body of writings in Telugu, a Dravidian language spoken in an area north of Madras, India, and running inland to Bellary. The literature, beginning in the 10th or 11th century, is mainly poetry and secular and religious epics, with the śataka (“century” of verses) as a very popular form. Telugu literature flowered in the early 16th century under the Vijayanagar empire, of which Telugu was the court language. From the 19th century, experiments were made in such Western literary forms as the novel.