Ulloor Parameswara Iyer

The Story

Born in 1877 in Changanassery, Parameswara Iyer was a brilliant student who entered the government service of Travancore and rose to high office. But his real life was in letters: he wrote poetry of remarkable range and depth, from devotion to romance to the glories of the motherland, and he was honoured with the title of Mahakavi, the great poet.

His scholarship was even more remarkable: his History of Malayalam Literature, in three volumes, is the foundation of the modern study of the language, and his editions and studies rescued the classical works of Malayalam for the modern age. He was the greatest literary historian of Kerala.

He died in 1949, honoured as one of the three great poets of the modern Malayalam renaissance. His poetry, his scholarship, and his long life of service to the language made him one of the makers of modern Kerala.