Atukuri Molla

Atukuri Molla (1440–1530) was a Telugu poet who authored the Telugu-language Ramayana. Identified by her caste, she was popularly known as Kummara (potter) Molla. Mollamamba or Molla was the daughter of Kesana Setti who was a potter by profession. The name indicates that they belonged to the Vysya community. Earlier historians placed her as a contemporary of Tikkana Somayaji during the times of Kakatiya empire. But, Kandukuri Veeresalingam Pantulu in his ‘Andhra Kavula Charitra’ points out that she was a contemporary of Sri Krishna Deva Raya, disproving the earlier claims that she was the sister of Kummara Gurunatha who was the scribe of Tikkana Somayaji in translating Mahabharata. Her salutations to poets like Srinatha who lived in the periods between the Kakatiya and Vijayanagara empires point out that they predated her .