tatements . This Nilakantha is identified by the editor of the work with our author. If this identification is correct, Nilakaptha's wife was named Arya, and he had two sons Rama and Daksipamurti, the latter of whom was well versed in the Dharmasastras and learned in the three languages, Sanskrit, Tamil and Malayalam . The great Malayalam poet Tuffcattu । Ezhuttacham is said to have been a student of Nilakartha. Nilakaptha is also said to have composed, at the request of a friend, a panegyric in Malayalam on the Goddess Parvati, the presiding deity of the temple of Urakam in Cochin, in order to ward of the predicted premature death of that friend's daughter. The authenticity of the above work and the sources of the information are, however, not quite certain, and corroborative evidences have to be found before accepting the above
Birth-place and Family / Nalakantha hailed from Tr-k-karti-yur (Sanskritised into Sri Kupda-pura or Sri-Kupda-grāma), near Tirur, S. Rly, Pommani taluk, South Malabar, a famous seat of learning in Kerala during the middle ages. The name of his la71, as the house of a Namputiri brahman is called, was Kelallur (sometimes spelt also as Keralar and Ke!aramur), Sanskritised into Kerala-sad-gra714 corresponding to the Malayalam word Kerala-mall-Ir. Nilakantha's house is identified as the present Eamana Ilam, situated a little to the south of the local temple.* It is stated that Nilakaptha's family became extinct and that the family property was inherited by the nearest relations, viz., the Eamana family. 1. Vide P.R. Menon in his article “Tuchattu Ezhuttacchan' in the Malayalam monthly 7471chattu 5zhuttacclar, 3 (1952-53):127-35 2. Ibid. This stotra is published in a collection of stotras in Malayalam script entitled Stavaratnumla, Pt. 1 3. It may be noted that in the expression Gargy0-Kerala prefixed to the author's the word Keral refers to the name of his house and 10t to the state, as is sometimes taken. 4. C., Vatakkumkur Rajaraja Varma, History of Sxt. Lit. in Kerala, vol. I, Trivandrum, 1938, p. 384 5. I am thankful for this information to the late Sri Rama Varma Maru Thampuram, Chalakkudi (Cochin)
