Tarigoppula Mallana

Tarigoppula Mallana was a Telugu poet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.¹ He wrote the Chandrabhanu Charitramu (the story of Chandrabhanu), a long story-poem.¹² He belonged to the world of the court of Venkatapati Raya, the Vijayanagara king who moved his capital to Chandragiri.³¹² K. Sitaramaiya named his poem among the notable long poems of the later period.⁴

The poet and the court

P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, in their history of Telugu literature (1928), give the dates 1586–1614 with his poem.¹ They write that he “was attached to the court of Venkatapati Raya”.¹ Like Sarangu Timmana, he was a Madhva.¹ See Sarangu Timmana.

S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar printed the opening of the poem in his Sources of Vijayanagar History (1919).² In his summary, the poet says that his elder brother, Tarigoppula Datta Mantri, was a minister of Venkatapati Raya, the son of Tirumala Raya.² Datta Mantri was a patron of poets and better at diplomacy than the ministers of other kings.² All the members of the court praised him for his help to them.²

The Chandrabhanu Charitramu

Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao give the story in one line.¹ It tells of the marriage of Chandrabhanu, a son of Krishna, with Kumudini, daughter of Rukmabahu.¹ Sitaramaiya, writing in Hyderabad in 1943, listed “Tarigoppula Mallana’s Chandrabhanucharitra” among the poems written in the prabandha (long narrative poem) manner.⁴

Footnotes

1. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 84 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar (ed.), Sources of Vijayanagar History (1919), p. 247, extract 80, the Chandrabhanu Charitramu (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

3. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 83 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

4. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 58 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²