Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.3233

c9.3233

TOLA. A great satirical poet of the Malayālam Literature. A great humorist, Sanskrit scholar and actor, he was minister to Bhāskara Ravi Varmā who was ruler of Kerala during the period from 978 to 1027 A.D. According to Koduṅgallur Kuñjikkuttan Tampurān, a great Sanskrit scholar and poet, Tola was born in Kondoliññāru in the village of Arāṇikkulam near Adūr in Cochin in a Nambūdiri family. His original name was Nilakaṇṭha. When he was a young man, he was ostracised from his community for having had illicit connections with a low-caste servant-maid named Cakkī. He was wearing then a deerskin belt (Tol) on his body as the usual mark of Brahmacārins (bachelors) and he threw it away of his own accord earning for him the name Tola. There is another version that Tola is the decayed form of 'Atula' meaning matchless. He was mainly interested in writing funny ridicules. There are many such poems now available believed to be those of Tola.