Variety within a genre is a striking feature of Telugu Literature: more so in the field of poetry, There were a good number of poets in the past who strove their utmost to exhibit their almost gymnastic-like skill in writing a few stanzas in a Kavya which were strangely fascinating metrically, syntactically and otherwise. Some of them even went further than this with astonishing success they produced whole Kavyas of this type which indeed was an act nothing short of a literary tour de force. In terms of prosody, syntax, semantics, phonology they can be said to be astounding poetic creations. The composition of such 'freak poems' if one may use such a term, was sometimes motivated by the poetic zeal to show a challenging proof of his erudition and poetic craft which in terms, perhaps, helped him to gain or retain the patronage of a Raja or a Zamindar. Poetry of this kind is known as 'Chitrakavita' and the present poem 'Seetha Kalyana Charitra' otherwise known as 'Nirostya Seetha Kalyanam' by Piduparthi Basavappa comes under this category. According to the classification of rhetoricians, Chitrakavita is one of the four varieties of poetry, the other three being Asu, Madhura and Vistara. Not only in Telugu but in Sanskrit, Kannada and Tamil literatures we come across long poems or short verses in Chitrakavita style: The writing of Chitrakavita was, then, being widely in vogue in all these literatures in the past. Various interesting aspects of Chitrakavita are enumerated in rhetorical works like Kavyalankara Chudamani by Vinukonda Peddana and Lakshana Sara Sangraham by Chitrakavi Peddana. For instance some of its attributes were as described in the above mentioned works and also practised, the writing of embedded verses i.e. realising one or two different forms of verses within one verse making the lines run in a desired fashion or direction (a kind of verse drawing). More ingenious and popular was the composing of a whole Kavya or a long poem of several cantos to yield multiple meanings and also deliberately excluding all bilabial speech sounds (in Telugu) like P, Pha, B, Bha, Ma. Va and a few vowel sounds like U. U etc. are also considered to be bilabials. A Kavya composed excluding all these bilabials is called in Telugu a Niroshtya Kavya. Oshtamu means lip; Niroshtya means without bila bials. If one can appreciate the skill and artifice involved in writing a single Niroshtya verse, it should be easy for him to imagine the prodigious erudition and poetic craftsmanship of the composition of an entire Niroshtya Kavya demands. In general, the production of this type of Kavya seems to have been the result of an inspiration drawn from shorter poems of Chitra Kavita found in the Kavyas of previous writers to cite a few names from among many. Koravi Goparaju, Ganapavarapu Venkatakavi, Kankanti Narasimha Kavi, Kuchimanchi Thimmana, Kankanti Paparaju were some of the poets who enriched Telugu literature, with their poetical works in Chitrakavita style Apart from Sanskrit literature which does not lag behind in this respect, Niroshtya verses are found even on certain inscriptions. Budapura Sasana of the 13th Century, for instance bears one such incomplete Niroshtya sloka. As early as the beginning of the 16th Century, Niroshtya Kavyas were being written in Telugu, first among them being the present Kavya "Seetha Kalyana Charitra' otherwise called 'Niroshtya Seetha Kalyanam' by Basavappa, son of Piduparthi Basa vappa. In the last quarter of the same century, Maringanti Singaracharyulu wrote a Niroshtya Kavya, "Dasaradharaja Nandana Charitra". He was also the author of Suddhandhra Niroshtya Kavya "Seetha Kalyanam" (A Kavya solely in Telugu unalloyed with Sanskrit origin and of course avoiding the use of bilabials).
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