City-based KBN College organised celebrations of 1,000 years of the Telugu version of Mahabharata here on Tuesday. About 2,000 students recited selected poems in unison from Andhra Mahabharata penned by Nannaya as part of ‘Dwi sahasragala padyaarchana’.
On the occasion, former Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu stressed the language and culture of a society would flourish only when the mother tongue was part and parcel of every individual’s life. The existence of a society that ignored the mother tongue was very difficult.
It was necessary to encourage children to speak their mother tongue by setting an example and speaking the language at home. One who had mastered mother tongue would master all other languages. Onus lies on us to protect the rich poetic legacy of Telugu language. No other language in the world has such greatness. Literature is a vehicle for cultural transmission. We need to protect our language and culture to be able to pass them down to the next generations., he said
Vijayawada (West) MLA Velampalli Srinivas, forme Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh LV Subrahmanyam, scholar and litterateur Garikapati Narasimha Rao, College president T. Seshaiah, secretary T. Srinivasu, principal V. Narayana Rao, Telugu department lecturers K Ramakrishna, Nagaraju, JV CHalapati Rao and others spoke.
