Of Vemana's history, little is known. He was not a Brahmin but a capoo, or a farmer; a native of Cuddapah district and born, I believe, in the neighbourhood of Gandicotta. He lived in the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is said that in a verse he has fixed the date of birth which is believed to have been his own. This date coincides with A.D. 1652. The date is given in the cycle of sixty years; but which cycle is intended is unknown. Many verses, however, prove satisfactorily that he wrote in the latter part of the 17th century when the Mohamedans were governors of that part of India. His family was powerful, but that he renounced the world and became a sanyasee or ascetic. He calls himself a yogee.
The verses communicate hardly any idea of his history or connections, and like all solitary ascetics (sanyasees or yogees) he has dropped his family name - calling himself simply "Vemana" or "Vema" at pleasure. This solitary life has led him to address all the verses to himself, which, if this be not recollected, certainly looks like the grossest egotism. This practice is far indeed from being peculiar to Vemana.
The names Vema and Vemana do not appear to be used by the Telugus of the present day. Vema or Vemana in Sanskrit signify a loom. I believe these names to have been practical titles alone, without a definite meaning. Thus it is well known that the titles or names of Dante and Hafiz were not original names of those poets; the first of whom was named Durante or Durando and the second Muhammed Shemsuddin.
These poems have attained very great popularity and parts are found translated into Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada. Their terse closeness of expression sometimes renders them difficult to translate with elegance, but such passages exemplify the manly force of a language that in the common dialect is often weak and verbose.
Of his aphorisms many have become common proverbs. Parts of them are evidently close translations from Sanskrit works, particularly the Hitopadesa and Bhagavat Gita. In a few of thes every word is pure Sanskrit.
Vemana was evidently, in philosophy, of the Vedanta school, a disciple of VYASA, whom Sir William Jones has (in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. I) entitled the Plato of India. With the mystic tents of Plato, those of Vemana closely correspond while his moral doctrines as closely answer to those of DEMOCRITUS.
------C.P. Brown, 1824 manuscript
These verses are chiefly of 3 classes: moral, satirical, and mystic. In the morals, many verses occur, breathing a spirit of devotion truly extraordinary in a Hindu. The satirical part is chiefly directed against the national religion and customs, particularly against Bramins. None of it is personal. The mystic portion is chiefly of use as exemplifying the powers of the language. The reveries contained in this chapter are of a strangely abstruse nature and furnish a remarkable instance of a powerful mind searching for the light of truth which is lost in the darkness of heathen ignorance. The style of this and some other parts renders it easier to translate the verses into Latin than into English. I have, however, left none in Latin that appeared to deserve an English one. To the more difficult verses I have subjoined a Telugu interpretation. For some parts of this comment written in Telugu, I am indebted to 2 very learned Bramins who taught me the language, its grammar and prosody. They are Tippabhotla Venkata Siva Sastri of Masulipatnam and Advyta Brahmia, the pandit belonging to the court in which I have the honour of being Assistant Judge.
To the mystic portion I have appended such notes as appeared requisite. Further elucidations of the most ample nature will be found in the Bhagvat Gita with Dr. Wilkins's commentary and in Sir William Jones's essay on the mystical poetry. Poetry of the East appears in the third volume of the Asiatic Researches.......
Most of the verses in Vemana are written in Ataveladi metre which consists of 4 lines, but the 4th line, with some exceptions, is a mere refrain or chorus in these words - viSvadaaBiraama vinura vEma.
It is perhaps impossible to meet with a complete copy of this poet in a manuscript of any antiquity. The principal sources from which this edition i compiled are nine. These were collected from Bellary, Cuddapah, Madras, Vijagpatnam and the city in which I wrote. Few of these copies contain above 500 verses, none came up to 700. The number, however, that I have succeeded in collecting is 2100.
Of the state of the manuscripts, it is not easy to give a correct idea. Errors of the grossest nature in orthography, metre and rhyme deface every line, and erroneous words are substituted to elicit a sense that the transcribers thought proper to prefer. Thus they have eluded many of the difficulties in thought or expression and the corruption is indescribable in verse.
Vemana having written the Tadbhava word guramu (for gruhamu) a house, the copyists in defiance of metre and meaning have gurramu, a horse.
To remedy such errors I prepared a general index to my manuscripts, showing the place each verse occupies in each copy, for the verses in no two copies had the same arrangement. By this aid, the true reading has, I hope, seldom been lost, the correct metre I trust never - the most frequent corruptions were substitutions of Sanscrit terms in defiance of measure, for pure Telugu expressions.
To the remarks on mystic philosophy, I have subjoined a short explanation of Telugu prosody. The statements are taken from the Bheemana Chandassu but the arrangement and mode of explanation are my own. Sir William Jones has remarked (on Panini) that "since grammar is only an instrument, and not the end of true knowledge, there can be little occassion to travel so rough and gloomy a path." To teach myself the science, I was obliged to reduce the rules given by Bheemana in a very fantastic form to their real import, and a mode then occurred to me through which by degrees I learnt the whole with care. The original is so mysteriously complex that the failure of most aspirants even among Bramins to a knowledge of prosody is not surprising.
-----C.P. Brown