Tikkana Somayaji

Tikkana Somayaji
Image of Tikkana
Born	1205 Kovur, Nellore district
Died	1288 Kovur, Nellore
Pen name	Tikkana(Thikka Sharma)
Occupation	poet
Nationality	Indian
Citizenship	India
Genre	Poet
Notable works	Andhra mahabharatam

Tikkana (or Tikkana Somayaji) (1205–1288) was born into a Shaivite family during the Golden Age of the Kakatiya dynasty. He was the second poet of the "Trinity of Poets (Kavi Trayam)" that translated Mahabharatamu into Telugu over a period of centuries. He is the first well known poet in the world. Nannaya Bhattaraka was the first, though he translated only two and a half chapters. Tikkana translated the final 15 chapters, but did not undertake translating the half-finished Aranya Parvamu. The Telugu people remained without this last translation for more than a century, until it was translated by Errana.

Tikkana is also called Tikkana Somayaji, as he has completed the Somayaga.

Tikkana was born in Nellore during the Shiva Kavi period (see Shivakavi Trayamu, the Trinity of Shaivite Poets), when the new religions Shaivism and Vaishnavism were spreading in Andhra, resulting in conflict between these two groups as well as between the two established religious groups, Buddhism and Jainism. At this juncture, Tikkana attempted to bring peace between the warring Shivaites and Vaishnavites.

Although most of the Northern India came under Muslim rule, the strong Kakatiya, Chalukya and Chola empires in the South prevented the Muslim onslaught. Emperor Ganapatideva (1199–1261) of Kakatiya dynasty brought all the Telugu kingdoms under his rule for the first time. Consequently, the clashes between smaller kingdoms came under control making way for the prosperity and development of art and literature.

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