The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s3.t9.5.2

v2.c15.s3.t9.5.2

This belief is based on the statement of Tikkana in the introduction to his Nirvachan-Ōttara Rāmāyaṇam that the learned public might look on his poem with an indulgent eye, if not on account of its intrinsic merit, yet in consideration of his kinship to Mantri Bhāskara, his own grandfather, who had been famous for the excellence of his poetry.² The fact that Tikkana chose the Uttara-kāṇḍa, leaving out the first six kāṇḍas, which constitute the Rāmāyaṇa proper, as the theme of his Nirvachan-Ōttara Rāmāyaṇam, coupled with the statement referred to above, lends colour to the belief that Mantri Bhāskara had composed a poem on the Rāmāyaṇa consisting of six kāṇḍas and that Tikkana completed his grandfather's book by adding the Uttara-kāṇḍa to it as a supplement. This poem, if it was, as is averred by tradition, actually written by Mantri Bhāskara, is now no longer extant. It is not, however, improbable that parts of it are incorporated with the later Bhāskara Rāmāyaṇam of the fourteenth century A.D. Of the surviving Telugu works on the Rāmāyaṇa, Tikkana's Nirvachan Ōttara-Rāmāyaṇam is no doubt the earliest. It must have been produced about A.D. 1260, since it was dedicated to King Manuma Siddhi II of Nellore, who ruled from A.D. 1248 to 1263, and alludes to certain historical events which took place subsequent to A.D. 1250.