Syamalakamasastri Kotra (1885-1953)
Syamalakamasastri (syaamala-kaama-shaastri) was born in 1885 into a Brahmin
family of litterateurs in Karava village. His birthfather Lakshminarayanasastri
(lakshmi-naaraayana-shaastri) was a pundit in Sanskrit and Telugu languages.
Syamalakamasastri was adopted by Jagannadhasastri Kotra. He was a student
of his birthfather and Krishnamurthi Sishtu. He worked as a teacher, court
clerk, cooperative society secretary, field surveyor, etc.
There were several old fashioned dictionaries such as
aandhranaama samgrahamu,
aandhranamaseshamu, saambanighamtuvu, sabdaratnaakaramu, sabdardhachamdrika
etc., but there were no modern pure Telugu dictionaries. So, Lakshminarayansastri
undertook the task of preparing one such dictionary, entitled
Lakshminarayaneeyamu.
Syamalakamasastri assisted his father in preparing the dictionary. Lakshminarayansastris's
Lakshminarayaneeyamu is a compilation of about 4,000 Telugu
words. Lakshminarayansastri bought a publishing house for this purpose and
published several other works such as
raamalimgeswarasatakamu, jaatakagrahasphutadarpanamu,
satavarteevratakalpamu, etc.
Following his birthfather's footsteps and with the training from him, Syamalakamasastri
began a long-term project in 1910 to prepare another dictionary. After 25
years of hard work and lot of expenditure, he published a 3,000-page dictionary
in 3 volumes for Telugu people. He sold all of his 40 acres of fertile farmland
for this purpose. Soon after, he started work on another dictionary, Andhra-Hindi-Urdu
dictionary. Unfortunately, he could not complete it due to financial problems.
Mana Sanskriti (Our Culture)
