Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri

Melputhur Narayana Bhattathiri (about 1560 to between 1646 and 1666), written in Malayalam Mel puttur Narayana Bhattatiri, was the third student of Achyuta Pisharati and a member of Madhava of Sangamagrama's Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. He was a mathematical linguist in the tradition of vyakarana, and his most important scholarly work, the Prakriya Sarvasvam, sets out an axiomatic system elaborating the classical grammar of Panini. He is most famous, however, for the Narayaneeyam, a devotional composition in praise of Guruvayurappan, that is, Krishna, which is still sung at the Guruvayur Temple. Born into a Brahmin family at the village of Melputhur near the Tirur River, the son of the pandit Mathrudattan Bhattathiri, he learned the Rig Veda from Madhava, the science of debate from Damodara and Sanskrit grammar from Achyuta Pisharati, and was a pandit by sixteen. He married his teacher's niece and settled at Thrikkandiyur. He wrote on diverse subjects, including scientific ones, and under the patronage of Cochin ruler Vira Kerala Varma composed the Gosrinagaravarnana and the Virakeralaprasasti.