Bhadrachala Ramadas (Kancherla Gopanna)

Kancherla Gopanna was born at Nelakondapalli in the Khammam country. His uncles Madanna and Akkanna were ministers at the court of Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, the last Sultan of Golconda, and through them Gopanna was made tahsildar of the Palvancha paragana, the district that included Bhadrachalam on the Godavari.

At Bhadrachalam stood a shrine of Shri Rama marking the place where, by local tradition, Rama, Sita and Lakshmana had stayed in their forest years, and where the sage Bhadra had done tapas. Gopanna found it in ruins. He collected money from the people for the temple and, when that was not enough, spent the revenue he had gathered for the state, six lakh varahas by the traditional account, and built the great temple that stands today, with its gopuram and its ornaments for Sita and Rama.

The Sultan's officers charged him with misusing state funds and he was thrown into the prison at Golconda for twelve years. There he sang his most anguished kirtanas, pleading with Rama, reproaching him, asking why he did not come. The tradition says that at last two young men, calling themselves Ramoji and Lakshmoji, came to the Sultan at night and paid the whole debt in gold coins stamped with Rama's image, took a receipt and vanished. The Sultan freed Gopanna and gave the temple a grant.

He is Ramadas, Rama's servant. His Dasarathi Shatakam and his kirtanas are sung across the Telugu country, and the Sita Rama Kalyanam at Bhadrachalam on Rama Navami is still celebrated as he began it.