Molla (poet)
| Molla | |
|---|---|
| Native name | ఆతుకూరి మొల్ల |
| Born | Atukuri Molla 1440 Gopavaram, Kadapa |
| Died | 1530 |
| Occupation | Kummara (potter) |
| Language | Telugu |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Period | 14 - 15 th Century |
| Genre | poet |
| Subject | Telugu Ramayanam |
| Notable works | translated the Ramayana from Sanskrit into Telugu |
Atukuri Molla (1440–1530) was a Telugu poet who authored the Telugu-language Ramayana. Identified by her caste, she was popularly known as Kummara (potter) Molla.
Molla is the second female Telugu poet of note, after Tallapaka Timmakka, wife of Annamacharya. She translated the Sanskrit Ramayana into Telugu.
Her father Kesana was a potter of Gopavaram, a village in Badvel Mandal, fifty miles north of Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh state. He was a Saivaite and devotee of Srikantha Malleswara (an incarnation of Shiva) 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 (another incarnation of Shiva).
Molla claimed Lord Shiva as Guru, and her inspiration is claimed to have come from Potana, who wrote Bhagavata purana in Telugu. Like him, she was Saivaite, 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. She spent her old age at Srisailam in the presence of Lord Srikantha Malleswara.
Her work is known as Molla bhagavata and is still one of the simplest of many Ramayans written in Telugu.
She primarily used simple Telugu and only used Sanskrit words very rarely. Poets that had written earlier than her like Potana used Sanskrit words freely in their works.
She was humble and paid tribute to the earlier scholars who had written the Ramayana in her book. The opening poem says - "Ramayana had been written many times. Does someone stop taking food because it has been taken every day? So is the story of Rama and one can write, read and love it as many number of times as possible."Additionally, she states that if a work is filled with words that reader cannot understand instantaneously, it would be like a dialogue between a deaf person and a dumb person. In other words, poetry should be intelligible to the reader as he reads along and without referring to dictionaries and/or consulting scholars. According to Molla, poetry should be like honey on the tongue—one should feel it as soon as the honey hits tongue.
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