Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan

This article is about Malayalam devotional poet. For the Kerala caste, see Ezhuthachan (caste).

Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan
A modern (2013) representation of Ezhuthachan by artist R. G. V.
Born1495
Trikkandiyoor (modern-day Tirur, Malappuram district), Kerala
Occupations
  • Poet
  • Linguist
  • Translator
Era
  • 16th century AD
Known forAdhyatmaramayanam
Movement
  • Bhakti Movement
  • Ezhuthachan Movement
  • Kiḷippāṭṭ

Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan (pronunciationⓘ, Tuñcattŭ Rāmānujan Eḻuttacchan) (fl. 16th century) was a Malayalam devotional poet, translator and linguist.[1] He was one of the prāchīna kavithrayam (old triad) of Malayalam literature, the other two being Kunchan Nambiar and Cherusseri. He has been called the "Father of Modern Malayalam Literature", and the "Primal Poet in Malayalam".[2] He was one of the pioneers of a major shift in Kerala's literary culture (the domesticated religious textuality associated with the Bhakti movement).[3] His work is published and read far more than that of any of his contemporaries or predecessors in Kerala.[4]

He was born in a place called Thunchaththu in present-day Tirur in the Malappuram district of northern Kerala, in a traditional Hindu family.[5][2] Little is known with certainty about his life.[1] He was not from a brahmin community and for long brahmins of kerala was reluctant to accept him.His success even in his own lifetime seems to have been great.[5] Later he and his followers shifted to a village near Palakkad, further east into the Kerala, and established a hermitage (the "Ramananda ashrama") and a Brahmin village there.[4] This institution probably housed both Brahmin and Sudra literary students.[1] The school eventually pioneered the "Ezhuthachan movement", associated with the concept of popular Bhakti, in Kerala.[3] Ezhuthachan's ideas have been variously linked by scholars either with philosopher Ramananda, who found the Ramanandi sect, or Ramanuja, the single most influential thinker of devotional Hinduism.[6]

For centuries before Ezhuthachan, Kerala people had been producing literary texts in Malayalam and in the Grantha script.[2] However, he is celebrated as the "Primal Poet" or the "Father of Malayalam Proper" for his Malayalam recomposition of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana.[2][1] This work rapidly circulated around Kerala middle-caste homes as a popular devotional text.[3] It can be said that Ezhuthachan brought the then unknown Sanskrit-Puranic literature to the level of common understanding (domesticated religious textuality).[5] His other major contribution has been in mainstreaming the current Malayalam alphabet.[5][2]

  1. ^ a b c d Flood, Gavin, ed. (2003). "The Literature of Hinduism in Malayalam". The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. New Delhi: Blackwell Publishing, Wiley India. pp. 173–74. doi:10.1002/9780470998694. ISBN 9780470998694.
  2. ^ a b c d e Pollock, Sheldon (2003). "Introduction". In Pollock, Sheldon (ed.). Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. University of California Press. p. 20. ISBN 9780520228214.
  3. ^ a b c Freeman, Rich (2003). "Genre and Society: The Literary Culture of Premodern Kerala". Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. University of California Press. pp. 479–81. ISBN 9780520228214.
  4. ^ a b Freeman, Rich (2003). "Genre and Society: The Literary Culture of Premodern Kerala". Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. University of California Press. p. 481. ISBN 9780520228214.
  5. ^ a b c d Logan, William (2010) [1887]. Malabar. Vol. I. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. pp. 92–94.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :Pollock482 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).