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Tenali Ramakrishna

Telugu poet, author of the Panduranga Mahatmyamu. Tradition counts him among the Ashtadiggajas of Krishnadeva Raya's court, and he is famous throughout the Telugu country as a jester. The record is thin. He first wrote as Tenali Ramalinga, a Saiva, before turning Vaishnava. The evidence of his patrons and contemporaries places him in the later sixteenth century, at the court of the Aravidu kings, rather than under Krishnadeva Raya. The jests told of him are folklore.

Tenali Ramakrishna was a Telugu poet of the sixteenth century, the author of the Panduranga Mahatmyamu. Tradition counts him among the Ashtadiggajas, the eight poets of Krishnadeva Raya’s court, and remembers him above all as a jester.123 P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao wrote that later ages know him “not so much as a poet, but as a court jester”.123 Both they and G. R. Subramiah Pantulu doubted that he wrote in Krishnadeva Raya’s reign at all.123 See Vijayanagara.

What is recorded

Subramiah Pantulu, writing in 1898, described him as a Yajnavalkya Brahman of the Kaundinya gotra (family line), son of Ramayya and Lakshmamma.4 He reported that Ramakrishna first wrote, as Tenali Ramalinga, a Linga Purana that still survives.4 Later, Pantulu says, he became a Vaishnava “to please the sovereigns of Chandragiri” and changed his name to Ramakrishna.4 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao give the same account of his conversion.1

His chief work, the Panduranga Mahatmyamu, is a legendary account of the shrine of Vishnu as Panduranga at Pandharpur on the Bhima.56 The shrine was made holy by the sage Pundarika.56 The poem tells how an immoral Brahman, Nigamasarma, died in the temple.56 The servants of Yama (the god of death) claimed him, but the servants of Vishnu won him.56

Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao called it “a kavya of high merit, remarkable for its sonorous dignity of phrasing”.1 They counted it one of the five great kavyas (long poems) of Telugu.1

When he lived

The sources disagree. Subramiah Pantulu reported a claim made in Kavali Venkataramasvami’s Biographies of Dekhan Poets.4 It says that Ramakrishna was born at Tenali in the Krishna (then Kistna) district in 1462 and was one of Krishnadeva Raya’s Ashtadiggajas.4 But Pantulu called the horoscope behind it “a later invention”, since it would make him about fifty at Krishnaraya’s accession.4

He wrote that Ramakrishna was a contemporary of Appaya Dikshita and Tatacharya “and flourished at the court of Venkatapatiraya of Chandragiri”.7 Venkatapati reigned from 1585 to 1614.7 From the dedication of the Panduranga Mahatmyamu, Pantulu dated the poet’s work to about 1560–1570.6 The poem is dedicated to Viruri Vedadri, minister of a chief named Peda Sangamaraja, whose father was a contemporary of Sadasiva.6

Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao likewise placed him at the court of Venkatapati Raya, “who changed the capital of the empire to Chandragiri”.1 Heras, in 1927, combined the traditions.8 In his words, Ramalinga “was first introduced to the court of Krishna Deva Raya, and was still one of the court poets during the reign of Venkata II”.8 See Venkatapati II and Krishnadeva Raya.

The jester of legend

The stories told of him are folklore, and the writers who recorded them said so. Subramiah Pantulu retold several.7 He ended: “Such are some of the stories current in the Telugu country about the vagaries of Ramakrishna, more briefly known as Tenali Rama.”7

In one story he plays a practical joke on the king’s orthodox guru Tatacharya.49 He is sentenced to be trampled by elephants while buried to the neck.49 He tricks a hunchbacked washerman into taking his place.49 Heras repeated this story in a footnote as “the following humorous anecdote”.10 In other stories:49

  • he wins horses from a Reddi king in a contest of poets49
  • he plays a trick on the king with a stone image49
  • he disrupts the reading of a poem by the king’s daughter49

Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao wrote that his “practical jokes, witty sallies and resourceful pranks” have long been “the chief source of mirth in family circles all through the Andhra country”.1 They added that “Ramakrishna was never so happy as when he made the life of the orthodox Tatachari miserable”.1

Subramiah Pantulu added that the stories of Ramakrishna finding fault with the verses of Allasani Peddana were “far from being credible”.11 See Allasani Peddana.

Footnotes

  1. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 83 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  2. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 72 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. G. R. Subramiah Pantulu, “Discursive Remarks on the Augustan Age of Telugu Literature”, Indian Antiquary XXVII (1898), p. 299 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Subramiah Pantulu, Indian Antiquary XXVII (1898), p. 324 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13

  5. Subramiah Pantulu, Indian Antiquary XXVII (1898), p. 327 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  6. Subramiah Pantulu, Indian Antiquary XXVII (1898), p. 328 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  7. Subramiah Pantulu, Indian Antiquary XXVII (1898), p. 326 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. H. Heras, The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I (1927), p. 519 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  9. Subramiah Pantulu, Indian Antiquary XXVII (1898), p. 325 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  10. Heras, The Aravidu Dynasty, Vol. I (1927), p. 520 and note (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  11. Subramiah Pantulu, Indian Antiquary XXVII (1898), p. 303 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

References

Sources (3)
  1. Indian Antiquary, The Indian Antiquary, Vol. XXVII (1898) (opens in a new tab), Education Society's Press, Byculla, Bombay, 1898, pp. 324–328. G. R. Subramiah Pantulu, 'Discursive Remarks on the Augustan Age of Telugu Literature'. [Public domain]
  2. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (The Heritage of India Series) (opens in a new tab), Association Press (Y.M.C.A.), Calcutta / Oxford University Press, London, 1928, pp. 72, 83. [Public domain]
  3. Henry Heras, The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I (1542-1614) (opens in a new tab), B. G. Paul and Co., Madras, 1927, pp. 519–520. [Public domain]

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