The Niranam poets, also known as the Kannassan poets, were three poets from the same family by the names of Madhava Panikkar, Sankara Panikkar, and Rama Panikkar. They hailed from

Niranam Niranam is a village in Tiruvalla, Kerala, India. It was a port in ancient Kerala, on the confluence of the Manimala River, Manimala and Pamba River. It is almost 7 km from Tiruvalla SCS Junction in Pathanamthitta District of Kerala, lies t ...

, a small village in southern

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

, India, near the town of

Thiruvalla Thiruvalla, alternately spelled Tiruvalla, is a town in Kerala and the Headquarters of the Taluk of the same name located in Pathanamthitta district in the State of Kerala, India. The town is spread over an area of . It lies on the banks of ...

. Their works mainly comprised translation and adaptation of Sanskrit epics and Puranic works and were for devotional purposes. They lived between 1350 and 1450 C.E. It is believed that they all belonged to the same Kannassa family and that Madhava Panikkar and Sankara Panikkar were the uncles of Rama Panikkar, the youngest of the three. As Kannassa, they were probably Nair Panikkers or members of the

Kaniyar Kaniyar is a caste from the Indian state of Kerala. There are regional variations in the name used to define them. They are listed under the Other Backward Communities (OBC) by the Kerala Government. Traditions of origin Kathleen Gough has r ...

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

, which makes their claim to mastery of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

a significant feature as Kaniyar, being adept in Astrology and Ayurveda, they were accepted by then the Kings Their works have been mostly assigned to the ''Pattu'' ''taxon''. It revived the ''Bhakti'' school of literature and reasserted the seriousness of the poetic vocation in the place of the excessive sensuality and eroticism of the ''

Manipravalam Manipravalam (Malayalam: മണിപ്രവാളം, Tamil: மணிப்பிரவாளம்) is a macaronic language found in some manuscripts of South India. It is a hybrid language, typically written in the Grantha script, which combi ...

'' poets. Divergence from the ''Manipravalam'' school, through non-usage of Dravidian

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

and Sanskrit grammatical forms, are noted. Madhava Panikkar's ''Bhasha Bhagavadgita'', a condensed Malayalam translation of ''

Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...

'' was its first translation into any modern Indian language. Sankara Panikkar's main work is ''Bharatamala'', a masterly condensation of ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

''. Perhaps the most important was Rama Panikkar, who is the author of ''

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

m'', ''

Bharatam Greater India, or the Indian cultural sphere, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures ...

'', ''

Bhagavatam The ''Bhagavata Purana'' ( sa, भागवतपुराण; ), also known as the ''Srimad Bhagavatam'', ''Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana'' or simply ''Bhagavata'', is one of Hinduism's eighteen great Puranas (''Mahapuranas''). Composed in Sa ...

'', and ''Sivarathri Mahatmyam''. ''Kannassa Ramayanam'' and ''Kannassa Bharatam'' are the most important of these Niranam works. The former is an important link between Cheeraman's ''Ramacharitam'', Ayyappilli Asan's ''Ramakathapattu'' and

Ezhuthachan Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan (, ) (Malayalam: തുഞ്ചത്ത് രാമാനുജൻ എഴുത്തച്ഛൻ) ( ''fl.'' 16th century) was a Malayalam devotional poet, translator and linguist from Kerala, south India. ...

's ''

Adhyathmaramayanam ''Adhyathmaramayanam Kilippattu'' is the most popular Malayalam version of the Sanskrit Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. It is believed to have been written by Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan in the early 17th century, and is considered to be a classic ...

''.

Ulloor Ulloor is a city locality in the Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. It was the home of the modern Malayalam triumvirate poet Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer. The Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram and Credence Hospital Thiruvananthapu ...

has said that Rama Panikkar holds the same position in Malayalam literature that

Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for ''The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of ...

has in English literature.

References

* Singh, Kumar Suresh (2003). People of India. 26. Anthropological Survey of India. p. 717. {{poetry-stub Malayalam poets