Tirumalamba Explained

Honorific Prefix:Empress Consort of the Vijayanagara Empire
Tirumalamba
Notable Works:Varadambika Parinaya
Spouse:Emperor Achyuta Deva Raya
Era:Vijayanagara period
Family:Pandya
Relatives:

Tirumalamba, also known as Oduva Tirumalamba was an Indian polymath, polyglot and philanthropist of the Vijayanagara period who was active as a poet, a musician, a grammarian and a Hindu scholar.[1] She is chiefly remembered for composing Varadambika Parinaya, a Kavya on the wedding of the Emperor Achyuta Deva Raya and Salaga Princess Varadambika, in Sanskrit.[2] It was the only Sanskrit romance to be written by a woman. She also knew many scripts and coined the largest word of her time.

She also became a queen of the Emperor Achyuta as noted in the epilogue of Varadambika Parinaya where she is described as the "confidante and the be-all and the end-all of the deepest love of Emperor Achyutaraya" and substantiated by other primary sources.[3] Scholar Lakshman Sarup theorizes that Tirumalamba is the unnamed daughter of a Pandya vassal who wed emperor Achyuta mentioned in a Kanchi Inscription.[4]

Notes

  1. Upadhyay . Jay . The Feminisms of Dharmic India . The Illinois Undergraduate Journal of History . 1 . 1 . 5 . 28 December 2023.
  2. Web site: Telugu Women Writers of the Last Millennium. 2007-01-16.
  3. Book: Sastri, Suryakanta . 1970 . Varadambika Parinaya Campu . Chaukhamba Amarabharati Prakashan . 1 .
  4. Book: Sarup, Lakshman . 1928 . Proceedings And Transactions Of The Fifth Indian Oriental Conference Vol 1 . University of Panjab, Lahore .