KUMARANASAN

• Born: August 12, 1873, in Kayikkara village, Chirayinkeezhu taluk, north of Thiruvananthapuram
• Died: January 16, 1924, Pallana
• Father : Narayanan Perumkudi
• Mother : Kaliyamma
• Wife : Bhanumathi
• “തൂലിക പടവാളാക്കിയ കവി”
• “വിപ്ലവത്തിൻറെ ശുക്രൻ”
• Dr. Palpu Called him “Chinnaswami”.
• known as Mahakavi Kumaran Asan (the prefix Mahakavi, awarded by Madras University in 1922).
• Kumaranasan was the only poet in Malayalam who became mahakavi without writing a mahakavyam.
• Dr. Palpu gave financia aid to Kumaranasan to get education from Banglore and Kolkata.
• S N D P Yogam was founded in 1903; Asan was the first Secretary and in 1904 he started a news paper called Vivekodayam which was the mouth of the S N D P Yogam.
• His elegy Prarodanam mourns the death of his contemporary and friend A. R. Raja Raja Varma, the famous grammarian.
• His Khanda Kavyas (poems) like Nalini,Leela, Karuna and Chandaalabhikshuki won critical acclaim as well as popularity.
• In Chintaavishtayaaya Seetha (Seetha Lost in Thought or The Meditations of Sita) he displays his poetic artistry, while in Duravastha, he patiently and skilfully tears down the barriers created by feudalism.
• In 1907 he wrote “Veenapoov” at a Gin temple near Ginamedu.
• He wrote the epic poem Buddha Charitha for which he got inspiration from Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia.
• The work of Kumaranasan that depicits the fact “Mamsanibadhamalla ragam (Love is not an artifact of flesh)” is ‘Leela’.
• He died aged 51 as a result of a boat accident in January 1924 while travelling to Kollam from a function in Alappuzha. The boat ‘Redimal’ capsized at Pallana and all on board drowned.
• Kumaran Asan National Institute of Culture at Thonnakkal was founded in 1958 in his memory, and includes a small house which he had built on his land.
• Kumarakodi is the final resting place of Kumaranasan.