PREFACE.
Kavijanasrayamu or the Refuge of the Poets is now being published for the first time in a complete form, although it is, perhaps, the oldest book extant on Telugu Prosody. The text is the result of the collation of ten manuscripts of which nine are written on palm-leaves and one on paper. The palm-leaf books are all in the library of the Andhra Sahitya Parishat (Telugu Academy) and they have been mostly found in the Tamil Districts of this Presidency. The paper copy is in the Brown Collection of the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras. Appakavi's remark that “perverse poets have interpolated many curious things into the Kavijanasrayamu" is fully borne out by the state of the manuscripts. I have tried my best to restore the original text, although there is possibly room for further pruning.
The book purports to have been written by Malliya-Recha (Recha son of Malliya or Mallaya) and dedicated to himself. One of the manuscripts "జ" contains a short preface of seven verses, which says that “Bhima Kavi, the beloved of the (God) Bhimesvara of Vemulavada" composed the book and dedicated it to Recha, making it appear, at the same time, that Recha composed it himself. This
