Book excerpt: "Regardless of terminology, the use of padya and gadya in Telugu literary works is invariably linked to Nannaya (early to mid-11th century), traditionally considered the first poet of Telugu literature. The style that Nannaya inaugurated in his Telugu retelling of the Mahābhārata is regarded as the paradigm for later poets. His mixing of padya and gadya-an element not present in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata-became the preferred mode of poetic composition, even when translating a Sanskrit counterpart that used padya exclusively"--