Tikkana

Tikkana

1204 – 1287
Countries: India
Place of Birth: Kovur, Nellore district
Place of Death: Kovur, Nellore

Tikkana (or Tikkana Somayaji) (1205–1288) was born into a Telugu Brahmin Shaivite family during the Golden Age of the Kakatiya dynasty. He was the second poet of the "Trinity of Poets (Kavi Trayam)" that translated Mahabharatamu into Telugu over a period of centuries. He is the first well known poet in the world. Nannaya Bhattaraka was the first, though he translated only two and a half chapters. Tikkana translated the final 15 chapters, but did not undertake translating the half-finished Aranya Parvamu. The Telugu people remained without this last translation for more than a century, until it was translated by Errana.
Tikkana is also called Tikkana Somayaji, as he has completed the Somayaga.