Thunchath Ramanujan Ezhuthachan is considered as the father of
Malayalam poetry. Born in
Trikkandiyur,
Malappuram district, he gave the language a power not known before. He has also made significant contribution to the spiritual and cultural renaissance of the state. Mahabharat is the most important among Ezhuthachan's poetical works, the others being, Adhyatmaramayanam, Irupattinalu Vrittam, Harinamakirtanam, and Chintaratnam.
Ezhuthachan immortalised the kilippattu meter in his poetic renderings of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The narrator is a bird who tells the entire epic to the reader. Hence the name Kilippattu ('bird song.')
