Punthanam

Punthanam Nambudiri ( 1547 - 1640 ) - Indian poet from the state of Kerala , who wrote in Malayalam . His most famous work is the poem " Jnanappana, " in which he glorifies Guruvayurappana - the deity of Krishna from the temple in Guruvayur . Punthanam was one of the prominent representatives of the bhakti tradition in South Indian poetry. He was a contemporary of another legendary Malayalam poet - Narayana Bhattatiri .

According to legend, Punthanam married at age 20, but for a long time his wife could not give birth to a child. He began to worship Guruvayurappan and after some time Krsna bestowed on him a son. Punthanam arranged a huge feast, at which he invited all his relatives and acquaintances, but shortly before the festival began, the baby died. Heartbroken Punthanam went to the Krishna temple in Guruvayur and began to pray to Guruvayurappan, reciting the Srimad-Bhagavatam to the deity. Punthanam developed a relationship of spiritual fatherly love for his son ( vatsalya-rasa ) with Krsna and attained the perfection of life. In his poem, he writes: “While little Krishna is dancing in our hearts, why do we need our own children?” Punthanam spent the rest of his days reciting Srimad-Bhagavatam in the temple and chanting Krishna's glories in his poems in Malayalam . It was during this period of his life that he composed his masterpiece - the poem “ Jnanappana ”. ^[one]

Punthanam was very humble. His poem "Jnanappana" was written in simple language and imbued with the spirit of bhakti . Punthanam was a contemporary of the great poet and scholar Narayana Bhattatiri. After completing the writing of "Jnanappana," he introduced it to the Bhattatiri court, which by then had become famous as the author of the Sanskrit poem, "To the Inferno ." Bhattatiri praised the work of his colleague, pointing out that the poem was written not in Sanskrit, but in Malayalam , and also in a very simple language. Upset Punthanam went to the temple and cried for a long time in front of Guruvayurappan . In the evening, when Bhattatiri was preparing for the recitation of his poem “ Indications ” before going to bed, an unfamiliar boy came to him. Sitting down next to Bhattatiri, the boy began to listen to Bhattatiri reciting a poem. After the first sloka , the boy pointed out to the poet a grammatical error in the text. Bhattatiri agreed with him and recited a second sloka in which the boy discovered two errors. In the third sloka, there were already three mistakes, etc. After the tenth sloka, Bhattatiri realized that this boy was Krishna himself, who specially came to him to show that the great love and devotion of Punthanam was much more important than erudition and knowledge of Sanskrit. Bhattatiri immediately went to Punthanam and asked for forgiveness. When he recited the Jnanappana to him again, Bhattatiri admitted that the poem was perfect.