Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan

Ezhuthachan was born at Thunchan Parambu in Trikkandiyur near Tirur. Ezhuthachan, the father of letters, was the title of a village schoolmaster, and it became his name. Kerala calls him the father of the Malayalam language, because his poems fixed the language as it is spoken and written today, drawing Sanskrit and the old Tamil-tinged Malayalam into one stream, and because they spread the alphabet he used into every home.

His great work is the Adhyatma Ramayanam Kilippattu, a Malayalam rendering of the Sanskrit Adhyatma Ramayana. A kilippattu is a parrot song: the poet calls a parrot, gives it milk and honey, and asks it to tell the story, and the parrot sings. He did the same for the Mahabharata in the Mahabharatam Kilippattu. In both, Shri Rama and Shri Krishna are the supreme Brahman, and the story becomes a long prayer.

Every year in Karkidakam, the last month of the Malayalam year, when the monsoon is at its heaviest, Kerala homes light the nilavilakku at dusk and read the Adhyatma Ramayanam aloud, a portion each day, so that the whole is finished by the end of the month. This is Ramayana Masam. On Vijayadashami, children are brought to Thunchan Parambu and write their first letters in rice. Ezhuthachan spent his last years at Chittur in the Palakkad country, where the Gurumadham is kept in his memory.