a local language and he chose Telugu language under the guidance of Velagapudi Kodandarama Panthulu. Charles Brown passed Telugu exam as well as the civil service exam in 1820. He joined as deputy to Mr. Hunbury, the collector of Cuddapah. He got inspiration from Hunbury's fluency in Telugu and improved his Telugu more. He was transferred to Machilipatnam in 1824 and again to Rajahmundry in 1825. His administrator services at the time of the Great Guntur famine(1832-1833) were highly appreciated.

He was relieved from his duties in 1834 and went back to London and stayed there from 1835 to 1838. Brown returned to Madras again in 1837 as a translator of Persian for the East India Company and joined as member of the Madras College Board. He retired in 1854 because of health reasons went back to London again. He worked as Telugu Professor at London University for some more time. He died on December 12 1884 in London.

Though he patroned Telugu, he was a polyglot and also learned Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit etc.

[edit] Literary service

Charles Brown established two schools in Cuddapah and two more schools in Machilipattanam, with free food for students and free education that includes Telugu. He did three great services to Telugu, his own works, recovery and discovery of old works and printing the Telugu books.

He also wrote several grammar and prosody books and learning materials for English people who were interested in learning Telugu. He created Telugu English dictionaries and Telugu readers. He authored chronicles and monographs in literary journals. He translated many poetical works. Madras Oriental Library still hosts many works of C. P. Brown.

He also collected essays, stories, poems etc. that have no written copies, but were popular among common men. Since 1824, he started collecting old books of Tikkana and Potana and poems of Vemana. During his stay in London around 1835, he collected 2,106 hand written books in South Indian Languages from the India House Library and sent them back to Chennai Library.

He edited and published several Telugu and Sanskrit books. He also hired writers and created fresh copies of the old books.Brown was also an editor of the Madras Journal of Literature and Science. He also wrote artciles about the stories of the manuscripts he collected in The Asiatic Journal in London.

[edit] Works

  • Andhra Geervana Chandamu(Prosody of Telugu and Sanscrit), College Press, Madras in 1827.
  • Vemana Satakam(verses of Vemana): Collection of 693 poems by Vemana along with English Translation and glossary in 1829.
  • Lokam Cheta Vrayabadina Subha Vartamanamu, translation of bible stories in Telugu.
  • Rajula Yuddhamulu, collection of folk tales about kings in Anantapur area.
  • Brown's grammar book of Telugu in 1840
  • Telugu to English and English to Telugu dictionaries in 1852 and 1854.
  • Vemana Satakam(verses of Vemana): Second collection of 1164 poems by Vemana along with English Translation and glossary in 1839.

[edit] Other publishings

He had prepared commentaries for all of the published works so that nonscholors can understand them. Some of the publishings sponsored by him are:

He also left many press ready copies like Basavapurana, PanDitaaraadhya Charitra, Ranganaatha Ramayanam, 'Uttara Raamaayanam, Vijaya Vilasam, Sarangadhara Charitra, Hari Vamsam, Kasi Khandam, Aniruddha Charitra, Kuchelopakhyaanam, Radhika Santvanam, Vikramaarka charitra etc. They were published by different institutions in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh after his death.

He also collected poems of Sumati Satakam and Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Academy published it in 1973 acknowledging him. This is similar to Vemana Satakam that Brown published.

[edit] Style

He collected the stories and poems of common people and published them first. Though He is less interested in Pedantic works, he also had published many of major Telugu works along with translations written by him or other copiers closely monitored by him. He prepared index, glossary and commentaries to all the works. Brown mentioned that the purpose of the commentary was to make the poems to be understood clearly without oral instructions. He also included many spoken words in his dictionary.

[edit] Changes in alphabet

He had done few innovations in the Telugu alphabet to be print them easily. He changed the double letter ra, that looked like a half circle placed under the alphabet, into the shape of ‘L’ and placed it on the left side of the letter. He also introduced similar letter that looked like a ‘9’ placed after the letter. He also deleted of arasunna (a half letter). He used only soft sounds of cha and ja, and gave up the hard ones. He dropped BanDi Ra from the alphabet and used only Sadhu Repha (soft 'Ra') and gave up the Sakata Repha (hard 'Ra'). He was responsible for the dropping of the ardhaanusvaara sign ('(') in proper names. He broke each line of the poem into two at the point of Caesura (Yati Sthaana).

[edit] Awards and titles

  • He is respected as Andhrabhashodhadara, savior of Telugu.
  • Andhra Pradesh State government has erected a statue in honor of him in Hyderabad and placed it along with statues of twenty other great Telugu people.
  • A Library building was constructed at Cuddapah on the very site of Brown's Bungalow known in those days as Brown's College.

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