Atukuri Molla

Atukuri Molla (1440–1530) was a Telugu poet who authored the Telugu-language Ramayana. Identified by her caste, she was popularly known as Kummara Molla. Mollamamba or Molla was the daughter of Kesana Setti who was a potter by profession. Earlier historians placed her as a contemporary of Tikkana Somayaji during the times of Kakatiya empire. But, Kandukuri Veeresalingam Pantulu in his ‘Andhra Kavula Charitra’ points out that she was a contemporary of Sri Krishna Deva Raya, disproving the earlier claims that she was the sister of Kummara Gurunatha who was the scribe of Tikkana Somayaji in translating Mahabharata. Her salutations to poets like Srinatha who lived in the periods between the Kakatiya and Vijayanagara empires point out that they predated her. Molla is the second female Telugu poet of note, after Tallapaka Timmakka, wife of Tallapaka Annamayya ("Annamacharya"). She translated the Sanskrit Ramayana into Telugu. Her father Atukuri Kesanna was a potter of Gopavaram, a village in Gopavaram Mandal near Badvel town, fifty miles north of Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh state. He was a Lingayat and devotee of Sri Srikantha Malleswara in Srisailam. He gave her daughter the name Molla, meaning "Jasmine", a favourite flower of the god, and also nicknamed her Basavi in respect to Basaveswara. Her parents were great devotees of Siva in his forms as Mallikarjuna and Mallikamba of Srisailam. They were initiated disciples of the Siva Math. Molla was well-known not only in her own village but also in the surrounding hamlets, for her kind hearted nature, generosity and love. Molla claimed Sri Shiva as Guru, and her inspiration is claimed to have come from Pothanna, who wrote Bhagavata purana in Telugu. Like him, she was Saiva Hindu, but wrote the story of Rama (an incarnation of Vishnu) and also refused to dedicate her Ramayana to any king, a general practice for poets at the time. According to Varadarajn's book, "Study of Vaishnava Literature", as her popularity spread, she was invited to Sessions court and got an opportunity to recite Ramayana in front of Krishnadevaraya and his poets.